Page 10 of The Life of Chuck
Little sister ignored this. “I like to watch you dance, though. You do it like a white guy, but still.”
Little sister, also white, also liked to dance. Sometimes after practice she would put on one of herhomemade cassettes and he’d dance with her while the other guys in the band hooted and made semi-smart remarks, the two of them doing their Michael Jackson moves and laughing like loons.
Chuck’s thinking about teaching little sister (Ramona?) how to moonwalk when he first hears the drums. Some guy is banging a basic rock beat that the Retros might have played back in the days of “Hang On Sloopy” and “Brand New Cadillac.” At first he thinks it’s all in his head, maybe even the start of one of the migraines that have plagued him lately, but then the crowd of pedestrians on the next block clears long enough for him to see a kid in a sleeveless tee, sitting on his little stool and beating out that tasty old-time rhythm.
Chuck thinks, Where’s a little sister to dance with when you need one?
Jared has been on the job for ten minutes now and has nothing to show for it but that one sarcastic quarter flipped into Magic Hat by the skateboard kid. It makes no sense to him, on a pleasant Thursdayafternoon like this with the weekend just around the bend, he should have at least five dollars in the hat by now. He doesn’t need the money to keep from starving, but man doesn’t live by food and rent alone. A man has to keep his self-image in order, and drumming here on Boylston is a big part of his. He is onstage. He is performing. Soloing, in fact. What’s in the hat is how he judges who is digging the performance and who is not.
He twirls his sticks between his fingertips, sets himself, and plays the intro to “My Sharona,” but it’s not right. Sounds canned. He sees a Mr. Businessman type coming toward him, briefcase swinging like a short pendulum, and something about him—God knows what—makes Jared want to announce his approach. He slips first into a reggae beat, then something slinkier, like a cross between “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Susie Q.”
For the first time since running that quick paradiddle to gauge the sound of his kit, Jared feels a spark and understands why he wanted the cowbell today. He begins to whack it on the offbeat, and what he’s drumming morphs into something like that oldjoint by the Champs, “Tequila.” It’s pretty cool. The groove has arrived, and the groove is like a road you want to follow. He could speed the beat up, get some tom in there, but he’s watching Mr. Businessman, and that seems wrong for this dude. Jared has no idea why Mr. Businessman has become the groove’s focal point, and doesn’t care. Sometimes it just happens that way. The groove turns into a story. He imagines Mr. Businessman on vacation in one of those places where you get a little pink umbrella in your drink. Maybe he’s with his wife, or maybe it’s his personal assistant, an ash blond in a turquoise bikini. And this is what they’re hearing. This is the drummer warming up for the night’s gig, before the tiki torches are lit.
He believes Mr. Businessman will just go past on his way to his Mr. Businessman hotel, the chances that he’ll feed Magic Hat hovering somewhere between slim and none. When he’s gone, Jared will switch to something else, give the cowbell a rest, but for now this beat is the right one.
But instead of floating on by, Mr. Businessman stops. He’s smiling. Jared gives him a grin and nods to the tophat on the pavement, never missing a beat.Mr. Businessman doesn’t seem to notice him, and he doesn’t feed the hat. He drops his briefcase between his black Mr. Businessman shoes instead and begins moving his hips side to side with the beat. Just hips: everything else stays still. His face is poker. He seems to be looking at a spot directly over Jared’s head.
“Go, man,” a young man remarks, and chinks some coins into the hat. For the gently jiving Mr. Businessman, not the beat, but that’s okay.
Jared begins working the hi-hat in quick tender strokes, teasing it, almost caressing it. With his other hand he begins knocking the cowbell on the offbeat, using the kick-pedal to add a little bottom. It’s nice. The guy in the gray suit looks like a banker, but that hip-sway is something else. He raises a hand and begins ticking his forefinger to the beat. On the back of the hand is a small crescent-shaped scar.
Chuck hears the beat change, becoming a little more exotic, and for a moment he almost comes back to himself and walks away. Then he thinks, Fuck it, no law against dancing a little on the sidewalk. Hesteps back from his briefcase so he won’t trip, then puts his hands on his moving hips and does a jivey clockwise turn like an about-face. It’s how he used to do it back in the day, when the band was playing “Satisfaction” or “Walking the Dog.” Someone laughs, someone else applauds, and he goes back the other way with the tail of his coat flying. He’s thinking about dancing with little sister. Little sister was a booger with a dirty mouth, but she could sure get down on it.
Chuck himself hasn’t got down on it—that mystical, satisfyingit—in years, but every move feels perfect. He lifts one leg and spins on the other heel. Then he clasps his hands behind his back like a schoolboy called on to recite and moonwalks in place on the pavement in front of his briefcase.
The drummer goes “Yow, daddy!” in surprise and delight. He picks up the pace, now going from the cowbell to the floor tom with his left hand, working the kick-pedal, never losing the metallic sighing from the hi-hat. People are gathering. Money is pouring into Magic Hat: paper as well as metal. Something is happening here.
Two young men in matching berets and Rainbow Coalition tees are at the front of the little crowd. One of them tosses what looks like a five into the hat and yells “Go, man, go!”
Chuck doesn’t need the encouragement. He’s into it now. Banking in the twenty-first century has slipped his mind. He frees the button on his suit coat, brushes the coat behind him with the backs of his hands, hooks his thumbs into his belt like a gunslinger, and does a modified split, out and back. He follows with a quick-step and turn. The drummer is laughing and nodding. “You the cheese,” he says. “You the cheese, daddy!”
The crowd is growing, the hat is filling, Chuck’s heart isn’t just beating in his chest but thrumming. Good way to have a heart attack, but he doesn’t care. If his wife saw him doing this she’d shit a brick, and he doesn’t care. His son would be embarrassed, but his son isn’t here. He puts his right shoe on his left calf, spins again, and when he comes back front and center, he sees a pretty young woman standing next to the beret guys. She’s wearing a filmy pink blouse and a red wrap skirt. She’s staring at him with wide, fascinated eyes.
Chuck holds his hands out to her, smiling, snapping his fingers. “Come on,” he says. “Come on, little sister, dance.”
Jared doesn’t think she will—she looks like the shy type—but she walks slowly toward the man in the gray suit. Maybe Magic Hat really is magic.
“Dance!” one of the beret guys says, and others pick it up, clapping along with the beat Jared is laying down: “Dance, dance, dance!”
Janice breaks into a what-the-hell smile, tosses her purse down beside Chuck’s briefcase, and takes his hands. Jared drops what he’s been doing and turns into Charlie Watts, hammering like a soldier. Mr. Businessman twirls the girl, puts a hand on her trim waist, draws her to him, and quick-steps her past the drumkit, almost to the corner of the Walgreens building. Janice pulls away, waving her finger in a “naughty-naughty” gesture, then comes back and grasps both of Chuck’s hands. As if they had practiced this a hundred times, he does another modified split and she shoots between his legs, a daring move thatopens the wrap skirt to the top of one pretty thigh. There are a few gasps as she props herself on one tented hand and then springs back up. She’s laughing.
“No more,” Chuck says, patting his chest. “I can’t—”
She springs to him and puts her hands on his shoulders and he can after all. He catches her by the waist, turning her on his hip and then setting her neatly on the pavement. He lifts her left hand and she spins beneath it like a hopped-up ballerina. There must be over a hundred people watching now, they crowd the sidewalk and spill into the street. They burst into fresh applause.
Jared runs the drums one time, hits the cymbals, then holds up his sticks triumphantly. There’s another round of applause. Chuck and Janice are looking at each other, both out of breath. Chuck’s hair, just starting to gray, is stuck to his sweaty forehead.
“What are we doing?” Janice asks. Now that the drums have stopped, she looks dazed.
“I don’t know,” Chuck says, “but that’s the best thing that’s happened to me in I don’t know how long.”
Magic Hat is full to overflowing.
“More!” someone shouts, and the crowd picks it up. There are many phones being held up, ready to catch the next dance, and the girl looks like she would, but she’s young. Chuck is danced out. He looks at the drummer and shakes his head. The drummer gives him a nod to show he understands. Chuck is wondering how many people were quick enough to video that first dance, and what his wife will think if she sees it. Or his son. And suppose it goes viral? Unlikely, but if it does, if it gets back to the bank, what will they think when they see the man they sent to a conference in Boston shaking his booty on Boylston Street with a woman young enough to be his daughter? Or somebody’s little sister. Just what did he think he was doing?
“No more, folks,” the drummer calls. “We gotta quit while we’re ahead.”
“And I need to get home,” the girl says.
