Last Dance at Jitterbug Lounge

by Pamela Morsi

  Claire began deadheading the flowers.

  “How did the two of you meet?” Geri asked.

  Without even turning to look at the older woman, Claire felt a smile drift across her face. “We were both working as lifeguards at Dellview Pool. I was…I mean I am a student at Trinity University.”

  Claire glanced over at Geri, and she was nodding.

  “Over the summer, we fell in love.”

  “I can see how that would happen,” Geri said.

  “For sure neither of us meant for it to happen,” Claire said. “At the end of the summer, we both planned to go back to school. I love my classes. And Jack’s on the swim team at UT. We wanted to go on with our lives as they had been. Our colleges were only a hundred miles apart. We talked on the phone every night and we e-mailed constantly, but it wasn’t the same as being together. The entire semester felt like torture.”

  Claire had tried to explain that to her parents. They’d accused her of being overly dramatic.

  “It is very hard to be apart,” the old woman agreed. “I do remember that.”

  “So, over Christmas break, Jack just decided that he wasn’t going back,” Claire continued. “I guess we probably should have asked our parents for advice. But we are both legal age, we don’t need their consent.”

  “No, you’re both old enough to decide for yourselves,” Geri agreed.

  “Thank you!” Claire said adamantly. “I wish you had been there to speak up for us at their little ‘family meeting.’ Toni cried as if her heart were breaking. Dr. Van Brugge talked to Jack with such disrespect. And my parents were completely off base. They swooped into town like some earth-shattering calamity had occurred, and my mother demanded that I confess to being pregnant. I am not pregnant. She couldn’t even imagine any other reason for us to marry.”

  “Like being so in love.”

  “Yes, like being so in love that we couldn’t be apart.”

  Geri reached over and took Claire’s hand in her own. “Sometimes parents forget what it is like to be young.”

  “Well, you haven’t forgotten,” Claire pointed out.

  Geri laughed lightly. “When you get old, you spend a lot of time remembering. And you remember the good things most of all.”

  Claire had been so grateful for the older woman’s words at the time. Now she considered them from a different perspective. Maybe if they hadn’t allowed the thrill of the moment to rush them into marriage, she would have known Jack better. She still loved her husband, but she wasn’t sure anymore if loving was enough.

  She and Jack collected their luggage and walked the million miles to the rental car pickup. He got a map and directions to the turnpike that would get them out of town and on the way to Tulsa. Claire acted as navigator helping him look for the signs. Traffic was minimal and they found the interstate linkup without incident.

  “You can put the seat back and take a nap,” Jack suggested.

  Claire shook her head. “You have to stay awake, so I’ll stay awake to help you.”

  Jack chuckled. “Well, I really don’t see why both of us should have to suffer through the misery of the Oklahoma countryside.”

  “At this time of night, it looks as scenic as Highway 1,” she pointed out.

  His shrug was an agreement.

  After a moment she asked him, “Why do you dislike the place so much?”

  “Oh, I don’t really,” he answered. “I’m just ticked off at losing the time at the job. I got a big new contract today. I want to get working on it.”

  “I imagine you’ll get more uninterrupted design time here than at your office.”

  “Probably so,” he admitted.

  “But you really don’t like coming here,” she continued to probe.

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “I don’t fit in very well here. I’ve got all these relatives, but I don’t really know them and they don’t really know me. I’m just not comfortable.”

  Claire nodded. “Of course, that would change if we came up here more often.”

  “And if I had any desire to change the status quo, we’d do exactly that. But I’m not interested. I don’t see any reason to.”

  “These people are your family, your heritage.”

  He glanced over in her direction. Even in the dim light from the dashboard she could see the flash in his eyes.

  “I’m not particularly proud of that,” he said. “A lineage of ignorant, hand-to-mouth crackers is not something I’m anxious to brag about. And I’d prefer that our children define who they are based on role models from your family, or my mother, or even the Van Brugges.”

  “But our children are named Crabtree,” Claire said. “You can’t just blot that out.”

  “I tried once,” Jack admitted. “When I was in junior high I suggested that Ernst could adopt me and I could be Jack Van Brugge.”

  “Really? You never told me that.”

  “It’s not one of my favorite memories,” he answered. “Mom and Ernst both turned me down flat. And they were adamant. I suppose in retrospect they were probably trying to be respectful to my dead father and my grandparents. At the time, though, it felt like they didn’t want me mucking up the pristine perfection of the ancient Van Brugge pedigree.”

  Claire scoffed. “That’s just your own personal craziness, Jack. I’ve told you that a million times.”

  He acknowledged that with a nod and then changed the subject.

  They talked amiably for the better part of an hour, flitting from subject to subject. Ernst and his mother taking care of the kids. The kids and their busy schedules. The kids and their future. The money they were trying to sock away into college funds. Money in general. Finally making it to the subject that they never talked about. It was frequently brought up in conversation, but it never engendered talk, only argument.

  “Once we move into the new house,” Jack said. “All the interest on that loan will be tax deductible.”

  Claire hesitated. She gave herself a long moment to think about it. She could just let the discussion go by. They didn’t have to fight about it. She could just ignore it. It was late. They were tired. They were headed to the hospital where an old man lay desperately ill. It was not the right moment to redraw her line in the sand. She really should resist the urge to do so. But she didn’t.

  “Jack, I think I’ve made myself absolutely clear on this,” Claire announced, firing the first volley. “I am never moving into that house.”

  It was the mere swirl of a red cape that he needed.

  They were still arguing, snarling at each other through clenched teeth, when they pulled into the hospital parking lot twenty minutes later.

  Bud

  I have to keep swimming. I have to keep swimming. Move your legs or you’ll go under. Keep kicking or you will drown. I tried to cough. I was drowning. There was water in my lungs and I couldn’t get it out. I was having trouble treading water. There was something wrong with my leg. The pain was like being stabbed by a hot poker. What was wrong with my leg? Had a shark bitten me? Had a shark chomped off my leg? The thought occurred to me that it might be better to bleed to death than to drown. Still, I didn’t give up. I tried to swim. What was I tangled up in, a net?

  No, that wasn’t it. I tried to open my eyes but there was light, a light that was too bright. Then I remembered I wasn’t in the water. It wasn’t the moon. This wasn’t the Pacific. I was in the hospital.

  Immediately, I relaxed. The pain in my leg must be just a pain in my leg. I welcomed it now. Reality was good. I was an old man in the hospital. What I was trying to cough up wasn’t sea water. And I wasn’t alone.

  From somewhere near my bed I could hear murmuring. I couldn’t make out the words. It wasn’t a conversation, just one voice, one long speech. Was that person talking to me?

  It didn’t seem like it.

  I felt very far away, very distant. The way I used to feel as a boy when, in those late afternoons, I was looking for my old cow, Becca.

  M
y mother and I lived on a little plot of land near the edge of Catawah. There wasn’t nearly enough ground to graze a cow. So every morning, after milking, I’d turn Becca out into the open fields at the edge of town. She’d range all day, eating whatever and wherever struck her bovine fancy. This was good most of the year, except when snow was thick on the ground. Of course, every evening before dark, I’d have to go out and find her and bring her home for milking.

  By the time I was in high school, I’d become an expert at doing this, and in the easiest, most efficient manner possible. I wouldn’t just head off in any direction and hope to run into her. There were oil derricks all over the countryside, some of them a hundred feet high. I’d climb up and look around to see if I could spot that old cow and save myself a wild-goose chase.

  I loved being up above it all. It was such freedom. As if I’d escaped from all the miserable drudgery of my life.

  My mother persisted in her life as an invalid. She could hardly manage to keep herself washed and groomed. Everything else was left to me. I started my day milking before dawn. By the time the sun was on the horizon, I was delivering milk in the neighborhood. As Becca aged, the amount she gave was less and less. I needed to buy a new cow, but I was already fed up with the dairy work. Mr. Givens at the Anchor Oil let me pump gas at his filling station after school. I didn’t get paid, only tips from customers. But I was fast and thorough and people in the community liked me. At six foot one inch I was one of the tallest boys in school, but I’d grown early and by junior year I was past clumsiness and had balance and control of my arms and legs. So Coach Burne picked me to play center on the basketball squad. The Catawah High School Cedars were a top team in the conference, and I was a pretty good player, I admit to that. But the team would have been nothing without Les Andeel. We won a lot of games and were a source of local pride. People remembered that when they were filling up and they remembered me. I quickly found out that I could earn as much filling gas tanks and washing windshields as I did selling milk.

  But I still had Becca. And at her age, her output was worth more than she was. So I kept up my usual routine:

  Milk the cow and walk her to pasture.

  Make Mother’s breakfast.

  Pack lunches. Me for school. Her for her bedside.

  Deliver milk.

  Wash up and dress for school.

  Attend classes and basketball practice.

  Work at the filling station.

  Bring the cow home.

  Feed Becca. Wash her down and clean out her stall.

  Shower.

  Fix dinner for mother and me.

  Wash the kitchen and straighten the house.

  Go to bed.

  Get up and do it all again.

  I saw my friends only at school. The only fun time I had was the hour of shooting baskets in the high school gym. Even on weekends there was work to do. While my pals were loitering on Main Street or taking girls to the movie shows, I was patching the roof or chopping kindling or digging potatoes.

  That was my life. I didn’t like it. But I didn’t know how to get out of it. I was angry. I was bitter. But I’d been taught respect. I’d been taught responsibility. So I kept a civil tongue in my head and never complained. There were people who had it worse. I saw evidence of that on a daily basis. But there were people who had it better, too.

  The most visible example of that was Bertha Irene Melrose. Berthrene, as everyone called her, was the only daughter of Cut Melrose, who owned a small machine shop on Cherry Street. The shop was a nickel-and-dime place, but the Melroses lived better than anyone in town. Their poorly kept secret was that Cut warehoused illegal whiskey in his building for all the local bootleggers.

  Of course, Berthrene didn’t have anything to do with that. She may not have even known about it. Her personality was so cheerful and full of fun, it was hard to imagine that she was aware of any of the darker side of life. She was also the most vivacious and sought-after girl in high school. Only a sophomore, she looked like a lush, full-grown woman. Physically she was more developed than any of the senior girls.

  “You think she’s at her best coming toward you, until you look at her from behind,” Piggy Masterson declared one afternoon. And I couldn’t help but agree with him.

  I’d had several very chaste dates with her. She may have been the daughter of a shady dealer, but her mother taught Sunday school. We walked. We talked. She was a genuine dish. And I was a little in love with her. But her mother insisted that she be home by ten o’clock on a Saturday night. So after I’d given her a peck on the cheek, I’d wander down to the Jitterbug where the night was still young.

  The nightclub was not really a place for teenagers and for the most part they stayed away. Not because they weren’t attracted to the place, but more because their parents wouldn’t approve—and in a town like Catawah, anything you did always got back to your parents.

  For me, one of the more positive advantages of being my mother’s sole support was that no one thought it out of the ordinary that I’d show up for some fun on a Saturday night. I wasn’t a man, but I was working like one and the men gave me respect for that.

  The place was flashy and fast-paced, loud and rough. I liked it. To my eyes it was everything desirable about adulthood without any of the drudgery of it.

  Of course, I didn’t have anything much to say to the oil-field workers and the smelter shovelers. So it made perfect sense that I drifted in the direction of the only person near my age.

  Geri Shertz worked at Jitterbug Lounge from the time she’d been about fifteen. She wasn’t actually employed, but she was always there, picking up change for errands. She’d check your hat, sell you cigarettes or find you a bottle of illegal hooch. Being Dirty Shirts’s daughter meant the townfolk expected nothing of her. And that lack of expectation meant a freedom that other girls her age couldn’t even imagine.

  She was different at the Jitterbug. At school she was mostly quiet, careful, defensive. But on Saturday nights she was happy, laughing, dancing. Whether it was the sight of her smile or the lighting of the place, it was there that I first realized that Geri was pretty.

  And I didn’t go unnoticed by her, either.

  My first night in the place, she sidled up to me, teasing.

  “My stars, it’s one of those tall, dark and handsome Catawah Cedars,” she said. “What will Coach Burne think of one of his players in a joint like this?”

  I knew for sure that Coach wouldn’t like it one bit, but I shrugged as if I was uncertain.

  “Are you going to let him know?” I asked her. “I never figured you for a tattletale, Crazy Girl.”

  She laughed. It was not the deep, husky sound of a vamp, but sweet and natural and genuine.

  “People in this town suspect me of all kinds of things,” she answered. “But I haven’t heard myself accused of that.”

  I nodded, sagely. “So I’m safe.”

  She raised an eyebrow at that and with a big grin answered, “Not more than you’d want to be.”

  Geri was right, of course. For a teenager, the hint of danger in a place like the Jitterbug was at least half the draw.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “If the coach shows up, it would be best that he sees you’re here to get the exercise.”

  With that she pulled me out onto the dance floor.

  I just stood there, on full display as an ignorant galoot.

  “Sorry I…”

  “You don’t know how to dance? Well, of course you don’t.” She answered her own question. “You’re lucky you’ve run into me. I can make it easy for you.”

  She clasped my palms in her own. “It’s rock step on six,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  She began to move, first one foot and then the other while her torso swayed in rhythm.

  “Come on,” she encouraged. “Just listen to the beat and start to rock back and forth. I know you can move on the basketball court. The dance floor is not that different.”
r />   She was right. Slowly I began to get the steps down and relax into the music. It was easy. It was fun. I found myself laughing.

  “Hey, don’t get so sure of yourself,” Geri warned. “You haven’t even tried a swingout or a sugarpush yet.”

  “I’m ready to try anything,” I assured her.

  Every new move was crazy and clumsy at first, but Geri was a good teacher and a great dancer. With her in my arms my mistakes felt more humorous than embarrassing. I caught on fast and found it to be a lot of fun.

  For the next weeks and months, I met Geri every Saturday night at the Jitterbug Lounge. Although I occasionally danced with other women, she was my favorite partner. And I discovered that not only did I prefer dancing with her, I did not like to see her dancing with somebody else. I wasn’t angry or even annoyed. But I found I was a little jealous of any man lucky enough to get to spin her around the floor.

  Dancing wasn’t all that we did. Sometimes on hot starry nights or cold, crisp cloudy ones, we would sit outside in the darkness and talk. Geri was always easy to talk to. With Berthrene, I often stumbled over my words, but with Geri I just said whatever came into my head.

  I talked about basketball and the guys at school and funny things that happened on my milk route.

  Geri talked about the big bands on the radio and the songs she liked best and the movies she saw at the Ritz Theater.

  And some nights, when the moon was full, I had no fear about speaking my heart.

  “I want to go someplace, see some things,” I told her. “See some things I’ve never seen before.”

  “I want a man who loves me,” Geri confessed. “A tight house that keeps the wind out and a half dozen kids to call me Mama.”

  It seemed so little for a woman to ask. I felt a desire swell up inside me to see that she got it. The silence between us lingered a long moment and then Geri laughed that wonderful laugh of hers.

  “So when you come home from your travels, Mr. Explorer,” she teased, “stop by the house and say hello to the young’uns.”