Burlesque

Prologue - Retrospect

Prologue
Retrospect


         1986 – my year of providence, the height of the 1980s. Go out and ask ten people off the streets to describe the ‘80s. Nine of them will draw a vivid verbal picture of 1986:

         Ronald Regan continued to govern the United States, beneath the looming threat of the Cold War. Critics scoffed at the president’s plans to build a space missile, while they contemplated the end of civilization on Earth. Science only perpetuated these fears, as the word ‘nuclear’ became synonymous with ‘weapon.’

         Mankind came only too close to annihilation after Chernobyl imploded in April, rendering Prypiat Ukraine’s official toxic ghost town. The world’s population trounced about carelessly whilst the Earth squirmed beneath the intensity of mutually assured destruction. I remember every night I used to go to bed and wonder if I'd wake up the next morning. I thought maybe the world would get blown to smithereens while I slept. Apparently, nobody else really paid all that much attention to MAD and all of its negative connotations.

         In further news, the Challenger space shuttle made an iconic plunge into the ocean just seconds after its tenth launch. In March, Roger’s Commission recovered the shuttle’s passenger capsule, complete with the remains of all seven bodies on board. So much for lucky number seven.

         On June 9th, Roger’s Commission released its first report concerning the Challenger shuttle collapse. That evening I stretched out on my basement floor, and listened idly to the details as I licked the chocolate off of a Snickers bar.

         Voices fought against the radio’s static and little by little, the story all came together: the rubber seals in the booster engine failed to fasten properly. What a fragile world we lived in then. I guess NASA just got lazy with the shuttle on its tenth round. They probably thought nothing would ever happen, just like the smiling boy in my high school who got high on MDA and drowned in five feet of water by the seaside.

         Those infected with HIV probably didn’t see what was coming to them either. The AIDS epidemic reached its peak, and people still made tired old jokes about the test tube babies from ’83. Nobody seemed to care about any of this, though. Instead, people continued to fuss over how much The Karate Kid II grossed at the box office, and whether or not Duran Duran would make a comeback with their fourteenth single. The Dead Kennedy’s broke up, and this struck a chord almost twice as catastrophic as Chernobyl in most of my schoolmates’ hearts. The teenaged demographic preoccupied itself with what was then known as ‘fashion.’

         Big hair, Jellies, dangling earrings and plastic pearls reigned supreme. Fishnet stockings, corset tops, lingerie, slips, neon clothing, clinched belts, plastic skirts, snakeskin, and suspenders stocked store shelves across the nation. It was as though the world had gone senile, spewing forth a plethora of paradoxes, fashion mismatches, and a self-centered attitude capable of curdling even the most pretentious princess’ blood. Celebrities had their faces smeared across advertising billboards everywhere, in an attempt to convince the ‘average Joe’ that he too can become the next best player in the NBA, or the local chick-magnet simply by purchasing their overpriced product. Peer pressure, and false promises were inescapable.

         I call the ‘80s the teenybopper of the 20th century. The materialism, and silliness associated with ’86 in particular, reminded me of a girl I used to hang out with. Of course, I use the term ‘hang out’ fairly loosely; I honestly don’t know what it was we did back then, but it struck me as being far more significant than just ‘hanging out.’

         Things became confusing, and sometimes I wonder if perhaps most of what I experienced was no more than an overly lustrous daydream, concocted from within the feral depths of my forbidden subconscious. Most of my memories can be chalked up to popular culture and Hollywood. You have to be pretty depraved, though, to replace factual information from mundane, everyday life with wild fancies compiled from the movies.

         Then again, who really cares? I was no more than a kid back then. A skinny, slip of a seventeen year old girl, gone through puberty with nothing to show, but an awkward smile, bit of extra hair, and a couple of A-cups.

         To make my teenage life all the more difficult, I transferred schools after a group of seniors showed up with unloaded firearms as a graduation joke. Their guns were empty, but the police arrested them anyway.

         My parents didn’t feel the same about sending me to Roy Baxter’s Secondary School after that little episode. The closest high school happened to be St. Elias’ - several blocks down the street - so I made the switch, more for their sake than mine. My mother always liked to pretend I had a choice in such situations.

         I fussed over all of this in private, trying to see the logic in this ten-minute swap. I suppose it’s the principle of the matter; once danger slips under the doorstep, and the bearings begin to crumble, the vulnerability never fades, no matter how fortified the barricades may be. In short, one mistake is enough to cause lasting alarm.

         Later, I found out dad had been waiting for an opportunity to shuck me into the Catholic school system. Lucky for him, this just happened to pop up right under his nose. My parents ran a funeral home, and I saw a lot that perhaps wasn’t good for me. Dad probably thought I’d lost faith in the world, with my incredible skepticism, and solid faith in all that was scientific.

         In September of ’85 I enrolled in St. Elias.’ My first day consisted of bland faces, a mesh of clichés, and an unshakeable buzz; the kind most people get when they’re crammed too tight in a crowd. With the exception of a handful of nuns, and some awkward bible classes, this place wasn’t much different from Roy Baxter’s.

         Nothing changed, and then everything changed. It only took a couple of months, and a malicious game of truth or dare before I had you trapped beneath my limbs, your jelly skirt pushed up over your knees as my hot tongue slithered raucously between your icy lips. I didn’t mean to move so quickly that night. I was just curious, you know? I wanted to see what it would be like.

         One thing led to another and we spent our lazy afternoons hiding out in your van, renting Ghostbusters – your favorite movie – from the local plaza, and then watching it curled beneath a blanket in my room. Closer to summer we played The Legend of Zelda in your kitchen while fixing ourselves a late night snack of Pop Rocks, and Skippy Peanut Butter on whole wheat bread.

         I was apprehensive, and you were bold. You lulled me into a false sense of security, and I almost didn’t feel your fingers sink into my chest. A timorous quiet resounded between us filled with beautiful things, but you couldn’t see any of it, and you continued to coil my veins around your fingers, until you could feel me beating in the palm of your hand. Then you squeezed, long and hard, ringing the juice from my usurped arteries as you drew your wrist through the festering wound in my chest. My screams didn’t really stick with you, did they? They made you sick – sick with yourself – so you pushed them away. You pushed me away.

         I guess maybe I should thank you too. Although you hurt me, you taught me a lot about myself. You made me believe for the first time in my life that I actually might be attractive, and I was happy for a while. If it weren’t for you, I would still be living in my shell, devoid of self-knowledge - and where would that leave me? Certainly not here, that’s for sure…




Nickle.nip//Beau Callaghn {{Iodine}} - it's all you really need