Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang: Volume 1, Chapter 10

3 days ago

9 min read

Not including herself, there were eleven hot bodies crowding into Desiree’s house. Five neighbors crammed in the doorway, while their three dogs sat in front of their three dognappers.

Keith, the bachelor, cereal factory man and eyewitness to the dognappings, pushed Desiree aside and barged forth into the living room.

“Return those dogs right now.” It may have been an act of toughness because he wore no long sleeves, but Keith made the action of rolling up his dense black arm hair. “Before I wrap a dog collar tight around each of your scrawny necks.”

“They’re the same that took Daisy, I bet,” said Margaret.

Keith huffed a threat like a bull. Size-wise, he was the most imposing figure in the room, standing well above average height with weight to match, not all confined to the swell of his belly, but seen in the trunks of his arms and legs. He pointed a stubby finger at the flamboyantly bright, showy, tailored dress of the three culprits in Desiree’s living room. Dress that turned the blue-collared Keith red with rage. His muscles seemed to grow with each deep breath beneath his grass-stained T-shirt.

“I’ve been hoping a long time to get my hands on people like you.”

He made to clash with the glamorous dognappers. The magenta suit. The yellow coat. The cyan dress. The dogs wagged their tails.

Only for the charmingly chiming voice of the woman in the cyan dress to stop Keith’s feet so abruptly that he stuttered and stumbled over several planks of Desiree’s fake wood floor.

“How dare you bring such hostile posture before me! And to yell aggressions at me in a broken key!”

Her voice trilled like a songbird forced to speak. Her flaring, shoulder-strap, cyan dress was stiff in its winged billow as if the dress itself had been captured in a photograph, a fleeting moment, and designed to stay that way, like the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe standing above the breathy subway grate. But the cyan dress was longer than the short famous one, and looked like great wings when seen from straight-ahead. The stolen pug, Minnow—uncollared, unleashed, unprompted—ran happily between her legs.

The notes in her voice seemed to puncture Keith’s muscles. His fury subsided while hers swelled.

“Where do you think the first good posturing came from? Military men? Absolutely not. It was singing! Shoulders back, chest out, controlled breath. Thousands of years before organized war, after women had climbed into trees to escape the slouched, lumbering, stoop-shouldered caveman, it took the shoulders back, chest out, bellowing discovery of singing to get women to climb down again. Men learned control and key, and that the great posture of singing was actually a better alternative than the bent stoop of the club when it came to attracting a mate. Cavewomen were serenated instead of smacked over the head. Wooed instead of abducted. It would only be years later that the impeccable posture of singing would be made to serve the more disciplined wielding, and swinging, and marching of the club. Because that’s what you human discoveries tend toward, yes?”

As she stood before the other two suspects—the woman in the yellow coat, the man in the magenta suit—the woman’s cyan dress, flared on either side like butterfly wings, changed colors, the right turning bright blue, and the left turning neon green.

The light reflected off Keith’s stupefied face. Minnow sat at the woman’s feet. The neighborhood dog-owners remained in the doorway.

On behalf of the residents at Keystone Meadows, Desiree alone seemed lucid to the situation.

“Who are you people? Give them back their dogs.”

The sharp-faced man in the magenta suit cackled so hard that his coiled goatee sprung about.

“The foot-artist is funny too!”

“Get out of my living room.”

“Not until I’ve seen your feet.”

Flushed by embarrassment, Desiree looked to her neighbors as if the mystery of their lost dogs had brought them into her secret erotic studio, aghast and searching for explanations between her split toes.

But instead of looking back upon her in scandalized judgement, they were forming two lines.

Keith had fallen before the woman’s vibrant dress-wings.

“Get up. Get in line,” said the woman with a cyan torso and what looked like toxic wings. “You three in front. You two in back.”

The neighbors took the orders with the urgent attentiveness of game show contestants before their host, with Keith positioning himself in the back, putting three women between him and the woman with the neon green and blue wings.

“I need everyone’s complete commitment if you’re to pull this off,” she said.

Keith, Fred, Margaret, Audrey, and Gayle nodded with vigor.

Minnow pranced around the woman’s feet.

The other two dogs, Luffles and Mousetrap, remained happily seated on the other side of the living room.

“You’re each going to sing for me,” said the woman in the winged dress.

“Yes ma’am, I’ve always wanted to be a singer,” said Keith.

“I sang in the church choir when I was a girl,” said Audrey.

“Fred and I love singing in the car.”

“I’ll try to do my best,” said Gayle.

“Here, I have music for everyone.”

And like a magician’s skillful sleight-of-hand, the woman produced five sheets of paper from a closed fist and distributed them to Desiree’s neighbors.

The dogs weren’t being held on leashes, and there were no fingers hooked through their collars. Halfway across the room, Desiree squatted down and snapped her fingers for their seated attention.

“Go Luffles,” Desiree said to the brown and black Yorkshire Terrier. “Go Luffles, go to your mom.” She pointed at Gayle. “Gayle, call for Luffles!”

“Desiree!” said Gayle. She spoke her name as a proper reprimand, harsh and curt, before gesturing in deference to the woman in the cyan dress.

Desiree’s facial features scrunched into baffled offense.

“What in the fuck is going on?”

“Luffles! Luffles!” shouted the strange woman in the yellow vinyl coat.

Tiny Luffles, hips swinging in excitement, jumped into her cradled arms. The woman in the glossy yellow coat hooted happiness as Luffles licked her dandelion-powdered cheek.

“What a sweet girl.”

The neighbors now stood in choir formation as if caroling the subdivision.

“Audrey!” shouted Desiree. “Audrey, call for Minnow!”

Audrey looked nervously from Desiree to the woman in the cyan dress, but never at her dog Minnow, who remained with tender joy and affection beneath the woman’s luminous silhouette.

“Audrey,” said the woman, “I need you to focus your voice on the notes.”

Audrey turned away from Desiree and nodded.

“There are two parts to the lyrics,” continued the woman. “A child and a parent. The men will be singing the parent. The women, the child.”

As choir practice began, the woman in the yellow vinyl coat, silky yellow tube top dress, and high yellow socks, approached Desiree, only when Desiree turned to see her the woman’s coat, tube top, and high socks were tiger orange. Shiny as if split from a citrus fruit. Behind her stood the man in the maroon suit, pants high-waisted with a short but fat tie that almost expanded itself into a dinner napkin.

“Your feet please.”

“What has she done to them?” said Desiree, struck by the new dazzle of the tiger orange coat and looking the outfit up and down.

“They’re inspired by her greatness,” said the man in magenta. “It appears there’s a creative ember in each of them. It’s a real shame.” He lowered his head, and his spiral goatee became still and somber.

“She’s hypnotized them,” said Desiree in bewilderment.

“That’s an insult,” said the man in magenta, petting Mousetrap with a ringed hand. “Mesmerizing and hypnotizing are not the same.”

The choir’s disharmony was further rattling Desiree’s nerves, and she looked to her neighbors, out of rhythm and mumbling lyrics, and was shocked further when she returned to the other two suspects. The man in the magenta suit had moved and was standing before the cyan singing instructor, and was now dressed in purple. Only the white feather in his leather fedora remained unchanged.

“I like your living room,” said the woman, settling onto the turquoise loveseat and dimming from tiger orange to peach and blending in with a peach throw pillow.

Desiree did not say thank you.

“You like it,” said the man in purple. “What is it you like about it?”

“You talk too much about things,” she replied. “Always things about things with you.”

And the woman sat up and wore a yellow coat and dress and socks again, and she stood behind the man in purple, and his suit and hat turned a deep black.

A wave of horror at the suddenly ink-black suit detached Desiree from the moment.

“What do you want from me?”

The man and woman looked to one another in disbelief.

“To see your feet!” said the man. “Your gifts are over there.”

Behind him, the singing instructor moved away and the man’s suit brightened to blood red.

“No, no, no,” said the cyan singing instructor in a loud, mellifluous voice. “You each have so much practice to do. I don’t know if you’ll ever be ready in time for this performance. We could put it off for a thousand years and you’d only get more out of tune. Fred, Keith, why are you just standing there while the ladies sing their part? You can still make music, right? You can clap! You can whistle! Your whole body is an instrument. Stomp your feet! I need bigness. I need boldness. I need magnificence. Do it again.”

Keith raised his hand.

“Where’s the concert at? Where are we singing?”

The woman in the winged dress smiled sardonically.

“Before the cosmos, of course.”

Right, right, the neighbors seemed to nod in agreement.

“On the shores of paradise! Now, again!”

Child (women):

The child asks, is there a heaven for dogs?

Is there one also for horses and frogs?

Adult (men):

I don't know anything about what's beyond,

Any more than I know what's at the bottom of our pond.

But indeed for dogs, look where he lay,

Already in heaven, day after day.

Ears scratched and big yawns indulged,

Eating until his belly is bulged.

Child (women)

It doesn't seem fair; there's nothing for them,

Not when this world is so dirty and grim.

A beautiful place where they can spread their happiness far

Like the enriching warmth of our central star.

I'm young, and already it's this world I fear!

If it were up to me, I'd make all dogs disappear!

Such precious beings have earned their place with love,

I make a wish upon their light, beyond the above.

Best and true friends, it is time to rejoice,

Goodbye, farewell, to all the good girls and boys.

To eternal wagging, the doggy rapture come,

For beauty and imagination, thine will be done.

“Better. But you have to practice every single night with this kind of energy if you’re to pull this off. Practice. Practice. Practice.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The woman in the coat and the man in the suit shifted angles, and she became as glaringly red as a traffic light while he was colored a plum.

“Just take off your shoes; I won’t stare long,” he said.

“You’re in your own house; what’s the big deal?” said the woman in the coat.

“Go again,” said the instructor. “There’s no time to lose. You’ll be performing before you know it. Go.”

The neighbors took a deep breath.

And so did Desiree.

“Get out! Get out! Everyone get the hell out of my house! Settle whatever this is anywhere else but my living room!”

The loudly dressed three shared concerned looks and disappointed half-frowns.

“We have offended her,” said the man in the plum suit, which was changing before Desiree’s eyes to a more electric purple.

She marched forcefully in her tightly tied sneakers to the door, showing everyone the exit at once, not hesitating to put a hand on Margaret’s shoulder—after all, Margaret had tried to force open the car door—and nudge the group outside.

“We’ve got a lot of practice to do,” said Keith, carefully folding his music sheet.

“I’m embarrassed it’s been this long since I sang,” said Gayle, as the neighbors crossed the lawn, back to their homes.

“You get out too,” said Desiree, turning to the three brightly dressed dognapping suspects, holding the door wide open for them and the dogs.

Except the room was empty. Gone were the bright, shifting clothes like the horse of many colors from the land of Oz. Gone, too, were the dogs. All that was left of the debacle were the gifts on the table: the jar, the pen, and the harmonica. And near the far wall, in a pile below the mustard-colored square that had been the inspiration for the eight-fingered man’s interior portrait, were three limp, empty dog collars.

Next week on Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang, Desiree sets a trap for intruders. Will she capture someone who can answer her questions? Are the missing dogs closer than she thinks? Find out October 12.