Chapter 1 of my book: The Dancer...
Johnny Fallon left the town of Forest Hills twenty-eight years ago on a highway to nowhere. He felt guilty for leaving—for leaving his hometown… his friends, and especially his parents—parents who had nurtured him from the first day he was born until he had grown into a confused, lost twenty—year—old bound for trouble.
Fallon looked in the mirror. He didn't like what he saw. In fact, his life had been on the ropes for a long time—seemingly, the final round was always just ahead…just around the bend.
He was a 48-year-old who felt like life was passing him by. His hair, showing signs of gray at the temples, was streaming down the back of his neck…straggly…with no thought of a pattern…much like the crooked path he had traveled for nearly a quarter of a century.
Now, he's back in town…back where all the heartache began.
Fallon left the motel room and slipped into his '57 Chevy. He revved up the engine and headed down Highway 4. The sun had disappeared. Only a bright glow filtered through the Aspen trees toward the west, and the moon made its first appearance of the night, slowly rising over the mountain range to the east.
He had been on the same road many times before, and nothing had changed. As he took the first exit into Forest Hills, Fallon noticed the same buildings and old businesses on both sides of the highway. He drove down Main Street, past the city park and the city hall, and turned right on the old Forest Loop Road. It was only four miles to the turnoff, and then it was a quick jaunt to the Tavern on top of the Hill at the end of Ramsey Canyon Lane.
Slim Walker owned the Tavern in the late 1940s. Of course, Fallon was only eight years old when Slim allowed him to set up shop on a Saturday night and collect half a dollar for every boot shine he could handle from seven o'clock until a quarter after eight. After that, the young Fallon would high-tail it out of there just minutes before the band let loose with its first song of the night.
Fallon eased up on the gas pedal…his mind backtracking to his high school days — the school bell ringing in his ears as he fiddled with the combination to his locker. He had five minutes to get to the study hall, the best part of the school day.
Betty Lou Johnson would be there, waiting for him. She'd have her books open and a yellow marker in her right hand, pretending, as always, to be highlighting passages. In reality, she was waiting for him. He knew it, yet they continued to play the same game with each other, acting as if their relationship was more along the lines of two strangers meeting for the very first time.
A smile crossed Fallon's face as he took the exit ramp and turned right onto Ramsey Canyon. He sped up the Hill and pulled into the parking lot, just south of the front entrance to what was now called The Hideout. On the rooftop, a pulsating neon sign with a curved arrow in bright red — points to a double red door below.
Fallon stared at the entrance. The doors were the same, but the pulsating sign was new, completely different from the PBR sign he remembered. He visualized a young boy dragging a shoeshine kit to the steps, and he could hear the rough voice of a grizzly-bearded cowboy: "Hey, it's little Johnny Fallon. Come on, little man. Step up here and give these old boots a new look."
The blue and white sign above the head of the tall, lanky cowboy flickered on and off. Fallon remembers the old sign now. The sign read: Beer and dancin' till closin' time. He surmised the flickering wasn't part of the program. Enough juice must have been left in the sign's life to keep it from going completely out. Fallon shook his head. Slim never bothered to fix the old sign, and for the first time in more than forty years, Fallon realized that Slim's Place had yet to have a name. It was called the Tavern on the Hill — the only directions the townspeople of Forest Hills would ever need.
Fallon walked around to the side of the Tavern. The window was still there. The young shoeshine boy never actually disappeared on a Saturday night. Instead, he would lock his wooden kit, turn it over, step gently onto it, stick his chin on the windowsill, and get a good view of the couples dancing to the beat of the band.
He looked to his left and right, just like many years ago. He peeked in the window. The stage was still in the same place, but the dance floor had doubled, and another room extended beyond the bar's edge. A bar with a vast mirror filled the corner of the new room. The cocktail waitresses were scurrying back and forth. The front and back bars were full of patrons.
Feeling silly, Fallon shook his head, looked around again, and walked back to the front of the Tavern. He slowly opened one of the big red doors, the other still locked. He entered. Light smoke drifted across the front room, its path interrupted only by the slowly spinning ceiling fans, each with its unique rattling sound echoing throughout the Tavern.
Betty Lou slid out of her bar stool, strolled toward him, and reached out with her left hand. Her beautiful voice followed, "Come on, Johnny. Let's dance."
Fallon's knees buckled, and he grabbed the stool next to the door and sat down. He quickly closed his eyes and then opened them. Betty Lou was gone. His face had turned bright red. He took a deep breath and stared across the empty dance floor. He looked to his right, and two young men were busy connecting cables on the stage. He noticed one empty stool at the front bar and proceeded to stroll, focusing on the vacant seat. He was afraid to look around the room, hoping no one in the crowd had noticed him.
He glanced back and waved as if to say "thank you" to the man who had given up the prize seat. Then he watched the man exit the Tavern. Fallon slid into the chair and took another deep breath.
"What can I get you?" said the fast-moving, thirty-something female behind the bar.
"What do you have on draft?" responded Fallon.
"Miller, PBR, Bud…the usual," she said.
"PBR. It's been a while."
"Coming right up."
Fallon turned and surveyed the room. The tables were filling up. He figured someone would unplug the jukebox in another thirty minutes, and the band would start to play.
Johnny would be long gone by then. He was already starting to sweat. It wasn't even nine o'clock, and he was ready to vanish—at least, back to the motel…back to a quiet room where he could be comfortable, at least—alone in his thoughts.
He noticed three women sitting at the table closest to the band. All three looked at him and mumbled, their hands covering their mouths. It was probably his imagination, and he was sure of it when two men returned to the table, each with a fistful of beers.
Fallon turned back to the bar, realizing and smart enough to figure out he was paranoid. He was half right as everyone at the table by the band began conversing — all with their hands down now, except for one brunette, her eyes transfixed on the stranger at the bar.
At the end of the bar, he saw a young lady insert a coin into a jukebox. He listened as the quarter wiggled its way down the slot and stopped at its destination—plunk!
Before the first words of the Conway Twitty song rang out, Fallon heard Betty Lou whisper in his ear, "Care to dance?" as the melody began to echo off the walls of the Tavern—"It's only make-believe."
Frozen in the moment, Fallon took the brunette's left hand and slowly, but with purpose, walked to the center of the dance floor.
The brunette followed his every move…and there were many. For the next two minutes, they circled the dance floor. The woman was stunned…holding on, trying desperately to anticipate the stranger's every move.
Suddenly, the song ended.
Fallon was gone, and the red door was ajar. A mixture of smoke and a ray of moonlight filtered through the entranceway and into the Tavern on the Hill.
Mary Beth Thompson hadn't moved from her seat as the Rock County Band finished their first set — fifty-five minutes of nonstop rock songs from the 1980s. They rolled into the break with the Power of Love, trying their best to honor the sound of Huey Lewis and the News but failing miserably. The few patrons in the crowd with too many drinks already under their belt were fired up and ready for the second set, while the more sober followers noticed when the lead singer had forgotten a word or two during the band's final offering of the first set.
"Mary Beth, Mary Beth. Forget the guy," Claire Swanson said, shaking her dazed friend's forearm.
"Girl, it's not like you to miss an entire set without setting foot on the dance floor," Natalie Norris said, who had no trouble breaking away from her husband, Bud, and Claire's date, Filo Hamilton, both of them engrossed in a heated discussion on baseball and which two teams would survive the '89 season and make it to the World Series.
"I'm sorry." Mary Beth said. "It was just for a couple of minutes, and I felt like a bowl of jelly out there. The man took me somewhere. I was in the clouds, far away from here."
"Oh, my!" responded Claire. "You need a drink!"
The three women excused themselves from the two baseball aficionados and headed to the restroom. "Wait a minute," Mary Beth yelled. "Is Bernie Berlson here tonight?"
"The owner?" questioned Natalie. "I saw him a few minutes ago. He was stocking the bar."
Mary Beth stopped at the center of the bar. Bernie had just brought in a set of mugs from the back room and finished distributing them.
"Wait a minute, you two," Mary Beth said as her two counterparts stood at attention. Their stunned girlfriend questioned the bar owner.
"Bernie, do you have the key to Slim's old trophy case in the back room?"
"I do. What's up?"
"I just want to go back about thirty years. That's all."
Bernie released a small key from the handful of keys he had attached to his belt. "Just be sure to lock it back up. Some of the stuff there is as old as all three of you girls."
"Bernie, what a terrible thing to say," Claire said, goodheartedly. "But we forgive you. You've been into the Crown Royal tonight, haven't you?"
"No, not me. I'm as sober as Judge Haskins tonight," Bernie said with a grin. "But I do apologize, ladies." He tipped his cap and went about stocking the bar.
"Let's go, girls. You know, I looked into the stranger's blue eyes, and there was something about him that was familiar," Mary Beth said, glancing back at the jukebox. Misty Harper, a homegrown girl from nearby Lakeland, was home from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff for the semester break. She had just dropped a coin down the slot, and the words from Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel of Love drifted across the room.
The girls transfixed for a moment on the young coed, remembering long ago when they stood in front of the jukebox making their own selections. Before marriage, before divorce, back in the day when they pounded down shots of whiskey and danced the night away, with or without a partner.
The selections had changed over the years. Slim at first, and now Bernie had seen to that. But they kept some of the golden oldies, like the great hits of Twitty, Elvis, and country favorites. Back then, the old cowboys at the bar would hand the girls five dollars at a time and say to them, "Play me some Johnny Cash…or Willie…or Waylon…"
"Girls, let's go. The band will be back on soon." Mary Beth said.
The old cedar wood display cabinet was full of trophies, photos, and memorabilia from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and a few items from the early 1980s, although Bernie had slipped a bit the last few years. He was into making money, not adding more trophy cases to the back room. After all, more than one or two fewer tables means less money in the kitty.
Mary Beth jiggled with the lock and opened the cabinet. Among a handful of softball trophies was one large trophy, and on the very top of the elongated silver piece of hardware stood two figurines—a boy and a girl dancing. The girl had her head back…, and the boy was more upright, his left hand locked in with the girl's right hand, both pointing upward.
Mary Beth grabbed the photo next to the trophy. She looked at it for a moment and then handed it to her friends Claire and Natalie. "The stranger is Johnny Fallon!"
Photo: The author remembers back to a time when it was his turn to dance.
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