she was.
I remember the musty living room, full of those old Christ pictures, prayers woven into tapestries,
statuettes of the crucifixion, other religious objects on the mantel, shelves, table tops, walls,
everywhere.
Since the old lady wasn't speaking to me, I didn't speak to her, either. I completely sympathize
with her now, of course.
What could she have thought of me in my zoot and conk and orange shoes? She'd have done us
all a favor if she had run screaming for the police. If something looking as I did then ever came
knocking at my door today, asking to see one of my four daughters, I know I would explode.
When Laura rushed into the room, jerking on her coat, I could see that she was upset and angry
and embarrassed. And in the taxi, she started crying. She had hated herself for lying before; she
had decided to tell the truth about where she was going, and there had been a screaming battle
with grandma. Laura had told the old lady that she was going to start going out when and where
she wanted to, or she would quit school and get a job and move out on her own-and her grandma
had pitched a fit. Laura just walked out.
When we got to the Roseland, we danced the early part of the evening with each other and with
different partners. And finally the Duke kicked off showtime.
I knew, and Laura knew, that she couldn't match the veteran showtime girls, but she told me that
she wanted to compete. And the next thing I knew, she was among those girls over on the
sidelines changing into sneakers. I shook my head when a couple of the free-lancing girls ran up
to me.
As always, the crowd clapped and shouted in time with the blasting band. "Go, Red, go!" Partly it
was my reputation, and partly Laura's ballet style of dancing that helped to turn the spotlight-and
the crowd's attention-to us. They never had seen the feather-lightness that she gave to Undying,
a completely fresh style-and they were connoisseurs of styles. I turned up the steam, Laura's feet
were flying; I had her in the air, down, sideways, around; backwards, up again, down, whirling...
.
The spotlight was working mostly just us. I caught glimpses of the four or five other couples, the
girls jungle-strong, animal-like, bucking and charging. But little Laura inspired me to drive to new
heights. Her hair was all over her face, it was running sweat, and I couldn't believe her strength.
The crowd was shouting and stomping. A new favorite was being discovered; there was a wall of
noise around us. I felt her weakening, she was lindying like a fighter out on her feet, and we
stumbled off to the sidelines. The band was still blasting. I had to half-carry her; she was gasping
for air. Some of the men in the band applauded.
And even Duke Ellington half raised up from his piano stool and bowed.
If a showtime crowd liked your performance, when you came off you were mobbed, mauled,
grasped, and pummeled like the team that's just taken theseries. One bunch of the crowd
swarmed Laura; they had her clear up off her feet. And I was being pounded on the back... when
I caught this fine blonde's eyes.... This one I'd never seen among the white girls who came to
the Roseland black dances. She was eyeing me levelly.
Now at that time, in Roxbury, in any black ghetto in America, to have a white woman who wasn't a
known, common whore was-for the average black man, at least-a status symbol of the first order.
And this one, standing there, eyeing me, was almost too fine to believe. Shoulder-length hair, well
built, and her clothes had cost somebody plenty.
It's shameful to admit, but I had just about forgotten Laura when she got loose from the mob and
rushed up, big-eyed-and stopped. I guess she saw what there was to see in that girl's face-and
mine-as we moved out to dance.
I'm going to call her Sophia.
She didn't dance well, at least not by Negro standards. But who cared? I could feel the staring
eyes of other couples around us. We talked. I told her she was a good dancer, and asked her
where she'd learned. I was trying to find out why she was there. Most white women came to the
black dances for reasons I knew, but you seldom saw her kind around there.
She had vague answers for everything. But in the space of that dance, we agreed that I would get
darsice
(darsice)
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