Freshman Year - Part 5, Jazz Dance

After Troy left, I turned on the lights. Janice came through the door crying and sobbing. Somehow she managed to sputter that her boyfriend that was captain of the Lacrosse team had dumped her. She came into my arms and I consoled her.

She said, “I’ll never meet someone that nice again!” More shaking sobs followed that statement.

I thought about how he slept with her and then cast her aside like garbage and how very mean that was and said, “I am sure you will Janice. You will meet lots of guys much nicer than him.”

She looked up at me with those blue eyes filled with hope and curled lashes and said, “You think so, really?”

“Yes.” I answered definitively. “I know so.” After some time she calmed down and went to sleep.

My Jazz Dance class began midway through the semester. I had no idea what to wear, so I came to it in shorts and my red canvas sneakers. I was a bit flummoxed to see the rest of the class in leotards and dance slippers. Egad, I thought, I am a bit out of place. But the course description said nothing about ballet, so, maybe not. Then the class started and the full first hour was a ballet warm up, half hour on the floor and half hour on the bar. I felt a bit like daffy duck in my sneakers; the total klutz in the brood of graceful swans. Plus, there was some overlap with ice skating and the muscles for ballet and ice skating are opposed and that meant my muscles hurt like a son of a bitch. But, I could go up on point in my canvas sneakers!

The second hour of the class was the jazz part. Here I learned the famous ‘jazz hands’. Always useful! But seriously folks, I learned to dance and lost some of my white man’s disease. The hustle was in at that time and we learned the basics of that which came in handy right away. Finally I had some moves and could feel comfortable on the dance floor.

There was another dance on campus and this time and I was prepared. Troy showed up with a towel hanging from his left jeans pocket. It looked really cool that way. We danced the hustle together and he was impressed with my new moves. He put a new twist on it by moving in so that our legs were entwined at the knee. Then he moved closer so that his leg was in-between mine and mine in between his. It was like we were humping each other’s legs. This was the closest I had been to him since we had kissed.

He had been kind of distant and I figured that he just didn’t want Colleen to be jealous. Around we went to the music, and then we broke apart, still dancing. Then he faced Colleen and she danced with him. Similar to the way I did, but she had that great hip grinding motion that I could never get due to my white man’s disease. Timothy watched. Troy wiped his face with the towel from his pants pocket when we finished dancing. Then we all bundled up to go back out into the cold and snow.

Colleen knew two of the EO students because they were from Sullivan County. One of them was tall, Dwayne, and one of them was shorter, Eddie, but really handsome and his skin was very light for an African American. His hair was loose and curly and his eyes were almost bluish-hazel. He was very pretty. Supposedly his high school sweetheart was a blond dish that did not go to college. They used to run track together and were inseparable. Talk was that they were engaged. We used to hang with them and Troy sometimes.

That was how I got involved with the only theft I have ever committed in my entire life. Everyone was drunk, except for me, and we were wandering around Cayuga up to no good. Troy was fixated on lawn balls. You know those big mirrored balls that folks put out as decoration on their lawns? I personally think they are ugly, but different strokes, you know. So, he took one and off we all ran. He put it in his room. I felt so guilty over that damn thing every time I saw it in his room.

But, other kids were stealing stuff from all over town. Kids in my dorm had stolen flashing yellow traffic warning lights and were trying to figure out how to get them to stop flashing without breaking them. Other kids stole stop signs, street signs, you name it, and kids stole it. I just couldn’t understand it. Who raised these kids?