This Side of Jordan Read Free

in California where her aunt and uncle owned a lemon grove. Her partner was a homely plumber from Kentucky by the name of Joe Norton. Alvin desperately wanted to take Joe’s part with Dorothy. Trouble was, he could hardly dance a two-step without a manual and lacked the stamina in his lungs, and if Dorothy truly needed to win the contest to attend college, she’d want a better partner than a sickly farm boy with two left feet. So Alvin sat under the NO SPITTING!!! sign for more than eight hours watching Dorothy and Joe waltz about the dance floor with fifty-six other couples. When Alvin left with Frenchy at half past three in the morning, Dorothy and Joe were still arm-in-arm, dancing a drowsy Fox Trot, and feigning youthful romance for smiling patrons seated on pillows in the loge seats.
    Tonight she was gone.
    Sitting up in the sweltering grandstand high above the orchestra, Alvin had a good view of the entire auditorium, dancers and spectators alike. He watched Joe Norton come out of a dressing room hallway late from the break with Patsy on his arm and looked at the scoreboard and counted thirteen couples and noticed that all the other dancers were paired up and Dorothy wasn’t on the floor. That plumber sonofabitch got rid of her, Alvin imagined as his heart sank. She was probably too good-looking for him. He considered leaving, but didn’t have the pep for much more walking tonight. Besides, where would he go?
    The radio program changed to a cheerful waltz. Most of the dancers were too hot and exhausted to pick up the new rhythm. A floor judge in a referee’s pinstripe shirt clapped his hands to speed them up. Behind the loge seats on the far end of the floor, a large hillbilly family stood up to leave, carrying picnic baskets and milk bottles.
    Alvin slid down the plank row behind a pair of fat Chevrolet salesmen eating cold fried chicken out of a metal lunch bucket. They smelled like grease. Alvin watched intently as the master of ceremonies, dressed in black top hat and tails, strode onto the orchestra platform and grabbed the microphone. He had a pencil-thin moustache and slicked-backed hair. His assistant, a slinky blonde dressed up in a cowboy hat and spangles, switched off the radio. Behind the emcee, Jimmy Turkel’s five-piece orchestra, back from supper break, filed onto the stage. The drummer performed a brief introduction as the lethargic dancers slowed to a shuffle. Applause erupted from the grandstand. Alvin glared at Joe Norton and worried that maybe Dorothy had been injured or taken seriously ill during the week he’d been away at the farm. Why had she chosen that dumbbell Norton in the first place?
    â€œLADIES AND GENTLEMEN! HOW ABOUT A BREAK FOR THESE COURAGEOUS KIDS! AREN’T THEY SWELL?”
    The audience cheered loudly.
    An elderly man tossed a handful of coins onto the floor from the side railing. A young dance pair dressed in matching blue sailor suits scrambled over to collect it all up while a crowd of college-age fellows gave them a boisterous hip-hip-hurrah.
    More people cheered.
    The emcee waved his arms to get everyone’s attention again. At the rear of the stage stood Arthur Cheney, the derby promoter from Omaha Alvin had seen on the back porch, still puffing on a fat cigar. Why hadn’t Petey taken a poke at him, Alvin wondered, digging again into his bag of popcorn. A fellow who blows smoke in your face is just asking for a good crack in the jaw.
    â€œLADIES AND GENTLEMEN! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!”
    The thirteen dance couples milled about together in the middle of the floor, hardly moving now. The farm boy watched one of the collegiate fellows giving advice over the railing to a blonde in worn-out slippers whose hollow-eyed partner was sagging off her torso.
    The emcee tapped the microphone with his fist. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THESE KIDS ARE SO COURAGEOUS, AREN’T THEY? HEROES, EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! RIGHT OUT OF THE TOP DRAWER! AND