I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [29]
After half an hour, Sister Carmelita uttered sweetly, “Dismissed.” Those two softly worded syllables, dripping with false gentleness, sent us all, cowed, pussyfooting out of the room. I shambled home.
When the Boss found out why I had missed my class, she announced, grim-faced, “I will speak to the principal, Sister Mathilda.” She spoke with such determination and assuredness—power! It was not that she had any thought of a challenge, of throwing down the gauntlet, or creating a conflict with Sister Mathilda. It was just a fact of nature; Boss would solve the problem. She put on her coat and headed straight to the fortress. And was back within an hour.
“I spoke with the principal and explained that you cannot miss your ballet class. You may be punished in other ways, but you must be released from school at the three o’clock bell … and you will be.”
The potential repercussions of this solution never crossed my mind. Within a week, my class got punished again. The three o’clock bell rang, Carmelita’s order came: “Stand up. Face the back of the room. Don’t move. Oh, yes, Ahearn, you have my permission to leave. Ahearn has a ballet class. His mother says he has to go.” Titters, sidelong glances, and some openmouthed amazed stares.
Though Zeus’s thunderbolt had never caused more devastation, I put up a good front. Grinning frozenly and bobbing like a marionette, I collected my schoolbags, croaked a “Thank you, Sister,” and zoomed out the door.
Though I was relieved to make my ballet class and not infuriate the Boss, I would have to face everyone—my pals, the girls, the whole school—when I returned.
I got the apple and the nickels, did the subway trip, took class, headed back, and at seven o’clock came out of the subway not far from Dave’s Candy Store on the corner of 163rd Street to find eight or ten of the guys lurking. Dave’s was a hangout. I drank my first egg cream there. A glass with chocolate syrup, seltzer, and a little milk. Where the label “egg” came from was a mystery. The store had a telephone booth, heavily used as few families on the block had a private phone.1
The candy store, 1941 (image credit 3.5)
Right away the guys challenged me. “Hey, Jock. What the hell is all this stuff about ballet? You taking dancing lessons?” Farel, one of the toughs, added, “You a sissy? A queer?”
I just told the truth. “It’s great! It’s so hard. And there’s this guy, Eglevsky, who jumps up in the air and stays there for a while. He’s got all these muscles. His thighs are as big around as your chest. And he does this step called a sauté. It’s a jump. Here, I’ll show you.” I put my practice bag on the sidewalk, stood in fifth position to one side of it, leaped in the air—moving sideways over my bag—and landed on the other side. Then I said, “That’s only a few feet. Eglevsky goes much higher and moves seven or eight feet. Here, you want to try it?”
I had them all doing it, contorting to get into fifth position and jumping over my practice bag. Then I put down soda bottles, assorted jackets, and caps, and choreographed them sautéing in concert, all over the sidewalk. Except Farel.
“You all look like a bunch of spastics,” he mumbled. “I ain’t doing any of that queer shit.”
We ignored him and went on to tours and entrechats, with an incredulous Dave standing in the doorway of his candy store.
Dave and his candy store, 1941 (image credit 3.6)
I never again had trouble from my pals about taking ballet lessons. As time went on, I would demonstrate, and they would try the latest steps I had learned, and I would keep them up-to-date with how many pirouettes I could do. They accepted my ballet classes, and their acceptance percolated throughout St. Rose’s School.
I don’t remember much truck with Farel. He kept away from me and I from him.
Until I turned fifteen.
BALLET SOCIETY YEARS
Lincoln Kirstein was to be seared several times trying to create ballet companies, and encountered