His Ballerina

It feels like I am, moving back and forth across the room, working on my traveling pirouettes with one eye in the mirror to check out my form. I would like to be able to afford a phone with a decent camera so I can record myself and then look at the footage afterward to see where I need to improve, but that’s not happening anytime soon. Still, it’s something to aspire for.

As usual, it’s not until my feet hurt that I realize how late it is. A check of the time tells me it’s past midnight—and I have the early shift tomorrow at the grocery store where I work as a stocker. I need to be at the store by six, which doesn’t leave me much time to get home, get a decent night’s sleep, and be out the door again.

Still, even with the sore feet, I hate having to turn off the music and call it a night. My cooldown takes fifteen minutes or so, and I’m in a hurry by the time I slide into my sneakers and pack up the shoes. As always, it stings a little to turn out the lights and turn my back on my dream until tomorrow.

I’m being an idiot, and I know it. I can even laugh at myself a little while turning out the rest of the lights in the building. My footsteps echo alarmingly in the otherwise empty space and send a shiver up my spine. This is when I inevitably regret being here so late, alone. Having to walk home by myself in a sketchy neighborhood.

What’s the alternative? Not being able to dance? No chance. It’s worth having my heart pound the whole way home. A day without dancing would be like a day without oxygen.

As usual, I cut out through the back, taking a shortcut through a series of alleys. They’re usually empty except for maybe one or two homeless people who make up beds behind hole-in-the-wall takeout restaurants and dry cleaners. Sometimes, if I have an extra bottle of water or a snack, I’ll leave it for them as I’m passing.

Most people would avert their eyes, shake their heads and click their tongues before hurrying past. Not me. I can’t ignore these people. I mean, I could easily be one of them. I know how close I’ve come to poverty—how close I always am, really—to ignore people who’ve had a run of bad luck.

I don’t have water or snacks tonight. Just sore feet to go along with the fatigue spreading to the rest of my body. But it’s a good kind of fatigue, the kind that comes after a hard workout. Sometimes I wonder why the people who come to the gym workout so hard and look so miserable while they’re doing it, or like they’re struggling through something terrible. I look forward to working out. Maybe they haven’t found something they enjoy yet.

My feet crunch on broken glass, and what sounds like a whisper on the evening breeze reminds me of where I am and how dangerous this part of town happens to be. There are a lot of desperate people around here, people in worse positions than me, and desperate people do desperate, violent things.

I need to get home—fast. Now I’m thinking it was probably stupid of me to hang around as long as I did—and even stupider considering I’m not carrying so much as a can of Mace to defend myself with.

It stinks back here, in these alleys, with overflowing dumpsters creating a nauseating stench even on a cool night like this. In the summer, it’s brutal enough to turn my stomach, and those are the nights when I choose to walk on the sidewalk rather than taking a shortcut.

I wonder as I walk with my head down and my shoulders up around my ears whether there will ever be a time when I finally make it. Will I ever be comfortable? Will I ever be able to fall asleep without worrying where this month’s rent is coming from? It seems like an eighteen-year-old shouldn’t have this much stress. I should be starting college, making new friends in the dorm, meeting guys. Not working three jobs, living in an apartment where my only roommates are roaches.

It’s the roaches I’m thinking about as I turn the corner, planning to cut down one last alley before taking the remaining three blocks on the sidewalk.

And what I find stops me in my tracks.

There’s a man up ahead—no, two men. One of them is wearing a tracksuit, kneeling on the ground, his hands in the air. He’s babbling, weeping. I’m not close enough to hear what he’s saying, but I can hear the cadence of his voice, the desperation as he begs.

Begs for what? Mercy? Did his gambling debts get to be too much? Maybe he robbed the wrong person, and it’s coming back to bite him. Either way, looking at him, it’s clear he regrets whatever he did.