Wasn’t always the way. Not back when we was kids, me with my hair like Elvis, all slick and combed into a quiff, and my pants on my hips, and Alice the prettiest girl in the whole place. And we was dancing then till the sun comed up, dancing in Purdy’s barn. And all the girls with dirndl skirts and flat shoes and everyone a little drunk and the music was new and loud. Back then I could dance and Alice thought so, and that’s how we got together. It was like one of then bird courtship displays and I was all peacock feathery and laughing, and she was won.
Then we stopped with the dancing. Like we was grown ups now and there was no need for all that strutting and showing off because we’d got what we wanted and we’d got ourselves each other. Whenever the music came on the radio, years along the line, Alice’d shimmy a bit on the kitchen tiles and the kids’d all laugh and say she was silly. And we’d laugh, too, me and Alice.
There was pictures of us in Purdy’s barn, proof that we’d danced once. They was all shadow and blur, but we knew they was us in the picture. And some nights, when the house was all sleeping and it was late as moon-moths pressing against the porch netting, me and Alice’d hold onto each other, close as hands when they’s praying hands, pressing; and we swayed to the music in us heads and that was dancing too.
Then one day Alice got real ill and the doctors looked serious and shook their heads and they said as how there was nothing they could do. And Alice, she knowed it was coming to the end of the record and she says to me this night that she wanted one more dance, only she couldn’t leave the bed. So, I laid beside her and I held her in my arms, and it was like holding nothing. And we moved a little, like we was kids again and I was wanting to get inside her pants, and she laughed and she said that wasn’t dancing, that was something else. In the morning she was gone.
Kids is all grown and gone too, now. And I don’t like this being on my own. It was Purdy as said I should take a class down at the seniors’ club and maybe I’d meet someone nice. There’s a dance class there and all the men has left feet and they’s bones shaking to old tunes, and it makes no nevermind cos the teacher is sweet as syrup and she smells of flowers and she teaches us real slow. It ain’t like being a kid again, but there’s something peacock feathery in all us old guys there and that explains the busy that it is.
Wasn’t always the way. Not back when we was kids, me with my hair like Elvis, all slick and combed into a quiff, and my pants on my hips, and Alice the prettiest girl in the whole place. And we was dancing then till the sun comed up, dancing in Purdy’s barn. And all the girls with dirndl skirts and flat shoes and everyone a little drunk and the music was new and loud. Back then I could dance and Alice thought so, and that’s how we got together. It was like one of then bird courtship displays and I was all peacock feathery and laughing, and she was won.
Then we stopped with the dancing. Like we was grown ups now and there was no need for all that strutting and showing off because we’d got what we wanted and we’d got ourselves each other. Whenever the music came on the radio, years along the line, Alice’d shimmy a bit on the kitchen tiles and the kids’d all laugh and say she was silly. And we’d laugh, too, me and Alice.
There was pictures of us in Purdy’s barn, proof that we’d danced once. They was all shadow and blur, but we knew they was us in the picture. And some nights, when the house was all sleeping and it was late as moon-moths pressing against the porch netting, me and Alice’d hold onto each other, close as hands when they’s praying hands, pressing; and we swayed to the music in us heads and that was dancing too.
Then one day Alice got real ill and the doctors looked serious and shook their heads and they said as how there was nothing they could do. And Alice, she knowed it was coming to the end of the record and she says to me this night that she wanted one more dance, only she couldn’t leave the bed. So, I laid beside her and I held her in my arms, and it was like holding nothing. And we moved a little, like we was kids again and I was wanting to get inside her pants, and she laughed and she said that wasn’t dancing, that was something else. In the morning she was gone.
Kids is all grown and gone too, now. And I don’t like this being on my own. It was Purdy as said I should take a class down at the seniors’ club and maybe I’d meet someone nice. There’s a dance class there and all the men has left feet and they’s bones shaking to old tunes, and it makes no nevermind cos the teacher is sweet as syrup and she smells of flowers and she teaches us real slow. It ain’t like being a kid again, but there’s something peacock feathery in all us old guys there and that explains the busy that it is.
That’s happy! Thanks.
http://judithlindenau.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/september-7-2013-they-dreamed-of-dancing/