Dance

We gathered the pearls of the ocean,

We counted the stars in the sky,

We showed our emotions,

And then, in a moment, we said

~ Gemini Joe ~

very Friday night, there were church dances in the rectory and we used to go. Everybody behaved because the priests were walking around.

Father Murphy was a small, pudgy man, with sandy red hair and a mustache. He kept a watchful eye on the dancers. “Not so close,” he’d warn, to make sure things didn’t get out of hand.

The moment I walked through the door, Father Murphy looked uneasy. My good looks and finesse on the dance floor held all eyes and like moths to a flame, I attracted all the girls.

Well that’s where I met Jeanette. She was up on the stage, singing a song and she was good. Everyone cheered and clapped when she was done. They loved her.

I was very popular, too and a good dancer. To get her attention, I stepped up my dance moves and it worked. I saw her staring at me and asked her to dance.

She said that she had a boyfriend, but I convinced her that there was no harm in dancing. We did the lindy and the fox trot. I think we were pretty good at it. We tried anyway.

By the end of the night, her boyfriend was mad at her so I drove her home.

You couldn’t go to the dance then unless you were eighteen. It was funny because she told me that she was eighteen and I thought, oh boy! I didn’t find out until later, she wasn’t even sixteen yet. She looked very mature.

Her father wasn’t too crazy about me. He thought I was bad. I guess I couldn’t blame him. He had four daughters and he had to protect them. He thought I was a hoodlum. Maybe I had a bad reputation, or maybe it was because my family was from Naples. Jeanette’s family was from Sicily. I respected her father because he came to America and joined the service. He was a good man.

I invited Jeanette to my house, but I was always nervous because my family was loud. I didn’t want to scare her away, so most of the time we stayed in my room. My Mom was nervous about that, but she wasn’t feeling good and didn’t have the strength to fight.

Sometimes, we could hear my father and brothers arguing in the next room. The louder the fights became, the more I drank from a flask, which I had hidden under my bed.

She wanted to go home, but I didn’t want her to go, so I tried to keep her there.

She must have felt trapped, and cried, “Let me out!” Tears filled her eyes, spilling down her face. “I want to leave!”

“What’s going on in there?” my mother asked. “Open this door, Joe,” she demanded. The door flew open and Jeanette rushed out of the house.

The next day, I apologized and promised that I wouldn’t drink anymore. I invited her for Sunday dinner.

She said, “All right,” and Jeanette gave me another chance.