“Just put your arm around my waist,” Rose said.
“Look, Rose, couldn’t—”
“Oh, come on now,” she said, playfully. “You heard Father Dominick. I’m not going to bite you.”
“Rose—”
“Oh, come on, Andy. It’s really very easy. I mean it.”
He looked over his shoulder again, not seeing Bud, thankful for that at least. Rose reached out and took his wrist, and he felt her bony fingers close on his flesh. He heard someone giggle, and he whirled abruptly, sure the giggle had been directed at him.
“This way,” Rose said, pulling his arm around her. “That’s it, just put your arm around me. There, now was that hard?”
“No,” he said, the word choking in his throat, so embarrassed he wanted to cry. He could hear separate gusts of laughter all around him now. He felt his cheeks flame into color, and he would have turned and bolted, pulled away from this trap and run for all he was worth if he hadn’t seen Father Dominick leaning against the wall a few feet away, smiling and nodding his head.
“Now just listen to the music,” Rose said, “and you’ll get the rhythm. This is called a fox trot.”
“I know,” he said.
“Oh, do you? Well, that’s good. Fine. A fox trot has four beats. Do you know what a beat is?”
“Yes, I know what a beat is,” he said tightly. His collar felt rough, and stiff. He could feel the too-large Windsor knot on his throat, choking the breath out of him.
“You go forward with your right foot, then forward with your left foot, then over with your right foot, then close with your left foot. One, two, three, four. Just like that. Four beats.”
“Rose,” he pleaded desperately, “can’t we just—”
“Come on, try it. Forward, one, forward, two, over — no, no, that’s wrong, try it again. You’re doing fine, Andy, really.”
They’re laughing at me, he thought. They’re laughing at me.
His ears plucked laughter from the room. Diligently they plucked laughter, dropped laughter into a quaking hilarious subconscious self-conscious basket.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha
“All right, now let’s try it again.”
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
“That’s the way. Now you’re getting it.”
Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee HaHaHa H0H0H0H0 HeeHeeHeeHeeHeeHeeHee
“Forward, one, forward, two, that’s it, three, and cross, four. Forward, one, forwaHaHa, two, ovOHoHo, threeHeeHee...”
“Rose, please, please...”
“Cross, foHoHohohohohohohohohoho...”
The laughter crowded in on his Earning face, thundered at his ears, gripped his throat. He felt all the eyes on him, eyes, eyes everywhere, all watching him and laughing, laughing.
“Mind if I cut in?” the voice asked.
He thought he dreamed the voice, and then he felt a strong hand on his shoulder, and the pressure of the hand increased, forcing him back and away from Rose. He looked up at the face.
“Can’t keep all the good-looking ones to yourself,” Bud said. He winked at Andy and then smoothly led the astonished girl onto the floor.
Andy stared after them, shame and relief mingled within him. He ran to the side of the room, shouldering his way through the dancing crowd, running, running past Father Dominick with his small surprised eyes and unsmiling mouth, running past the tiled walls, running to the other end of the room, snatching his coat from the rack, running past the hawk-faced boy at the ticket table, and then outside into the corridor, and to the windowed doors fogged with steam, and then pushing the doors open and running up the long ramp to Brooklyn Avenue, and through the gate in the cyclone fence, pulling on his coat at the same time, reaching the sidewalk and still running, hearing the laughter behind him, and thinking of Bud, and knowing that Bud was the only one who had not laughed, the only one, the one who had saved him.
He ran all the way to Eastern Parkway, and then he stopped running, and the neon glitter of the shops was a kaleidoscopic blur because there were tears in his eyes.
7
first chorus, iv
FEBRUARY, 1944
The boys were in a jovial “full-name” mood that afternoon. It was bitter cold outside, and they could hear the February gusts rattling the windowpanes, moaning under the eaves of Frank’s house. They had never enjoyed inclement weather on Saturdays, and they insulated themselves from the cold by wrapping themselves in a warm cocoon of banter. The radio was tuned to WNEW, and they listened to the music that came from the speaker, but even the music could not drown out the sound of the angry wind.
“It’s your play, René Pierre,” Bud said.
“Thank you, Charles Robert,” Reen said. “I know it.”
The two boys were seated at a small wooden table near one of the windows in the finished basement. The wind seeped through the gap where sash met window, but the heat from the coal furnace in the adjoining segment of basement compensated for the cold blast. The radio rested on a shelf of the cupboard against the opposite wall of the room. Frank stood before the cupboard, his drumsticks in his hands, beating on a rubber practice pad in time to the radio music.
“Are you holding all the queens?” Reen asked.
“No, sir,” Bud said.
“Well, someone’s holding them.”
“It must be Francis Joseph,” Bud said.
“Quiet,” Frank said. “I’m trying to hear the music.”
“You make a lot of noise with that pad, Francis,” Bud said. “Don’t they sell noiseless pads?”
“No,” Frank said, beating harder. “They don’t sell noiseless pads.”
“There’s a fat deuce for you, Charles,” Reen said.
“Thanks,” Bud said sourly. He ignored the discarded deuce and took a card from the pack. “Here’s one for you,” he said, covering the first deuce with the one he’d drawn.
“There must be six deuces in this deck,” Reen said.
“Do you want to hear a paradiddle?” Frank asked.
“What the hell’s a paradiddle?” Bud asked.
“Some kind of bird,” Reen said.
“It’s a drum...”
“I heard it already,” Bud said.
“You heard a ruff. This is a paradiddle. They’re entirely different.”
“All right, Francis,” Reen said, “let’s hear your paradiddle.”
Frank turned down the volume on the radio. “Listen,” he said. He began beating his sticks on the pad, chanting as he played. “Pa-ra-did-dle, pa-ra-did-dle, pa-ra-did-dle.” His chant began speeding up, and his stick beats followed the increased tempo. He stopped abruptly and then turned up the radio again.