Berkeley Fiction Review
her.
Sixth grade started. I saw Elvis Presley on television. Sleepy eyes, crooked mouth. The singer looked at every person in the audience, he looked at them and gyrated and gave himself away, crotch and hip thrusts and lips and everything. He didn’t hide pieces of himself. That’s why the audience screamed and fell to the floor. He filled them to the brim. When the performance was over, I turned off the TV. I sat for a long time without moving, and closed my eyes. Finally, I stood in the middle of the room, crisscrossing my bare feet slowly at first, then gaining momentum. I danced all the way into the barroom. None of the men had ever seen this type of dancing before. My feet turning and turning. Mr. Edmond clapped his hands and Uncle Don laughed and a few guys playing pool gathered around. Later, my uncle would retell the story as if I’d been possessed: “Something just overtook him,” he said. But it was me. I wasn’t hidden in a bush, looking in on people. I was out in the open, asking to be watched. I imagined Elvis—and then Marty—holding my hand, and I spun and spun, and it felt good, like my body needed to spin. I wondered if Marty had felt that way, when he danced for me, or, and this seemed more likely, he danced so I wouldn’t feel like the only misfit in Langston. In the world.
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