My mother didn’t want me to be a wall flower. That’s how it all started.
She saw signs in my four year old body that I was going to be shy. That I was going to hang back and watch instead of taking part. She wanted me to be self assured. She wanted me to be bold. So she signed me up for dance class with Miss La Chance.
My mother had met a new lady from a few streets over. She was a newcomer without any friends. My mother reached out and included her into the Columbus Street Spies. She had taken the glares and the stares of the other members. How dare she invite someone new without their approval? She doesn’t even live on Columbus Street! Outsider. Hiss!
My mother couldn’t stand someone being new and lonely and lost. She made this mistake because she had a big heart.
She had tea with her new friend Mrs. Q often. Mrs. Q brought her little boy with her. He was about my age. He was a portly four years old and he was formidable. He looked like a fat little butler in knee britches and a vest. He was a terror to any child he was with.
Adults only saw a sweet little face with hair that was parted down the middle. Adults were fooled. A child knew what they were up against in an instant.
He came to my birthday party. He presented me with a card with the envelope torn open. He had grabbed the money and put it into his own pocket. When asked about it he just laughed and said, “Yeah? So, what? What are you going to do about it?”
He was a little shit.
He was contrary. That is the word that I have spent five minutes searching for. Contrary. If you wanted to play with paper dolls …………….he would tear their heads off. He would put the paper head in his mouth, chew and spit it across the room.
Being a normal child………..you would just watch and wonder and be terrified.
If you wanted to color he would agree. He’d take your crayons and snap them in two. He’d make deep slashes across the page as if he was in a rage. All the while he would have a smile on his little face. Then he would rip the page out of the book and make a ball of it and throw it at the cat.
He was terrifying.
The mothers were drinking tea and having a merry old time. They never glanced at us. My mother couldn’t or wouldn’t see the serial killer sitting next to me.
“I’m just so worried that Darlene is going to be a shy little thing like I was at her age. I don’t want her hanging back and watching while the world goes by. I don’t know what to do for her. How to bring her out of her shell.” my mother said to Mrs. Q.
Mrs. Q sipped tea and ignored her son who was now walking across the top of my mothers sofa. He was pulling her curtains out of their rings as he tried to keep his balance. I just sat and watched in horror.
“Well, my dear Daphne was a shy little thing when we first moved here. I thought it was because she was six foot tall at ten years old. Weighing 200 pounds at ten years old can also be a burden. She needed some confidence. So , I signed her up for dance classes at La Chance School of Dance and she’s a new girl all together. Such confidence. She’s a leader now. Not a follower.” Mrs. Q said as her four year old son grabbed the cat by the tail and pulled. Hard.
My mother picked up the phone and called the School of Dance and signed me up for the beginner’s tap class. Mrs. Q grabbed the phone from her and signed her little Dennis up too. They sighed with gladness and drank more tea.
Dennis was now standing on his head and making horrible marks on the wall with his black soled shoes. I sat in the corner clutching my cat.
Every Saturday morning my chubby little dimpled body was stuffed into a sleek little black leotard. I had a basket that looked like it belonged to Little Red Riding Hood shoved into my hands. The basket contained black patent leather tap shoes with bright pink ribbons.
My father would take me down to a big old drafty building and leave me with other little dimpled tap dancers. I felt bereft and alone. It became worse when I spied Dennis across the room wearing his tap shoes. He stared back at me. He was cracking his knuckles like the Mafia had just hired him to be their mini hit man.
Thus began a life long terror of dance.
Miss La Chance came out in front of the class. She clapped her hands together and spoke in a fake french accent. We all realized after much arm movement and actual shoving that she wanted us in four rows facing the brick wall. She seemed to pepper every other sentence with “A One , Two , Three , Four.”. We were four years old. we couldn’t count. What the hell?
And a swing to your right, one, two, three and a four. We all bumped into each other. We were now a pile of black leotards and dimples in the middle of a big shiny wooden dance floor. Except for Dennis. He was standing on his head in the corner near the cloak room.
I raised my hand for help. Who didn’t have confidence? Who wasn’t bold? I wasn’t having this. This was a fiasco and at four years old I knew it.
“Excuse me, Miss La Chance? I think our problem here is that you want us to go to the right. I am four years old. I don’t know what right means. Go to the right is go towards the windows? ” I asked. It was a good question. It was the million dollar question. Every little fat dimpled dancer in the room awaited the answer.
“Yes, mon cheres! When I say go to your right I want you to move towards the windows! What a very bon lesson we have learned today. What is your name? Danielle? What a good question! You are now my favorite!” the teacher said as she kicked her leg up over her head. Just because she could.
We were learning right from left and Dennis was now hanging by his fingertips from the high window sills. The window sills ran the length of the room. He was doing this because? Because he wasn’t supposed to do it.
I spent two years with Miss La Chance. She was kind one week. She raged the next. One day were were sweet little flowers sent to her from heaven. The next we heard that men were all sent from hell and they should die long slow agonizing deaths in the pits there. Picture flames ,mon cheres, hot red flames!
I didn’t learn anything about dancing. I was taught to sing though. One year it was Give Me A Little Kiss (tap tap tap). I could blow a kiss at you and wink my eye. It could break your heart.
The next year I was dressed like a little geisha girl with cymbals on my fingers. Cling Cling Cling. For some reason I was singing On The Good Ship Lollipop while I was clinging my finger cymbals.
I think Miss La Chance was having men problems because the sweet little flower days were over. Week after week we would stretch at the bar while hearing that men should be drawn and quartered. What ever that meant. She wanted us all to picture a tall dark haired man standing in front of a train. Here comes the train. Whoooo ! Whooo! Splat.
I had had about enough.
I raised my now six year old hand and mentioned that I didn’t think I was here to learn about men and their lying bastard ways. She narrowed her eyes and I was done.
Meanwhile, little Dennis had frayed her last nerve about a year ago. He would mouth off to her or make some obscene gesture that only she understood and she would throw him in the storage room.
This room was full of row upon row of metal folding chairs. It had a big double door that locked from the outside. He mouthed off every week. Bang! She would grab him by the back of his little leotard and she’d throw him in the room and lock the door.
He’d kick the crap out of the door for about ten minutes while Shirley Temple sang loudly over him. On The Good Ship Lollipop ………BANG BANG BANG…………….Happy Landing On A Chocolate Bar. A few metal chairs would be thrown at the locked door. He’d eventually calm down and lie down for a nap. This is what his mother was paying for.
Step Shuffle Ball Change she’d yell out over the heads of the kids. The children were all doing their own thing. It was mayhem. I raised my hand.
I suggested that maybe she should show us what Step Shuffle Ball Change meant. Miss La Chance leaned in real close. She did not have minty fresh breath.
“I think your mother is wasting her money on dance lessons for you, you fat little thing.” she said to my face.
I was six years old. I wasn’t supposed to know this was an insult? I did. I took action.
I went home that night with the forms to fill out for another year of torturous dance lessons. I handed them to my mother. She noticed the price hike but went to sign them anyways.
I stopped her hand. I said in all sincerity, “Mom, don’t. I’m done with dancing with Miss La Chance. She wasn’t pleased with me today and she told me that you are just wasting your money on dance lessons.”
“What? What are you talking about?”my mother wanted to know.
So, I told her what it was really like in La Chance School of Dance.
I said “And Mrs. Q is wasting her money too. Dennis hasn’t had a lesson in almost a year. She locks him in the room with the metal chairs and he throws things then eventually falls asleep. I don’t think she should be paying for that. He could nap at home for free.”
My mother didn’t get a third recital out of me. She may have wasted her money on dance lessons. But, I wasn’t shy. I could very well stand up for myself. We didn’t need tap lessons to prove that after all.
Darlene was no little wallflower.
growinguponcolumbusstreet 