From Print Issue v. 31: “Dark Stars” by Christine Waresak

The make-believe of Disney World seeps beyond its boundaries fifteen miles south of downtown Orlando and into the city’s bars and restaurants. As patrons walk through those establishments’ doors, they find themselves in a Western saloon, circa 1860, or a jukebox joint from the 1950s, or at King Arthur’s Round Table. As their eyes adjust to the interior darkness, they see can-can girls, greasers, or knights in silver armor. Dreamlike, they walk onto an elaborate stage, out of time, out of place, and underdressed in their shorts and sneakers. They see others attired like themselves, but they quickly learn to ignore those blemishes on their fantasies.

I wear my own costume, which is appropriate for none of the stages. A seller of glow jewelry, I dress in black, with luminous circles of yellow, green, and pink hovering around my neck, wrists, ankles. I’ve twisted a hundred strips of illuminated plastic around my limbs, strapped a money belt around my waist. The jewelry sells for two dollars a piece, and the ad promised one hundred dollars cash at the end of the night. I’m out of school for the summer, and though I work at a copy shop, I need to make some extra money.

Flickering torches line the cavern entrance to King Tut’s Playground. The narrow hallway opens up into a large, sand-colored room, with hieroglyphics and brown figures painted on the wall. Gold scepters and snakes hang from the ceiling. There’s a sarcophagus-shaped bar to the left, with bare-chested male bartenders tending in white sarongs and thick gold jewelry. Wooden tables fill most of the room, and at the end of the room a dance stage delineated by blue tile waits empty beneath a silver disco ball. Waitresses in bikini tops and sarongs glide among the tables. The place is about half full, but it’s still early.

I spot a table full of guys in baseball caps and white t-shirts. College guys. Plastic pitchers of beer in various stages of empty litter the table. I pass by to hock my wares. I’ve never been the kind of girl people notice, but my costume emboldens me. I am not myself tonight. I swagger over to the table. I hold up my arms and move my hands in circles, trailing colors in the dusk.

“How much?” one of them asks. He’s buff, probably a jock, probably a blond, but it’s hard to tell with the cap on.

“Two dollars,” I say.

“I’ll give you three if you let me take it off,” he says.

“Ah. You must be looking for the strip-joint-themed bar down the street,” I say. “This is King Tut’s Playground. I see how you could have made that mistake.”

“What?” he says.

Sherry sidles up next to me and throws an arm around my shoulder. Sherry’s working with me tonight because her car broke down. It’s my first time out, and I’m glad to have her. Sherry’s about a foot taller than me with wavy red hair and a leopard-skin dress. She’s the type of girl people notice. She gives a big laugh.

“Hi, boys,” she says. “Which one do you want?”

The guy points to my right ankle. He gives me a five and I give him back two dollars change from my belt, taking the extra dollar, and shrug. I hook the heel of my pump on the rung of his chair. The other guys start making noise, cheering and egging him on, as if what he is doing is, in fact, exciting. His sweaty hand moves up my calf. Sherry grabs his wrist.

“You can’t afford what that will cost,” she says.

He takes a green glow strip off my ankle, swings it around his head, and turns back to his friends.

Sherry steers me away, toward the bar, where we’ve stashed the rest of our glow strips in their Styrofoam coolers packed with dry ice. Once off the ice and warmed, the strips glow neon for a couple of hours.

“How much you get for that?” she asks.

“A dollar tip.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t want to make money tonight?”

“I have to make money tonight,” I say. “I just paid my rent with a credit card check.”

“I’ve got a tip for you,” Sherry says. “You got to be the prom queen who ignored them in high school. The cheerleader they were afraid to ask out on a date.” She points toward a table of middle-aged guys and a few women. “See them? It doesn’t matter how old they are. It doesn’t even matter if they’re women. They all want the same thing.”

She takes a few steps toward the table, looks over her shoulder at me, smiles, and says, “Now watch.”

***

The night began in a warehouse on Orange Blossom Trail, a road famous for its prostitutes and drug dealers. On the second floor of the warehouse, I found a beefy man with thinning brown hair tied in a ponytail bent over Styrofoam coolers, filling them with dry ice and strips of glow jewelry, frosted white by the cold. He looked up when I came in and then went back to his work.

“I’m here for the job,” I said.

“You’re early, sweetheart,” he said. “Cool your engines over there.” He nodded toward a few metal folding chairs.

Sweetheart? Engines? I’m ready to turn around and walk right out of there, but I remember the money. What did I expect for answering an ad with “attractive” and “female” in the qualifications? I cooled my engines. I could do this. One hundred dollars for a few hours’ work.

“Is there any paperwork I should fill out?” I asked.

“No. No paperwork.”

Around ten women trickled in over the next fifteen minutes, all wearing nightclub outfits. I had to improvise my outfit, rolling up a straight black skirt at the waist to shorten it and finishing it off with a tank top. About half were around my age, which is nineteen, and the others were a little older. We can work in bars underage as long as we’re not serving drinks.

The man clapped his hands for attention, although we were all already watching him.

“Okay girls. You can call me Tommy,” he began. “This is how it’s going to go.”

Right about then, the door swung open and a tall redhead sauntered in. I recognized her. Sherry Reynolds. I had known her in high school. Not well, but we had run track together. She was a year ahead of me. A long-legged, naturally fast runner, she could goof off during practice and still win her races. I remember how, during the long-distance practices, she would dart in and out of traffic along highway 434, laughing and waving to us from the other side of the highway as cars still beeped and braked from her sprint. Outside of practice, I’d see her hanging out with some of the tougher kids — the good-looking, cool ones. The ones who wore tight jeans and bright makeup and smoked behind the baseball field. Her boyfriend, I recall, was gorgeous in dark and fine-featured way. He wore eyeliner.

“Sweetheart, take a seat,” Tommy said to her.

“Mona,” Sherry said. “My name is Mona.”

“Just shut your trap and plant it.”

She glared at him and took a seat in the back. After his spiel, Sherry called out, “Can I ride with one of ya’ll tonight? My car broke down.”

“I don’t allow that. One girl per bar,” Tommy said.

“You can ride with me,” I waved my hand.

He glanced at me and sighed. “Fine,” Tommy said. “Just this once.”

***

“Hey, it’s nice to see you again,” Sherry said as we walked to my car. “But I’m surprised you’d work this kind of a …” she bit her lip as she took in what I was driving, a beige ’89 Volvo with one blue door.

“Great to see you,” I said, ignoring her unasked question. I was used to people assuming I had money, or that my parents had money, just because I got decent grades. “Sorry, no A/C.”

“I’m already drenched,” she said, pulling her tight dress from her skin to wave some air in. We got in and rolled down our windows.

“Our bar is King Tut’s Playground.” I said. “Do you know where that is?”

“Let me see if I can find it on my phone.”

“Why are you calling yourself Mona?”

“That’s my stage name for this job. I thought a girl named Mona would sell glow jewelry in tacky bars in Orlando. I’m just working this gig to get some money for California. Turn here.”

I turned right at the corner. Downtown was crowded, and between the neon of the businesses and the lights from the cars, it hardly seemed to be night at all.

“What’s in California?” I said.

“The movies, baby. The silver screen. I put my application in at Disney, but Florida’s small potatoes. I mean, how far can you go dressed as Cinderella in a parade?” She gave a stiff-armed wave, like a beauty queen propped on the back seat of a convertible. Her bracelets slid from her wrist to her elbow. “What a snore.”

“Have you ever acted in anything?” I asked.

“I act every day of my life, darlin’, every damn day of my life.”

I looked at her and she smiled a sleepy-eyed Marilyn Monroe smile at me. “Don’t look so serious,” she said. “I’m going to be a star.” She gazed out the window. “God, I need a cigarette. You don’t mind, do you?” She opened her purse, a big white crocheted sack.

I shrugged and shook my head. I looked back at the road as she tapped a Marlboro from a pack and clicked on a lighter. After a few moments she said, “What about you? What are you up to these days?”

“I’m at community college.”

“College, huh? I was never much of a student myself. Just couldn’t sit still that long. I’d rather be out there, doing things. You know what I mean?” She pulled a water bottle out of her purse. “I’m parched,” she said, screwed the top off, and took a long swig. She held it toward me. “Thirsty?”

I shook my head. “No thanks. I’ve got some water in the back.”

“Yeah, but this ain’t water.” She took another drink and opened her purse to put the bottle back in. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

I glanced at her purse as she opened it. The butt of a black handgun lay nestled in the white satin lining.

In my surprise, I spun the steering wheel to the right and the tire bumped into the curb. I pulled the wheel to left, swerving the car that way.

Sherry laughed and drummed her hands on the dashboard like she was on a rollercoaster ride. “Whoa! Damn, girl,” she said.

I straightened the car out. “Sorry about that.”

“You OK?” Sherry said.

I nodded.

“You’re a little high strung, aren’t you?” she said and closed her purse. “My boyfriend gave it to me.”

“Are you still with Rodney?” I suddenly remembered her high school boyfriend’s name. Truth be told, I harbored a secret crush on him for years.

“God, no. I’ve got this ex, see, and he’s a little crazy, very jealous. I don’t think he’d hurt me, really, but Keith, this guy I’m seeing, thought I should have it just in case. Keith’s teaching me how to shoot,” she said. “Hey, here it is! Lord Almighty. Pull over.”

Orange spotlights lit the building, which was shaped like a pyramid. A huge marquee with dancing Egyptian figures hung over the door. I parked the car and we got out.

Just to the right of the building, I saw the biggest, brightest yellow moon I had ever seen, hanging very low. It looked close enough to touch.

“Look,” I said, pointing. “Is that from one of the parks?”

“No,” she said. “I think that one’s real.”

We got our coolers and went in.

***

I stand away from the college boys and watch Sherry work her middle-aged table, taking mental notes of her body language: a hand lights on the man’s shoulder, she leans over a bit to talk, throws her head back when she laughs. I see her stiffen and lift her chin. After a few minutes, Sherry’s red head and colored lights zigzag back through the crowd to me.

“How’d you do?” I ask.

“Cheap bastards,” she says. “I need a break.” She takes my wrist and pulls me through the crowd to a hallway by the bar. We pass by the line of women waiting for the toilet and go into the bathroom. Gold-colored sinks line one side of the dimly lit room and mirrors line the other. Sherry fishes out her water bottle and takes a drink. She hands it to me.

“Thanks,” I say, “but I don’t drink.”

“Oh, get over yourself,” she says. “If any job justifies drinking, it would be this one. Take a look at yourself.” She puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me to the mirror. “You look like a freakin’ nuclear accident. You really want to do this sober? You need a little buzz to go with your glow.”

I take a look at myself in the mirror. She’s right. I unscrew the cap and sniff inside the bottle.

“What is it?”

“It’s rum. God’s nectar. Nothin’ but good for you.”

I take a sip, and then another.

“OK,” Sherry says. “Now let’s do something about that makeup.”

“I’m not wearing any makeup,” I say.

“Bless your heart, darlin’, that’s obvious,” she says. She unearths a purple bag from her purse and unzips it. She hooks a hand under my chin, turns my head left and then right, and nods. I close my eyes and listen to the click of the plastic cases opening and closing, feel the soft brushes touching my face. She makes murmuring noises as she applies powder, blush, eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara, lipstick. We pass the bottle back and forth.

***

We stay at King Tut’s all night long, disseminating light piece by piece to the masses as our money belts grow fatter. When we run out of jewelry, we take to the dance floor, which is packed by this time. Dark stars now, we are practically invisible amid the smoke billowing from the ceiling and the bodies swaying and stumbling into each other, each with a little bit of neon jewelry around a neck or wrist, except us. I’m dancing next to Sherry and then I lose her in the crowd, but I keep dancing. I’m feeling lightheaded and warm. I’m feeling good. A man is dancing next to me.

The effects of the rum and the strobe lights disorient me. I look for Sherry’s red hair and the room comes to me in fragments, like an old-fashioned movie flickering between frames. Suddenly Sherry appears beside me.

“We have to go. We have to be back at the warehouse by two,” she says.

We get our coolers and step out into the parking lot. In the fresh air, I can smell the stench of cigarette smoke on me. My ears ring. The moon is high in the sky now, smaller and white, like a normal moon. I’m moving in slow motion.

“Are you okay to drive?” she says.

“I think so,” I say.

“Why don’t you let me,” she says. I give her my keys and follow her to my car.

A hand grabs my arm and swings me around.

“Look what we have here. The little smartass who doesn’t like to be touched.” It’s the college boy from earlier. The green glow jewelry he bought is hanging dull and grey around his neck. His friends are with him. I feel him tug at my money belt and I close my hand around it.

“Let go of me,” I say.

“You think you’re hot stuff, don’t you?” he says.

I get close to his face, and with a bravery I don’t usually have, I spit my words out at him. “I know you,” I say. “I know where you go to school. I go there, too. I sit next to you in class. Who the hell do you think you are coming after me like this?”

“Let go of her,” Sherry shouts. I look toward her voice. She’s pointing her gun at us over the roof of my car. He releases my arm like it’s on fire.

He says to his friends, “Man, let’s get out of here.”

***

At the warehouse, we are to ring the doorbell, get back in the car, and wait for Tommy to open the door, which is what I do. I’m still a little shaky from the confrontation in the parking lot. My stomach churns. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. Sherry leans over and pats my leg. “Hey, tonight wasn’t so bad was it? We had some fun, didn’t we? And we made a hundred bucks,” she says.

Tommy opens the warehouse door and we lug our Styrofoam coolers in behind him. There’s a bathroom on the first floor, and I say I need to use it and will meet them up there, on the second floor where Tommy’s operation is.

I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. Mascara is smeared beneath my eyes. My face is pale and puffy. My lipstick has worn off but not the lip liner, leaving a thin red outline. My head is spinning. I feel sweat break out all over my body and lean over the toilet. I vomit, wipe my mouth with toilet paper, and then and rinse it with water.

I suddenly want all my glow jewelry back.

I leave the bathroom and climb the stairs slowly. The warehouse is empty. We’re late. We must be the last ones back. I turn into Tommy’s doorway and stop.

Sherry’s back is to me and Tommy is standing very close to her, leaning over her. She slaps his face. He slaps her back fast and hard.

“Give me my money,” she says.

“Get out of here,” he says, and shoves her.

Sherry knocks up against some boxes and steadies herself. She keeps her eyes on him, slips a hand inside her purse, and pulls out the gun.

“What’s going on here?” I finally get the words out.

Sherry looks quickly at me and then back at Tommy.

“One more time,” she says, pointing the gun at him. “Give me the money.”

Tommy lunges at her, reaching for the gun. Sherry shoots. Tommy stumbles back and falls down.

“Fuck,” she yells. “He attacked me. He was going to rip us off.” She backs away from him and then grabs the money bag on the table. She runs past me and down the stairs.

I go to Tommy. He’s moaning and holding his shoulder. Blood is soaking through his shirt. I fumble through my purse for my phone and call 911. I plug his bleeding shoulder with a packing blanket. Under the fluorescent lights, his face is ashen and glistening with perspiration. He’s muttering and swearing. My head is throbbing.

In a few minutes, there’s a pounding on the door and I run down to open it. It’s the police and their guns are pulled. I tell them Tommy’s upstairs. One goes up and one stays with me. When the ambulance comes, we all go upstairs.

The medics wrap up Tommy’s shoulder and the cops ask Tommy questions. Tommy says she robbed him. Says he can’t remember her name. “But she knows her,” Tommy says, pointing to me. “They were all buddy-buddy.”

“Do you have her W-2 forms?” A cop asks Tommy, which of course he doesn’t. None of us had filled out any paperwork. The cop then asks where he keeps his business license.

The other cop turns to me. He asks me my name and I tell him, and then I tell him I’m a college student, that I don’t belong here, that this isn’t how I usually am, that I need to go home.

“Did you know her before tonight?” he asks me. I tell him Tommy attacked her and she shot him in self-defense.

“Did you know her before tonight?” he asks again.

I feel so tired, more tired than I’ve ever felt in my life. The medics take Tommy away. I realize I’m still wearing my money-belt, that I haven’t given Tommy my money from the night. I wonder what was happening between him and Sherry. I wonder if he paid any of the girls, or if this was just one big scam.

“I just met her,” I say.

“What’s her name?” the cop asks me.

“Mona,” I say. “She said her name was Mona.”

The cop lets me go. Cottony clouds streak the pale sky. A few worn-looking men and women shuffle along the otherwise deserted sidewalks. I drive out of my way past King Tut’s Playhouse. In the clear light of the rising sun, it is as flimsy as a cardboard box.

Christine Waresak is a writer and editor living in Seattle. Her stories are forthcoming or have appeared in Redivider, Quiddity, Sheepshead Review, and other journals. She has an MA in English from the University of Florida. “Dark Stars” is very loosely based on an ill-fated summer she spent between college semesters selling glow jewelry in downtown Orlando.