The Dancer...Chapters 1 through 4
“Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching” — Satchel Paige
Chapter 1
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 till 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. His life has been on the ropes for a long, long time — seemingly, the final round was always just ahead, just around the bend.
A 48-year-old who felt like life was passing him by. His hair, showing signs of gray at the temples, streaming down the back of his neck…straggly…with no thought of a pattern…much like the crooked path he had traveled for close to 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 had made its first appearance of the night, slowly rising over the mountain range to the east.
He had been on the same road so many times before. Nothing had changed. Fallon noticed the same buildings and the same old businesses on both sides of the highway as he took the first exit into Forest Hills. He drove down Main Street, drove past the city park and the city hall, and made a right turn on the old Forest Loop Road. It was only four miles to the turnoff and then a quick jaunt to the tavern on top of the hill at the end of Ramsey Canyon Lane.
Back in the late 1940s, the tavern was owned by Slim Walker. Of course, Fallon was all of 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 in the evening till a quarter after eight. After that, the young Fallon would high-tail it out of there, just minutes before the band would 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 or studying.
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 akin to 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. There must have been just enough juice 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 never had a name. It was called the Tavern on the Hill — the only direction 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, and then step gently onto it, stick his chin on the windowsill, and get a good view of the couples dancing to the band's beat.
He looked to his left and then to his right, just like he did so many years ago. He peeked in the window. The stage was still in the same place, but the dance floor had doubled in size, and another room entirely extended beyond the edge of the bar. Another bar with a huge mirror filled up the corner of the new room. The cocktail waitresses were scurrying back and forth. The front and back bars were full of patrons.
Fallon, feeling silly, shook his head, looked around one more time, and walked back to the front of the tavern. He slowly opened one of the big red doors. The other was still locked in place. 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 barstool, strolled toward him, and reached out with her left hand. The beautiful sound of her 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 an empty stool at the front bar and proceeded to stroll, focusing on the vacant seat, 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. He watched the man exit the tavern and then slid into the seat 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 that in another thirty minutes, someone would unplug the jukebox, 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 were looking at him and mumbling, their hands covering their mouths. It was probably just 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 he was being 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, and he listened as the quarter wiggled its way down the slot and came to a stop at its destination. Plunk!
Before the first words of the Conway Twitty song rang out, Fallon heard the voice of 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.”
Fallon took the left hand of the brunette 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 and trying desperately to anticipate the stranger’s every move.
Suddenly, the song ended.
Fallon was gone. 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 as she shook the forearm of her dazed friend.
“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,” yelled Mary Beth. “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 had just finished distributing them.
“Wait a minute, you two,” Mary Beth said, as her two counterparts stood at attention, as 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 the 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 in 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 his business of stocking the bar.
“Let’s go, girls. You know, I looked into the blue eyes of the stranger, and there was something about him that was familiar,” Mary Beth said as she glanced back at the jukebox.
Misty Harper, a homegrown girl from nearby Lakeland, home for the semester break from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, 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, recalled a long time 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. However, they still retained some of the golden oldies, including the great hits of Twitty, Elvis, and country favorites. The old cowboys at the bar would hand the girls five dollars at a time back then 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 filled with trophies, photos, and memorabilia dating back to the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, along with a few items from the early 1980s, though Bernie had slipped a bit in the last few years. He was into making money, not adding more trophy cases to the back room. After all, 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 with her head back…the boy more upright with his left hand locked in with the girl’s right hand — both hands pointing upward.
Mary Beth grabbed the photo next to the trophy. She looked at the picture for a moment and then handed it to her friends, Claire and Natalie. “The stranger is Johnny Fallon!”
Chapter 2
Marsha and John Fallon moved to Forest Hills in the winter of ’41.
The couple had owned three dance halls in New Jersey. They had inherited the business from John’s father, Huey Fallon, who had passed away at the young age of 55. John’s mother, Elizabeth, suffered from asthma and died six years later.
The young Fallon couple were professional dancers and performed up and down the Eastern Seaboard, winning their share of contests, focusing on the Foxtrot, the Lindy, and the Jitterbug — especially the Jitterbug and the “freestyle” routine, which allowed them to strut their stuff.
They both celebrated their 30th birthdays during the spring of 1941 and decided to make a move out West — sight unseen, to Forest Hills, a quiet mountain town three hours away from the closest big city, Phoenix.
They sold all of the New Jersey businesses, which, by then, included the dance halls, two dance studios, and two record shops — both shops well known to the young dancers in the area as the place to listen to the latest tunes, grab a chocolate or vanilla malt and even do a little dancing on the dance floors, set up in the back of both record shops.
It was a scary move, especially for Marsha, who was three months pregnant when they began their journey westward.
Times were tough for the Fallon family for the first few years in Forest Hills. Clients didn’t exactly swarm to the Fallon Dance Studio on Third Street and Main. Luckily, Marsha and John held on to enough of their savings until they could turn the tables on the ledger and finally show a profit.
Of course, they had to learn and then teach a few more dance steps. There were plenty of cowboys in town, and the main floor dance around town included something called “the two-step."
By the mid-1940s, little Johnny was four years old and, in record time, went from crawling to walking to dancing in that order. By the time he was eight and just about the time he became a shoeshine boy at Slim’s Place, Johnny was winning dance contests in his age group. He had rhythm. It was plain to see.
Sure, he was indeed a quick learner, but dancing — ballroom dancing, rock and roll, the Jitterbug, the Lindy, the West Coast Swing…and even the two-step, everything came naturally to him.
His little feet, his body, and his mind were always in rhythm with the beat.
Johnny’s dad was so proud of his son. Every time the lad won a ribbon or a trophy, John would display it in the window of the dance studio. Marsha Fallon was just as amazed. It didn’t make the slightest difference which vinyl record she’d insert into the Hi-Fi at the studio. Once the record fell into place and once the needle set the sound in motion, Johnny was at the center of the studio, jumping and jiving.
Needless to say, Johnny Fallon fit in at Forest Hills about the same way a young Elvis Presley fit in, some two thousand miles away in Memphis. In fact, Elvis blazed the trail for Johnny Fallon. The teenage girls took a liking to Elvis and Johnny in much the same way. The boys, now that was a different story.
The players on the Forest Hills High School football team played on Friday nights, but Saturday was always an off day, and most of the team showed up at the field at noon for a “friendly” game of flag football — no tackling allowed. The trick was for the defender to grab the flag, which would stop the runner or the receiver in his tracks — forcing another down.
Johnny was in his junior year, and he had enough of the name-calling. “What position do you play?” said Scooter Thornton, the Forest Hills Bulldogs’ number one defensive player.
“I’m a running back,” Johnny said with confidence.
“Well, all right then,” Thornton said with a grin.
Two hours later, Johnny had scored four touchdowns, and not one defender had been able to grab a flag, the flag on his left hip or the flag on his right hip. The players, now his new teammates, no longer called him names, but they did come up with a nickname, which stayed with him until he graduated. They called him “swivel hips.”
Johnny was bullied at times in the hallways, and he found himself in a handful of fisticuffs, but the fights were few and far between, and it wasn’t long before Johnny Fallon was loved by everyone — boys and girls alike.
That’s about the time Betty Lou Johnson entered the picture.
Betty Lou’s parents, Wanda and Leo, wanted the best for their only child — piano lessons, art classes, and, yes, dance lessons.
Betty Lou hated the piano and couldn’t draw a stickman without messing it up, but dancing…now that was a different story.
It was love at first sight. Her instructor on Tuesday and Thursday nights at the studio was Johnny Fallon. It was at the midway point of their junior year. By the time they were seniors, the two teenagers were carbon copies of each other on the dance floor.
During their senior year at Forest Hills High, Betty Lou and Johnny had won a dance contest at the state fair in Phoenix, the state fair in Sacramento, California, two wins in Chicago, and three first-place finishes in New York. In Miami, Florida, they scored big time with four wins — top spot in the Lindy, the Jitterbug, the Foxtrot, and in the two-step, their first try in that category, complete with a wardrobe of matching cowboy hats and boots.
They returned home after the Miami wins and put on a show in front of a packed house at Slim Walker’s Tavern on the Hill. They were celebrities by then. The talk of the town.
Betty Lou and Johnny graduated in May 1959, and in 1960, after dominating their age group nationwide in Freestyle Ballroom Dancing, they returned to Forest Hills to plan their wedding. They set the date for March 25, 1961.
The wedding would never take place.
Chapter 3
Johnny Fallon made his way back to the motel. He had turned the dial on the radio all the way to the right — as loud as possible. He rolled down the driver’s side window and watched the trees disappear into the night as he sped south on Highway 4.
The song blasting…echoing through the trees: “The Man in the Mirror,” by the author “The King of Pop” Michael Jackson, had Johnny Fallon figured out. Johnny slowed down and pulled into the motel parking lot. “Yes, Mr. Jackson, you nailed it.”
Johnny rolled up his windows, locked the ’57 Chevy, and headed to his room. It was barely 9:30. The night was beginning for some but ending for him. He couldn’t wait to put his head on the pillow and go to sleep.
It was 1989. The end of the first day of spring. It was 28 years ago today when the angels came and took Betty Lou away.
There were so many times when Fallon couldn’t wait to get to sleep because most of his dreams contained the star of his universe — Betty Lou Johnson.
Unfortunately, there was one dream — one nightmare — that surfaced on occasion, and he would wake up startled, his face warm with perspiration, beads of it gathering on his forehead and slowly sliding down into his eyes.
Bobby Joe Gorman was to be his best man at the Fallon wedding. All the wedding plans had come off without a hitch. Saturday at 2 p.m., Judge Jonathan Haskins — a long-time friend of the Fallon family and the original owner of the building, which had been transformed into the dance studio — was to perform the ceremony.
It was Friday night, the day before the wedding. Teenagers had gathered out on Brighton Road for the first drag races of the spring.
“Bobby Joe, it’s the night before the wedding,” Johnny argued. “Take a night off. There’s plenty of Friday nights ahead of you.”
“I know, Johnny,” Bobby Joe said. “But Ricky Rivera is racing tonight. I think I have a plan…a way to beat him.”
“Okay, Bobby Joe. We’ll come to see you race, but then we’re going to high tail it out of there…and you should, too.”
“I will, Johnny. You can count on it.”
Johnny woke up, startled. He had heard “the crash” and glanced at his watch. It was only 10:30. He jumped out of bed, went to the bathroom sink, and splashed water on his face. Another dream…another nightmare. For the love of God, he said to himself. Get back in the car and leave this place.
He threw down the towel and turned off the light. He would see the realtor on Monday morning. He would get it done, return to Los Angeles, and blend in with the crowd.
Chapter 4
The Tavern on the Hill was full. A typical Saturday night.
Ranchers, drugstore cowboys, and real cowboys. It was standing room only at the bar. At the very far end of the bar sat Bobby Joe Gorman. He entered the tavern forty minutes ago and had already downed three shots of whiskey. At least he had slowed down on the hard stuff as the band finished their second set.
“Pamela, I think I’ll switch to a Miller draft.”
“Coming right up,” said Pamela, now a good three hours into her shift.
Gorman felt a female hand, her fingers sliding down his back.
“Bobby Joe, I see you have your favorite stool back tonight.”
“Got lucky, I guess. It gives me a chance to catch the last inning of the Dodgers’ spring training game out in LA,” he said, pointing to the television set, which was locked into place just below the ceiling and just above the mirror — the huge eight-foot long mirror which covered the length of the front room bar.
“How many shots of whiskey have you had tonight?”
“Who’s counting?”
“No one, but you might want to order another,” Mary Beth said. “Guess who was in the bar earlier tonight?”
“Who?”
“Johnny Fallon.”
“Johnny Fallon, are you sure?”
“Yes, as sure as I’m standing here. His hair is a bit long, but he’s as good-looking as ever. I even danced with him.”
“You danced with him. Well, where is he?”
“He’s gone, Bobby Joe. I think I scared him off.”
Before Mary Beth could explain any further, a tall, lanky cowboy asked her to dance as the familiar sound of Willie Nelson and the favorite tune of most of the patrons in the Tavern — My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys bellowed out through the jukebox speakers.
“Oh, boy! Somebody hit F4 again…Bobby Joe, are you gonna be all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” Bobby Joe said as he ordered another beer and pointed to Mary Beth’s table. “Pamela, give them a round on me.”
He watched Mary Beth, hand in hand with the cowboy, as they headed to the dance floor. Willie’s hit song was already at the midway point.
Bobby Joe was in shock. His best friend had returned to town. He hadn’t seen Johnny since the last day in March of ’61, just four days after Betty Lou had been lowered into her final resting place on the grounds of Forest Lawn Cemetery. Johnny had packed his ’57 Chevy, said goodbye to his parents, hugged his best friend, and said, “Take care of yourself, Bobby Joe.”
Marsha and John Fallon, with tears in their eyes, waved to their son. Bobby Joe covered his eyes with a pair of sunglasses, not to shield them from the bright sun, for he remembered the overcast sky and the cool breeze blowing out of the north that day, but to cover up his soul, keeping his thoughts and his misery to himself.
Johnny could have blamed him for all of it. After all, he had talked Johnny and Betty Lou into going to the drag races. What was he thinking? It was just hours before their wedding.
He had to show off. That’s it. He had worked on his ’56 Ford for three weeks, fine-tuning the engine. He had a winner. He was ready. It was time to beat Slammin’ Steve Rivera and his souped-up ’55 Chevy.
The Rivera-Gorman race was the first race of the night. It would be all over in two minutes. He’d win, pack up his stuff, and follow Johnny’s ’57 Chevy down the mountain. Plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep and be ready for the Saturday shindig and the Fallon wedding.
A steady stream of cars headed for the end of Brighton Road. There were ten races on the agenda, a typical Friday night in the moonlight, five miles north of town and 1,000 feet above the gleaming lights of Forest Hills.
Bobby Joe remembers looking into Rivera's eyes. Both racers were locked in their seats. Strapping on their helmets was their last order of business. The starter signaled the racers to start their engines. The crowd lined up on both sides of the road. The onlookers stood by their cars, some sitting on the hoods of their vehicles while others crawled into the beds of their pickups.
Betty Lou and Johnny were at the finish line, three-quarters of a mile down the road, waiting and hoping Bobby Jo would flash by them, just ahead of Rivera.
The roar of the engines echoed off the mountain…
“Bobby Joe…Bobby Joe! Don’t order another one. Come dance with me,” ordered Mary Beth.
Suddenly, Bobby Joe realized he was at the Tavern on the Hill, not on top of Brighton Road. The band was starting its third and final set. 'Amarillo by Morning…Up from San Antone, everything that I got is just what I’ve got on…'
She locked both her hands around the left arm of Bobby Joe and pulled him toward the dance floor. “Mary Beth, I can’t dance to that.”
“Sure, you can. You know good and well that Johnny Fallon taught you. Now, quit trying to fool me.”
“Yes, Mary Beth. He sure did.”
An hour later, the Tavern on the Hill had cleared out. The cocktail waitresses and the head bartender, Pamela, had divided up the tips, and Bernie let all his workers go home. Bernie would be back at 5 a.m. He’d bring his pickup truck full of cleaning supplies, and his wife of 30 years, Wanda, would tag along and help him whip the place back into shape.
The Tavern had been a money maker from Day 1 when he took over the lease from Slim Walker and paid dearly for his liquor license. The upfront money needed to complete the deal was substantial, and Slim Walker had decided to back out of the deal, not once, but twice. In the end, Slim knew he wasn’t getting any younger. He realized it was time to let go and enjoy life, which consisted of three nights of bowling at Fairview Lanes with his wife, Millie, and a couple of vacations a year — in their brand-new motorhome — to different parts of the country. Their goal: a bucket list, which included visiting every National Park from Oregon to Maine.
As far as after-hours on a Saturday night, it was either Denny’s or the Outlaw Cafe. Denny’s was open around the clock, and the cafe kicked everybody out around 2 a.m.
Mary Beth had talked Bobby Joe into going along to the Outlaw Cafe with Natalie, Bud, Claire, and Filo. They were all friends. They all attended high school together and were classmates of Betty Lou Johnson and Johnny Fallon.
It wasn’t hard for all of them to imagine that if the accident on Brighton Road had never happened, Betty Lou and Johnny would be sitting across from them right now, discussing everything from baseball to the delight of Bud and Filo to the latest dance craze, to the top-40 on the charts, from rock and roll to country, and even the blues.
“I can’t believe Fallon is back in town,” Bud said. “It was a sad time back then. I remember his parents sold the dance studio, returned to New Jersey, and rented their home over on Fourth Street to Walter Maxwell. Hey, Filo, you know, Walter. He had five kids. His wife, Simone, worked at the City Market for a long time, and Walter finally retired from the Babcock Lumber Company last year when old man Babcock sold the yard.”
Filo took his baseball hat off and rubbed the back of his neck.
“You know, I do remember the Maxwells. I heard they moved to Northern California. Their youngest grandson, Clyde, was an A-1 student at Forest High and received a scholarship to Stanford. Walter decided to make the move to be near his grandson.”
“I wonder what’s going to happen to the Fallon place,” Claire said. “It’s a nice piece of property. It’s the big white house at the very end of Fourth Street. Big backyard. Johnny used to throw some wild parties there. You remember, don’t you, Natalie?”
“I do remember those parties,” Natalie recalled. “The cops came a couple of times and had us turn the music down. It was innocent enough, but you get 15 to 20 teenagers together, and things are bound to get a little noisy.”
Mary Beth checked her wristwatch. “I think it’s time to call it a night. You got enough coffee in you yet, Bobby Joe?”
“I’m good.”
“Good, I’ll let you drop me off. You know this is still a small town. Chances are we’ll know soon enough why Johnny Fallon is back in town.”
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