Chapter 9--Get Happy, In Dreams

Get Happy, In Dreams

         
Dante followed Clark and the snooty Matre'd through the smoke-filled Club de los Sueños.  Dim, ruddy lighting revealed male couples seated around dinner tables in plush chairs, sipping cocktails, holding hands, and exchanging adoring glances.  On the brilliantly lit stage, a drag queen, surrounded by cavorting, bikini-clad muscle boys, sang Get Happy.  She wore black nylon stockings, high heels, a short waistcoat, and a jaunty hat, just like Judy in Summer Stock. Her husky voice and impish grin lent a saucy insouciance to the lyrics.

         The Matre'd stopped at a table in the front, right before center stage, doled out drink menus, and departed.  Dante settled into his chair and muttered to Clark, "That must have been some tip you slipped him to get these seats."

         Clark beamed at him. "You're worth it.  We're celebrating.  Have whatever you want.  Like the song says, wash your sins away and get ready for the promised land!"

         Sins.  Dante had those, in spades.  Better to not think about it.  He surveyed the drink menu. "What are you having?"

         "Me?  My usual is an old fashioned, but tonight calls for champagne."  He ran his finger down the wine list.  "This one looks good.  Magnier, 1938." Dante must have looked blank, because he added, "Champagne cognac."

         Dante glanced at the price.  Over five hundred dollars for a bottle.  "Pricey.  I wonder what their Mojitos are like?  From the name, this is a Mexican place, right?"

         "You're right that Club de los Sueños is Spanish for 'The Club of Dreams.'  But the owner, Mago, isn't from Mexico.  He's from Spain. Catalonia, I think. Anyway, you can have a Mojita if you you want, but I'm getting a bottle of champagne."

         Dante remembered Lola's breath from earlier. Maybe a mint-flavored drink like a Mojito wasn't such a good idea.  "Okay.  That sounds good.  I'll have some of that."

         Dante turned his attention back to the stage show.  Heavy, crimson curtains served as the backdrop.  Except for the spotlight on drag-queen-Judy, ruby-red lighting illuminated the rest of the performers, giving the lithe muscle boys a distinctive, devilish hue.  The singer crooned about how it's ever so peaceful on the other side before urging him to get ready for the judgement day.

         What other side? Death?  That fit with getting ready for the judgement day.  Maybe there was a way for Dante to wash away his sins and find peace, after all. 

         Clark gave a waiter their order, including oyster and mushroom empanadas. He winked at Dante.  "Oysters are for the effect they'll have on us later."

         More sins.  Attractive sins, to be sure, but still sins. Clark was hot, almost hot enough to make Dante forget Jesse.  Almost.  He still belonged to Jesse, even here, in the Club de los Sueños.

         The show continued with another song, this time featured Judy in an evening gown singing "Melancholy Baby."

         Clark beamed at him.  "From A Star is Born.  That's what happened to you, today, in your screen test.  Your star was born."

         As the song finished, the waiter returned with champagne flutes and a plate with crusty empanadas.  He popped the cork and poured for both of them.  "Will there be anything else, gentlemen?"

         Clark shook his head. "We're good." He palmed another tip to the waiter.

         "Thank you sir.  I'll check on you later.  Enjoy the show.  We have a truly angelic array of talent tonight."

         Clark's eyes sparkled.  "Judy is bedeviling, all right."

         The waiter showed dimples.  "I didn't say they were heavenly angels.  I'll be back."

         Drag-queen-Judy and her entourage finished their set and sashayed off stage. A pop-eyed, skeletal man wearing a tuxedo and sporting a Salvador Dali mustache appeared from behind the ruby curtains. 

         Clark whispered, "That's him.  Mago, the owner. He does a magic act, too."

         Mago smirked at the audience and said, "Buenas noches, señores y señora. Bienvenida al Club de los Sueños. Welcome." He stooped in a deep bow, then asked, "Are you happy?"

         A few scattered shouts of agreement seemed to satisfy him.  "Madam Judy works magia, magic, does she not?"

         That got scattered applause.  "She'll be back later, with more magic from over the rainbow.  You like?"

         Stronger applause and even some whistles this time.  "Si.  You like. But right now we've got a real treat for you.  Juaner is here to perform our club's theme song,  Solo en Sueño."

         Clark leaned close and whispered, "That means, 'only in dreams.' It's a song about the magic that happens here." His breath warmed Dante's cheek and sent tingles down his spine.

         With a flourish, Mago waved to stage right and a sudden spotlight illuminated a middle-aged man with a guitar.  He wore a cowboy shirt, cowboy boots, and a fedora with the brim rolled up. A heavy, silver cross, hanging on a leather strap about his neck, gleamed in the spotlight. He stood, silent and impassive, while murmured conversations died and silence shrouded the club. Wisps of smoke glimmered in the spotlight as the hushed audience waited in anticipation.

         He strummed his guitar, and two plaintive chords broke the silence.  The Spanish lyrics made no sense to Dante--the only thing he caught was something about a "sandman"--but the sensuous syllables and music fused into perfection.  Dante lost himself in the rhythmic ebb and flow.  "Sandman" must be a reference to sleep.  Certainly, his eyelids grew heavy under the song's spell.

         La noche es magica.  Dante knew enough Spanish to catch that was something about a magic night.  That described his night, so far.  Except surreal might be a more apt description.

         After a moment, Clark leaned in again to whisper, "Now he's singing about how in dreams, you'll always be mine."  His fingers brushed Dante's hand, sending warmth oozing up his arm.

         The song intensified to a climax, but then faded to almost a dirge.  En sueno.  Solo en sueno.

         The song dissipated to nothingness.  Silence closed in.  The singer wavered for a moment, then collapsed on the stage.  Not a sound broke the deathly calm.  Mago appeared from nowhere and knelt by the singer, holding his wrist.  Two muscle boys, still in glittering bikinis from drag-queen-Judy's performance, materialized and carried the limp body of the singer away.

         Dante blinked tears from his eyes.  He turned to his guide, Clark, and asked, "What just happened?"

         Clark's face glowed with religious rapture. "It's in what he sang. He's been dreaming of his lover, but when he wakes, he realizes his lover is gone forever and will never be back.  He can't stop crying, since they will be together solo en sueno, only in dreams."

         "But why did he collapse? He can't be dead."  The earlier song, about the 'peace on the other side,' about getting ready for the Judgement Day, echoed in his head.

         "It's part of the show.  Part of the song.  When he sings, it's a dream.  He and his lover only exist in the song, in the dream.  When the dream is over, so are both of them."  Clark smiled and squeezed Dante's hand. "But don't worry.  He'll be back tomorrow night, to sing again, to dream again. That's the tragedy and the blessing of dreams.  They're not real, but they are eternal."

         Both unreal and eternal. The idea was at once exhilarating and frightening. Jesse was gone forever, but lived then, now, and forever in his dreams.  Beautiful dreams.  Macabre dreams. Dreams of love. Dreams of sorrow.  But only in dreams.

         In that instant, everything changed.  Dante's beautiful suit turned to rags and hung limply on his now cadaverous body. Shock sent chills jittering down his spine. Memories of this afternoon's screen test, once so sweet and glowing, shattered into bitter, tawdry shards,  the scene reduced to clumsy play-acting in front of bed sheets.  Clark's grip on his hand turned vice-like and agony shot up his arm. Clark's eyes bore into his soul, gleaming green with gleeful venom. 

         He was in Bizzaro World, the planet of mirror images where everything was reversed.  Where round was square, good was bad, and beautiful was ugly.  Where life was death.

         Dante shuddered. The fateful, bizarre inversions, the song's evocation of his life with Jesse, the promise of eternal but fatal dreams, these couldn't be accidents. They had to portend something deeper. Something terrifying. 

         Something he wasn't ready to face. 
         
                                                 
Back to the chapter list
"Dreamin' Life Away"