a thursday night rendevous

I can hardly think about those fantastic nights at the Art Council’s replica Globe Theatre. They fill me with such longing that it feels like sadness. I wish for those nights, self-assured, overflowing with life and confidence and familiarity. We would arrive after dark had already settled in with its feet up for the duration. Cigarette smoke and soft light filled the air around the small wood-and-glass building, the doors thrown open to emit low tones of bass and trumpet and rolling drum beats. The cobblestone floor was uneven but deliciously cool to the touch when the sweat of a few dances led us to kick off our shoes. We were met with the expressions and words of the delighted. They led me to believe that my absence was emptiness in the room, a loss in the conversation, an unfortunately unmade memory. What did we speak of? Moments at school that I’ve already forgotten. But I do remember the dancing—the songs that played over and over and how the music became a part of me, as though it replaced the blood in my veins to move me. I knew which cobblestones to overstep, could read the language of the pressure at my back: “turn here,” “come back”; learned something new each week and made it bear my name with a unique variation by the time it was mastered. And he was the one I wanted to move with. We knew the feel of each other’s bodies, the height and length of step. The familiarity that required no thought allowed us to settle into enjoyment, to let it happen to us rather than to engineer its happening. I felt his approval like a beam of sunlight.

We would pause to greet smokers idling in conversation at the door before walking into the light and warmth: An open space with a stone floor under a high, open ceiling. We danced there in front of a rectangular stage used for occasional musical guests and the more frequent Shakespearean performance on weekend days. The usual round tables and accompanying chairs were moved to make room for bodies turning, promenading, swaying, sweating with delightful exertion to Billy Holiday and Glen Miller. On either side, overlooking the makeshift dance floor in the center of the small building, were balconies, accessible by short staircases at the end of short hallways and snug under the low part of the ceiling, shrouded by dim light and muted music. We observed the usual pleasantries before eagerly jumping into the music, meandering to the left of the doorway to order a macchiato or café breva and sipping it while standing against the long, cold glass of the windows.

The first request of a gentleman would begin that for which I chiefly came. A shy request, but an eagerly accepted one. A 17 year old, held close, gently to the body of a burly Irishman, smelling strongly of coffee and pipe tobacco. Comfortable without the pressure of exchanging words, without the awkwardness of miscommunicated steps. Hours and hours would go by, but it was never enough, and a week would pass before it was time to start the coveted ritual once more.