Stanley Elkin - The Franchiser

“ The free dance lesson! ” he announced, roaring into the microphone and clapping his hands — the right hand had begun to tingle again — in time to the music. “Left foot for ward, right foot back . Basic left turn, right box turn. Butterfly, ser pentine, advance right turn . Lilt left fleckerl, quarter turn right. Left rock, right rock, chassé swing step, three step cross. Pony trot and pony circle, Cinderella grapevine, fallaway grapevine, arch turn, breakaway, loop turn, she go, he go, right spot turn. Tuck -in, arch turn, change of place with right-hand lead . Right-hand loop, right-hand loop and change of hands. Push spin, rhumb square, promenade, pivot; Cuban walk and backward rock . Walk across basic, hinge and tuck-in, golf step, airplane, promenade twist . Side basic, swivel basic, shoulder to shoulder, and tap and point. Outside now and fan and corte, open left turn with outside finish, gauche turn, corkscrew, strike and samba. Choo choo, choo choo, boto fogos . Paddle turn, right turn, merengue chassé. Wheel. Arch. Step time, mark time, march time; promenade twist and wheel and cape. Right turn, left turn, left change, right change — everybody hold! ”

They were staring at him.

“Well,” he said. “It’s three o’clock in the morning,” he said. He was out of breath. “Good night, ladies, g’night, ladies, it’s ti’ t’say g’night. Gala’s over. Fred thanks you. Out. Beat it.”

His guests moved off.

“Excuse me,” a woman said.

“What?”

“Excuse me.”

“What do you want?”

“You’re standing on my shopping bag.” Ben moved his foot. She gathered her parcels and left.

Al and Jenny, Luis and Hope had disappeared.

Flesh sat on the edge of the stage, “Some stage,” he said. “I can touch the floor with my feet.”

“I never heard anything like it. What the hell was that all about?” It was Clara’s voice. She must have been sitting in one of the wallflower chairs. The room was lighted by the small colored spots.

“It’s like living in a jukebox,” Flesh said. “A pinball machine. I can’t see a thing. Turn that crap off. Let’s have some light.” He heard the rustle of Clara’s gown, her hand flick a switch. They were momentarily in complete darkness.

“That better?”

“Turn the lights on. Let’s see the damage.” The lights came on. “Jesus,” Flesh said. “After the ball is over. Oh boy. Look at my floor. It’s like a giant pizza.” There were crushed egg rolls, butterfly shrimp with their wings torn off, here and there barbecued ribs like tiny picket fences. Slabs of white turkey like the wood beneath bark. Rounds of roast beef floated in puddles of spilled Scotch, spilled bourbon.

“Al’ll get it in the morning.”

“Yeah. How’d we do?”

“Nobody signed up.”

Flesh nodded. “Good.”

“Good?”

“We can’t accept any new applicants.”

“Why?”

“Why. They’re cutting down on federal aid to education. I don’t want to lower our high standards.”

“You shutting us down, Mr. Flesh?”

“Yeah, we’re closing out of town. We ain’t taking it to Broadway.”

“Then what was that pitch all about?”

“In the morning I want you to call Nate Lace. He’s at the Nittney-Lyon Hotel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”

“Who’s Nate Lace?”

“No one. A liquidator. An old pal. When’s the session over? When’s graduation?”

“Chibka has two more private lessons. The group session goes another three weeks.”

“Three weeks, yeah. Get Lace. I want him for Commencement speaker.”

“Mr. Flesh?”

“Look at me in this suit. You ever see anything so ridiculous?”

“What’s going to happen to us?”

“Yeah. Well, to tell you the truth, I think I can find a spot in the Follies for Luis, but you don’t fit into the big picture. If you really love him, let the lug go.”

“What are we going to do, Mr. Flesh?”

“We’re going to liquidate. Fire sale. Everything must go. We’re closing down the Carioca.” She would be forty in maybe three years. Her figure was nice. He liked the long line of her legs, her flat chest and tough prettiness. “Listen,” he said, “you know how lonely it’s supposed to be at the top? Let me tell you, it’s lots lonelier at the bottom. I don’t know what you’re going to do, Clara. I don’t know what’s going to happen to Al or to Jenny or to Hope or Luis. Is that really his name? Shit, sister, there are shopping centers in Niles, in Buffalo Grove, La Grange, Glencoe. Bring your taps. Teach ballet to six-year-old Jewish kids.” She was crying. “Come on,” he said. “Clara, don’t. What are you doing? Hey. Stop.” He moved closer to her, and not knowing what would happen he held his arms open to her. She came toward the middle-aged man. He held her unsteadily. “I come from Fred Astaire,” he said softly, “everybody dance.”

He tried to lead, and when he slipped from time to time on the puddings of scattered food or in the liquor, she caught him and held him up. He made a low hum in his throat as they danced. He liked the sound. He sang to her from his guttural hum. “I’m taking off my top hat, I’m taking off my topcoat, I’m taking off my tails.”

“What was that stuff?” she asked. “That speech you made?”

“Who knows? My father’s spirit’s in this room. I feel it.”

“Your father?”

“Yes. He’d be, what, seventy-five years old now. Hey, Daddy, you see how things change? This here’s Clara.”

“Hi, Mr. Flesh,” Clara said.

“Did you see how they spilled things? Boy, I tell you,” he said, “the public . Hey, Papa. You know something? I broke the law. I’m a possessor. I could be put in jail. Almost fifty fucking years old and I could be put in jail. I bet you never broke a law.” He let Clara go. “I’m sorry, Papa.” He was crying, shaken so hard by his sobs it was difficult for him to breathe. “I’m sorry you died in a crash,” he sobbed, “I’m sorry to have taken Fred Astaire’s name in vain, sorry my dancers live in a time when no one wants to learn the steps, sorry to God for a freedom which I helped shape by accepting all the credit cards — the Diners Club and Master Charge and BankAmericard and Carte Blanche and all the oil company things. Sorry for my rotten health of body and heart. Ah shit, Papa, it’s a hell of a way to start a fiscal year.”

“Are you all right?” Clara asked.

“No,” he cried, “no. No. I’m not.” He wiped his eyes and began again to dance with her. When he let her go he put his hand into the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. “Here,” he said.

“What?”

“Your money. The two fives I took from you earlier.”

“You gave that back to him.”

“I did? Then what’s this I’m holding?”

“What’s what you’re holding? Where?”

Where has he seen these men? Their sport coats are the nubby textures and patterns of upholstery from credit furniture supplements in Sunday newspapers. They are crosshatched, double knits, drapery, checks like optical illusions, designs like aerial photographs of Kansas wheat fields, Pennsylvania pastureland, or the russets of erosion in western national parks. The pockets of their blazers are slashed, angled as bannister. Change would fall out of them, he thinks. The flaps are mock, shaped like the lower halves of badges. Their notched, pointed collars ride their shoulders like the conferral of wide, mysterious honors, the mantles of secret orders — and Flesh supposes they belong to these. He has never seen such shoes. Many are glossy white loafers, the color and sheen of wet teeth in ads. Gratuitous, useless buckles vault the white piping that rises from their shoes like welts. The jewelry and fixtures in the center of their false straps could be I.D. tags, or metal tablets, or slender sunken scutcheons. He sees no belts in the tight cuneiform-print trousers, in the plaids like colored grids, like cage, windowpanes, that climb their legs like ladders. The pants hold themselves up, self-supportive, a flap of fabric buttoned to a rim of itself like flesh sealed to flesh in operations. He marvels at their bump-toe shoes, their thick fillets of composition heels like shiny mignon or rosy cross sections of pressed geology. At their shirts like Christmas ties.