Woman Aroused | Page 5

a man could get by with doing nothing all his life, if he had an income. When I graduated college I worked on a Bronx paper for a while as a copy boy, then played at working in the old man's sales department. Pop was an intelligent man, told me to enjoy myself, that money was meant to be spent. We lived happily and well, had one motto: "Never touch the principal, live on the interest."
The 1929 crash (it was actually two months before the crash) took my father's cash, his business, the big house, and even took his and mother's life shortly after. The garage was left only because nobody wanted to buy it. With his last few bucks, raised by borrowing on his insurance, we converted the garage into living quarters, and my folks brooded there till they died within a few weeks of each other. They were people who had risen from poverty and the loss of their security broke their hearts. I got in public relations, became a small-time "planter,"--a good-time Charley who made it his business to know reporters and columnists and big shots, so I could almost guarantee a story or a mention in a column in certain papers. But when I started working for the oil company and had a steady salary, I renovated the garage so I could rent out the upper floor and made the basement into my private dance studio.
You see when we were still living on Washington Heights, my mother decided I had to take dancing lessons because it was "the thing" for polite kids to do. She sent me to a beautiful woman who claimed to have been part of the original Diaghileff Ballet Russe company Otto Kahn brought to America just before or after the first world war. She was a nervous, stocky little woman with an amazingly strong and limber body. Most of the time she jabbered so fast and her accent was so intense, I couldn't make out what she was saying. But she claimed to know or have known Fokine, Nijinsky, Matisse, Ravel, and Picasso... although the names didn't mean a thing to me at fifteen. She talked of the old Paris, what a dictator, snob, and genius Diaghileff was, as she put me through the strict discipline of the classical ballet.
I was a tall, skinny kid, still scared some of my pals would find out I was taking dancing lessons--and ballet at that. I had absolutely no desire to study the dance, and even though my mother insisted, I would certainly have given it up if my teacher hadn't seduced me the third time I was in her studio. She thought nothing of it, would make love to me in French, her voice gay and light, but of course it was a great experience for me. I studied hard to be sure she would reward me with her favors. In time I was quite pleased with the hard mus-cularness my body began to take on.
The truth is I soon liked--and still like--dancing. By the time I was eighteen the novelty of "Madame's" middle-aged body had worn off, but I studied as hard as before. I soon realized that like opera, the classic ballet is static, incoherent to us, reflecting only the past, the dull glories of a dead era. It is bound by a bric-a-brac tradition completely outdated. But in the modern dance I found my interpretation of life, although even the modern dance is still hindered by many of the silly old ballet traditions. I went in for tap dancing, went crazy over Martha Graham, and even tried ballroom dancing. At one time I thought I was a second Ted Shawn and while at Columbia, the stage bug bit me badly. I couldn't be bothered with college musicals, and decided the best and fastest way to get a break would be to become a chorus boy, where my great dancing ability would surely stand out, stop the show.
One day I tried out for a Broadway show, certain it would only be a few days before I would be the premier danseur. As I was waiting in the wings for the try-out, I looked smugly at the chorus boys about me. To limber up, I did a few turns, followed by an entrechat, all in perfect form. Then some blond nance got up and did a tremendous jete, really a mad leap. I tried a few tap routines and then this joker broke out into a tap dance that would have put Fred Astaire to shame. I quietly took off my dance shoes, put on my coat and hat and walked out.
That was the end of my "career," but I still dance, mainly for the exercise and self-enjoyment, and of course I attend