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Rick Archer's Note:
Needless to say,
following the Lighthouse Accident, I went on Supernatural
Alert. It was beyond eerie that I was thinking about
Victoria's 'Accidents come in threes' theory right as we took
the floor. Ritz, Spats, Lighthouse. Every
single one of these accidents was caused by something completely out
of my control.
Darn it, we tested those
fans ahead of time! Since Victoria's toes did not touch
anything when the fans were motionless, it never occurred to
us that her toes could reach the lower part of the
curved blade. It was our bad luck that Victoria tested
the fan in the wrong spot. In her defense, she was
upside down during the test and my face was buried in her
face. How were we supposed to know the blade above was
slightly angled?
Victoria's toe
had to be in the precise place for the blade to strike.
If Victoria had been facing a different direction when the
blade hit, she would have fallen in front of me where there
was no danger. So she had a 50% chance of missing the
problem altogether. Furthermore, those four fans
covered only a third of the ceiling area above the dance
floor. That gave her an even greater chance of being
spared. Nor did either of us realize that someone had
turned the fans on during our performance. It was bad luck all
around.
All I knew was that here
was another weird accident and I was not happy. It bothered me
no end that I had taken every precaution I could think of, but
something went wrong anyway. My feeling of helplessness was
very difficult to deal with.
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THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
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077 |
Serious |
Strange Accident
Dance Curse 3 |
1979 |
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When a
ceiling fan blade nips Victoria's toes at the Lighthouse, Victoria narrowly
misses serious injury |
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JULY 1979, the disco years
THAT SHAKY FEELING
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Victoria
cried the entire way home following
the Lighthouse accident. Considering how badly
she could have been hurt, Victoria was extremely shaken. She spent most of the trip with her face
buried
in her hands. As for me, the similarity of this ride home to
my ride home with Patricia following Spats
was eerie to say the least.
Car Talk in the
week following the Lighthouse was intense.
As one might guess, our topic of conversation was the accident.
I was pleased to note Victoria did not blame me. Victoria accepted
that the ceiling fans were at fault. She confirmed again that something
hit the top of her toe to knock her off balance, so what else could
it be?
Understandably, Victoria was seriously spooked by
this accident. The more we talked, I
discovered Victoria was very superstitious.
Like me, Victoria believed in Fate. Certain
that something 'Fateful' had taken place, Victoria
was convinced this accident was an act of God. At first, I thought
I had found someone I could talk to about my belief
in Fate. But I changed my mind when
I found I was being blamed after all. And why was
that? One night Victoria came up with the
theory that there was a dark cloud hanging over me and
now it was raining on her as well. Prior to the accident,
Victoria had listened to my retelling of the Ritz
and Spats stories and concluded I was innocent
of any mistakes. However, now that Victoria was on the
receiving end of danger, the Lighthouse
incident changed her mind.
"Rick, you
know how superstitious I am. I grew up believing
plane accidents always happen in threes. Does that
rule apply to dance disasters as well? You have
three disasters, but I only have one. Maybe we
should stop here before it is too late."
I shrugged my
shoulders. "We can stop if you want, Victoria. I
don't want you to be afraid."
"I don't
know. Let me think about it. We have that
Foley's performance next week. Maybe we
should try one more time."
"I'm game if
you are, but I am not the one on the dangerous end of the risks."
That thought
made Victoria pause.
"I hate to
say this, Rick, but you have had three accidents. I feel there might be some sort of
Dance Curse hanging over you."
Oh great,
just what I need. First the Epic Losing Streak,
now a Dance Curse. Feeling
rather fatalistic myself, I was in no mood to argue with
her. Little did she know, but I had been
wondering the same thing. I took a long, deep breath, then replied. "I
certainly hope not. I will simply tell you that in my
heart, I did nothing wrong at the Lighthouse.
We were the victims of bad luck. I hope you will trust me and try again."
Victoria
looked at me long and hard. "I don't know, Rick.
I'm inclined to try one more time. But I might change my
mind."
Considering how
superstitious I am, Victoria's fears weighed heavily on my
conscience. Maybe I really was cursed. Given my
tendency to believe that Fate plays a major part of my life,
these three accidents were so odd that I could not help but
raise an eyebrow. Victoria did not know it, but I
already believed I was cursed by the Epic Losing Streak.
Thanks to Patricia, the Losing Streak had reached its 15th
year. Since things with Victoria were going badly,
there was no end in sight to the Epic Losing Streak.
The way I looked at it, if I was a Curse to Victoria, she
was a Curse to me. That put Victoria in the middle of
two curses at once... the Losing Streak and the Dance Curse.
In other words, Victoria was a Double Curse.
Considering how I felt about her attack of Cold Feet, that came as no
surprise.
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August
1979, the disco years
FOLEY'S DEPARTMENT STORE
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Just a few days after the
Lighthouse incident, Victoria and I were
scheduled to do a
weekday dance exhibition at the
Foley's
store downtown. Foley's
was Houston's major fashion store of the day. It
was Houston's answer to Macy's. Foley's
had decided to introduce a new
line of
Disco dancewear.
The store wanted to
use a
dance performance to help lure their female customers to
come check
out the dance apparel section.
Perhaps the Reader wonders why new
Disco apparel was being sold in a city that was trending
Western. Indeed some of the Houston fashion stores
were already selling fancy Western merchandise.
The thing to remember is that this new Western trend was
unique to Houston only. Meanwhile Disco was raging
out of control in every other city in the country.
Hmm. Maybe I should move to Dallas. Don't
think the idea didn't cross my mind.
Always the fashion plate, Foley's
was Victoria's second home. One of Victoria's
dance students worked there. Louise had recognized
Victoria as she strolled the aisles and the two women struck
up a friendship. Louise came up with
the idea of asking Victoria to perform. Victoria
had said yes without hesitation, but now she was having second thoughts.
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Due to her superstitious nature, Victoria was having trouble dealing with her fear of another accident.
I might
have my three accidents, but she had only one. By
her logic, maybe she was in line for two more.
The personal connection
with her Foley's friend Louise is probably the only reason Victoria agreed to
go through with this. That plus the fact that Foley's
had featured promises of our performance in the morning
newspaper.
Victoria was a
born worrier. She could not seem to shake her increasing
sense of fear. It wasn't that she didn't trust me,
but there was definitely some nagging doubt. It
was very hard to overlook that scary near-miss. Maybe
she wouldn't be quite as lucky when the next accident
happened. Her confidence was shot to pieces.
Realizing she needed to shake it off, I asked
Victoria to do the same Sidecars-Jackknife move
again in practice. With Glen acting as a spotter
in case of difficulty, we did the move
perfectly. Victoria was
encouraged, but not convinced. So we did it a second time.
Again no problem. Victoria
gave me a baffled look.
"I don't
understand, Rick. I was not at all fearful
just now. You had me completely under control
just like always. However, doing the move again
triggered a memory. When we did this move at
the Lighthouse, I felt totally under
control just like today. Except that I
suddenly toppled over when the fan hit me. I guess if something is meant to be,
it is meant to be."
Victoria was
starting to sound like me. Que sera, sera.
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Acrobatics are exciting.
Not only are they flashy, everyone knows they are risky. There is a 'daring
young lady on the flying trapeze'
quality to dance acrobatics.
Victoria had been fearless
up till now. Not anymore. Like a person
who has fallen in a gymnastics accident, Victoria was
certain if it can happen once, it can happen again.
Once
someone knows fear, it is difficult to regain trust. Like
a baseball player who gets hit in the head with a pitch, the memory of
danger makes it difficult not to flinch from that point on.
Same for Victoria. Victoria
reminded me over and over again to be careful.
With
the
Lighthouse
accident present in her mind,
Victoria outlawed further use
of the scary Sidecars-Jackknife move for Foley's.
So instead we agreed to substitute a flashy move called
Around the World
to replace Sidecars.
Acrobatics are difficult to explain in writing, but I will do my
best. One of the first acrobatic moves I
learned was a
cheerleader
move called Rock the Cradle.
The man starts by cradling the woman in front of him. Then
he flings the lady onto his back. She returns back to
the Cradle Position by reversing the motion. In other
words, the woman goes halfway around the right side of a man's
body clockwise, stops for an instant, then reverses her momentum
to return to the front
counter-clockwise.
I had used this move with Suzy back at the Ritz
to a nice round of applause shortly before disaster
struck. This was not a dangerous move.
However, thanks to Glen, Victoria and I
had learned a difficult variation.
Known
as Around the World, the move starts the
same way as Rock the Cradle, but this time
the woman does not stop on the man's back, but rather
keeps going. In other words, the woman makes a
spectacular 360 degree orbit around the man's body.
Thus the name.
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Around the World
is
difficult. In order to make this move work, the
woman must be able to keep her momentum. Any loss
of momentum sabotages the difficult Stage Two
connection. Stage One begins
with the woman leaping into the man's
arms to the Cradle Position. The man steadies the woman, then
swings her clockwise onto his back with her legs
arriving first. Stage Two begins the moment he feels the woman on
his back. The man reaches behind his back with his left arm
and wraps it around the back of her knees. She
quickly folds her legs around the man's left
forearm. Without any break in the motion, the man uses
his left arm to swing her back to the original Cradle Position.
In other words, he uses his right
arm to get her to his back, then uses his left arm to return the
girl to the front. The knee and left arm connection
has to be made in a split second or
the momentum is lost. That is the tricky part of
the move. We had great difficulty learning the
sharp timing necessary to make it work. The woman
has to lock her legs around the man's left arm at the exact moment
he begins
swinging her back in front. The secret is to
perfect the timing. I messed this part up
a good twenty times before I finally developed the
confidence to swing her forward without
hesitation.
Fortunately, Victoria was in no danger while I figured
it out. Her hands
were free to break her fall if something went wrong.
Since her legs were connected to my left arm,
any time the move did not work Victoria would dangle till I put her down gently. Victoria and I had failed
so many times that she
understood the only real danger was the embarrassment of
not making the move work properly. Fortunately,
thanks to lots of practice, we had
gotten so good that 'dangling' was a thing of the
past. While training for Foley's,
we never made a mistake on any of our acrobatics. That helped Victoria rebuild her confidence. We chalked
up
the
Lighthouse
accident to bad luck, not to any
flaw in our
dancing. Her enthusiasm
returned and we were
ready to try again.
The Foley's performance was
well-promoted. Victoria proudly pointed
to an ad in the morning newspaper.
'Come see Dance Superstars Rick and Victoria perform
at Foley's today!' Always the glory hound, Victoria was excited when a crowd of
100 people gathered to watch us show off. Several
of our students were present because Victoria had told
them about the event.
Our
performance started well. Our
routine proceeded flawlessly and the crowd began to clap.
Then came Around the World.
They call it 'Breakneck Speed' for a reason. For me to succeed, I had to
whip Victoria around my body as fast as possible to
maintain the critical centrifugal force. If I
failed to catch her legs properly, that is when the
dangling begins. But this time, something different happened,
something that felt weird. Just as I
tried to snag her legs with my left arm, Victoria's legs
slipped
right through my arm.
What the heck had gone wrong?!
This mistake had never
happened before. Previously all Victoria did was
dangle. Not this time.
For some unknown reason my left arm
and her legs did not connect properly. Unable to break her momentum, Victoria
went flying
into the air with her arms flailing wildly
in front of her.
Thanks to her considerable momentum,
Victoria briefly resembled Supergirl in flight.
She flew about four feet before hitting the floor on her
stomach with a giant thud. From here, she skidded
on her belly another six feet till she came to a stop
against a display stand on the edge of the floor.
The collision knocked the wind out of her and left her
crumpled up in a ball. Victoria laid there motionless
as the frightened crowd screamed in horror.
I raced to
her side to see if she was all right.
Victoria had still not moved when I arrived. I think she
was stunned. Several anxious seconds
passed. Finally Victoria turned
her head to see me standing over her. She tentatively moved an arm,
then a leg. Thank goodness everything worked. I was so
relieved. Once Victoria realized she was okay, she slowly sat up.
However she said nothing. She just sat there dazed from her latest accident. I was
incredulous. I did not
have a clue what had gone wrong. Nothing
like this had ever happened before.
Victoria had taken quite a jolt,
but she only needed a couple minutes of sitting to recover.
Perhaps she got up too soon. Victoria stumbled as she got up
and fell back down. She
cursed softly under her breath, then succeeded on her
second try by letting me help her up. People began
to clap for her, but that ended abruptly when Victoria lost her
temper and screamed at me in front of the crowd.
"What the hell
did you do wrong this time?!?! Why didn't you catch me?
How stupid can you be? This is the last time I am ever going
to trust you!!"
I knew it was
her fear
talking, but Victoria's sharp words stung me to the core.
I did not appreciate being made the Villain in front of
all these people. With 100 people staring accusatorily, I hung my head in shame. I did
not have an answer. Nor could I comfort her. Victoria was too disgusted to let
me near her.
Victoria was not hurt except for a
bad
bruise or two. However, she was too shaken to
resume dancing. Just
then Victoria noticed everyone staring at us wide-eyed.
Feeling
humiliated, Victoria looked at me and barked, "Let's just get out of
here."
Grabbing my hand, Victoria wordlessly
walked straight through the crowd dragging me in tow. Our
accident had brought a shocking end to yet another failed
performance.
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JULY 1979, the disco years
GREASED LIGHTNING
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Victoria's
feelings were bruised more than her body. Since she was not
hurt, Victoria wanted to escape the embarrassment. And so she weaved
her way through the Foley's Fashion section as swift as
possible. Racing to catch up, I felt the same way.
Neither of us wanted to answer questions or receive sympathy.
Once she was out of sight of the spectators,
Victoria slowed down. I trailed her wordlessly as she made her
way through a maze of aisles. Halfway
through the building, Victoria found a semi-deserted area for us to
talk. She
began a heated harangue over my failure to do my part
correctly. Angered by her sharp words,
I couldn't take the criticism.
"Look,
Victoria, I have
performed this stunt flawlessly many times.
I agree Around the World
is a tough move, but there has never been a single mistake like this
nor have you ever been hurt. It wasn't something I did wrong.
Your legs slipped right through my arm."
Victoria
replied, "Well, that's what you say, but how can it be my fault?
I never felt your arm catch me. I did my part correctly, but
you let my legs slip right through your arm. It felt to me
like you deliberately let my legs slip. Explain to me what
went wrong."
"I don't
know what went wrong.
All I know is
that your legs slipped through my left arm like they had grease on
them."
As Victoria
stood there glaring hate darts at me, I noticed her flashy new skintight
Disco pants.
That gave me an idea.
"I have a
hunch, Victoria. Let me feel the texture of your pants."
Victoria
looked down at her brand new shimmery stretch pants. She had
bought them especially for the performance. I don't know what
kind of fabric those pants were made of, but as I ran my hand across
them, I could feel the pants were incredibly slick. There was
absolutely no friction. I had my answer.
"Your pants
are the
reason for the accident, Victoria. There can be no other
explanation. I did everything right, but your
legs slipped through my arm like they had
lubrication on them. My arm was there just like it was
supposed to be, but your legs were made slippery by those fancy
Disco pants of yours."
Victoria
began to feel the smooth fabric with her own hands. Sure
enough,
her tight pants were slick as snake oil.
Finally she nodded. This made sense.
Neither Victoria nor I had any way to know ahead of time
that her brand-new super cool Disco outfit would cause a problem. If
there was any lesson to be learned, it would be to have a 'dress
rehearsal' to avoid wardrobe malfunctions. Who
knows, maybe if we had practiced beforehand in that outfit, we would
have caught the problem ahead of time. As it is stood, here
we were burdened with yet another freak accident.
Once Victoria realized her 'Greased Lightning'
outfit had caused her demise, she eased up. Maybe it
wasn't my fault after all. Nothing further was said while we
made our way to the car.
Although
Victoria's sleek outfit was to blame, that didn't stop
me from feeling guilty. I told myself I had no way of
knowing in advance just how slippery her legs were.
I reminded myself I had NEVER experienced
a problem with
this
move before. But Guilt does not always respond
to reason. This made two occasions where Victoria had
gotten hurt on my watch. Knowing Victoria, I doubted I would
get a third try.
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THE DANCE
CURSE
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By the time we got to the car,
Victoria was suspicious again. "I am still not convinced my pants were
responsible. I think you are hiding something.
You did something wrong, I am sure of it. I
think you
are using my pants as an excuse."
Suppressing a rising anger, I
disagreed.
"I am
telling you that I did my part correctly. I reached back with
my left arm and felt your legs go
right through like my arm wasn't even there. Until now, I have
a perfect
track record on this move. So do you. I executed this move the same way
at Foley's as
I did the ten previous times. I didn't do a single thing
differently. Your slippery pants have to be the
problem."
Victoria half-accepted my
explanation that her slick Disco pants were the likely
culprit, but I could tell she still held considerable
doubt. Victoria was convinced I had to be
responsible in some way. However, as we talked it
over, Victoria felt her pants repeatedly and slowly
persuaded herself that I was telling the truth.
Now she changed her tune. Realistically, I was not
to blame, but Mystically-speaking this was all my fault
due to the Dance Curse. Ritz, Spats, Lighthouse,
Foley's... four accidents in a row!
Victoria
could not get over the fact that I continued to claim
innocence.
"I'm sorry, Rick, but I just
can't believe anyone can have four accidents in a
row and not be responsible somehow. I want you
to listen to me.
Let's say I have a
girlfriend who keeps having car wrecks. My friend has
a perfectly reasonable explanation for the first accident, so I
extend sympathy to her. Then she has a second accident... but
she says wasn't her fault... and a third accident...
but she says it wasn't her
fault... and a fourth accident... but it still wasn't her fault. Four car wrecks
and she claims that not one single time was it her fault.
At some point I have to wonder if my girlfriend is changing
the facts or leaving out some of the details. Four accidents
is lot of accidents. Is my
girlfriend telling the
truth? Some part of me believes she must be fibbing.
No one has four accidents in a
row where they are guiltless! It defies the imagination,
it defies the odds.
Surely my girlfriend has to be responsible in some way.
That is why I have trouble believing you.
I have no way of knowing what went wrong with your
first two accidents, but I worry that you must be leaving
something out to make yourself look better."
I was so upset at Victoria's accusation I was
shaking. I did not agree with Victoria's conclusion, but at
the same time it was hard to ignore the proof.
Today's accident had me spooked. After a
moment to calm down, I replied.
"I see your point. On the surface, your logic makes perfect sense.
But just because you say the odds are against me,
I am not going to back down. All four accidents were out of my control.
I did not turn out the lights at the Ritz. A woman shoved me
in the back at Spats. You agree you were perfectly
balanced at the Lighthouse. As for Foley's, my arm was in
position just like it was supposed to be. Go ahead, you tell
me why these
accidents were my fault. You and I train together and we never have
a problem. So it makes no sense to me what is going on."
"All
right, Rick,
maybe you are blameless.
But what if you have a Curse?
If you are cursed, then the odds don't matter
anymore. Bad things happen anyway. I
hate to talk this way, but I think you are jinxed
somehow. Have you ever wondered if you have
some sort of black cloud hanging over you?
Four consecutive accidents where you claim to have
done nothing wrong makes no rational
sense."
Victoria
scored a direct hit with that suggestion. I stared
at her feeling dumbfounded. Victoria was the first
person I had ever met who openly believed in Fate just
as much as I
did. These dance accidents were so weird, I had
given up looking for a Realistic explanation.
Now I found that Victoria felt the same way. Since my accidents made no
rational sense, Victoria had looked to the Supernatural for
her explanation. And you know what?
I agreed with her. This was not a particularly cheerful
subject, but then Victoria said something that almost
made me chuckle.
"Rick,
you have nearly killed me twice on the dance floor.
If I didn't know better, there is some kind of
Voodoo Curse following you around. I bet
Patricia did it. I wouldn't put it past her to
put a
Curse on both of us."
Fortunately,
I suppressed my laugh. I half-grinned, half-frowned
at that one. Considering how
angry Patricia had been at Victoria for meddling all the
time plus her anger over the busted lip,
she definitely had a motive to seek revenge against
both of us.
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"So you
think Patricia visited a Voodoo Queen and put a spell on
us?"
Victoria
frowned. "I wouldn't put it past her. I know for a fact you are cursed." Victoria
paused. "On second thought, maybe we
both are. Someone is definitely trying to kill me."
Victoria's
suggestion hit home. It certainly felt like I was
jinxed in a supernatural way. That said, I was willing
to try again. However, Victoria was against it.
"No way,
Rick! I am not putting my neck back on the line
here. No more acrobatics. I'm not taking any
more chances, especially not with you!"
The Foley's
accident broke Victoria's spirit. Coming on the
heels of the Lighthouse accident, this
subsequent failure
took a
major toll on Victoria's already fragile mind. This performing dream of hers
was not working out like she had planned. Victoria
had survived two close
calls, but what about the third?
In the World of Superstition, Victoria
was certain that evil things come in Threes.
Based on that, she was convinced there was another
accident waiting to happen. She had escaped harm the first two times, but would she
be as lucky when the third
accident struck?
Convinced
she was due for a third accident, Victoria wasn't going to
chance it. Her mind was made up, so I called and
canceled our next performing opportunity.
Victoria's fear
was rubbing off on me. This latest accident sowed a seed
of doubt that gnawed like acid at my confidence. I had four straight failures haunting me. Was
Victoria was right or wrong? Who could say. No matter
which way I looked at it, I was having a hard time
maintaining
confidence in my ability as a performer. The thought
that I had a Dance Curse weighed
heavily on my mind. On one level, my rational mind
continued to believe I was blameless in all four
accidents. On another level, the Dance Curse
seemed real. I hate to say it, but I had started to believe
Victoria.
When Fate is
involved, anything is possible.
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