immaculate men, searching around until his eyes lit on a table where a woman of indeterminate age sat, hands folded, face thin and sickly pale, half hidden under a wide-brimmed hat, looking as if she were waiting for someone who never came.
Bug glanced from her to me. I nodded. And in a moment he was bowing at her table and a conversation ensued. It seemed she didn't dance, didn't know
What can I say, how can I tell? Bug, long ago, had never bragged, but only told the truth. Once he got hold of a girl, she was weightless. By the time he had whisked and whirled and glided her once around the floor, she almost took off, it seemed he had to hold her down, she was pure gossamer, the closest thing to a hummingbird held in the hand so you cannot feel its weight but only sense its heartbeat sounding to your touch, and there she went out and around and back, with Bug guiding and moving, enticing and retreating, and not fifty anymore, no, but eighteen, his body remembering what his mind thought it had long forgotten, for his body was free of the earth now, too. He carried himself, as he carried her, with that careless insouciance of a lover who knows what will happen in the next hour and the night soon following.
And it happened, just like he said. Within a minute, a minute and a half at most, the dance floor cleared. As Bug and his stranger lady whirled by with a glance, every couple on the floor stood still. The bandleader almost forgot to keep time with his baton, and the members of the orchestra, in a similar trance, leaned forward over their instruments to see Bug and his new love whirl and turn without touching the floor.
When the «Serenade» ended, there was a moment of stillness and then an explosion of applause. Bug pretended it was all for the lady, and helped her curtsy and took her to her table, where she sat, eyes shut, not believing what had happened. By that time Bug was on the floor again, with one of the wives he borrowed from the nearest table. This time, no one even went out on the floor. Bug and the borrowed wife filled it around and around, and this time even Bug's eyes were shut.
I got up and put twenty dollars on the table where he might find it. After all, he
Why had I done it? Well, I couldn't very well have left him out in the middle of the high school auditorium aisle dancing
On my way out I looked back. Bug saw me and waved, his eyes as brimmed full as mine. Someone passing whispered, «Hey, come on,
God, I thought, he'll be dancing all night.
Me, I could only walk.
And I went out and walked until I was fifty again and the sun was going down and the low June fog was coming in early over old Los Angeles.
That night, just before going to sleep, I wished that in the morning when Bug woke up he would find the floor around his bed covered with trophies.
Or at the very least he would turn and find a quiet and understanding trophy with her head on his pillow, near enough to touch.
Once More, Legato
1995 year
Fentriss sat up in his chair in the garden in the middle of a fine autumn and listened. The drink in his hand remained unsipped, his friend Black unspoken to, the fine house unnoticed, the very weather itself neglected, for there was a veritable fountain of sound in the air above them.
«My God,» he mid. «Do you 'hear?»
«What, the birds?» asked his friend Black, doing just the opposite, sipping his drink, noticing the weather, admiring the rich house, and neglecting the birds entirely until this moment.
«Great God in heaven, listen to them!» cried Fentriss.
Black listened. «Rather nice.»
«clean out your ears!»
Black made a halfhearted gesture, symbolizing the cleaning out of ears. «Well?»
«Damn it, don't be funny. I mean really
«Birds usually do.»
«No, they don't; birds paste together bits and pieces maybe, five or six notes, eight at the most. Mockingbirds have repertoires that change, but not entire melodies.
Both men sat, enchanted. Black's expression melted.
«I'll be damned,» he said at last. «They
«Yes . . .» murmured Fentriss, eyes shut, nodding to the rhythms that sprang like fresh rain from the tree just above their heads. «. . . ohmigod . . . indeed.»
Black rose as if to move under the tree and peer up. Fentriss protested with a fierce whisper:
«Don't spoil it. Sit. Be very still. Where's my pencil? Ah…»
Half peering around, he found a pencil and notepad, shut his eyes, and began to scribble blindly.
The birds sang.
«You're not
«What does it look like? Quiet.»
And with eyes now open, now shut, Fentriss drew scales and jammed in the notes.
«I didn't know you read music,» said Black, astonished.
«I played the violin until my father broke it. Please! There. There. Yes!
«Slower,» he whispered. «Wait for me.»
As if hearing, the birds adjusted their lilt, moving toward
A breeze stirred the leaves, like an invisible conductor, and the singing died.
Fentriss, perspiration beading his forehead, stopped scribbling and fell back.
«I'll be damned.» Black gulped his drink. «What was
«Writing a song.» Fentriss stared at the scales he had dashed on paper. «Or a tone poem.»
«Let me
«Wait.» The tree shook itself gently, but produced no further notes. «I want to be sure they're done.»
Silence.
Black seized the pages and let his eyes drift over the scales. «Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,» he said, aghast. «It
«The birds of forever, the small beasts of an Immaculate Musical Conception. Something,» said Fentriss, «has made them with child and its name is song-«
«Hogwash!»
«It is'» said Black. «But
«Never question the miraculous when it happens. Good grief, maybe those damned wonderful creatures have been throwing up incredible songs for months, years, but no one
