 and a white cotton shirt with French cuffs
which dangle undone below his coat sleeves, a lovely acid-green silk tie which
he has loosened just enough so that I can see the muscles in his neck, black jeans
and black high-top sneakers. Henry gathers my hair together and wraps it around
his wrist. For a moment I am his prisoner, and then the line moves forward and
he lets me go.
We are ticketed and flow with masses of people into the building. The Aragon
has numerous long hallways and alcoves and balconies that wrap around the
main hall and are ideal for getting lost and for hiding, Henry and I go up to a
balcony close to the stage and sit at a tiny table. We take off our coats. Henry is
staring at me.
"You look lovely. That's a great dress; I can't believe you can dance in it."
My dress is skin-tight lilac blue silk, but it stretches enough to move in. I tried
it out this afternoon in front of a mirror and it was fine. The thing that worries me
is my hair; because of the dry winter air there seems to be twice as much of it as
usual. I start to braid it and Henry stops me.
"Don't, please-I want to look at you with it down."
The opening act begins its set. We listen patiently. Everyone is milling
around, talking, smoking. There are no seats on the main floor. The noise is
phenomenal.
Henry leans over and yells in my ear. "Do you want something to drink?"
"Just a Coke."
He goes off to the bar. I rest my arms on the railing of the balcony and watch
the crowd. Girls in vintage dresses, girls in combat gear, boys with Mohawks,
boys in flannel shirts. People of both sexes in T-shirts and jeans. College kids and
twenty-somethings, with a few old folks scattered in.
Henry is gone for a long time. The warm-up band finishes, to scattered
applause, and roadies begin removing the band's equipment and bringing on a
more or less identical bunch of instruments. Eventually I get tired of waiting,
and, abandoning our table and coats, I force my way through the dense pack of
people on the balcony down the stairs and into the long dim hallway where the
bar is. Henry's not there. I move slowly through the halls and alcoves, looking
but trying not to look like I'm looking.
I spot him at the end of a hallway. He is standing so close to the woman that at
first I think they are embracing; she has her back to the wall and Henry leans over
her with his hand braced against the wall above her shoulder. The intimacy of
their pose takes my breath. She is blond, and beautiful in a very German way, tall
and dramatic.
As I get closer, I realize that they aren't kissing; they are fighting. Henry is
using his free hand to emphasize whatever it is he is yelling at this woman.
Suddenly her impassive face breaks into anger, almost tears. She screams
something back at him. Henry steps back and throws up his hands. I hear the last
of it as he walks away:
"I can't, Ingrid, I just can't! I'm sorry-"
"Henry!" She is running after him when they both see me, standing quite still
in the middle of the corridor. Henry is grim as he takes my arm and we walk
quickly to the stairs. Three steps up I turn and see her standing, watching us, her
arms at her sides, helpless and intense. Henry glances back, and we turn and
continue up the stairs.
We find our table, which miraculously is still free and still boasts our coats.
The lights arc going down and Henry raises his voice over the noise of the crowd.
"I'm sorry. I never made it as far as the bar, and I ran into Ingrid-"
Who is Ingrid? I think of myself standing in Henry's bathroom with a lipstick in
my hand and I need to know but blackness descends and the Violent Femmes
take the stage.
Gordon Gano stands at the microphone glaring at us all and menacing chords
ring out and he leans forward and intones the opening lines of Blister in the Sun
and we're off and running. Henry and I sit and listen and then he leans over to me
and shouts, "Do you want to leave?" The dance floor is a roiling mass of
slamming humanity.
"I want to dance!"
Henry looks relieved. "Great! Yes! Come on!" He strips off his tie and shoves
it in his overcoat pocket. We wend our way back downstairs and enter the main
hall. I see Charisse and Gomez dancing more or less together. Charisse is
oblivious and frenzied, Gomez is barely moving, a cigarette absolutely level
between his lips. He sees me and gives me a little wave. Moving into the crowd
is like wading in Lake Michigan; we are taken in and buoyed along, floating
toward the stage. The crowd is roaring Add it up! Add it up! and the Femmes
respond by attacking their instruments with insane vigor, Henry is moving,
vibrating with the bass line. We are just outside the mosh pit, dancers slamming
against each other at high velocity on one side and on the other side dancers
shaking their hips, flailing their arms, stepping to the music.
We dance. The music runs through me, waves of sound that grab me by the
spine, that move my feet my hips my shoulders without consulting my brain.
(Beautiful girl, love your dress, high school smile, oh yes, where she is now, I can only
guess.) I open my eyes and see Henry watching me while he dances. When I raise
my arms he grasps me around the waist and I leap up. I have a panoramic view
of the dance floor for a mighty eternity. Someone waves at me but before I can see
who it is Henry sets me down again. We dance touching, we dance apart. (How
can I explain personal pain?) Sweat is streaming down me. Henry shakes his head
and his hair makes a black blur and his sweat is all over me. The music is
goading, mocking (I ain't had much to live for I ain't had much to live for I ain't had
much to live for). We throw ourselves at it. My body is elastic, my legs are numb,
and a sensation of white heat travels from my crotch to the top of my head. My
hair is damp ropes that cling to my arms and neck and face and back. The music
crashes into a wall and stops. My heart is pounding. I place my hand on Henry's
chest and am surprised that his seems only slightly quickened.
Slightly later, I walk into the ladies' room and see Ingrid sitting on a sink,
crying. A small black woman with beautiful long dreads is standing in front of
her speaking softly and stroking her hair. The sound of Ingrid's sobs echoes off
the dank yellow tile. I start to back out of the room and my movement attracts
their attention. They look at me. Ingrid is a mess. All her Teutonic cool is gone,
her face is red and puffy, her makeup is in streaks. She stares at me, bleak and
drained. The black woman walks over to me. She is fine and delicate and dark
and sad. She stands close and speaks quietly.
"Sister," she says, "what's your name?"
I hesitate. "Clare," I finally say.
She looks back at Ingrid. "Clare. A word to the wise. You are mixing in where
you're not wanted. Henry, he's bad news, but he's Ingrid's bad news, and you be
a fool to mess with him. You hear what I'm saying?"
I don't want to know but I can't help myself. "What are you talking about?"
"They were going to get married. Then Henry, he breaks it off, tells Ingrid he's
sorry, never mind, just forget it. I say she's better off without him, but she don't
listen. He treats her bad, drinks like they ain't making it no more, disappears for
days and then comes around like nothing happened, sleeps with anything that
stands still long enough. That's Henry. When he makes you moan and cry, don't
say nobody never told you." She turns abruptly and walks back to Ingrid, who is
still staring at me, who is looking at me with unconditional despair.
I must be gaping at them. "I'm sorry," I say, and I flee.
I wander the halls and finally find an alcove that's empty except for a young
Goth girl passed out on a vinyl couch with a burning cigarette between her
fingers. I take it from her and stub it out on the filthy tile. I sit on the arm of the
couch and the music vibrates through my tailbone up my spine. I can feel it in
my teeth. I still need to pee and my head hurts. I want to cry. I don't understand
what just happened. That is, I understand but I don't know what I should do
about it. I don't know if I should just forget it, or get upset at Henry and demand
an explanation, or what. What did I expect? I wish I could send a postcard into
the past, to this cad Henry who I don't know: Do nothing, Wait for me. Wish you were
here.
Henry sticks his head around the corner. "There you are. I thought I'd lost
you."
Short hair. Henry has either gotten his hair cut in the last half hour or I'm
looking at my favorite chrono-displaced person. I jump up and fling myself at
him.
"Oompf-hey, glad to see you, too..."
"I've missed you-" now I am crying.
"You've been with me almost nonstop for weeks."
"I know but-you're not you, yet-I mean, you're different. Damn." I lean against
the wall and Henry presses against me. We kiss, and then Henry starts licking my
face like a mama cat. I try to purr and start laughing. "You asshole. You're trying
to distract me from your infamous behavior-"
"What behavior? I didn't know you existed. I was unhappily dating Ingrid. I
met you. I broke up with Ingrid less than twenty-four hours later. I mean,
infidelity isn't retroactive, you know?"
"She said-"
"Who said?"
"The black woman." I mime long hair. "Short, big eyes, dreads-"
"Oh Lord. That's Celia Attley. She despises me. She's in love with Ingrid."
"She said you were going to marry Ingrid. That you drink all the time, fuck
around, and are basically a bad person and I should run. That's what she said."
Henry is torn between mirth and incredulity. "Well, some of that is actually
true. I did fuck around, a lot, and I certainly have been known to drink rather
prodigiously. But we weren't engaged. I would never have been insane enough to
marry Ingrid. We were royally miserable together."
"But then why-"
"Clare, very few people meet their soulmates at age six.