Light Feet

Jimmy Galapino looked out into the gallery as the verdict was passed to the judge.

“On the count of murder in the first degree," Judge Smithfield hesitated for dramatic effect, “we find the defendant…not guilty.” His wild, wiry white eyebrows crept up his massive forehead like curious caterpillars. He strongly resembled Fred Gwynne, the actor who played Herman Munster. The victim’s family in the front rows howled and screamed.  Reporters in the hallway swarmed like bees, their many voices buzzing in agitated impatience, ‘who would get the first pictures? The best quotes? The tastiest morsels of grief and lamentations of justice not served?’Me me me me me!

Judge Smithfield raised his gravely, baritone voice, “and on the count of drug trafficking…we find the defendant…guilty!”

The judge looked ready to take a bow; he settled for motioning the bailiff to approach.

The small, skinny, dark haired, dark eyed boy went with the bailiff with his head lowered. He looked more like a third world refugee than an American boy as he shuffled out. Though he had never met the victim’s family, he had cried along with them.

The black victim’s family and friends behaved as predicted. His mother clawed her own face, her red rimmed eyes were ancient, tortured ivory. His older sister was being restrained by her remaining brother, she had crazy in her eyes like squirrel kites on fire. His father sat shaking his head sadly, he was unshaven and looked as though he’d slept a week in his workpants and shirt.

Galapino floated in a land of dejavue. 

The courtroom was just as he’d already seen it, this film in his head when he closed his eyes at night. He felt his Ballys lift from the navy carpeted floor and seconds later he was seeing the entire scene of the courtroom from the ceiling looking down. The shouts were muffled, basey mumblings, like Charlie Brown’s parents speaking through a heavy, closed door. The entire scene blurred and played in slow motion, like a child’s lamp that revolved and played shadowy images on the walls. The kid did not kill anyone…wrong place, wrong time. But he was doomed to Juvey Hall for the poor choices he had made, no getting around that shit.

He found the face he had been looking for. Smiling and wholesome and ironically, the only realness in this chaotic dimension of lightness and nauseating un-reality. It was the face of Gene Kelly.

Seeing Kelly sitting there in the back row made Galapino feel all was right in the world. 

Kelly had told the lawyer right from the beginning that Frankie Dupree was innocent. The ghost of Gene Kelly never lied.

“…chance…”

“Hey…Jimmy…”

‘FOOOOOOM!’ The world came into focus again, he blinked his eyesight normal.

“Whhha…?”

“Hey man! You okay? You were brilliant. Kid’ll be fine…you saved him.” It was Barny Fisk, an FBI agent and Jimmy’s closest friend. He’d worked with detectives and local police with Galapino on the case, never once disbelieving his friend when he insisted the kid was not only innocent, but a decent person. “You don’t look so hot…”

“I’m good. I’m good,” said Jimmy. “I’ll talk to you later. Eight at Polivio’s?”

“You got it, see you there. Hey man. Your job’s done. Catching the actual shooter is my job. We’ll get him. You goin with Frankie?”

“Yeah. Poor kid’s scared shitless. He’s learned his lesson. Juvey’s gonna kill him.”

“Stick with him. He’ll be out in six months.”

As Jimmy crossed the parking lot from the discreet back door in long strides, the first drops of rain spotted the dusty grey concrete. The air shimmered with the ozone scent of fried dust and green lake water. The government buildings were grey, the yard was grey concrete, the spring sky was grey.

He reached his new Lucid sedan and wondered why he had gone with silver, it looked not like his getaway car, but more like just another washed out part of the scenery. He pressed the minimalistic key fob, the flush door handles popped out, and he wasted no time getting into his calm, luxurious, safety place. Unfortunately, because the windshield was a solid window all the way over his head, he was in a glass elevator and still very much a part of the depressing grey world.

“Say buddy---"

“Yaaaa!” Jimmy jumped and the key fob flew across the dash.

“---told you so. Shoulda gone for the red.”

“Can you stop doing that?!” He struggled for breath and rubbed his pounding temples.

Gene Kelly, in the backseat, chose to ignore Jimmy’s negative attitude, he’d grown used to it. As Jimmy felt around the top of the wide dash for the fob, Kelly said, “hmm. No. It’s simply too much fun.”

Jimmy growled and gave up on the fob, he was desperate to leave the grey world, but feared it would follow him. He started his car with a tap of the credit sized card instead.

“It will always follow you, until you find your path.”

“And stop reading my mind.”

“That boy needs a chance. You know---”

“---I just got him off a murder charge! He’ll be---”

“---No. Not fine. You know his heart. You need to learn yours.”

Jimmy looked at Kelly through the rear mirror as he spoke. Kelly’s innocent smile was golden warmth in the greyness. 

Jimmy pulled into his driveway. It was near dark. Charcoal grey was the world above his two-story townhouse which was…grey. Using his iPhone, he turned on the porchlight. The lemony yellow light faded to pale grey, and he sighed. Kelly was always right.

***

Two years previously, Jimmy’s aunt Mavis had lain on her deathbed. He’d been the only one she had contacted. She had been nearly catatonic by the time he made the four-hour drive to Baltimore, drifting in and out of consciousness like a vibrant sun behind amassing storm clouds. He had held her cool, bony hand, the skin tissue-thin and rivelled with blue veins, but the fingernails enameled a brilliant, glossy red. She’d also had the nurse dye her roots deep auburn, she refused to be grey…she said that to go grey was to become part of that grey world. Jimmy had felt a goose tap dancing on his grave.

Jimmy didn’t understand most of what his aunt had been trying to say. 

She had said, “We were lovers. Such love. True love…such as people seek all their lives. He was just getting attention from Hollywood. I let him go.”

“Who Auntie? Who?”

“Why Gene Kelly of course.”

Jimmy held her hands until they held no more life themselves. His aunt was delusional. He’d listened to her fabulous stories and was thankful she had not died alone. He wondered at her insistence to not have any other living family present at her death.

And then, there had been another in the hospice room. In a chair by the door, had sat Gene Kelly’s ghost.

He had been haunted by that ghost ever since. 

***

Since Kelly couldn’t lie, and Jimmy’s last wife had left with all the kitchen appliances, their life savings, and his dog, he’d come to rely on the famous old entertainer’s opinions.

Six months after the trial, he pulled his shimmering cherry-red Lucid into the driveway and looked over at Frankie. To himself he thought, ‘You deserve the chance you never got. Fucking junkie mom. Loser invisible dad. I’ll do my best. And I trust in Kelly’s advice.’ He smiled at the quiet kid.

Frankie gathered his one bag. Jimmy carried two stuffed plastic shopping bags into the home he was opening to another, his foster son. 

As Jimmy walked through the living room, then up the stairs, Jimmy said, “there’s a small bathroom all your own off your room but if you prefer a tub, there’s a bathroom down the hall. This is the master bedroom; figure you’ll have more need of the space than I will. My room’s down across from the bathroom.

Frankie looked around as if in a dream. His mouth dropped in disbelief. Jimmy put the bags of new clothes, shoes and school supplies on the bed.

“Well, I’ll let you get settled. Then come on downstairs to the kitchen. Makin us some Shepard’s pie. You can help with the salad if you like.”

Jimmy left the voiceless boy in the first personal space he had ever had to call his own. He went into the kitchen where Kelly nodded and sat at the table, smiling the old-fashioned way that affected the eyes. Warm, and empathetic.

Upstairs, Frankie put his clothes, new and old, in the closet and drawers. He lay back on the bed. The thick mattress and downy quilts under his hands felt like clouds in a dream. He got up and ran a hand over the new binder and notebooks on the desk. On the desk was new Dell PC.

He would be attending regular grade school this September; he was a year behind but didn’t care. It was a real school, with real friends (he hoped) and nice girls (he hoped.) Ninth grade. The war zone he’d crept through in the past was like Oz from that Netflix series. The sound of pans banging downstairs brought him from his reverie. He smiled at last and bounced downstairs.  

Frankie grabbed his backpack and exited the sleek red car that Jimmy had parked two blocks from the school. It wasn’t cool to have parental chauffeurs in the ninth grade. Jimmy watched his foster son walk like every other kid down the sidewalk. As he drove off, he waved to a mother in a Beamer parked in the space in front of his as her two teenaged daughters exited the sidewalk side. It was about to rain. But far from grey.

Jimmy looked in the rear view and saw Kelly there, smiling and nodding.

Two months later, Frankie came home from school looking distraught. His mind was elsewhere when his foster dad asked him, “What’s happening? What’s going on?”

Frankie looked as if a Yeti had stolen his lunch. His face was riff with pure teenage angst.

Jimmy repeated, “Son, what’s going on?”

The parental acknowledgement broke Frankie from his stupor. He said, “It’s a dance. At school. It’s called a Sadie Hawkins. Buelah asked me to be her date.”

“That’s wonderful son!” Jimmy said.

“But I don’t like her. She’s pretty enough I guess but…”

“Well, she asked you though. It could be really fun.”

“But… I can’t dance!”

“I can teach you.” Jimmy said as he looked at Gene Kelly, sitting across the room, grinning and nodding.

The next morning was a Saturday. Jimmy stood with Frankie in the living room of the townhouse. Jimmy had pushed all the furniture to the edges of the room. He waited as Kelly danced over the floor. Everywhere Kelly’s feet had alit to, there were footprints, like shadowy black shoe prints in a dance school.

Jimmy followed the ghostly prints… and danced with Frankie.

They danced and followed the black footsteps, Jimmy seeing them, and Frankie following. The dancing was old school but gave Frankie a feeling of lightness on his feet, a feeling he could do this.

The night of the Sadie Hawken’s dance, Frankie, dressed in a jacket, slacks, and tie, picked up the girl who’d asked him to the dance.

Buelah laughed when she saw him at the door. She wore a short black dress, her calves in knee boots, “Oh my! Frankie! C’mon!” Buelah was a force of chocolate skin and lizardy eyes.

As soon as they were out of her parents’ sights, she said, “did you bring weed?”

Frankie said, “I haven’t done that since Juvey.”

Buelah said, “come on dude! Where’s the dope?”

“I don’t have any. I don’t do that anymore.”

“No booze?”

“No!”

Buelah grunted in disgust and stormed into the gymnasium.

Frankie followed, in his old-fashioned suit and shiny black shoes.

At the punch bowl, a big kid came to him and said, “hey! Buelah said you’d hook us up. Where’s the weed? You bring some booze?”

Frankie said, “I don’t do that anymore.” He looked around and saw all the big kids surrounding him. Buelah’s real boyfriend gave his shoulder a shove. “You’re just a loser then.”

Freddy shoved back. His rage at being played for a patsy overtook him. 

The bully punched hard. They all laughed.

Frankie ducked the next one and kneed the bully in the crotch.

He went down. But only for two seconds. When he came up again, he brandished a blade. 

The switchblade reflected the red pulsing lights of the dancefloor. It wavered and bounced in front of his eyes. The bully lunged and Frankie felt the sting of a wasp in his side. But he danced out from the blade’s arc as easily as Mohamed Ali, his feet light as feathers, he bobbed and ducked the knife’s deadly arc.

The crowd of kids oohed and aahed.

A chaperone jumped like Rocketboy between the teens and separated them. In Frankie’s mind he saw wings off the man’s back. The other chaperone came and hauled the knife-wielder away.

Frankie gathered his formal jacket and walked outside the front doors to the fountain in the schoolyard. He looked back to the school doors and saw that no one had followed. At the fountain, he looked down at his white dress shirt and saw a deep red stain. He touched it and felt no pain. When he looked up a girl stood before him.

She was the most beautiful vision he’d ever seen. She was his young age to be sure. And dressed in a long, 1940s gown of ivory silk- simple, curve hugging, elegant. Her blond hair was pinned up in elaborate curls that sparkled with rhinestone pins. Her wide set eyes were dark but when she faced the sparkling fountain, they caught the light like glowing emeralds, peridot, and diamonds. Her smile put his mind at ease. Never before had he ever felt this sense of calm…of acceptance. Love radiated off this angel in glowing golden waves that pulsed with the sprays from the fountain.

The girl said, “dance with me.” She held out her pale-silked glove and he rose, saying,

“But…I don’t…”

She hushed his foolish apologizes with a slender finger to his lips. He shivered. Then looked into her eyes. Without knowing what he was doing, he took her into his arms and held her close. Close enough to feel her heart. It beat for him. He felt her hot breath on his cheek, and it puffed like a summer cloud against his…and just for him.

On the grey ground before the fountain, he saw dark footprints.

He knew them. And followed them

Frankie and the girl waltzed. And held each other. They danced with feet light as air, barely touching the ground. Frankie followed the footsteps, as the beautiful girl in his arms followed his lead.

The next morning Jimmy gathered his foster son’s jacket from the marble ledge in front of the fountain. The EMTs had taken the body away two hours before. Apparently, he’d died of a knife wound. He’d bled out by the fountain. They told him that the kid had a smile on his face.