Part 20 (1/2)

”Do you like Bob Dylan?” he asked Erich.

”Oh, sure. I wanted to be him, too.”

”I brought some records out from Ohio,” Bobby said. ”I've got some, you know, pretty rare ones. You like Hendrix?”

”I love Hendrix. He was, you know, the greatest.”

”Some of the records I could get ca.s.settes of. But some are just too rare. You want to see them?”

”Okay. Sure. Sure I do.”

”We can't listen to them,” Bobby said. ”We haven't got a turntable yet. We've got to buy one. Even though they're, you know, going out of style.”

”I have a turntable,” Erich said. ”If you want to, you could come over sometime and play your records at my place. If you want to.”

”Oh, great. That'd be great. Come here, the records are stored away in Clare's and my room.”

Erich said to Jonathan and me, ”Would you excuse us for a minute?” And suddenly I could see him as he must have been at the age of eight or nine: polite and overenthusiastic, p.r.o.ne to tears, a mystery to his parents.

”Of course,” I said. After they were gone I said to Jonathan in a low voice, ”Well, the kids seem to be getting along all right.”

He shook his head. ”I told you this would be a disaster. You wouldn't listen to me.”

”Nonsense. It's not a disaster. Bobby's in love with him.”

”And you think he's a twerp and a bore.”

”Jonathan. I've known him about five minutes.”

”Five minutes is enough. You'd have to sleep with him for him to make any more sense than he does right now.”

”I don't know why you've kept seeing him all these years if you dislike him this much,” I said.

”s.e.x,” Jonathan said. ”And my own craziness. Oh, I guess I'm fond of him in an unromantic way. I just never wanted to mix him in with the rest of my life, and I was right about that.”

”You're a very strange man.”

”Don't I know it,” he said.

When Bobby and Erich came back, I suggested we take our drinks up to the roof to watch the sunset. The important thing was to keep this dinner party moving, physically if necessary. It was a freakishly warm late-March evening. The kind of weather that implies either an early spring or the effects of nuclear testing.

Jonathan agreed enthusiastically, Bobby and Erich less so. I knew what they were thinking. If we went up to the roof, they'd miss the next cut of Strange Days Strange Days . .

”Boys, we can start the music again when we come back down,” I said, and was surprised at how much like a mother I could sound.

We went up the stairs to the roof, a tarred plateau bound at the edges with patterned concrete pediments. The orange sun hovered over the New Jersey horizon. Television aerials threw intricate, birdlike shadows. The windows of the tall buildings uptown flashed amber and bronze. A fat pink-stained cloud, its every billow and furl distinct as carved ivory, hung soaking up the last light over Brooklyn. Frilled curtains and salsa music blew out of an open window across the alley. We stood facing west, trailing twenty-foot shadows.

”Beautiful,” Jonathan said. ”Just when you think you're going to move to the country, the city does something like this.”

”I adore the roof,” I said. I was surprised, again, at the sound of my own voice. When had I turned into such a hostess?

”You don't hear music like this in my neighborhood,” Erich said. ”Never this kind of Mexican stuff, no.”

”I sort of like it,” Bobby said.

”So do I,” Erich answered.

Bobby swayed his hips in rhythm, and soon began to dance. Watching him in his cheerful, slightly baffled progress through the day, you could forget what a dancer he was. It was one of his surprises. The moment a note of music sounded he could move with such grace and buoyancy. He appeared to shed some interior weight. A ghost of the flesh, all gristle and bone, that dissolved at a guitar's strum or the first bleat of a horn. On the record, a woman backed by maracas and guitars sang full-throated in Spanish, with shamelessly simple pa.s.sion. Bobby, who loved all music, good and bad, danced as the last of the sun disappeared.

Erich glanced at Jonathan and me. I knew what he was thinking. I said, ”Go ahead.” And with a shy smile, he started dancing with Bobby.

He was not nearly the dancer Bobby was, but he moved his feet in time to the music and made little twitching movements with his arms. Bobby turned to him as the sky gave up its last bit of blue and a faint star appeared in the growing violet to the east.

Jonathan and I stood watching, with our drinks in our hands. Jonathan said, ”I don't think I want to just be the chaperon at this party. Do you?”

”No,” I said. ”Not especially.”

Jonathan set his drink on the parapet, and started dancing with Bobby and Erich. He was an elegant if contained dancer. He moved within a small column of air, the exact boundaries of which he never overstepped. I watched. For a moment-a moment-I felt the world spinning away from me. I saw myself standing in the last light, aging in a bright purple thrift-store dress as a group of younger men danced together. It was far from an ordinary moment. And yet I felt as if I'd lived it before.

To get myself back into real life, I started dancing. What else could I do? The heels of my shoes stuck in the tar, making soft pock pock sounds until I stepped out of them and danced in my stocking feet. sounds until I stepped out of them and danced in my stocking feet.

Jonathan said, ”Okay, the rooftop number from West Side Story West Side Story . Are you ready?” . Are you ready?”

”How does it start?” I asked.

”Let's see. 'I like to be in America.'”

”'Okay by me in America.'”

”'Everything free in America.'”

”'For a small fee in America.'”

We whooped and clapped. When the number was finished I turned three perfect cartwheels in a row. I hadn't done it in at least fifteen years. I felt my legs flas.h.i.+ng straight and clean as knives.

”I used to want to be a cheerleader,” I told them. ”Before I decided to just go to h.e.l.l.”

Something took hold of us up there. I remembered the sensation from childhood, when a game gathered momentum. Bobby unb.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt, which bellied in the wind. We all danced exaggeratedly, like members of a Broadway chorus, with leaps and twirls. When the salsa music went off, we started singing. We sang as much as we could remember of the Jets song and ”Officer Krupke.” We sang every number from Hair Hair . .

Bobby said, ”My brother used to play that record ten times a day. Till our mother threw it out. He just got another one. So then she threw his stereo out.”

”One of my cousins was in Hair in Hair ,” I said. ”A couple of years ago, at a dinner theater in Florida.” ,” I said. ”A couple of years ago, at a dinner theater in Florida.”

We sang a few numbers from South Pacific South Pacific , and all the , and all the My Fair Lady My Fair Lady we could come up with. We danced to the sound of our own voices. When we couldn't dance any longer we sat down on the sun-warmed tar, inhaling its mingled smell of sour earth and chemicals. We kept singing. Once, while we were singing ”Get Me to the Church on Time,” I glanced at Jonathan and caught him staring at me with an expression I'd never seen before. It was an injured, glowering look, something between anger and sorrow. When our eyes met, he looked quickly back at the sky. We sang ”I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and we sang ”Norwegian Wood.” Bobby and Jonathan sang a couple of Laura Nyro songs together, until I made them switch back to something we all knew. We sat singing on that roof until darkness proper had set in, and the city blazed around us with the light of ten million parties. we could come up with. We danced to the sound of our own voices. When we couldn't dance any longer we sat down on the sun-warmed tar, inhaling its mingled smell of sour earth and chemicals. We kept singing. Once, while we were singing ”Get Me to the Church on Time,” I glanced at Jonathan and caught him staring at me with an expression I'd never seen before. It was an injured, glowering look, something between anger and sorrow. When our eyes met, he looked quickly back at the sky. We sang ”I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and we sang ”Norwegian Wood.” Bobby and Jonathan sang a couple of Laura Nyro songs together, until I made them switch back to something we all knew. We sat singing on that roof until darkness proper had set in, and the city blazed around us with the light of ten million parties.

BOBBY.

T HE DAY HE DAY after we danced on the roof together, Jonathan slipped through the fabric of his life. He left nothing behind but a few words on a piece of notebook paper anch.o.r.ed to the table by the pepper shaker. ”Dear B. and C, I wish you great happiness together. That sounds so corny, doesn't it? Anyway, I'm starting again somewhere else, I honestly don't know where. I'll call eventually. Give away whatever of mine you can't use yourselves. Love, J.” after we danced on the roof together, Jonathan slipped through the fabric of his life. He left nothing behind but a few words on a piece of notebook paper anch.o.r.ed to the table by the pepper shaker. ”Dear B. and C, I wish you great happiness together. That sounds so corny, doesn't it? Anyway, I'm starting again somewhere else, I honestly don't know where. I'll call eventually. Give away whatever of mine you can't use yourselves. Love, J.”