No one on the site knew that he’d been a saxophonist. He never let on. He hadn’t actually played in a long while. But sometimes, when you went into the warehouse without warning, it seemed like he’d been wrapped up in listening to something. Because as he used to say, you can hear music even in a rock.
No one would have found out either. But they decided to form a band at the site. A directive had come down from above that if there was more than x number of people working at a given site, and the project was a long-term one, then there ought to be some musical ensemble or a dance troupe or choir, or at least a drama club, since working people needed entertainment. So they started asking around the site about who could play an instrument. I told them I played the sax. True, I’d not played since school, it had been a few years. And I thought I’d never play again. Though I won’t deny I felt the urge. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep I’d imagine I was playing. I heard myself play. I could taste the mouthpiece between my lips. Oh yes, every mouthpiece has its own taste. Well, actually the reed. I even felt the fingering, I sensed the keys against my fingertips. I felt the instrument weighing from the strap around my neck, maybe even more than a real saxophone would have weighed. Sometimes I could even see a firehouse full of people, I could see them dancing as I played for them, because I’d never known any other venue than firehouses.
But that was mostly when I couldn’t get to sleep. During the day there was never time to imagine anything. Or you were so exhausted by work that vodka, vodka alone, was the only thing that could give you back the will to live. They were pushing us so hard, often it would be nighttime by the time you got off work, because like I said, the job was behind schedule the whole time, and at those moments only vodka would do the trick.
I didn’t think they’d accept me. But I thought, I’ll give it a go. Because I’d tried everything. I’d tried reading, I’d tried drinking, I’d tried believing in a new and better world, I’d tried falling in love. Maybe that would have been the best option. But to fall in love, you can’t work from morning to night, because after that all you want to do is sleep. You have to go to dances. But to go to dances you need to know how to dance. And me, I couldn’t even dance. No, they never organized dances at our school, and we weren’t allowed to go to dances anywhere else. One time the older kids had gone to one on the sly, they’d gotten into a fight with some local boys, there was a whole investigation, then after that they started checking up on us even in the night, to make sure we were asleep.
Sometimes we’d have a pretend dance on a Sunday evening, in the rec room. In fall and winter the evenings were long, there were no classes, on Sundays we didn’t go to work. We’d decorate the rec room and put up a poster saying there was a dance. A few kids were chosen to be in the band, the younger ones were made the girls, the older boys were the gentlemen. But what kind of dance could it be when we didn’t know how to dance — how could we have? Maybe one or two of us knew this or that, but most of us just stepped on each other’s toes. There was constant cursing and name-calling. You so-and-so, you trod on my big toe, you trod on this, on that. You stepped on me with your whole boot, goddammit! The hell with girls like you. The worst words were thrown about. Get off my toes and dance, you son of a b …, and so on. Pardon my language, I’m just repeating what was said.
Though how could you step on their toes when everyone was wearing hobnailed boots? We wore them for dancing too — we didn’t have anything else to change into. We wore them summer and winter. The most you could do was dance barefoot. We tried that, but you got splinters in the soles of your feet because the floorboards were rough and jagged, they were all torn up from the nails in our boots. When someone got an accidental kick on the ankle from one of the boots, it made them howl. They sometimes whopped you if it was the girl who’d kicked them, or if one of the younger ones had kicked an older boy.
And when the band played a faster number, it wasn’t just your dance partner, the whole room stepped on everyone’s feet, people bumped against each other deliberately it seemed, some of them knocked other ones down. At those moments the insults and curses erupted like volcanoes, there were scuffles, sometimes someone even pulled a knife. Plus, can it really be a dance when no one throws their arms around anyone, no one whispers tender words in anyone’s ear? At most one of the gentlemen would say to the girl he was dancing with, hold me tighter, you little shit.
The dances were mostly about the older boys, which is to say the gentlemen, taking it out on us, which is to say the girls. They took it out on us every day anyway, but at the dances they went the whole hog. The teachers? They didn’t do a thing. Once in a while one of them would show up, watch for a bit, then leave. At those times, we’d just happen to be dancing nicely. No one trod on anyone’s toes, you never heard a single cuss word. But the moment the teacher left, you can imagine what happened. It was total pandemonium, sometimes they even turned off the lights. And what went on when the lights were out, well, it’s best not to say.
Oh yes, of course there was a master of ceremonies. This kid that was one of the oldest ones. It was always him, at every dance. He’d pin a bundle of ribbons on his lapel. He could actually dance a bit. He was a smooth talker, though he also had a mouth on him. But he always took the side of the older boys. He might have been the worst of the lot. He was pleasant, never swore, never called people names, when you stepped on his toe he’d just make you apologize. But before the number was over he’d lead his girl outside, supposedly to go take a walk, and there he did what he liked with her. Often he beat her till she bled. Complain to who? It would have cost you dearly afterwards.
He called circles, baskets, pair by pair, swap partners, and white tango. For the white tango, us girls had to ask the older boys, that is, the gentlemen. As master of ceremonies he decided everything, he’d say, you go with him, you go with so-and-so. If anyone tried to object, he’d grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him across the room, now ask him and bow to him, get on with it before I kick you in the pants. And you could feel his hand gripping the back of your neck.
Let me tell you, for a long time after that I was afraid to dance. I was put off by the idea of dancing, which sort of goes against the nature of the thing, because after all dancing is supposed to attract people. Maybe because all through school it was as if I was the girl, and that makes you look at everything entirely differently, experience it all differently, it’s hard to even trust to the dance. It was only when I began playing in the worksite band that I finally started to like dancing. A band has to know how to dance, not just how to play music for dancing. Especially a saxophonist.
They chose seven of the guys who’d put their names forward. An instructor came, brought instruments, listened to us play. And he said, We’ll practice, we’ll learn to play together and we’ll make a decent band. No, it wasn’t till the next time that he brought a saxophone, he auditioned me separately. He even asked where I’d learned to play, seeing I was so young. Had I been in a band before? A school band, I told him. It must have been a really good school. You must have had excellent teachers. Yes, I said, one of them in particular was.
On each instrument they painted an identification number to show it was official property. Just like they had on all the desks, office machines, telephones, equipment, towels, everything that was company property. Each of us had to sign a list to say we’d been given such and such an instrument to use, and that we’d be responsible for it. They also bought us company outfits so we’d all look the same: gray suits, white nylon shirts, neck-ties all the same color and the same pattern. The outfits were kept in a closet in the social department, we had to sign them out whenever we had a show. The only things of our own we had were our shoes and socks.