dance,â I said.
âYes, you did, Juba.â Margaret leaned her face toward me. âYou were spitting some of the words and swallowing some of them, but you got your teeth together enough to say that they didnât have to be that good, didnât you?â
âYes, maâam.â
âSo go get yourself some bums off the streets and see what they can do for you!â
âMiss Moran, can you help me?â I thought of Stubby trying to sell fish. âIf I can get a show together for Pete Williams, it will mean a lot to me. At the auditions they wouldnât let me dance. The man who owned the theater was asking me to âcoon it upâ! Do you know what that means?â
âBecause youâre wearing a scarf doesnât mean youâre the only one in the village with a neck, Juba,â Margaret said. âIt means they wanted you to forget about your dancing and be something that amused themâthe same way you want the young white people to forget about their dancing and be something that amuses you. Jack Bishop told me what happened at the auditions. He felt really bad for you, and whenhe told me, I felt really bad for you. But now I see that nobody has to feel anything for you, because you have it all covered by yourself.â
âI didnât think of it that way,â I said.
âYou always think with yourself in the middle of your mind and everybody else floating around on the edges.â
âSo thereâs nothing you can do for me?â My voice seemed small.
âIf youâre ready to get down off your throne, Mr. Juba Almighty, I might lend you a hand,â Margaret said.
I had to sit for another ten minutes while Margaret reminded me how stupid I was for thinking she was going to betray the Irish race and then described my dancing as something that wasnât much more than clog dancing in the first place, and said I had stolen everything I knew from the street corners and festivals around Five Points.
âOkay, Margaret, I see where you are right about me not thinking about the white dancers in the same way that John Diamond and Mr. Reeves hadnât thought about the black dancers at the auditions,â I said. âI was just so upset about what happened that I was hoping to make up for everything, to make it all right, by turning out a spectacular show.
âYouâre right that I have learned a lot from clog dancing, and that Iâve borrowed some of the steps and some of the moves. But where youâre wrong is important, too. I bring alot of rhythms to the dancing, and a lot of moves that make my dancing special. Iâm dancing from my heart and using everything I know, and some of it I donât even know where it comes from. But I can tell you this. Whenever I see a person move, my eyes kind of record it, and I can feel that movement in my muscles, and in my legs, and in my arms. When I see somebody running, itâs almost like me running.
âSometimes I watch the little girls jumping rope on Avenue A, across from the school, and if I watch them long enough, I get tired because my body is moving right along with theirs. At the auditions, I saw the white dancers and I watched them and I liked what I saw. I wanted to get out there and take what they were doing and build on it. They were dancing so well that people were watching their feet, the way you say old Irish people always do, but I wanted to dance so good that people would want to see if my feet were still touching the floor. Iâm not just trying to make money, or even to entertain people. I love what I do, and I want to do it because I love it. And sometimes all that loving of dancing I have just gets in the way of my thinking straight. Iâm always ready to learn something new about dancing, Margaret. Jack Bishop is teaching me a lot about being a good person, and I love to hear Stubby talking about cooking. Iâm glad you got my head straight about
Learning to Kill: Stories