Dan's Blaze

-1-

He’s straining to push his gaze beyond the thin layer of dust encasing the entire set, this relic of the Reagan years, complete with fleeting reception and absurd hues. He’s sitting on the barstool just like any other day of the week, like any other moment of his time here, and he’s watching the shot clock drain away on the highly anticipated game between the Whoevers and the Whatevers. Everyone is throwing their hands up for this or that, for bad calls and for blatant fouls, but mainly to formally conclude this session of drunken brotherhood, an inebriated foray into the blandness of downtime. The younger crowd gathers their belongings and files out, leaving Dan Bators at the mercy of the post-game show: a crystal clear look back on what went so wonderfully right, and so terribly wrong.

Dan Bators is suddenly feeling like he’s about to burst. He attempts to stand up and make it to the bathroom, but he knows that he’ll never get there in time. He must sit and wait, patiently, for the wave to pass through him, spill out onto the floor and hopefully miss the counter. It feels different this time, though; it isn’t the usual creaks and twinges that are part of his excessively practiced routine. Something starts to trickle out from his left nostril, and it drips onto a pocket of his checkerboard flannel shirt. It begins to squeeze its way out of his ears as well, creating an intense pressure in his sinus area that causes him to cough and sneeze uncontrollably. Dan is now pounding on his chest, concentrating his efforts on knocking the fluid out of his lungs. However, once he glimpses his contorting body in a mirror, the one the owner sadistically placed across from the counter, he no longer tries to fight this overflow, this inundating experience. He lets the water leak more rapidly from his face, until he must lean over from the weight of its current, as it pulls his head downward. It is now shooting up past his fingernails, coming out in spurts. He isn’t crying for help because he doesn’t think he really needs any; actually, at the moment, he is truly ecstatic. The deluge feels fantastic, and he’s changing his face into the long forgotten shape of a smile, while the liquid violently blasts the grime off of his bones. This is the kind of event he has prayed for.

Just as quickly as the dream began, Dan is once again awake and wandering down the middle of the street, rolling his eyes around in his head to itch those bloodshot lines. He knows he’s been sleeping, but he isn’t really sure where he’s been sleeping. Manny’s bar seems like it is miles from wherever he is right now. He feels around for signs of wetness on his face, but it’s just the same coarse hairs and dried out nose. Disappointed, he sits himself down on a nearby bench to sober up for the walk ahead. Dan squints. The streetlamp is the brightest lighting his eyes have seen in days. He thinks to himself that he may be the only guy in America that can dream when he blacks out. Given the right drink, he can get out of any tricky situation, even if it’s only for a few hours.

-2-

“Penny, let me up, it’s my father’s birthday. I need your help picking something out. You know more about what he likes than I do,” Dan yells up the stairwell. Penny is usually asleep when Dan arrives, especially at this hour. She can snore past her startlingly loud alarm clock, which still haunts Dan’s memories (particularly the time he woke up to “I’ll Be There” with baby Michael Jackson making his ears throb with promises of reliability), although she’ll never outdo Dan, who managed to remain unconscious throughout much of their relationship.

“Penny?” The hinge is hanging off the door that now has a big, fat boot mark chipped into the center. Dan is freezing from the cold night air, so he curls up beside her and buries his face in her hair, which takes up, not one, but two pillows. Dan always used to squeeze her until she could barely breathe, but he wasn’t trying to make her uncomfortable. It was just that he could never get as close to her as he wanted, even when they hugged. He thought that maybe if he grabbed hard enough they could just become one person, so then he wouldn’t have to come to this apartment at five o’clock in the morning anymore. “Are you here with me, Penny?”

Her eyes flutter twice, but she’s still out. “Yes, Dan. I’m right here.” He loves it when he comes in from the cold, and she’s lying in bed. She’s like a warm, little pulsating engine underneath the sheets, beating away and healing the aches and pains in his icy body. Unfortunately, he is often conquered by his emotions, and he has now hugged just a little too hard, jolting her awake.

She sits up and looks into the face of the man lying next to her. This is easily his favorite part of their recent rendezvous: she gives him this sleepy smile at first, unable to join his image to the end of their relationship. Inevitably, this moment of complete happiness for Dan is shattered to pieces by her screaming. Nevertheless, that split second of harmony is so peaceful for him that it has become his second most abused compulsion.

Her mouth suddenly widens, and she punches him in his left eye, rendering useless one of his major senses through which to appreciate her. “Dan! This is the third time this month! I’m calling the police,” says Penny. She rips off the sheets and grabs her phone, but Dan is already on his feet.

“Penny, I’m okay, relax. I just needed your help because it’s my father’s birthday, and I wanted to get something nice, but I don’t know what he likes,” says Dan, his face swelling up to twice its normal size.

“You can’t keep doing this! I bought new bolts for the door and changed the locks. How did you get in?” Dan ponders this question for a minute, wondering how he entered her residence without his spare key, until they both spy the door dangling off the frame.

“Uhhh…,” reflects Dan, right before she chases him out of the room by smacking him with the cordless phone, sending double-A batteries flying through the air.

“If you come back here again, I’m sending my new boyfriend after you! It’s not like I don’t know where you are all day! I’ll tell him to go to Manny’s bar! I’ll tell him to look for the guy who can’t stand up! The guy whose pants are falling off, with that goddamn, un-tucked flannel shirt!” she shouts from the top of the stairs. But Dan is already running down the street, with his pants falling half off, and his shirt flapping in the wind.

-3-

“No, no, look here. It says you’re 6’3”. I don’t even think they’d let you ride a roller coaster. You must be this tall to get drunk and laid. Get off the line.” Mark, acting as both bouncer and owner, keeps a close watch on the patrons of Manny’s. The instant he became a college graduate he bought and re-made his favorite nightclub.

A group of freshman girls come galloping up to the front of the line. “Hey, Maaaark,” they say, swaying like punching bags.

“You girls ready to have some fun?”

“ You’re the best Mark! Thannnnks!”

Mark gives away the coveted, theme park-like wristbands almost exclusively to girls that cannot stand. He’s very selective with his choices. Mark refuses to let in young Italian men because he says, “I don’t need them greasing up the bar,” despite the fact that he himself is Italian.

Dan, still heaving from his brisk sprint, stops in front of the bar, realizing that he actually isn’t a very good runner. “Mark, why are all these kids in my bar?”

“Okay, first of all, Dan, it isn’t your bar, you just live here. Second, I told you not to come on Saturday nights. I don’t want any alcoholics scaring away these young kids,” he says, gesturing to a boy heaving on the sidewalk.

“Sorry, Mark.”

“Did you just come from Penny’s again? Damn, she has such a strong right hook.”

“ I don’t know why she got so upset. I just wanted to ask her what I should buy for my father. It’s his birthday today,” says Dan.

“I thought you didn’t speak to him anymore. Not since…”

“No, he doesn’t return my phone calls, but maybe if I get him something nice, he’ll change his mind. That’s why I wanted Penny’s help. I mean, he always liked her so much. He never blamed her when Mom died.”

“Well, that’s good,” says Mark, sizing up a tan Guido at the front of the line.

“Alrighty. I’m just gonna stick my head in and see what’s goin’ on,” says Dan. Before Mark can object, Dan uses what little agility he has to scoot behind him and into the darkness of the club.

“Damn lush!” says Mark, but his attention quickly turns back to the task at hand. “So, what are you, like 5’7”?” Once inside, Dan makes a beeline for the shiny bottles in the corner, walking directly through the middle of the dance-floor, and ruining several sessions of intense grinding.

-4-

Hours later, Mark is explaining to the police why, exactly, he needed to wrestle a kid to the ground for insulting his mother. “This punk, this faggot, thought he was a big shot and opened his mouth. You have to understand officers, I’m just trying to keep this a safe environment for people to come and relax.” The cops nod their heads cautiously, while their hands creep up to their waists.

Dan scurries past the scene, in dire need of some fresh air due to the abnormally hot temperatures of the club. It was scorching in there. “Hey, Dan! Didn’t I tell you not to go in?! What did I…” Before Mark can fully reprimand Dan, he ends up flat on his face, hearing the Miranda rights.

The first article of clothing to go, unfortunately for late night joggers, is Dan’s pants. In order to alleviate the extreme heat he has begun to feel surging across his skin, Dan is removing his belt-less jeans, thinking that he must be having an allergic reaction to the denim. Mistaking the pulsing red dot at the top of the radio station tower for a beacon of hope, he stumbles ahead, confident that he’ll find salvation in its presence.

“Stop!” says a familiar, booming voice.

“Dad?” asks Dan, staring up at a stoplight.

“What are you doing? Where the hell are your pants?”

“It’s hot. I took them off.”

“Nobody wants to see that! Look, that lady over there is horrified!” Dan turns around and meets the stare of an elderly woman walking her dog and wondering why there are so many crazy people in this city.

“Happy Birthday!”

“That was last week, son.”

“Ah. Well, I didn’t know what to get you. You never like the things I get,” says Dan.

“Did you ask Penny?” says the stoplight.

“Yeah! I did ask her, but she got mad because I broke into her place again,” Dan says sheepishly.

“She’s a good girl. Probably the best you’ll ever get. You know, I never thought that whole mess was her fault. She was so upset about it anyway, how could I possibly have accused her?” wonders the stoplight.

“I don’t want to talk about this, Dad. This is all we talk about.”

“That’s all there is to talk about, Daniel. You’ve left me with nothing more to say. You’ve damaged yourself and everyone around you beyond repair.” The old woman is starting to jerk her dog’s chain, mid-piss, in order to flee from Dan’s increasingly intense conversation. Bathed in a red glow, talking to metal and glass, he could look sinister if it weren’t for his tight white underwear and knee-high argyle socks. “Just leave now. I don’t even see you as a human being anymore. Go!” Dan watches with tears in his eyes as his father turns green and shuns him from his sight.

Nearby, a street performer is beginning to play one of his sidewalk serenades. It’s almost like Dan’s theme song: sad, floating, and most importantly, unheard of. Dan feels his connection to it instantly, like Penny’s warm body beckoning him to her side, the pulsating engine that allows him to enjoy the present and disregard everything else. Dan stands right in front of the artist. He’s trying to pinpoint the exact source of the notes. He drops down and sits Indian-style at the artist’s feet, grateful and worshipping. Dan wants to smother himself in the sounds, so he inches nearer to the musician, who is now playing with a bit of trepidation in his tone. Dan makes a motion to scoot even closer to the performer, but, abruptly, the man’s patience for a drunkard’s strange behavior reaches its breaking point, and he bops the side of Dan’s head with his instrument, knocking the hearing out of his ear. Howling in pain, Dan darts from the fearful artist, turning down a side street to avoid further punishment. Glimpsing and misinterpreting the blink of the radio station tower once more, he hurries past garbage and empty recycling bins to finish his trip.

-5-

The universe has been calling out to Dan, beckoning him to come and reach the head office of the practically bankrupt WKRW. Richard Ellis is the only one on tonight, seeing as the station is shutting down in two weeks and he’ll accept vintage 45s like they’re large paychecks. “For those of you wondering what those strange, scratching noises were, that would be the ambient noise of a record player. That is the machine I used to play “Maybe I’m Amazed”, by the Faces, which featured the vocals of Rod Stewart, back before he started singing songs exclusively for the members of his audience that require assisted living.”

Richard carefully inserts Long Player into its sleeve, and starts to peruse the evening’s set, but Dan has kicked his way through the building and arrived at the control room, interrupting Richard’s conversation with nobody. Looking rather wild-eyed, he spots Richard, and begins pounding on the glass that separates the mixing board from the music library. “Okay, for the four people out there listening, we’re going to take a quick commercial break to call the police, and we’ll return with the hipster’s wet dream, Metal Machine Music, which I’m sure will chase at least three of you away.”

“I’m calling the cops,” Richard mouths to Dan through the sound-proof glass.

“Why did you call me here?” Dan screams. Richard sighs and goes to open the door that connects the rooms.

“Maybe he’ll damage something valuable,” Richard says hopefully. He turns the lock, and admits Dan into his destination.

“Why did you call me here?” repeats Dan.

“I didn’t. I just played Rod Stewart.”

“You didn’t? But that light at the top. It said my name.”

“No, I’m sorry, man. Our tower barely broadcasts; I doubt it can talk.”

“Are you sure? It wasn’t your voice, though. It was somebody else’s.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure.” Richard notices a tear running down Dan’s face, and something warms in the cockles of his cold, audiophile heart. “Do you want me to show you around our music library?” he asks, helping in the only way he can. He puts his hand on Dan’s shoulder and leads him towards the stacks of rare LPs that bulge out of various shelves, too numerous to ever catalogue or even hear.

“Pssst…Dan! I’m under the newspaper!”

“Who is that?” says Dan, recognizing the voice from the radio tower.

“Pipe down! He’s gonna kick you out! I’m under the newspaper. To my right is Otis Redding!” explains the intense whisper. Richard is distracted by his own poor alphabetizing on a nearby shelf, so Dan quietly lifts a newspaper from the floor and brings Tapestry close to his face.

“Carole! I haven’t listened to you in ages!” says Dan.

“I know! I remember back when I played for you and Penny almost everyday in that small apartment of yours. How is Penny?”

“She’s still mad.”

“Well, she’s got a right to be. She can’t even see out of her left eye anymore,” says Vinyl Carole, petting her cat. Richard overhears Dan mumbling and walks up behind him.

“Oh, Tapestry! Haven’t heard that one in a while,” Richard says, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t mind him, he just lives here,” says Dan, gesturing towards a perplexed Richard. “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can listen to you anymore. This whole thing is your fault. You shouldn’t have been singing so low.” Vinyl Carole starts to protest Dan’s claim, but Richard is finally weirded out.

“Okaaay. You really have to go now because I have a show to do. Millions of listeners are perched in front of their radios. If you want, you can take that with you. I definitely don’t want it,” says Richard.

“Thank you, but I don’t want it either. I can’t listen to it anymore. Too many bad memories,” says Dan.

“I know what you mean.”

“But don’t punish her or anything. She didn’t know what she was doing,” Dan says, handing the record back.

“Um, okay. I won’t.” Saddened, Dan puts his hands in his pockets and walks back out through the series of doors he kicked in. Richard is left holding Tapestry, already forgetting about Dan and trying to recall who produced the album.

-6-

Breaking into a cemetery is a minor offense, and Dan figured that any officer would surely take pity on him once he understood the situation. Dan wished to get his mother’s opinion on the whole ordeal, since she had been strangely silent on this noisy night of his. Had he been wearing pants, it would have been much more difficult to scale the gates.

“Wasn’t it by a bench?” he wonders, squinting through the dark. A blurry tree is suddenly within view. “Penny! Oh, I’m so glad to see you! You know where she’s buried, don’t you?”

The tree rustles and slowly opens its eyes for Dan. When he gets closer, he knows it’s really her. There’s that full head of hair, those tired eyes, and that raised thin scar running across her left brow. “What is it you need from us now?” asks the oak.

“I want to talk to my mother. I can’t remember which headstone it was. You were at the funeral, right?”

“I was there. You were still in jail. You must have stumbled here days after it was over. Maybe that was where you went,” says the Penny Tree, a squirrel crawling out from her thicket of curls. “It’s right beside me, Dan, near the bench.”

“See? I knew it was by a bench. I remember sitting, and I don’t think I would just sit on the ground in a cemetery. That’s disrespectful. Okay, just leave us alone for a minute.” Dan leans in to make out the writing:

Agnes Bators
(1944-2004)
A Loving Wife and Mother

“Oh, my poor Ma!” says Dan, throwing his arms around the stone. “There isn’t anyone here for you to talk to!” Dan waits for a response, but there is only silence. “Open your eyes, Ma! Look at me!” Dan begins to pound on the dirt in front of him. “See me!”

Dan strikes the ground until his knuckles ache, but the stone never makes a move. Exhausted, he curls up around the Penny Tree and hugs it tight. “I’m tired Penny,” he says, tears drying on his face. “Let’s just sleep. We’ll just sleep from now on.” As she always did in the past, the Penny Tree sits quietly while Dan draws her close, scraping his nose and cheeks against the splintered bark as he drifts off.

-7-

“You got to get up every morning! Da da da da da da! And show the world all the love in your heart!” “Belt it, Dan!” laughs Penny, brushing the hair out of her eyes. The wind keeps whipping it into her face since Dan has insisted on keeping the top down.

“That club was great! Too many kids though, you know? The guy who owns the place, Mark, I think; he seems like a real asshole.” Penny nods in agreement. “Jeez, I can’t even hear the vocals on this thing!”

“Maybe it’s because you keep singing over it!” says Penny. He makes a squinty face at her, and she giggles. “Are you sure you’re okay? You still seem kind of loopy.”

“Nah, I’m fine. I had a few beers and it’s been, like, four hours. Fuck, I can’t hear anything with this wind!”

“Isn’t your parent’s house over there? It’s a corner house, right?” asks Penny.

“Yeah! I think today’s my dad’s birthday! We should drop in on ‘em. Man, what is up with this radio?!”

Recognizing the familiar roar of her son’s engine, Mrs. Agnes Bators has rushed out the door to greet him. But at this point, Dan is too busy fumbling with the volume to notice that the stoplight has not yet turned green. Penny, momentarily blinded by her own hair, is powerless to stop Dan as he barrels through the intersection, causing a truck to swerve onto the front lawn of poor Mrs. Bators. Hearing the screech, Dan wildly spins the wheel to avoid the car that has already passed, losing control and smashing into a tree.

“Penny! Are you hurt? Can you move?” He turns to see his girlfriend, but she has gone through the windshield and is lying on top of his hood. The left side of her face is firmly planted in the tree. He can hear his father crying and shouting. Something about God. He hears the radio fuzz and die. Then he hears nothing.

Dan sits up violently, startled out of slumber by a loud honk. “Get out of the middle of the road, you moron!” He crawls off to the curb and lets the angry motorist speed away. There is no sign of his destroyed car and no sign of his destroyed Penny. Sometimes when he dreams about that night, he finds himself here, in the very spot it happened. After briefly checking himself for cuts and bruises, he decides that it’s late enough in the day to head over to Manny’s. He never gets injured when he blacks out. No matter how hard he tries, he always wakes up fully intact.

Mark hasn’t gotten back from his overnight stay in jail, so Manny’s is still locked when Dan arrives. He pulls on the handle a few times to make sure. He presses his head against the glass and closes his eyes. “When I open my eyes,” he says to himself, “They’ll all be standing behind me.” He turns and looks back, but the road is empty. Not a single trace of any wreckage. Not an outline of the lasting trail he slashed through everyone’s life, branded into the concrete, the blaze that enveloped them. But Dan never expected to see anything anyway. After all, this is not the first time he has found himself awake and wandering.