Bernice Bobs Her Head

Let’s Misbehave — some wild foxtrot set to saucy Cole Porter lyrics — suddenly vanished as the gargantuan amplifying horn burst into a thousand small metal pieces. The ladies turned their heads towards the center of the lavish ballroom, their bobs dancing in the thick, cigarette-filled air, while some men gasped as they stopped dancing. Within seconds, everybody started exchanging puzzled looks, frowning and looking around — trying to figure out what had just happened.

Nanette gave a nervous kick to her boyfriend Dick and the tall, handsome man turned back to look at the blond girl as she was giving away an unusually dark grin that promptly disappeared, just as fast as it had come. Before he could actually perceive the evanescent, despaired look in her freckle-infested face, her typical smirk was already there — a haughty, yet cute smile of control, widening, emphasizing the perfect cut of her hair. My own private, golden-haired Louise Brooks, Dick thought.

‘Did you hear a gunshut?’ Nanette whispered to his ear as dark skinned butlers entered the room carrying a new gramophone.

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Dick admitted, speaking in a low, deep voice as well — only not as nasal and irritating as his girlfriend’s.

Nanette pushed herself towards him, forcing Dick to hug her, and looked over his shoulder. The black men were setting the machine while the hostess — curvy and sassy Bernice — was deciding which record to play next. Nanette sighed. She was sure the old lady would choose some cheesy old Berlin rag — again.

‘If Bernice puts Alexander’s Goddamned Band one more time, I swear I’ll —.’

The golden-haired Louise Brooks couldn’t finish her sentence, she had to scream. Only seconds before the phonograph could be properly installed, its horn exploded. A raw idea crossed her mind as fast and violent as a thunder: the butler closest to the machine would get his face cut in a million different places. Her shut eyes saw blood flowing violently out of the man’s dark, cut open neck. Just like a scarlet fountain, she thought in broken ideas, feeling each drop grow ever closer to her loose lime dress.

As she finally screamed, Nanette pushed herself harder to Dick. The boyfriend, who hadn't even been able to see the phonograph being set in the middle of the ballroom — atop a highly ornamented platform that looked like a wooden oasis in the middle of a marble desert —, couldn’t see the silver, unevenly cut triangle as it hurried towards the nape of his neck. Shouting with her eyes still firmly closed, Nanette only felt something grow and fondle her thigh for a moment, then suddenly collapse at the next. Half a second later, a thick, warm liquid was slipping down her cheek, making the image of the black man bounce back before she could realize she was quickly being drenched in Dick’s blood.

Her boyfriend’s body lost all his life and fell to the ground. The cracking sound of his head breaking against the marble floor went unheard over the hysterical cries of the guests. Dizzy as she was, though, she could tell some men were shrieking in a slightly higher-pitch than most women.

Suddenly not so out of the blue, the rest of the phonograph blew up and the screaming grew louder as the champagne glasses joined the machine’s kamikaze sacrifice. Crystal and metal covered the air just like smoke and laughter had, merely minutes ago. The chaos built into a violent crescendo as a curtain caught fire and a chandelier fell over a group of women sheltered behind the (there you’ve got your prohibition) drinks table before one last, blood-chilling scream put an end to all of it. It was half a scream, actually, since Bernice had only began to shout when a 78 cut her head right through the jaw — along the line of a bob cut —, just as easily as if the bulk of flesh and bone had been some melting butter.

The record — now a hurling disc of red and black — landed on Nanette’s scarlet tinted, shaky hands. What was left of her mind yelled it must be that darned alexander’s ragtime band, but she was wrong. She was holding the 78 of the Cole Porter foxtrot.

A realization struck her as Bernice’s and Dick’s blood started slipping through her fingers and onto her arm: the room was silent — the people had either shut up from shock or had their heads cut open just as impeccably as the hostess’s had —, but there was music there. Nanette gave a step back and, lying against a golden column so as not to fall, tried to breathe and calm down. where?, asked her hoarse mental voice, and Irene Bordoni’s answered, sending verses straight to Nanette’s head:

‘We're all alone, no chaperone

Can get our number.

The World’s in slumber — let’s misbehave!’