How I Danced with the Man in the Mirror

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rlington Avenue, might be one of the easy going towns in Brooklyn, New York, but deep inside its heart laid one of the dopest buildings in all of Brooklyn, the lighthouse. The lighthouse made more crazy noise than the entire Yankee stadium and had more lightening on its dance floor than ‘club la-vela,’ the largest nightclub in the United States of America.

I definitely rode with the A-teams and not with the inferior B-class dance crews. Just ain’t my style and so we had to come up with the best dance crew in all of Brooklyn. We had the likes of Maximus Dwayne, an exceptionally skilled dancer. He happened to be the leader and co-founder of our dance crew. Then we had the son of the legendary Black Jackson, I referred to him as my adopted cousin and that’s because his family was the only extended family I ever had plus the fact that we both grew up right here on the streets of Arlington Avenue, where I learnt my first dance moves from the Black Jackson himself.Im talking about the Special one himself Lloyd Jackson. Then weve got Klause, the elastic man. Raul Santiago, the son of the multi- billion dollars kingpin, who is said to be the third most nfluential man in all of New York and presently owns the largest and most powerful cartel in all of Brooklyn. I’m talking about the big billionaire boss himself, Phillipe Don Carlos Santiago.  Though he is from a very wealthy and powerful family, yet he loved dancing on the streets. Mayor Banks, the stunt hit-man, Tonya Fox, a stripper, who became the second female on our dance crew after myself; Marley Wales, the two step killer. We also had a room for the White Dude Ryan Gates, the Robo-man, Natasha flames Max’s girl friend. Now here was the part where I, Melina Sparks, came in. You can call me the Show Stealer and that’s because I knew how to make the dance floor rock and at the same time get the crowds cheering, and not forgetting Kim, the Asian American, who sometimes served as our last resort when competitions got really tough and had a special way of bringing life to the team.

They are one of the finest and most creative dancers I had ever come across and together we formed the best dance crew in all of Brooklyn; together we became the Maximus Prime. We became the beginning and ending of every dance battle, and we were the new generation dance transformers. Only for the fact that we did not run after a cube, we just danced for the glory, and money.

The Saxons was one of the greatest dance crews representing Bedford Avenue, a place well recognized for rising some of the greatest dancers in urban Brooklyn amongst them is the legendary Christopher Jackson, a.k.a the Black Jackson. He was a dance god to the young generation and so influential that every young one wanted to talk like him, act like him, dance like him and even dress like him. As a matter of fact we all wanted to be like him. He was our role model and at the same time mentor to many young black and white dancers in Brooklyn.

Our host and MC, at the lighthouse, who is nearly seven feet tall, is Jason Black, a.k.a the Komondor, named after a large Hungarian breed of livestock guard dog. He always loved the doggish life and since he could not be the next Snoop Doggy Dogg because he was never a gifted rapper, he had to make use of his tough muscles, height and an amazingly great physic, which made the thugs in Brooklyn greatly fear him. No wonder he was hired for the job of the host at the lighthouse by Mr. Hudson, a bulky of five feet tall Man, with blond hair, deep eyes and a crooked voice. However, most people never really liked Mr. Hudson; most recently was he accused of the murder of some white and black folks not too long ago and severely criticized by the blacks in the neighborhood of racial abuse and sexual assault on a thirteen years old black girl.

However, despite every strong accusation against him, Mr. Hudson always came out clean and free of all charges pressed against him. Probably, this might be due to his strong connections with the Mayor and the magistrate, Judge Clinton, and some other powerful political top guns.

Mr. Hudson, a wealthy and influential politician but despite being a fine politician, he happens to be a very terrible political leader, for he was never interested in the good of the public or anybody except his own greedy interest.

I strongly believe that the lighthouse put in place by Mr. Hudson was to calm the strong criticisms against him by the black folks in the black communities of Brooklyn and some few sincere white dudes who never really liked him.

Mr. Hudson happens to be a brilliant man, who hails from the city of New Jersey, but later he settled at broad way and for the past three years, he was seeing constantly on Arlington Avenue.

The Saxons, led by Sean Damon, wanted a rematch against the Maximus Prime our own dance crew and so they challenged us to a straight edge street dance battle, meaning everything and anything  goes from pango to samba, samba to krunk, ballet, cha-cha, break dance, free style, stunts  just name it. It was design to be one hell of a street war, the toughest of all streets dance battles.

DJ fury happens to be the official DJ at the lighthouse, mixing the wheels with those wicked skinny fingers of hers that makes the table turn and goes up in flames. She is also current with the hottest hip-hop mixes and craziest of beats, so hot are her mixes that she knows the perfect beats each dance crew loves to dance to, but some of us still came up with our own mixes.

The Komondor arrayed both dance crews before the crowds, as they raised their voices high making loud noises for both teams.  Jason Black, a.k.a the komondor, seeing that both dance crews were set and eager for battle wasted no further time by blowing the symbolic horn which ignited the beginning of every dance battle at the Lighthouse.

After sixty minutes of earnest sweat, blood and tears, both teams still remained tied up to a tie. This was the toughest street battle of my career as a dancer. I stared at my team and could see that every one of them drained but just kept fighting hard with the last blood in their veins. Kim, the Asian American, had completely run out of ideas since all his moves were imitated and better danced by a copycat who was specially hired by the Saxons just for this battle, Mark Theon. He was damn good but never too good to be better than us, the Maximus Prime. I certainly wasn’t ready to see me and my team loose our undefeated streak at the lighthouse tonight, shutting  my eyes tight I searched deep within me and could find just one resort left and that’s the Aeonflux Drop. I have been practicing this wicked dance move now for nearly five months and had never really perfected it. Well, I guess there really is no worse time to perfect a dance move than in the middle of a dance battle, especially when you have reached that point where you just have to give it your all or you’re going down. I threw myself in front of my dance crew as they stood behind wondering what I had in mind.  I sprang myself into the air by placing my body in an horizontal position and spinning myself in an upward motion, as I went higher from the floor after three successful spins I turned my entire body up side down while in the air as energy and sweat drained out of my bodydripping on the dance floor. For the first time in my life I did a double three sixty in the air, defiling every law of gravity and while aiming downwards for the most massive drop in world dance history, The Aeonflux drop as I called it, everything suddenly went blank and anything I stared at was as dark as a deep hollow like I could feel myself falling into a mysterious trance. I really had no idea what happened. The only thing I could remember was that everything went blank but some how I was still able to finish the dance move with a perfect split. I began hearing faint noises, and it gradually grew louder until I was able to start recorgnizing it.

As the crowd kept chanting my name, ‘Melina,’ ‘Melina,’ I knew I had done it again. The Maximus Prime had just defeated the Saxons and I could feel the crowds lifting me up from the ground and tossing me up into the air, all hailing ‘Melina Sparks queen of the Maximus Prime, as my team members celebrated loudly except for max and Natasha flames, who didn’t seem quite happy about the new fame bestowed upon me. However, I never really cared about the envy and that’s because my body was feeling so weak and I just wanted to go home.

A black woman in her mid thirties suddenly barged into the lighthouse and called my name, I turned a faint stare snd found out it was my mother, Taylor Sparks. As soon as I heard her voice, I could feel an instant energy reviving in me. Walking straight up to me, she said in an angry voice ‘come on girl, we need to get out of here now, and what on earth did i say to you about dancing silly girl?’ But mama...,’ I tried defending myself but she cut me off quickly, saying, ‘don’t you mama me, little lady, when I said no more lighthouse and dancing, I damn meant no more,’ as she grabbed me by my right arm and led me outside of the door.

‘Now listen to me honey, I just received information that the Black Jackson has been murdered and you have no idea how much an uproar this might cause tonight, plus, I just got information that a huge riot by an angry

Mama pushed me into her old Volvo car and she drove me home that night