She sits quiet in a smokey haze..
Dolly's skirts just as fluffed out as always,
Her petticoats rustle. the hems are still starched.
The mirror ball reflects the bright disco lights glinting off the rhinestones on her glasses.
She's staring off somewhere past the tired bar band...
Really more of a somewhen than a somewhere...
Beyond the swirling, twirling dancers....
The young folks showing off in long line dances...
Dolly is lost, marooned in the past, of years gone by...
For all their years together that little country bar was their place to be.
A tricky little thing called memory parts its silvery curtain.
And Roy is here with her in memory his hand on hers, Dolly thinks of the first time she laid eyes on him.
Roy so tall and young, his Stetson brim tilted so low he had to peer at her like James Dean-making her heart skip a beat or three
Soon he was holding her whirling and twirling and doing the two step.
Seemingly carelessly but he carefully counted the paces smiling the whole time, but scared snotless of stepping on a toe.
The parquet dance floor was soon her little piece of heaven.
Dolly was just 17 ...
Climbing out of the window as he held the ladder...
Roy holding her hand as they ran to the car, laughing, smiling stealing a kiss or two on the way to that Honky Tonk.
To dance that 2 step and to hold each other close, not a sliver of light between them.
Dolly can still taste the smell of him, sweat and Aqua Velva.
In those days the barkeep littered the floor with sawdust, Dolly had to watch where she stepped, tobacco juice would spoil her white suede buck boots.
Roy always enjoyed when she stole a dab or 2 from Momma's bottle of Channel no5, a lingering scent of her from laying her head on his shoulder. To keep him company after he took her home.
When Dolly smiled at Roy, she lit up his entire world.. Like a shop's window during Christrmas.
Roy hung her name in the window of his heart and soon placed a ring on her finger.
So just as soon as they could, she again snuck out the window and down the ladder he held, tossing a small suitcase to land quietly in the bushes below, not to the Honky Tonk directly, but by way of the J.O.P.
When the Justice saw it would take all their money he did the deed for free.
Together they grew a family, the kids, the car notes and a mortgage of course. Many years of hardships but many more of much better than most.
But still they always found a way to be at that Honky Tonk every Saturday Night, whirling and twirling and doing the 2 step.
Time did pass and their smiles created creases and wrinkles as they are want to do.
But that never bothered them, their love grew and blossomed anew with each trip to the dance floor, their parquayed piece of heaven.
One night Roy left his pills on the kitchen counter as he shifted his stuff from his work-a-day to his pearl button shirt and then to straighten his bolo tie.
With the wrinkles came other infirmities that come almost as bonuses for tenure on this planet.
And while out on the dance floor Roy suddenly stops, a grimmace on his face...
He clutches at the memory of the bottle.... He gasps his last breath as Dolly's eyes fill with horror and clutches him as he slides down to the floor.
For the funeral they closed that little Honky Tonk, no whirling, or twirling or busting of broncos.
The owner retired Roy's Stetson to a spot over the bar, a place of honor.
Still, each week Dolly comes back, her hair done up high, and a little more pancake to fill in the lines..
Layers and layers of stiff, white crinolines rustling no more..boots shines bright and her faded but crisp skirts that lie so still...
Sitting up on her bar stool wanting to get out on the parquet dance floor, her eye on Roy's Stetson over the bar, just one more visit, just one more..
She waits to join Roy up on Heaven's Dance Floor....
this is an old performance piece circa 1998 so I think....
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