Immediately they were seated, a waiter came to take their order.
“Three bottles of White Rock.” The waiter nodded, twirled his tray on the tip of his fingers and skated away.
Emma Lou watched the dancers, and noticed immediately that in all that insensate crowd of dancing couples there were only a few Negroes.
“My God, such music. Let’s dance, Arline,” and off they went, leaving Emma Lou sitting alone. Somehow or other she felt frightened. Most of the tables around her were deserted, their tops littered with liquid-filled glasses, and bottles of ginger ale and White Rock. There was no liquor in sight, yet Emma Lou was aware of pungent alcoholic odors. Then she noticed a heavy-jowled white man with a flashlight walking among the empty tables and looking beneath them. He didn’t seem to be finding anything. The music soon stopped. Arline and her brother returned to the table. He was feigning anxiety because he had not seen the type of character Arline claimed to be portraying, and loudly declared that he was disappointed.
“Why there ain’t nothing here but white people. Is it always like this?”
Emma Lou said it was and turned to watch their waiter, who with two others had come dancing across the floor, holding aloft his tray, filled with bottles and glasses. Deftly, he maneuvered away from the other two and slid to their table, put down a bottle of White Rock and an ice-filled glass before each one, then, after flicking a stub check on to the table, rejoined his companions in a return trip across the dance floor.
Arline’s brother produced a hip flask, and before Emma Lou could demur mixed her a highball. She didn’t want to drink. She hadn’t drunk before, but. …
“Here come the entertainers!” Emma Lou followed Arline’s turn of the head to see two women, one light brown skin and slim, the other chocolate colored and fat, walking to the center of the dance floor.
The orchestra played the introduction and vamp to “Muddy Waters.” The two entertainers swung their legs and arms in rhythmic unison, smiling broadly and rolling their eyes, first to the left and then to the right. Then they began to sing. Their voices were husky and strident, neither alto nor soprano. They muddled their words and seemed to inpregnate the syncopated melody with physical content.
As they sang the chorus, they glided out among the tables, stopping at one, then at another, and another, singing all the time, their bodies undulating and provocative, occasionally giving just a promise of an obscene hip movement, while their arms waved and their fingers held tight to the dollar bills and silver coins placed in their palms by enthusiastic onlookers.
Emma Lou, all of her, watched and listened. As they approached her table, she sat as one mesmerized. Something in her seemed to be trying to give way. Her insides were stirred, and tingled. The two entertainers circled their table; Arline’s brother held out a dollar bill. The fat, chocolate colored girl leaned over the table, her hand touched his, she exercised the muscles of her stomach, muttered a guttural “thank you” in between notes and moved away, moaning “Muddy Waters,” rolling her eyes, shaking her hips.
Emma Lou had turned completely around in her chair, watching the progress of that wah-wahing, jello-like chocolate hulk, and her slim light brown skin companion. Finally they completed their rounds of the tables and returned to the dance floor. Red and blue spotlights played upon their dissimilar figures, the orchestra increased the tempo and lessened the intensity of its playing. The swaying entertainers pulled up their dresses, exposing lace trimmed step-ins and an island of flesh. Their stockings were rolled down below their knees, their step-ins discreetly short and delicate. Finally, they ceased their swaying and began to dance. They shimmied and whirled, charlestoned and black-bottomed. Their terpsichorean ensemble was melodramatic and absurd. Their execution easy and emphatic. Emma Lou forgot herself. She gaped, giggled and applauded like the rest of the audience, and only as they let their legs separate, preparatory to doing one final split to the floor, did Emma Lou come to herself long enough to wonder if the fat one could achieve it without seriously endangering those ever tightening step-ins.
“Dam’ good, I’ll say,” a slender white youth at the next table asseverated, as he lifted an amber filled glass to his lips.
Arline sighed. Her brother had begun to razz her. Emma Lou blinked guiltily as the lights were turned up. She had been immersed in something disturbingly pleasant. Idiot, she berated herself, just because you’ve had one drink and seen your first cabaret entertainer, must your mind and body feel all aflame?
Arline’s brother was mixing another highball. All around, people were laughing. There was much more laughter than there was talk, much more gesticulating and ogling than the usual means of expression called for. Everything seemed unrestrained, abandoned. Yet, Emma Lou was conscious of a note of artificiality, the same as she felt when she watched Arline and her fellow performers cavorting on the stage in Cabaret Gal. This entire scene seemed staged, they were in a theater, only the proscenium arch had been obliterated. At last the audience and the actors were as one.
A call to order on the snare drum. A brutal sliding trumpet call on the trombone, a running minor scale by the clarinet and piano, an umpah, umpah by the bass horn, a combination four measure moan and strum by the saxophone and banjo, then a melodic ensemble, and the orchestra was playing another dance tune. Masses of people jumbled up the three entrances to the dance square and with difficulty, singled out their mates and became closely allied partners. Inadvertently, Emma Lou looked at Arline’s brother. He blushed, and appeared uncomfortable.
