Dancing Fool

DANCING FOOL

I am soooo embarrassed! I’m not sure that I’ll be able to show my face in public any more. Colour me mortified!

*****

I was sitting in the waiting room because I needed to see a therapist. That’s not something that is usually done in my line of work. Usually we just power through our problems. But this time, not so much. I was leafing through a four-year old copy of Harper’s Bizarre magazine, wondering if I was making a mistake—not for reading the magazine, but for actually considering therapy.

“Devlin DeMon?”

I looked up, my eyes finding a middle-aged man wearing khaki dress pants, a white button down, and a cardigan. With leather elbow patches. He had black horn-rimmed glasses, making the therapist stereotype complete.

I stood. “I’m Devlin,” I said smiling. Well, what passed for smiling today …

“Dr. Silas Spectre,” said the man walking towards me, hand extended. We shook. “Come on in and have a seat.”

I followed him through the doorway, and looked around the room. It was … calm. Yes. The room was definitely calm—all beige and pastels. Paintings of calm natural vistas. Just what I needed to settle my nerves.

I looked at Dr. Spectre, a bit sheepish. “I, uh, have never done this before.”

Dr. Spectre smiled. “Do you mean have a seat or attend a therapy session?”

I stood there a moment, confused. “Uh, right—joke! Ha ha!” I smiled back to let him no there was no offence. “Therapy. I have definitely had a seat before.”

We both chortled.

I looked at the doctor. “So, I sit? I don’t have to lie down do I—like every movie or TV show I’ve ever seen?”

Dr. Spectre shrugged. “If you want to lie down, you can. There are no rules about that. I want you to be comfortable and relaxed.”

I nodded and sat in the corner of an overstuffed leather couch. It was actually quite comfortable. I guess that made sense—if you’re comfortable maybe you’ll be able to decompress and tell your story. To a stranger. Still, I tapped my foot nervously not sure if I was ready for all the “telling.”

Dr. Spectre sat in an oversized wing chair. The back was so high that the chair looked like it was giving him a hug. A hug would be nice, I thought.

“So, Mr. DeMon, what brings you here today?”

“Call me Devlin. Or Dev. Mr. DeMon is my dad.”

Dr. Spectre smiled. “Okay, Dev. How can I help you?”

I took a deep breath, and looked at the door. I could just get up and leave—no harm, no foul. It would be that easy. I looked back at Dr. Spectre, and decided to stay. At least for now. “Well, I’m having a bit of an issue in my work life, and I don’t have anyone to talk to about it.”

“Well, you’re in the right place. It’s my job to help you resolve issues that are preventing you from living your best life.” He stopped and smiled. “How about you tell me a little about yourself, first? Think of it as a warm up.”

Of course. How could he help me with my problem if he didn’t know anything about me? I took another deep breath, held it for just a second, and jumped in. “So, I’m The Bogeyman. Or, more specifically, I’m a bogeyman. There are a bunch of us, not just one. Historically, I hide under beds and torment children. You know, parents’ll say ‘You better be good, or the bogeyman is going to get you!’ That’s me.”

Dr. Spectre nodded, jotting something down on his pad. “What do parents mean by ‘get’?”

I shrugged. “It’s up to the kid. Whatever they’re afraid of. If they’re afraid of being un-alived, I threaten to un-alive them. If they’re afraid of a hand snaking out from under the bed to grab their ankle and drag them away, that’s me. Kidnapping, torture, locked in the basement, being put in sack and taken to the woods. It’s the whole gambit of childhood fears. Me.”

“Hmmm.” Dr. Spectre stroked his chin. “Do you actually make their fears a reality?”

“Nah. Fear is enough to keep them in check. Usually.”

“And how do you appear to these children.”

I looked to the ceiling, remembering all my different personas. “Well, I can be a monster, or a phantom, or a scary man in a black raincoat. I’ve been the shadow moving in the corner of their bedroom, and the scraping sound outside the window. I’ve been a pair of red glowing eyes only seen at night. Again, it’s up to the kid. Whatever shape scares the bejesus out of them, that’s me. I manifest their deepest fears.”

“Hmmm.” Dr. Spectre wrote something else down. “And this expectation that you have to scare these children? Is that what brought you in today?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Not at all. I’m cool with all that. It’s just I don’t know how to handle this one particular situation, and how it rolled out. It’s my current posting. It didn’t go at all as expected I need the help of a trained professional for this one.”

He smiled again. “Well, I’m listening.”

I took a deep breath and began recounting the story that brought me into his office.

*****

I had a new kid. Her name was Coco. Of course it was.

She was seven, missing a couple of front teeth, precocious in the best way—if there really was such a thing as the best way when it came to precociousness. Her parents invoked me one day in March. That’s how I get new kids—someone has to threaten me to them. It’s usually the parents, sometimes the grandparents, or caregivers. So, that day in April I was called up to scare Coco into submission.

So, just to be clear, I don’t actually eat the kid or put them in a sack and take them away. Usually the threat of me doing the thing that scares them the most is enough to change their behaviour. Usually. If I don’t scare them straight, then there are “next steps.” They don’t include me, and the situation is sent upstairs to scarier entities than me—Krampus, Pennywise, Baba Yaga.

Apparently, Coco wasn’t listening to her parents., and she wasn’t sleeping. They thought that she was just being too much, always jumping around dancing, not going to bed, singing when she was supposed to be sleeping. The kid was nocturnal. And her parents weren’t. That was the problem.

So they told her that she needed to go to bed, or the bogeyman was going to get her.

“Coco, you have to sleep. You can’t stay up all night,” lamented her mother.

“If you don’t go to sleep, the bogeyman will come to your room!” threatened her father.

Coco was intrigued. “He’ll come to my room?” she asked, delighted.

“Yes!” said her exhausted father.

“And do what?” she asked.

Her mother rubbed her eyes. “That’s not the point, Coco. You don’t want the bogeyman to come to your room. He’s scary. Little kids are afraid of him.” Her mother sighed heavily.

“If you go to sleep—like you’re supposed to—then the bogeyman won’t visit you,” said her dad. “So, please Coco, go to sleep.”

Her mother kissed her on the top of her head, and tucked her into her covers. “Please Coco, stay in bed and sleep.”

Coco just smiled at her parents. She knew she wasn’t going to sleep. But she didn’t want to worry her parents. They were so tired. She’d try to be quiet tonight.

She shut her eyes as her parents turned off her light, shut the door, and left her room.

Because I had been summoned, I was watching. I was supposed to show up when she did what she wasn’t supposed to do.

It wasn’t a very long wait. As soon as her parent’s footsteps receded down the hall from her room, she jumped out of bed and turned on her bedside light.

“Boogie-man, where are you?” she whispered.

I was shocked. Not one bogeyman, in the history of all bogeymen, had ever been called by the kid. It was always a threat by the parents, or grandparents, that summoned me. Not the kid!

So, I showed up. I walked out of the closet.

Coco squealed when I stepped out. “You’re here!” She smiled widely. “You look exactly like I thought you would!”

I was confused. I should be scaring her into going to sleep. You know, “If you go to sleep I will go away.” She shouldn’t be thrilled to see me.

Then I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. I was not a monster, I was not a demon, I was not the creature under her bed. I was John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever.

“What the …” I walked up to the mirror and stared. White linen suit, black collared shirt, black heeled boots. I had an almost uncontrollable desire to strike that iconic pose—one arm up over my head, pointing to the sky.

What was going on?

I looked at Coco. She was so excited that she was almost vibrating. “You’re the boogie-man!”

“Yes Coco, I’m the bogeyman. But you’re not afraid of me. You should be afraid of me. Why aren’t you afraid?”

She looked confused. “Why should I be afraid?”

It was my turn to look confused. “Because I’m the bogeyman. Everybody is afraid of the bogeyman. Especially little girls who don’t go to sleep at night.”

“But you’re the boogie-man! You dance!”

“I don’t …” Then it hit me. She thought I was the boogie-man, not the bogeyman. You know, boogie—energetic dancing with a disco ball, light scattering around the dance floor, thumping beat. Disco at its best or worst depending on your perspective. “You think I’m the boogie-man? That I dance?”

Coco nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. The boogie-man. That’s what you said.”

I knew from the manual, that once I was cast as a certain entity I had to stay that way until the kid either capitulated or I had to send the request to the higher ups. That period of capitulation could last a long time—up to a year. I looked at Coco, all gap-tooth smiles, standing in front of me in Lilo and Stitch pjs. She was soooo happy—like her parents were the best parents ever for getting her a boogie-man.

And she was ready. She already owned a disco ball—the table model, not the Studio 54 model. She turned it on. Light bounced around the room. “Who do you want to dance to? Donna Summer or the BeeGees? Do you know how to disco dance?” She was so happy.

I was not.

*****

Dr. Spectre nodded his head in understanding. “How long has this been going on?” he asked soberly.

“Almost two months.”

“And is every night the same?”

“Almost exactly. The only things that change are the songs and Coco’s jammies.”

“I’m sorry. This must be very difficult for you.”

“You can say that again. Every night it’s Dancing Queen by ABBA, or Stayin’ Alive by the BeeGees, or Gloria Gaynor belting out I Will Survive, or Donna Summer’s, Last Dance.” I paused and looked at the doctor. “There were so many songs during the disco era. So … many …songs.”

“Hmmm,” he said, writing something on his pad.

I took a big breath. “And the dances.” I shook my head. “She knows all the dances. The Hustle, the Bus Stop, the YMCA, the Point Move, the Funky Chicken.” I looked at the ceiling then back at Dr. Spectre. “Doc, she’s seven years old? Seven! Why does she know all the songs and dances from the 1970s? It’s 2026! Is she some kind of time traveller?”

Dr. Spectre put on his best doctor face. “Do you think she’s a time traveller.”

Again, I shook my head. “No, but why disco? Do you know, she has a Disco Barbie doll? And all the glittery clothes. It has Farrah Fawcett hair. It’s spooky. Coco says she wants to grow up to be Disco Barbie.”

“What about her parents?”

This was the biggest blow. “They bought noise-cancelling headphones. They sleep through the night now.” I looked at the doctor. “That means that this could go on forever,” I whispered. “Forever.” More head shaking. “I will be spending every night dancing to La Freak until Coco grows out of her disco phase.” More head shaking. “If she ever grows out of it. She’s really invested.”

Dr. Spectre tried to look compassionate. “She is young, Dev. She’ll move on to something else, I’m sure.”

I didn’t believe him. “How can you be so sure? She’s seven and converts her bedroom into Studio 54 every night. And I’m her main character. Because I’m the boogie-man.

We sat there, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts.

“Dev,” started Dr. Spectre. “How does this whole boogie-man versus bogeyman dilemma make you feel.”

I thought for a second before I started to talk. “Besides the fact that this could theoretically go on for the rest of Coco’s life, I have two big concerns. One, I am now the laughing stock of all the bogeymen. They think it’s hilarious that instead of scaring kids, I dance all night long with a seven year-old.” I sat up straighter. “Last week we had an ‘All Hands’ meeting, and when I got there, someone had installed a disco ball in the meeting room. They thought is was hilarious. And, instead of the usual bland Muzak, they blared YMCA and the entire team did the dance.” I stood and showed him the moves. “Every single bogeyman knew the moves.” Dr. Spectre nodded. “Even my supervisor thought it was funny.”

“So, you feel that this posting—as Coco’s boogie-man—has hurt your reputation as a serious bogeyman?”

“Exactly. All my co-workers are scary, scary dudes. Me, I’m John Travolta. Instead of causing nightmares, I get dance lessons from Coco. She makes me watch videos on YouTube.” I could see it in my mind’s eye, Coco showing me how to do The Electric Slide. “I’m supposed to be scary, not funky.”

He wrote something on his notepad, then looked up at me. “You said that there were two things causing you angst. What was the second issue.

I mumbled my response. “I’m sorry Dev, I didn’t hear what you said. Could you repeat it for me?”

I took a deep breath, looked at the ceiling, looked at my feet, then looked at the spot just left of Dr. Spectre’s head. I could feel my face going red. “I actually like being the boogie-man.” I jumped to my feet, and shot my hand up, pointing to the ceiling, just like John Travolta. “Stayin’ Alive!”