Hobble, hobble, turn and try to leap.
That was the reality of it.
Through the cocaine induced nirvana I was better than Barishnikov, Najinski-- I was the greatest dancer on the face of the earth.
The truth was I sucked shit.
Juliet had given me a key to use the studio anytime I wanted. I wiggled about for five minutes or so, then plopped to the wood floor, panting and out of breath. I opened my gym bag, pulled out a bottle of water, chugged it and then looked down at the bag of coke.
The cops let me keep it. They said it would help keep up the cover. I knew it was just one more nail in my coffin.
I used a coffee stirrer from a famous fast-food place and put a scoopful of booger sugar in each nostril.
Two scoops. What the hell. I only got a few days left until one of L.A.'s finest puts a bullet in my brain.
I was swallowing the trickle down when I heard the door open.
Holy shit I thought. They're not wasting any more time. They've come to kill me right here and now.
Two shadows started to come in from the doorway.
I picked up my empty plastic bottle and held it over my head. Those bastards aren't taken me without a fight.
The figures stepped into the studio.
I flung the bottle.
It wasn't them.
The plastic bottle missed the boy's head by inches, dinking off the mirrored wall.
"What the...?" the boy said. The girl screamed. They looked about eighteen or nineteen. They were both in perfect dance shape. I could see it even through the sweats. It was in the way they walked and carried themselves. The two of them must have been twins. They looked so much alike in the face that I couldn't take my eyes off either of them.
"What are you doing in here?"
"Ms. Cassidy gave us a key," the boy said, tightening up. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm a new teacher."
The three of us gave each other the once over.
The teenage boy had a cocky look on his face. I'd seen that face on me when I was his age. "If you are a teacher, can you help us with our routine?" he asked.
He put a cassette in the boombox.
For the next hour and a half I watched and taught the two of them.
They were good. Rough, but good.
The drugs and the knees kept me from showing them what to do, but I could tell them. They sat on either side of me and I could smell their sweat and hear their labored breathing.
Sitting there between the two of them, suddenly dance was the last thing on my mind.
