A Dance

The boy hardly looked like he had handled civilian corpses just weeks earlier, if it weren’t for the side caps and the hall’s decorations no one would know. The war was over now and the 20 year olds had not aged at all but had ended an age.

“I am going to dance tonight,” said the one with the white shoes.

The voices of the black and brown shoed boys around him blended into a patchy incongruence that resembled their suits as they yelled across to each other.

Once, the dance routines were nearly synchronized, the grand waltzes founded by the clockwork switching of partners. Today the band was playing faster and the partners were switching with less fidelity as the excitement of a different kind of abandonment seized the young people and their drab dress shoes were submerged into the wood floor. Above the floor and above the frenzy was a long way that the banners reached before originating from the ceiling. The old banners with their fathers’ stern faces had been replaced by the girls. These new ones were jovial and wiser. Sure, Adelina thought, The Great War was supposed to be the last, but rhymes usually end in twos. Her father had died before he could go up in the dance hall, so she didn’t care to see the old faces go. These new faces were more handsome and tangible anyways.

Alberto’s shiny white shoes remained distinct as he glanced past his friends and compatriots. He started to walk towards the group of girls sitting away from the music and yelling to find his dance partner.

“Will you dance with me?”

“No.”

“I’ve just come back from Berlin and I want to dance with you, can I please have a dance?”

“No.”

Adelina turned back to her friends and Alberto temporarily returned to his before coming back.

“What will it take to get a dance with you?”

Adelina shrugged.

“Do I have to marry you?”

This time her shrug was joined with a “yes.”

Alberto left to the bar where her brother would spin his bullshit. As each Friday, Carlos was flamboyantly intoxicated on his bar stool with a crowd of old men around him. He stood out because of his considerable youth and his bright clothing –minus the one brown shoe. Alberto interrupted him.

“Can I marry your sister?”

Carlos chirped back to demand one of his white shoes.

“Will you give your sisters’ hand then?”

“I’ll forgive you for interrupting the story these gentlemen and I were working on, which I assure you we will finish before I take any other questions.”

The two boys traded shoes and Alberto took the seat with the empty glasses in front of it.

Carlos continued to the old men: “There was one I knew named Giichi who I worked the morning shifts with, after work we’d play that shitty dice game that I always thought was Chinese.”

“It is Chinese!” one of the old men interjected.

“No it’s Mexican-Japanese. I am a Mexican and Giichi was Japanese.”

“Alberto here knew quite a few men I’m sure who were Japanese!” he yelled slapping his back. Alberto was a boring man so he just explained that he was on the Western front.

“You fucker! San Pedro is the Eastern front! We just won a lot earlier here.”

Carlos puffed up his chest: “I sure did my part when I gutted Giichi in the alley after work! It was criminal.”

The old men were laughing and trying to tell their own stories of criminality and Carlos turned to Alberto and told him he was a criminal because all killers are criminal.

He let the old men slowly navigate through their coming senility as Alberto brought back up his question with his patchy suit and mismatched shoes.

Carlos put his elbow on the table and incredulously asked “What does marriage cost?”

“Nothing, they give you a house.”

 “It costs something. You just gave me your shoe. So what does marriage cost you?”

“A shoe.”

“No, your indignation cost you a shoe.”

“Ok my indignation cost me a shoe, do you want me to give you a dowry?

“Only if you brought one of those SS cars from Berlin!” he snapped. Before Alberto could give a courteous laugh, Carlos continued with a nickname: “Chino, why do you want to marry my sister?”

“The war is over.”

“Ha! The war is over! It’s time to gamble and dance and get married. Can I tell you another story?”

“Ok.”

“Do you remember Sunday school? Do you remember when King David was a voyeur? When he watched Bathsheba bathe? It was no fault of his own, he was just paying her and Jerusalem back for doing the same when he ran around butt naked after he’d defeated some enemy. The point is that the Bible is naked.”

Alberto was convinced he was just being fucked with at this point but he really wanted to dance so he sat patiently and practiced affirming the endless stream of vignettes that he’d have to hear after marrying his sister.

“… Did Adam and Eve get married? Yes of course they were married, they got married in Sunday school, they got married when our parents got married. If you want to marry my sister, I don’t care! She is her own woman!”

Relenting for a moment, he gave Alberto what he wanted who went back to the dance floor.

“We’re getting married.”

Adelina thought about her parents and was disgusted, she thought about the other soldiers dancing and was disgusted. She thought about her brother and stopped before she got trapped. She thought about dancing and was disgusted.

“We’re getting married and then we can dance.”