He sat in the front row and
watched the Big Band play.
Probably early forties.
Steel gray hair, looked like it went too early.
Thick rimmed black glasses.
Tan and
something about his eyes made me think
he would be a good Scientologist.
He was always eating
even though he never left to get food.
He sat in the front row and
clapped with his hands above his head.
I watched him.
He distracted me.
Made me miss entrances.
I saw his face light up and
then he stood,
right in front of everyone
in the space between the audience and us.
He stood in the front and
started to dance but
not along to the music.
It was an awkward swaying thing.
Too fast to seem totally natural.
And he spun too,
in little circles where he stood.
Eventually he started to dance around, and
sometimes shrugged at people and
sometimes tried to get them to dance too.
There is something beautiful about the way someone looks
when they know they’re about to turn down someone asking them to dance.
You can see the kind of person they really are.
Eventually he sat back down.
In the front row and
started eating again, somehow.
And, when the next song started,
he was up again.
Swaying alone.
Happy.
Short Stories 