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“The Dancer’s Walk” was a finalist  in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.

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photo by Jes Mugley/CC BY-SA 2.0

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The Dancer’s Walk

by Franklyn Ajaye

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….. My name is Deja Blue, and I’m a sax player.  My dad was a sax player too.  You might’ve heard of him.  The late, great Noah Blue.  He’s the one who named me.  When I asked him why he named me Deja, he said, “When I first saw you, you looked like a sad feeling I’d once had.”  What-ever that meant, I was born with a melancholy soul, cool detachment, and a conscience.  My mom told me that I never smiled as a child.  My dad told me that he never noticed whether I smiled or not, just that when he beat my ass I cried.  He was always yelling at me.  He was a chickenshit motherfucker, but he could sure blow a horn.  And so can I.  Not as good as him, but I’ve put my time in woodshedding.

…..       I met Afia on a Thursday at a club I was playing called Jazz Alley in Melbourne, Australia.  My set had been a  hard one.  My tenor sax was leaking, and I’d had a real struggle keeping my tone.  The crowd didn’t seem to notice, but for me it’d been drudgery.  After the show I was at the bar sipping a glass of champagne, twisting in the wind when I spotted her profile across the room.  Damn it was striking.  A beautiful brown curly explosion of hair accompanied by a cocoa colored face, jeans, and a trim, tight figure–ensconced in brown ankle high boots with pointed toes.  I approached her.  “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a truly stunning woman?”

…..         She turned to look at me, this strange dreadlock wearing man who hadn’t even said hello, and said “No, not that I can remember.”

…..        “Well I think that’s a travesty.  You should be told that every minute of every day.”

…..         She stared at me, her liquid brown eyes tentative, then boldly exploring, then cocked her head to the side and said, “I think you really mean that.  My name is Afia.”

…..         She had an Ethiopian father, and Australian mom in Perth, and Afia meant “born on  Friday”.

…..       “Would you like to go with me to see a film at The Astor…the art house revival theater?

…..     “I’d love to.”

…..         The next day we saw “Lantana”.  Moody.  Intimate.  Spare.  Sad.  Resonant.  Then went for  drinks afterwards.  While we were waiting at the tram stop for the #96 to St. Kilda to take her home I asked, “Can I go home with you?”

….. “If you don’t mind a messy apartment.”

…..         I didn’t.  After we got off the tram as we walked up Grey Street to her flat she took my hand.  I looked down at her long lovely fingers entwined with mine, and thought of all the work it had taken to transform my grotesque monkey fingers into a hand that she’d want to hold.

…..         And so it began.  I don’t care how beautiful a city is, it gets a lot prettier if you explore it  with an interesting sexy woman.  Only then does it begin to live and breathe.  She was a retired ballerina now studying photography.  “Dancing was the only time I really felt alive,” she said.  “I really miss it.”

….. “Why’d you stop?”

…..      “I landed funny after a jump and tore some knee ligaments.  After I had surgery it took awhile to rehab it.  I put on some weight and couldn’t seem to get it off, and I started throwing up to keep it down so I could keep dancing with the troupe.  Then one day I caught a glimpse of myself on my knees throwing up in the bathroom mirror, and thought Afia, there’s a lot of things you can’t  do in your life with your head stuck in a toilet.  And I quit the next day.”

…..But she still had a lovely figure and that dancer’s walk—a straight back, and strong stride filled with vitality, energy, and purpose.  She’d bounce off the number 16 tram and run across the street to Flinders Street station with her scarf flapping in the wind to meet me drawing admiring looks from both men and women.  But in bed it was a different story.  She was a snuggle bunny of the first order.  Soft and cuddly, and filled with gentle sighs, and mumbles.  And a deep-throated musical laugh that caused a hard man to care.  One day she was in the shower with her hair pulled up soaping her small supple body listening to me say that I wasn’t the jealous type, and then stuck her head out and asked with total dismay, “Not even a little bit?” with her face scrunched up in such an endearing way that my vagabond heart reconsidered a lifetime of emotional habits, immediately capitulated, and forced me   to say, “Yes, I would be jealous with you.”

…..How she loved her sleep.  Afia could sleep all day, whereas I was that rare jazz musician who liked to get up early, read my newspaper, have a cup of coffee, then do a couple of hours of practice.  I like the morning quiet.

…..    “You know if you got up two hours earlier each day you’d get a head start on the day, and by the end of the year you’d have about 720 hours of time saved up,” I’d tease when I got up each morning.

…..        “To do bloody what with?” she’d say, pulling the covers over her head.

…..     “That’s the beauty of it sweetness.  You can do whatever you want with that large reservoir  of time.  It’s totally at your discretion.  You can even carry it forward into the next year if you want.  I watched an episode of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” last week, and instead of wondering  how I was going to get those wasted 30 minutes of my life back, I just dipped into my stash of saved time.”

…..      That was our daily routine until the morning before I left Melbourne.  I got up early as usual and started in, “You know if you got…”

…..      “Will you please stop with that shit,” she snapped

…..       I shrugged and walked out.

…..      Fifteen minutes later while I was in the sitting room drinking a cup of coffee, she came in nude dragging her blanket like a little girl lost.

….. “Don’t tell me you got up early to start saving time”.

…..    “No way.  It’s just that it’s no fun sleeping late without you next to me,” she said.

…..        Then she kissed me, jumped on the couch close to me, working herself into it’s crevices, and  in a moment was fast asleep.  For two hours I silently practiced my fingering and watched her dream.

…..     It’d been a beautiful six weeks that was over before I knew it, and for the first time I felt  truly sad about leaving a woman.  But I didn’t tell Afia that.  I was trying to take my time with her and not rush, but deep down I knew…I knew.  All I said, when I kissed her goodbye was “You’re very special Afia, let’s stay in touch, and I’ll be back after the tour.”

…..         The plane was two hours out of Melbourne, and I hadn’t said two words.

…..      “You need to marry that one,” said Slim, my then American bass player.  “You won’t ever be the same if you don’t.”

…..       Good old Slim.  His real name’s Lester, but we called him Slim ’cause he’s fat—like a giant black buddha.  He’d been married for twenty years to Estelle.  She’s fat too, and they’ve got two fat kids.  You’ve never seen a family more in love with each other—and food.

…..        “She’s great, but it’s a little too early to be thinking that way.”

…..    “It’s never too early to be thinking like that when love’s involved.”

….. “And just what makes you think that love’s involved?”

…..     “That two hour vacant stare out the window wasn’t about the clouds.  I’d bet my whole tour salary on that.”

…..      I thought my weekly calls would be enough to keep Afia close to me, but suddenly all I would get was her voicemail, and no call back.  Then while I was in Edinburgh, she Dear Johned me—by email.  She was sleeping with somebody else now, or as she delicately put it, “Nothing happened at first, but it’s now become a relationship.”  I read it 20 times, and the thought of Afia in the arms of another man drove me mad–and I was on the other side of the world for the next six weeks.

…..       “You didn’t give that girl enough to hold onto when she got lonely,” said Slim as we ordered breakfast in an Edinburgh cafe.  “Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does a woman’s heart and .  Your dick may be long, but his is there.”

…..        “I told her she was special to me.”

…..        “Special” he sneered, as they put his eggs in front of him.  “Women gotta hear that word ‘love.’  Then they know they’re special.  Men love with their eyes, but women love with their ears.”

…..      “What would your fat ass know about what women need to hear?”

…..     “Well, to answer your question, I know enough about what women need to get one to marry  me, and to be able to keep her happy for 20 years.  Can you say that?”

…..          No I couldn’t.  But I wouldn’t want his grocery bills either.

…..     I don’t know how other musicians feel about their instruments, but I can’t imagine expressing myself with anything but my saxophone.  It’s a direct connection to my soul and when I play it I feel that I’m blowing out my deepest feeling and demons.  When I’m feeling blue, my playing becomes something special, and the last few nights in Edinburgh had been my best playing in years.  Women sighed and waitresses stood still when I soloed each night.  I was pining but I couldn’t get the pain out no matter how much or how hard I blew.  After one show I was packing up my horns when Slim walked into the dressing room.

…..   “You’re sounding real good Deja.  That last solo told a beautiful story about your feelings for Afia.  You ought to put that solo in a letter to her.”

…..        “You mean send her a tape of the song?  That’s not a bad idea.”

…..     “No, not a tape of the song.  Open your heart and put that solo into words.  I guarantee you it will say everything she needs to hear and know about you.  I’m not saying it’ll change your situation, but she needs to read that,” said Slim as he walked out into the Edinburgh night.

…..         When I left the club to walk back to my flat, a strange thing happened outside the club.  A drunk-off-her-face Scottish woman of witch-like appearance walked over to me, got two inches from my face, and said, “You’re the one I’m meant to meet.  And I scream like a lady.”  When I tried to walk away she grabbed me, and slapped me hard across the face.  I grabbed her hand as she swung again, and twisted it hard behind her back until the club security guard grabbed her.  I left Lady McBitch to him and walked up Lothian Road with her Scottish curses ringing in my ears puzzled, and amazed at the cold fury in my chest.  I’ve never hit a woman, but yet I’d almost hit her.

…..      Lothian Road was bustling with people out on the town.  I passed an African man on a mobile phone while his wife and small son stood nearby.

…..           “Hello, hello,” he said in an urgent voice.  “We’re lost.  We don’t know where we are.”

…..     A homeless man was sitting on the ground, and I wondered if he’s happier or sadder than I was.    His body had no house, my heart had no home. “Say ma’am, got any spare affection?” he says with a slight laugh to a woman passing by.  She shakes her head no, and keeps walking through the mist of her life.

…..       I had the route down.  Lothian Road to Fountainbridge, past the brewery, to Viewforth, to Horne Terrace, to Thistle Place, the cul-de-sac–where my depressingly dark rented flat was.  The  orange street lamps gave the night a dreamy enigmatic feel.  It was a good long route for thinking.

…..       Deja, Deja, Deja, are you an enigma?  Or just an empty nigger?  Think hard man.  It’s time to figure you out.  You  think you know what you want, but do you want what you know?  At the end of the day are you the great saxophonist Deja Blue, or just another solitary man headed to a lonely flat?

…..          When I got home I was tired, but couldn’t sleep.  I kept seeing images of Afia in my mind’s eye.  I stared into the darkness for hours before I heard it.

…..        “You oughta put that solo in a letter to her,” came Slim’s voice.  I turned on the light and  looked around till I found some stationery.  I grabbed a pen, sat down on the bed and closed my eyes.  Nonsensical, unrelated thoughts flooded my mind,  Coffee, the coolness of rain, the whiteness of snow, herbal teas that I like.  Shards of thought.  Lightning flashes with no illumination.  Then I pulled out the tape of that nights show and played it.  The music washed away the extraneous, and  slowly I began to write.

…..          When I finished writing it was light outside, and I was soaked with sweat.  I laid back against the pillow, read the letter—surprising myself when I started to cry.  Neither sad nor happy.  Just release.  I then fell into a deep sleep.

      …..       I woke up around two, got dressed and walked to the post office on Frederick Street, mailed  the letter Swift Aire (guaranteed to get it to her in 24 hours), and headed back to the depressing flat to practice.  The day was beautiful.  The sky was crystal blue, and cloudless, and the winds had the breezy crispness of autumn.  As I walked down Fountainbridge, I saw a beautiful woman coming towards me with a gorgeous full head of curly brown hair that was blowing in her face.  Slim, with her midriff exposed, tight wraparound dress, and open-toed high heels, she walked with a natural seductiveness that I hadn’t seen in a Scottish woman thus far.  The flow of her hips demanded notice and initiative.

…..     “You make me wish I had a camera,” I said as she drew near.  This was the first time I’d  used that line.  It’s a good one, and it became one of my best opening lines over the years.

…..         She pointed to her eyes and then mine, and said with a smile “You do.”

…..       My eyes focused, set the shutter speed and clicked.

…..    “Well, can I get a name for the caption of the picture I just took of you?”

…..    She laughed.  And it was dangerous.

….. Her name was Reina.  Short for Salvareina.  From Sardinia, Italy, and the self-admitted  black sheep of the family.  November born, she was an olive-toned Scorpio with the feline moves and provocative attitudes they all possess.  We had coffee the next day.  Then we went back to her place and smoked a joint.  She had just broken up with her boyfriend a few weeks before.

…..       “Do you miss him?” I asked.

…..    “No, because when the love go, the love it is a-gone.  And I a need some time to think, because right now I feel flat.”  She took a hit on the joint.  “So do you have a woman?”  Her English was broken but the attraction was clearly understood.

…..       I told her about Afia and my regrets.

…..      “I don’t know why you men never go for it when you have the moment,” she spat out.  “Why do you not go for it when you in the moment?”

…..         I shrugged.

…..     “I like a passionate man,” she said.  “If you have passion then you making love.  Without it,  you just-a-fucking.”

…..    Each day Reina spoke only English, but at night she came in Italian.  We had two passionate nights and one night of “just-a-fucking” before I left Edinburgh.  But our last night together was not without it’s dilemma.  I’d always been a hedonist who enjoyed sex just for it’s pure butt naked fun, but that night even after a couple of glasses of wine, as Reina wove her web I tried to retreat to its  edges.

…..    “What’s wrong?  You not attracted to me no more,” she asked when I gave her a kiss on  the cheek  when she turned her lips to mine.

…..   “No, it’s definitely not that.”  I tried to get a handle on what I was feeling.  “I know this sounds silly, but I feel like this is a betrayal of Afia.”

…..     “But how?” she said moving her hand slowly down my leg to my zipper.  “She is no longer yours right?  She is sleeping with another man, right?  She is not denying herself her pleasure is she?”

…..    Painful, yet valid questions.  It was true that I could never reach Afia when I phoned.  All I’d been getting for weeks had been her answering machine.  It was clear that Afia and new her man were spending a lot of time together.  Reina was right.  Afia wasn’t worried about betraying me.  In her mind I was just a pleasant memory.  I had to get real.  What effect could my letter have against sensations so visceral and immediate.  Afia was gone.  And a beautiful passionate woman was next to me with her hand in my pants.

…..        I thought a hot lusty affair with someone as gorgeous as Reina would put enough in my tank to lift my spirits.  But I was wrong.  We gave each other temporary comfort in a large, lonely  world.  Nothing more, nothing less.

…..         The next day I was sitting on a bench in the town square playing my soprano sax to help  blow my demons out, and a teenage Scottish boy about sixteen who resembled Jonny Lee Miller came over and listened for awhile.  When I finished my song he said “You remind me of my father.”

…..   “I do.  How so?”

…..     “We can always tell when he’s feeling melancholy cause he takes his clarinet up to the hill behind our house and plays for a long time.”

….. “Is that often?”

…..    “No.  But he only plays when he’s feeling blue.  That’s how we know.  I hope you feel  better,” he said and he left.

…..     There was a beautiful castle on the hill behind the square and I looked at it I imagined the  sword wielding, helmet wearing Scot that once lived there, but mostly I was feeling sad.  Very sad.

…..     I was on my way to Waverly train station in Edinburgh the next morning when I got the news.  “Did you hear about Princess Diana?  She’s dead,” said the cab driver not thirty seconds after I’d closed the door.  I’d never paid much attention to her, yet I was stunned.

…..    “How?” I asked.

…..      “She had a car accident trying to outrun some photographers.  Seems like the work of the  dirty works department, if you ask me.”

…..       “What a waste.  Does madness rule the world?”

…..      “Sometimes it seems as such.”

…..     I called Afia from London, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and Copenhagen, and each time I got her answering machine and left a message.  I dropped her post cards and little notes, but I wasn’t too optimistic about their effect.  She knew how to reach me and hadn’t tried.

…..       I called her from Melbourne airport and left a message that I was back and wanted to see her.  She called that night and we agreed to meet for coffee the next day.  Her voice was  friendly, but nothing more.  As I dressed for our meeting, I worried about how I would feel.  Not upon seeing her, but when or if she walked away.  I took my soprano saxophone.  I was going for it.

…..      We met at the Vineyards cafe in St. Kilda near the beach.  It was a pretty day with the feel of winter.  Cold blue sky splashed against dark gray clouds.  She was wearing the red Doc Martin boots I had bought her for her birthday.  She was even lovelier than before so my heart both leapt  and sank at the same time.  Without saying a word I took out my horn and played her a solo like I’d played each night of the tour.  When I finished the people in the cafe applauded.

…..       “You’re still a silly, crazy man,” she said, looking embarrassed but happy.  We caught up on the mundane things—her job, her photography classes, her still prattling mom, her Ethiopian banker father who didn’t understand her artistic desires, Lady McBitch.  We talked, laughed and joked with the same warm rapport that used to culminate with us in each other’s arms.  The  music of her laugh  once again made my heart dance.  It was strange.  Surreal really.  Nothing had changed between us, but yet in reality, everything had changed.  It wasn’t till we took a walk by the pier that we started to talk seriously.

…..    “I read your letter from Edinburgh.  It made me cry.”

…..    “I just told the truth. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

…..   She stroked my arm and said, “It’s okay.  You’re not on trial.”

…..    “Too little too late?” I floated.

…..     “Better late, than never,” she said, bringing my question down to earth.

…..       I stopped and gave her a kiss on the lips.  She started to give her tongue to me, but then  abruptly pulled away saying, “I’m sorry, but I’m committed to Ian.”

…..      Her new man had finally made his appearance.  An actor friend of a few years.

…..   “So tell me about this man who’s forcing me to live without you in my life.”

…..    She paused for a moment and then began.  “I got very sick, and the doctors couldn’t figure out what it was.  I couldn’t move.  It took me an hour to get from the bed to the bathroom.  I had no  family here, you were on the other side of the world, I didn’t know where you were and I had left things, and my friends had their own lives to live.  Ian came by, looked after me, and took me to my doctor  appointments.   We started spending time together and found we could talk for hours, and then I guess, things happened.  He’s a good man and when I needed someone he was there.”

…..      “Well, I’m here now,” I said, knowing immediately the inadequacy of that remark.

…..      “I know, but you weren’t here when I needed you.”  Seeing the pain in my eyes.  “You didn’t do anything wrong.  It’s just the way things worked out.”

…..       Her eyes told me that there was no reprieve, and yet I asked, “Don’t you care for me?”

…..       “Yes, I care for you.  But I care for Ian more.”

…..   “What is it about him that’s swept you off your feet?

…..   “Oh Deja, don’t ask questions like that.  What can I say?  It works.”

…..    I took a deep breath.  “Afia, I want you in my life.  I have to see you, no matter how little the time.  An hour, a minute, a second.  Anyplace, anytime.  Just say the word and I’ll be there.”  She sighed and shook her head no.  “I can’t.  I can’t,” she said, taking a step back from me.  “I better be going, I’m sorry.”  She kissed me on the cheek, then turned and walked away with her scarf flapping in the wind.  As she strode away with her dancer’s walk, after 100 meters she turned back to me, waved, and then turned back around.  I watched her become a distant figure.  I thought about her walking into a future without me, and into another man’s arms and bed, and I now had the answer to how I would feel.  When I could see her dancer’s walk no more, I turned to the sea to  collect myself – sad like Norwegian saxophones.

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Franklyn Ajaye is a Black American actor (“Carwash”, “Bridesmaids”, “Deadwood”), television writer (two Emmy nominations for comedy writing), musician, a stand up comedian with four comedy albums, who has appeared often on American television shows. In Australia he has appeared on “Frontline”, “The Panel”, “Thank God You’re Here”, and “Utopia”. He has done successful comedy and music shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Melbourne International Jazz Festival, and is the author of the book, “Comic Insights/The Art of Stand Up Comedy”.

He now lives in Melbourne, Australia.

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