intent on getting more information. I assured them all that later in the evening, I would pester my pop for more details.
This tale opened a new can of worms for the crew. We looked across the river and through the tamarack trees at the old dance hall that has been a part of all our lives since we were able to start roaming the streets. We then toyed with the idea of returning to where we had found the corpse. Curiosity was really burning in our jeans but decided we would need to be careful, lest we ran into the hoodlums from the next barrio. The dance hall building now loomed before us in the distance. Well, for now, that’s another story.
Starting off toward the riverbed, we set our bikes down and ran down the bank and across the sandy bed to climb the other bank. We never had the occasion to go near the building because it had windows that were not friendly to prying eyes. They were seven feet off the ground and whitewashed over. There were no doorways or columns or anything that you could hide in or around. So it held no value to us, and as a result, we never bothered with it.
The reason the windows were intact and not busted out was simple. The owners, in their infinite wisdom, had all the rocks picked up and removed from around the perimeter of the building. That didn’t occur to any of us geniuses until I had a dream one night in my later teens. Go figure.
Chapter 5
The Ballroom
Patrolling the entire area around the dance hall was a new adventure for us, albeit a boring task. The four sides were flat blank walls rising up maybe thirty feet or so. We were kids, so everything was exaggerated until we grew into adulthood and really got a grasp of the proper perspective. For now, though, we were walking around the Lincoln Memorial, or so it seemed.
The west side of the building held the windows, and the south side had the entrance doors and ticket window. Not much to see at all. It was a big block of cheese sitting there. We stood at the entrance doors, each of us handling the thick chain and padlock that were securing the double doors. Maybe today would be the day that the lock would just plop open for us, and we could gain entrance. Each one of us, over the course of years, had occasion to jangle the chain as we passed the building on the way home from school. It would never open, of course. Why today would be any different is anyone’s guess.
The cars were whizzing by right next to us, and it seemed unusually that the street was so near to the doors. I guess the widening of the street came later, and they grabbed up any and all available space. Well, we all walked back around to the west side to see what we could make of the windows and how we would get inside. This was a thought none of us had ever had before, and like I said, this building was of no interest ever before. Now it had piqued our interest, and we were gonna go in for the kill.
It was evident that we needed a ladder to gain access. So off to our respective houses to gather the materials and tools for the job.
We were now a driven bunch, and nothing was going to stop us.
Nails, scrap lumber, and tools were gathered up for the next day’s project as we called it a day and went to our separate homes.
Chapter 6
Shadow Demons / Mayhem
Dad had arrived home from work now, and I paced behind him, quietly waiting for the time when I was sure he had wound down sufficiently from the day. Then I would get the information I needed to finish telling my friends in the morning.
“You have to finish telling me the story of the elegant man at the wedding dance,” I asked. He sat me down and began his tale of an event that would become a part of my life even into adulthood.
As my father spoke, I stared intently at his eyes for any hint of deceit or fabrication on his part. His eyes took on a look of trepidation as he spoke, and I have to admit, that gave me cause for concern, now believing everything he told me. It was as though he were unloading something he had kept close to the vest his entire life thus far. This made me feel a chill as he continued.
“This strange guest to the ball moved with grace as he flowed across the floor when he danced with any young woman who had sought him out for a dance,” my dad went on, seemingly still enchanted with this mysterious man he witnessed so many years ago.
“The stranger had his eyes on the new bride. Soon it seemed her eyes were fixed on him, and she was becoming intoxicated by his very visage. Newly married, she felt a shame in her heart, but it was becoming harder to deny the warmth rising up inside her as the stranger’s eyes fixated on her. She immediately excused herself from her wedding party’s table and slipped off to the ladies’ powder room.”
My father then said that he and his friends who had never taken their eyes off the stranger no longer caught sight of him among the crowd. They had started to focus on the dessert table, salivating over the cakes and other goodies, when they noticed the stranger was now gone from view.
“Where did he go?” they asked one another.
A few minutes passed, then all hell broke loose. The groom was missing his new bride, and he also became aware of the fact that the stranger was nowhere to be found. The groom called his male friends together, asking each of them if they had seen the new bride. No one had. It wasn’t long before the only activity at the celebration was to find the new bride. My father said he heard the tone of reason soon turned to a sound of anguish and deadly concern.
All the rooms had been searched with no success, and then the group moved outside where they found a young group of urchins lurking in the bushes. They questioned the young boys out of sheer desperation as if maybe they had seen something. My dad said that if there had been any dogs around, they would have questioned them too. That was how intense the evening had become. Sheer panic was starting to rule the night.
At that moment, a young lady ran out to where the men were congregating. She was holding a bracelet corsage that belonged to the young bride. The group ran back in, following the young lady who would lead them to where the corsage was found. My father and his friends now felt that they had license to be a part of the group, so in they went. In all the confusion, the kids went unnoticed, and since they had been questioned, they felt it was okay.
Helping themselves to the hors d’oeuvres as they ran through the dance hall, they really felt special in having a sense of purpose for the greater good.
It turned out that the room where the last clue was found was the ladies’ powder room. The corsage was dropped right outside the open window. That had to be the way out for any getaway. The stranger was nowhere to be found, and it soon become apparent that he was the bride’s abductor. Or maybe the rogue lover.
The newly wedded groom was inconsolable as he yelled for his beloved Elena.
So long he had waited for the virginal prize, one that he had ached for all those previous years, now to have it ripped away when it was finally his for the taking. Talk about having the blues in more ways than one.
As my father recanted this tale, he ended with a notion that would haunt me in the years to come. He told me, “Son, that person that I saw leap over the side of the bridge resembled the same person I had seen forty years earlier.”
Now I was really feeling a fear I couldn’t explain. How can that be possible? I thought to myself.
On that night of my father’s experience on the bridge, a young girl was abducted from a party at another dance hall across town. She was there with her parents and had gone to the ladies’ room. The
