In the corner of this speakeasy sits Baron, the mysterious man who slowly sips on his gin and tonic while reading a book of mediocre poems. A cliché that could end all clichés. The other nine-to-fivers stand around him sharing drinks, exchanging laughs, and eating small plates of appetizers that cost as much as full entrées. Every once in a while, the other half of his situationship, Saanvi, invites him to a bar with her and her work buddies. Robbie, the tall, muscular accountant who stands too close to Saanvi, recommended the place two months ago, and ever since then, they haven’t gone anywhere else. In layman terms, it’s a laundromat. A place where both the working mothers and the gays alike go to wash their old thongs.
The first time they went as a group, Baron happened to be there. Although they didn’t go together, him and Saanvi were the first people to arrive. For ten whole minutes, the two of them, in their slutty clothes that failed to hide their perfectly average bodies, in a laundromat that—to the public—was closing in thirty minutes, in the middle of the poorer side of Queens, stood there awkwardly waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. During that time, an older gentleman in a fedora, said to them, “Hola Madonna marron, puedes decirte amiga gay que esta bloqueando mi secadora.” It was directed to Saanvi, the darker of the two, but Barron, coming from Puerto-Rican decent, was the one who understood. “Lo siento senor,” he responded.
When the rest of the group arrived, Robbie did this big reveal. “It may look like a couple of dryers,” he said as he slapped the door to one of them, “but they’re not.” He opened the door to the last dryer and stepped inside. One by one they all trickled in and Baron soon saw that the dryer actually led to a bar downstairs. Everyone was wildly impressed and forever vowed to trust Robbie’s recommendations. Barron, on the other hand, never cared for place and still doesn’t. He knows that the after a night of drinking and eating and conversing, the next day everyone just goes back to being busy people who live busy lives. And any conversations that were exchanged, any dances that were shared will be as if they never happened. Yet he still chooses to go anyways.
Across the room there’s a man who catches the eye of Baron. Perhaps it’s what he’s wearing: shiny black pants and a red satin button down that opens at his chest. Or, maybe it’s the way that he’s twirling in circles like a ballerina. No one else is dancing, because no one really dances here. The music being played is the kind of jazz music that is meant to be talked over. It’s the wood foundation to the skyscraper, the water that boils the pasta, the canvas to the paint. A man who dances to music that isn’t made to be danced to is dangerous, unconventional, untouchable, yet graceful. He never knew a man could be so graceful. As the song ends, the man stops dancing and notices Baron noticing him.
“Did you like the song?” He walks over and asks.
“It’s the first time I actually heard it,” he replies.
“Really? The band has been playing it on repeat? I guess they don’t have that big of a section.”
“I guess not.”
“I’m Ambrose,” he says and puts out his left hand.
“Baron,” he says and shakes it.
Ambrose sits on the arm of his chair and he can feel his cool breath on his ear. His arm lightly touches his, and he feels that sort of rush in his chest that he only felt once before when Saanvi gave him a blowjob for the first time. He smells a like pine needles and incense, and that’s all Baron can think about now. Pine trees, incense, Ambrose, chest hair, pine trees, incense. Suddenly, the music returns to background once again.
“What are you reading?” Ambrose asks him.
“Poetry.”
“Read a line to me,” Ambrose says as he takes the drink from Baron’s hand.
He watches him take a sip of his gin and tonic, and it makes him feel uneasy. Another man drinking his drink, tasting what he tastes, foreign lips touching a part where his once touched. Pine trees, incense, lips touching lips.
“This is the way of love and music: it plays like a god and then it’s done…Roxane Beth Johnson,” he says.
“Love and music,” Ambrose pauses to swirl the drink around, “neither ever lasts more than a fleeting moment, but they can lead to the most intimate and vulnerable sensations. Don’t you think?” He stops to stare at Baron, “A hum of a tune being whispered into your ear, the grazing of a stranger as you walk past,” his arm leans into Baron’s a little more, “It feels so wrong that it’s right…Forbidden fruit if you will.”
“Uhh,” he pauses awkwardly.
“Nah, I’m just playing,”
“Yeah, right” Baron says and looks to Saanvi, who’s arm and arm with Robbie talking about something she won’t remember tomorrow.
“But honestly, tell me something, Baron. Do you know what forbidden fruit tastes like?”
“I’m sorry?” he asks and closes his book, putting a ripped piece of a napkin in the place of a bookmark.
“Come and dance with me.”
“Oh, I don’t really dance.”
“Come and dance with me anyway. It’s live jazz. You can’t not dance to live jazz.”
Ambrose stands up and holds his hand out for Baron to take it. He looks at him, then at Saanvi once again, then back at Ambrose. He reluctantly takes his hand and they walk to out the middle of the room. Ambrose locks fingers with him and they begin to sway. Left to right, back to the left, right again. “And you say you don’t dance? You’re great,” he says, “dancing’s sort of like talking, once you get comfortable, it’s all about the way you say things.”
With each turn, the music grows louder and louder. The overlapping of contrasting notes, the beats that form one unique sound. “Listen to them play,” he says.
“I’m listening,” Baron says.
“Anger, passion, hate, love, sadness. It’s all there. In each player. In the both of us. When we dance, we talk, and while we talk, the music plays.”
“I’m a little confused,” he says, “when we’re dancing, what are we supposed to be talking about?”
“Everything…Look at the woman over at the bar. She’s drinking and swaying her hips. She’s smiling. Everyone around her is doing the same. Talking, swaying, laughing, eating. You understand?”
“Sort of.”
Ambrose spins Baron and pulls him in close. His hands travel down to his hips and they dance face to face. The cool breath hits his nose now. They stop dancing and Ambrose whispers softly into his ear, “this is the way of love and music”. He gives him a soft kiss on the cheek and that rush in chest comes back. The elevator music has never sounded more pleasant. He closes his eyes and continues to sway to the rhythm of the sax.
Later that night, Saanvi walks over to Baron, who’s back at his chair in the corner staring down at the line he read to Ambrose. She says she wants to leave, that she’s tired and has to work early tomorrow. She asks him if he’d like to join her. He looks over at Ambrose who’s over at the bar now, talking to a man with feathered earrings. They laugh together and their arms touch the same way theirs did earlier. Baron smiles, closes his book, and walks out of the speakeasy with Saanvi.
While leaving the laundromat, he says to her, “you were talking to Robbie a lot tonight.”
“Yeah, he’s going through some stuff with his family. I was just trying to be there for him.”
“You were laughing and smiling the whole night. It couldn’t be that bad,” he says.
“Well, what about you?” she asks, “who was that man you were dancing with? I looked over to see where you were, and then I saw you dancing.”
“No one. Just some man who likes to dance.”
Lauren Rivera is an undergraduate student studying English and Teaching at Montclair State University. She is a short story writer and an aspiring novelist. You can follow her on Instagram @poedancing
