Starlight Part 2

I’m in Florida checking out an abandoned 1930’s ballroom for future development, and Callie, my girl friend, is back in Toronto.

There was a time when a jaunt to Florida would seem romantic to her, but now she sees it as a boring drive down I-75 and overnight stays in seedy motels.

It appears the enchantment has gone out of our relationship.

But back in the Thirties this place must have been magical—the long black pier is still here, jutting out into silvery surf.

Styles change, fashions fade, but elementals endure forever.

The Moon, the water and sand still conjure up the enchantment of shadowy lovers dancing on waves, with the rest of the world far away.

A pang of loneliness gnaws at me—the sea will do that to you—fill you with longing for a life you never had, except in dreams.

And it’s inexorable in strength—the pull of the tides and the relentless call of the sea.

Unsurprisingly, my disappointment in Callie has turned me gloomy.

Admittedly, I’m a melancholic, naturally drawn to sad things, and the fetishism of being alone in a romantic place is too masochistic for me to resist—the trip will add another beautiful pain to my treasury of disappointments and losses.

Poor me, I grin cynically, and plod up the sandy bank toward the deserted ballroom.

If Callie had one romantic bone in her body, I’d dance her around that deserted ballroom—it’d be magical on such a night as this.

I stop and stare up at the yellow lamp of the Moon, hazy and lighting the gray dome of the sky.

Moonlight Pier—haunted by ghosts of lovers long dead. It’s depressingly beautiful.

And it’s eerie walking several hundred feet out into the gulf, perched on a dubious causeway of wood that could suddenly give out beneath my feet—as if I cared. I don’t—not really.

Life hasn’t turned out the way I planned.

I didn’t expect to hit my mid thirties solitary—but here I am, a modern day Marlboro Man, ponying through the dark night in my Mustang Shelby.

Lucky me, I berate myself, fated to be alone in paradise, because I backed the wrong horse again.

I walk to the end of the pier and stand before the doors of the dilapidated barn that was once a glittering palace of Swing.

I’m feeling so morose I can barely stand listening to my own thoughts.

I try the brass handle expecting the door to be locked, but surprisingly, it’s not, and I creak open a world I thought forever lost.

The interior of the cavernous barn is silvered with moonlight as if stardust rained down here for decades.

I walk to the center of what was once an enormous dance floor and breathlessly stare out at the silvery track of Moon on the waves.

This is incredible—it’s a feeling akin to discovering a clock still ticking in a long deserted room.

As I stand in the filtered light of stars and moonbeams, I hear in the distance the strains of a familiar song.

It takes a moment before I recognize it—it’s Glenn Miller’s band playing Moonlight Serenade.

It’s impossible—the hall is absolutely deserted, but I feel I’m suddenly transported back to the Thirties.

© 2018, John J Geddes. All rights reserved

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