Big Foot and Lulu
Lulu was a dancer. No big deal. Big Foot had a morbid fear of dancing. This would in time become the biggest deal the world had ever known.
Anyways, Lulu had a job in a firm where she needed to be on twelve hours a day. It was hell. The pressure had already eaten her nails down to the skin and her face was turning into a roadmap of wrinkles. The price of success. Big Foot was very ordinary. Difficult for Big Foot was choosing ketchup or mustard. That decision could take all of ten minutes. But apart from that, life for Big Foot was breezy.
Breezy enough that he didn’t even have to get up from his chair to meet Lulu. She spotted him in a bar drinking a beer at turtle speed and thought this is the kind of crash mat I need. She sat down beside him and spoke her way through the last thirty-five years. Big Foot said nothing. That was their pattern.
But we were talking about dancing. Now Lulu didn’t just like dancing, she needed it. It was the quick release valve on her pressure cooker life. From Thursday evening to Sunday she made her way round the Salsa, Tango and Dixie Hop events dancing each night till as late as 2am when her feet were either black from greasy dance floors or red from fresh grown blisters.
Even when there was no music playing she moved to a beat. In the supermarket, on her way home, when she zombied from the bed to the pisser in the early morning. She was like one of those bobbing dogs you stick on car windows and Big Foot loved it. He’d push his ass deep into the sofa and watch with fascination.
She was as energetic as a spring morning. He was slower than the dark heart of winter.
Anyways, Big Foot was a comfort for Lulu and Lulu was a diversion for Big Foot. But Lulu was an extrovert and like all extroverts, she would in time need a sidekick. Big Foot got it about two months into their courting.
“Lover, lets go dancing together,” said Lulu.
Big Foot felt something new. The slow clippety clop of his heart raced into a canter. Even Lulu heard the thud but put it down to the crotchety washing machine in the basement slipping into spin.
If you asked a psychiatrist they’d probably tell you that dating Lulu was Big Foot’s subconscious attempting to force him into facing his fear. He had to know that one of these days she’d entwine him and her passion. But Big Foot didn’t voluntarily go that deep. As far as he was concerned he was dating Lulu because she loved him and it was easy to love her. Dancing was a whole different affair. To him, it was like squaring up to the rifles.
Now, the Taoists will tell you that the answer to every problem can be found if you look at the horses. That they will. Big Foot knew shit about Taoism but he had grown up surrounded by horses. His family ran a slaughterhouse. The horses, just like Big Foot, could tell when the time to bow out was upon them. They’d catch the smell of blood in the air and know. But still even in their last minutes alone in the pasture, they found a kind of calm. They’d stand still as a post and move their heads back and forth like they were humming a tune that just refused to go away.
It seemed strange to Big Foot that the horses would face death with a dance but he had to admit there was something dignified about it. And unorthodox as it was, this was the dance style he went for the first time Lulu dragged him by his big sweaty hand and flung him onto a polished floor.
Tall as an oak, still as the night and with the slightest shuffle of his head, Big Foot managed to pull off what you’d call a dance without even breaking a sweat. Lulu moved around him like a tetherball. Big Foot just smiled and kept bopping. Never faster, never slower just consistent, like an honest judge. Up and down Lulu danced, through his legs and over his shoulders and when 2am came and the lights turned everyone ugly, her feet were more black and blistered than they’d ever been.
“Take me home,” she said to Big Foot.
He dropped to a knee and she climbed onto his back like a jockey mounting a horse.
And Big Foot felt like a horse. He whipped his mane across his neck and snorted two great balls of steam into the night air.
“Giddy up,” Lulu said.
She dug her heels into his belly and Big Foot broke into a gallop and he didn’t stop running till he made it home.
