The Dancing Bears by Rob Costello

Author:Rob Costello
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lethe Press

The Thing With Chains

At dusk, Benji watched the other boys make a game out of turning on every light in every room they could find until all of Palazzo di Bacco glittered on its bluff high above the Pacific like a neoclassical temple of marble and light illuminated from within. Their pretentious host—who names his own house “Palazzo di Bacco” anyway?—flicked on strings of delicate paper lanterns suspended on poles around the perimeter of the patio. They now glow like spirit balls reflected back in the softly polished terrazzo tiles and the azure surface of the pool, which radiates liquid incandescence from its underwater lights. Their host also lit an entire box of scented candles and scattered them across the patio, where their sinuous flames perfume the already sweet ocean air with the earthy aromas of sandalwood and pine.

The night is awash in light.

An ocean breeze wafts buttery and warm against Benji’s bare chest. The radio plays softly in the background. Earlier, while the men were arguing over who would win the upcoming election—President Carter or the Gipper himself—one of the boys tuned to a disco station so that he and the others could dance. Benji watched their cocaine-fueled gyrations with disinterest while simultaneously eavesdropping on the men laughing nervously at the absurdity of a B-movie actor ascending to the White House. Yet now, they’ve all settled together in the hot tub, politics and dancing forgotten, leaving him to hum along to “Cherchez la Femme” while he sips his rum and coke in a gossamer bubble of solitude.

He sits on the pool’s edge in a shadowy corner of the patio far from the rest of the party, wiggling his toes below the waterline as he peers at the mosaic on the bottom, a depiction out of Greek mythology, a laughing Dionysus standing in a shimmering golden chariot drawn by prancing leopards across a background of stars and swirling planets. Surrounding this chariot is a retinue of drunken satyrs, centaurs, and cherubs, all nude, dancing while sloshing fat jugs of wine. Several of the more menacing-looking satyrs brandish erections as fearsome as pikes, which they thrust before them like weapons or use to sodomize a group of human worshippers who have fallen to their knees in ecstatic veneration of the passing god.

Though this strikes Benji as an odd choice for pool decor, it certainly sets the mood for this party: After dinner, their host handed out little gray Quaaludes to Benji and the other boys and cheerily announced that they were, “To loosen us all up and make everyone feel groovy.”

Benji managed to spit his into the pool without anyone noticing. He was already lit enough from the Valium he swallowed earlier, followed by several shots of spiced rum from their host’s liquor cabinet. As he gazes up at the stars erupting from the twilit sky in droplets of sizzling white lava, he relishes the luxury of being left alone for once. Unlike at most of the recent parties he’s attended, he’s even managed to keep his swim trunks on so far this evening.

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