“Why’s that?” one of the seated women asked.
“That’s a very good question, Mrs. Gringer,” Clara said. “Do any of you students know the answer to that? Mr. Clone?”
“To show you’re polite?”
“Well,” Clara said, “it shows that, too, of course, but there’s an even more important reason — Mrs. Lamboso?”
“Well, if you’re sitting down while everyone else is dancing, they might think you’re a wallflower or too shy when maybe all it is is that nobody has asked you. This way, if you applaud, prospective partners will see that you take an interest and maybe you’ll get asked to dance.”
“Very good,” Clara said.
“It is very good,” Flesh said, “but I thought Mr. Clone had a good point.”
“Oh, Mr. Flesh; ladies and gentlemen, this gentleman is our host for tonight’s very special gala — Mr. Ben Flesh.”
They applauded and Ben nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve brought some guests to join us tonight.” He turned to his group. “The food and drink is over there. Why don’t you all put your parcels on the stage where they’ll be safe. Then you can join the festivities.”
“Maestro,” Clara said. Jenny left her partner, came to the stage, and put on more records. She played “Night and Day,” “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You,” “September Song,” “Two Sleepy People,” “Falling in Love with Love,” “Get Out of Town,” “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” “Blue Moon,” “Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block,” “Love Thy Neighbor,” “Moonglow,” “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and “You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me.”
Flesh smoked the joint Luis had brought him and listened to the beautiful music. The last tingling left his hand. He was suddenly caught up in a complex and true and magnificent idea. He would have to tell them, but could not bear to break into the music or the gorgeous motions of the dancers. One of the people he had brought with him — a woman in her mid-fifties — was dancing with a golden-ager. Her left hand lay gently on his right shoulder. Flesh was touched by the shopping bag she still carried. In her dreamy mood she held the bag by only one beautiful handle and a bottle of ketchup dropped from it, making a lovely splash on the floor. Their shoes looked so vulnerable as the dancers guided each other through the sticky stuff that Ben wanted to cry. Lai-op, lai-op, lai-op. They smeared the ballroom floor with a jelly of ketchup. It was beautiful, the pasty, tomato-y brushstrokes like single-hued rainbows. The high heels of the women smashed explosively against the broken glass adding to the percussive effect of the music. Everything was rhythm. He climbed on the stage and gulped when he looked down and saw the splendid red evidence of the dance. Studying the floor, he perceived from the various footprints, the rough male rectangles and female exclamation points, where each couple had been, their progress, where they had occupied space others had occupied before them, the intensity of color recapturing the actual measure, the music made visible. From these and other signals he felt he understood why what they did was called the “conversation step.” It was a conversation of spatial displacement, the ebb and flow of presence, invasions, and polite withdrawals as each couple moved in to take the place other couples had abandoned. A minuet of hitherings and yonnings, the lovely close-order drill of ordinary life. So civilized. So gentle were men. He explained this to them over the loudspeaker, explained how it was possible to re-create from the ordinary shmutz of a broken ketchup bottle, not just where the dancers had stood, but where they had stood in time, that movement was nothing more than multiple exposure. Perhaps, were he musical — he felt musical, as musical as Terpsichore; wasn’t she the Goddess of Dance? who would be the Muse of Song? muse, music, ah yes, music; there were no accidents, idiom was fundamental as gravity; who would be the Goddess of Song? it was on the tip of his tongue; oh yes, it had to be…it had to be—Orchestra! — he could, by reading their glide, even have told them the song that had been playing at the time. There was more. As he studied the dancers he realized that not only — if you knew how to read the signs — did movement remain, a testimony lingering like scent that men had been by, but that it was impossible to teach what all already knew. Everyone could dance. Every motion snuggled to every rhythm, to any rhythm. It had something to do, he explained, with the tides, with the universal alphas, with pulse itself. And he tied in menstruation and the throbs and ripples of orgasm. It was beautiful, but they weren’t listening.
He fumbled with the amplifier and found the button that cut off the power, and he stood on his father’s old cutting tables and spoke to them from his heart.
“My dearest ladies,” he said, “my most charming gentlemen. Please, this is very important. What’s sacred is important. You don’t know this, you’ll not be able to follow it all. Try not to blame yourselves. There’s no blame here. We are all swell people. Do you know what’s happening here? (Don’t sidetrack me, God; let me stick to the point, oh, Lord.) Everyone concentrate. I am going to link the world for you. I am going to have it make sense, but you must concentrate. Same here.
“All right. What am I talking about? How, if I’m to link the world, can I get sidetracked? Not possible. It’s all relevant. Be patient. Everything will come clear. Then — Who has water? I’m very dry. Luis, pleeth. Jenny, any?
“I stand on my father’s long old cutting tables. Bolts of graduation cloth unwound here like spools of film, the texture of the trim like oil slicks. Costumes were made for ballerinas. We are in a room with a musical tradition. Yes, and what made this possible, this room, this night, our gala, were the selfsame songs you danced to earlier, written by pals of my godfather, who was able to leave me the prime rate of interest because of those songs. You see? We dance to the prime rate of interest itself. We compound it. Nothing is lost. Follow? That’s one circle. Earlier I spoke of the rhythms, motion. Ah, God, we thank Thee for Thy do-si-dos, our hithers and yons, the wondrous cake walk and hopfrog of reality. We thank Thee for dressage and our Lippizaner life. Clara, you understand, don’t you?”
“No,” Clara said.
“I does,” the black man said.
“Yes, but that’s not my point. Do you know how good the world is? Listen, it’s better than you think and better even than it has to be. I go with Clone. Politeness, gratuitous as flowers, counts. It structures life like scaffolding. Under this stage is scaffolding, the carpenter’s hundred wooden X ’s. Would a man do that for money? The care, the nails like a driving rain. For money? Good Christ, friends, the man built to hold us all, to let us jump.” He jumped. “I believe the amazing world of Kreskin is amazing, and who could invent a card trick or make up a good joke? The lady who dropped the ketchup—”
“That was an accident,” she said.
“No, no, there are no accidents. The lady who dropped the ketchup — I saw into her shopping bag. There are Hefties there, liners for garbage cans. How civilized! Maybe all that distinguishes man from the beasts is that man had the consideration to invent garbage can liners. What a convenience! We die, yes, but are compensated by a million conveniences. Hefties are just the beginning. We perfect ourselves, we reach toward grace — I foresee a time when there will be flowered sheets and pillowcases in motel rooms. This is a deflection to convenience and the magnitude of the human spirit, the leap to comfort. The chemical creams,” he said excitedly, “the chemical creams. You know, the little sacks of powder you put in your coffee. I foresee a day — someone may be working on this right now — when non-dairy creamers shall be mixed with saccharine in the same packet! There you go: convenience! And do you think for one minute that the man now waiting for this great idea’s time to come will have thought it up for mere money? No. Unthinkable. It will hit him on an airliner like an inspiration, for the grace of the thing, only that, for the convenience it would make, and if he profits by his idea, why the money will be only another convenience. Someday a visionary shall come among us. He will lobby Congress to legalize pot on the principle that it would be a terrific boon to the snack-food industry! Oh, friends, the quality of all our lives shall rise like yeast. I love this world, this comfortable, convenient world, its pillow condition.” He was breathless. But he had more to tell them. Mystery was on the tip of his tongue. He studied them, watched them watching him.