Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [381]
“Yes,” he said, striving to give the impression that he knew more than he actually did.
He looked at her, and tried to shutter the unwanted disgust out of his mind and to convince himself that after all it was only something that was natural. He wished he were alone.
“I know what I’d like to do.”
“What?” he asked, masking that persisting disgust.
“Go to a dance marathon.”
“Doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“Nope.”
“Well, then, let’s find out what they’re like. A girl at our office goes to all of them, and she talks about nothing else, and it has made me want to find out what they’re like.”
“Let’s take in a show instead.”
“We can just try a dance marathon first to see what they’re like, and if we don’t like it, we can leave.”
“Well, why not try one some other night?”
“Hurry, here comes our car.”
Reluctantly he crossed to catch a surface car.
II
“Now what do we do?” Studs asked grumpily.
“Watch.”
“Well, that’s not my idea of spending a roistering evening, sitting here and watching a bunch of damn fools sleeping on their feet.”
“Don’t talk so loud,” Catherine whispered as a broad and burly woman with Slavic features turned an angry face on them from the bench below.
They sat on the left-hand side of a large dance hall converted into an amphitheater. Below them, through a thick haze of cigarette smoke, was a large polished rectangle of dance floor bounded by the box-seat section which was decorated with bunting. An aisle separated the box seats from the benches of temporary bleachers which rose on all sides to the rafters.
The troupe of fifteen couples and two extra males trudged with wearying slowness around the edge of the dance floor. On a dais opposite Studs and Catherine a tuxedo-clad jazz orchestra idled. Below them, in a slide, Studs read from black cards: 366 HRS. A banner floated from the rafters in the center of the hall.
WORLD’S CHAMPIONSHIP
SUPER DANCE
MARATHON
A bell rang, the orchestra broke into a snappy song; and the contestants danced for three minutes. Again they trod slowly around the edge of the floor, solemn, silent, tired. The tall fellow of team number eight placed his head on his partner’s shoulder, a small blonde girl in ruffled, untidy pink beach pyjamas, whose face was so caked with powder that Studs could notice it even from his distance. The fellow’s arms were ringed around her neck, and his face, stupid in sleep, was slung over her left shoulder. Walking backward, she dragged him around. Two other male contestants and one girl fell asleep and were also pulled and maneuvered around the floor. The music continued.
“Damn fools,” Studs muttered under his breath.
“What do you mean?”
“Those two wasting their energy dancing that way,” Studs said, motioning his head in the direction of team number sixteen, a sheiky fellow with sideburns and blue jersey and a tough-looking, thin, faded girl in scarlet beach pyjamas who hot-stepped in a rapid, whirling dance.
Applause broke out from the half-filled bleachers, and coins were flung at them. Studs smiled knowingly. He glanced around at the crowd, fellows with regan haircuts, and the girls, hoods, fat Polack women, young broads who looked to be the kind that got crushes on movie stars, all kinds of people, a mixed audience no different from the kind that would be seen at a movie.
“When is something going to happen?” he asked, watching the contestants moving around and around.
“I don’t know. It’s funny, and I don’t think there’s anything interesting in it, either,” she said.
“Damn fools, wasting their health. Look at the blonde trying to keep number eight on his feet.”
“I wouldn’t like to be her.”
“And I wouldn’t want to trade places with that guy, either. He can have his dance marathon.”
“Why do they do such foolish things?”
“I suppose because they can get people to come out and make damn fools of themselves, and then, too, there’s the dough.”
“Yes, the prize is something