<div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 18px">
<script class="js-extraPhrases" type="application/json">
			{
				"lightbox_close": "Close",
				"lightbox_next": "Next",
				"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
				"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
				"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
				"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
				"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
				"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
				"lightbox_download": "Download",
				"lightbox_share": "Share",
				"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
				"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
				"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
			}
			</script>
<div class="bbImageWrapper lazyload js-lbImage" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-single-image="1" data-src="/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Ffotos.fotoflexer.com%2F9824708fafab551f38e570aa372aac0c.jpg&amp;hash=32b2c3c5337bd738026d6201d50a3f2c" title="9824708fafab551f38e570aa372aac0c.jpg">
<img alt="9824708fafab551f38e570aa372aac0c.jpg" class="bbImage lazyload" data-src="/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Ffotos.fotoflexer.com%2F9824708fafab551f38e570aa372aac0c.jpg&amp;hash=32b2c3c5337bd738026d6201d50a3f2c" data-url="http://fotos.fotoflexer.com/9824708fafab551f38e570aa372aac0c.jpg" data-zoom-target="1" height="" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" style="" title="" width=""/>
<noscript><img alt="9824708fafab551f38e570aa372aac0c.jpg" class="bbImage" data-url="http://fotos.fotoflexer.com/9824708fafab551f38e570aa372aac0c.jpg" data-zoom-target="1" height="" src="/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Ffotos.fotoflexer.com%2F9824708fafab551f38e570aa372aac0c.jpg&amp;hash=32b2c3c5337bd738026d6201d50a3f2c" style="" title="" width=""/></noscript>
</div>
</span>​</div><span style="font-size: 18px"><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Ever since Elai Charette was born, his mother, Victoria, had been working her ass off. The single mom of four lived in the predominately black neighborhood of Highland Park, Detroit, commuting into downtown Detroit for work. Her daily routine consisted of waking up at 3:30 a.m. to get ready for work, feed the kids breakfast before school, and then make it onto the 5:30 a.m. bus. She worked a full day, and then got home during the late evening, just to repeat the same process day in, day out. Victoria spent her weekends not for relaxation, but to help her three boys and one daughter with their homework, catch up on chores and keep her home running. <br/>
<br/>
Instead of butlers, nannies and maids, Elai and his siblings had chores from the time they turned four, there was no such thing as a free ride.<br/>
<br/>
Highland Park was a square mile's worth of land that was completely surrounded by the city of Detroit, except for a small portion that touched the city of Hamtramck, that too surrounded by the city of Detroit. The area was a neighborhood of pain, the last census showing that ninety-nine percent of all children under eighteen in Highland Park lived below the poverty line. In Detroit alone, that number was one in three children. Only three of ten adults had attended high school. In the last ten years the population there increased by thirty-eight percent but available housing has decreased by twelve percent, artificially squeezing five different ethnic groups together in a forced community to become a nineties version of a concentration camp.<br/>
</span><br/><i><span style="font-size: 18px">The struggle was indeed real.</span></i><br/><span style="font-size: 18px"><br/>
Rent. Food. Bus fare. Utilities. Uniforms and other school incidentals. These basic necessities of life caused Elai's mother to take two jobs in order to make ends meet. She had hardly any free time left to give her children, but she tried. There were birthdays and Christmases that Victoria made special even though the children's father, Lucas, was incarcerated in the Michigan state prison system and was totally out of the picture. As Elai grew, the oldest boy in the family took on the role of man of the house. <br/>
<br/>
Elai was responsible for watching his two younger brothers and sister by the time he turned ten, and he learned to handle crises that some older children never had to deal with. He fed himself and his siblings dinner, got them started on homework, made lunches for school, and ensured his brothers and sister were bathed before tucking them in bed for the night. Elai was asleep by the time his tired mother arrived home. Her paycheck was stretched thin, almost to the limit but there was still hope. Elai was the bright shining star in the Charette family, the dancer that had natural abilities that couldn't be merely taught.<br/>
<br/>
Charitable donations allowed Elai to be able to participate in ballet classes, the one outlet that he seemed to excel at. A grant given by a generous benefactor and patron of the arts allowed children who would have otherwise been denied access to participate. The grant allowed Elai a doorway in which to enter and to learn the basics of classical ballet. When he became hungry for more than just the basics, his mother looked for a better job, and got one at Aetna. Still she was among the working poor that lived in Highland Park that wanted to leave but couldn't, because they weren't blessed with money. <br/>
<br/>
The few elderly whites remaining from the time Highland Park was a "nice" neighborhood, owned their homes but gave up on trying to sell them. No one was buying houses in the Highland Park neighborhood, except absentee landlords who wanted to acquire blighted homes for less than a song, only to fix them up and sell or rent them out to those who by virtue of their social class found themselves there through gentrification. </span><span style="font-size: 18px">Unlike Asher, Elai grew up in an impoverished area in which swirled all the typical inner-city images everyone was so sick of watching on the news. <br/>
<br/>
Cyclone fences, broken glass, graffiti, unswept streets, chaotic youth. In a five block radius around their four bedroom colonial house were 61 empty lots or condemned homes in a square mile of land. While Asher's mother had the privilege of sleeping peacefully at night without having to fear that her child would wind up like the twelve-year-old boy down the street that found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, Elai's mother did. </span><span style="font-size: 18px">Ironically, the deceased child was engaged in the dangerous activity of walking home from school, dying after being caught in the crossfire between rival gangs. <br/>
<br/>
Living in a neighborhood that was 93.4% black, and 5% latino that ironically was called a place that some people described as a wasteland, there was open demonstration of the values of community, of caring, and of responsibility. </span><span style="font-size: 18px">Some considered it a curse, but Elai Charette considered his ability to rise from the ashes and overcome, a blessing. He spent hour after hour in the studio between the ages of seven to twenty playing catch up with his training, a factor most of the Corps de Ballet at American Ballet Theater took very much for granted because they had the luxury of learning ballet by the time they turned two or three. <br/>
<br/>
Elai was considered a late bloomer, but his finesse at the barre and at center stage plus his raw ability far surpassed that of other danseurs he was compared to. Especially Asher Tarkova. </span><span style="font-size: 18px">Considering Asher's apparent</span><i><span style="font-size: 18px"> affluenza</span></i><span style="font-size: 18px">, the fact that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and the arrogant, entitled way he lauded his position over the other dancers was not Elai's way of doing things. The blonde Michigander was neither impressed nor was he intimidated by his fellow company member. Asher had all the training his parents money could buy, but he had no discipline, no drive, and felt that he deserved and was owed things he didn't work hard enough to achieve. <br/>
<br/>
Going into the auditions for the role of Prince Albrecht, Elai had his game face on. Elai stayed later than other dancers at the studio to perfect his choreography, until he was prepared to win the role. And win it he did. Not by charisma, and certainly not by bribery or coercion. But by hard, honest, consistent work. Elai accepted the role, embracing it as his own with no desire to share the spotlight with Asher. He was humble, down-to-earth in and outside of the studio normally until the tension between he and Asher began to multiply until it was so thick the artistic director could cut through it with a knife. It didn't help matters that he walked into the changing room and caught Asher in the act of trash talking him in front of other members of the company.<br/>
</span><br/><i><span style="font-size: 18px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff4d4d">"I can't believe they gave that role to Elai. I mean, c'mon. You know I'd make a much better Albrecht. He's such a showboat anyway, and rumor has it that his mother's a junkie. Apples don't fall that far from the tree."</span></span></i><br/><span style="font-size: 18px"><br/>
Normally Elai would let negative comments slide like water off a duck's back, especially as far as Asher Tarkova was concerned. Elai and his mom didn't have a perfect relationship, but there was not a single day that went by that he didn't see her as his superhero. Elai still dealt with lingering feelings of neglect sometimes, but he also had a friend — not just a mother — that he could always go to. She didn't know all the answers, but to Elai she was infinitely wise. She couldn't be everywhere at once, but she supported him and his siblings. <br/>
<br/>
If he learned anything from growing up with a single mom, it was how she was a strong woman, a woman who was not afraid to strive and persevere when life got tough, and a woman who taught her son to never back down even on his weakest day. </span><span style="font-size: 18px">All conversation ceased when Elai entered the dressing room to change out of his sweaty leotard and dance belt, and hit the showers before grabbing lunch. His electric blue eyes became laser like while boring holes into Asher, fists balling up tight as he readied to knock Asher on his arrogant, entitled ass.</span><br/><br/><span style="font-size: 18px"><b>"Let's get this straight for the record. I don't think I need to explain to you why I got the role you think you deserved, Asher. Has it ever crossed your mind that it might be because I don't talk shit about people in my company behind their back? No. If I have something to say, I go directly to the source itself. Like I'm doing right now."</b> he spoke softly, and with a eerie calm to his voice.<br/>
<br/>
The eyes of the other dancers in the men's dressing room were locked on Elai Charette, as he approached from the doorway.<br/>
</span><br/><b><span style="font-size: 18px">"While its nice that you keep broadcasting misinformation about me, and I keep on fact checking you, its not the same shit when it comes to my mom. That was a dick move, and not one that I'm gonna let slide. You got that, brohem?"</span></b><br/><span style="font-size: 18px"><br/>
Elai was right up on Asher now, and he took that moment to put an exclamation point on his threat by bringing his fist back in a lightning quick arc, jabbing Asher square in the mouth. There were a few shocked gasps among the other dancers, and they quickly decided to disperse from the scene, backing away from the drama in order to get their own showers and handle their own business. Justice had been served, Elai's way.<br/>
<br/>
<b>"Wow. You actually bleed red like a normal person. I guess you must be ...normal then?" he said angrily. "Don't talk about my Mom again, I mean it. Don't even breathe her name in the same sentence. Ya feel me?"</b> Elai wanted to break Asher in half, but possessed enough self-control in which to end things right there.<br/>
</span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 18px">---------------------------------------------------</span>​</div><span style="font-size: 18px"><br/>
Except with Asher Tarkova, the issue would never rest easy. Elai considered the subject dead and buried, Asher but a mere blemish in his rear view mirror. He was focused on the road ahead, and his performance in front of a sold out crowd at the David A. Koch Theatre tomorrow evening. But first, there was a casting party at the director's home that he was required to attend, otherwise the workaholic in Elai would have rather been at the studio until the wee hours dancing instead of resting up for the show. <br/>
<br/>
Elai was mingling, smiling while shaking hands with ballet patrons at the VIP level, and posing for photographs that very likely would be posted to someone's Instagram account. He didn't acknowledge Asher's presence or his histrionics in the slightest, even if he was turning into a drunken, brown-nosing sonofabitch in front of the entire company, staff and VIPs. Elai wasn't drinking from the bar, just nursing some watered down ginger ale in his glass as he settled among a cluster of his peers.<br/>
<br/>
His prima ballerina, Karina Sharapovic, was sharing an intimate conversation for a few moments with Elai before both started laughing with another colleague that noticed the hors d'oeuvres containers were made entirely of real bread. Because they worked closely together in the Corps de ballet, they joked that Elai should go eat the entire bowl of spinach dip minus the spinach dip, because he loved bread so much.<br/>
<br/>
"<b>There's no way that could be bread. It'ssss...."</b> Elai had to angle his head one way then another as he tried to identify what the bowl was actually made of, and then he gasped.<b> "Seriously. They made dip bowls out of bread! Ah! I need this recipe!" </b>he groaned, then laughed in unison with his co-star and his other friend, while catching the attention of his inebriated rival who began sizing him up from across the room.<br/>
<br/>
However, Elai's attention was focused elsewhere, and honestly, it was as if Asher Tarkova didn't even exist in that moment.</span>