COPPERFIELD REVIEW QUARTERLY
| SPRING 2022
55
OPUS ONE By Amadea Tanner The Dempsey Quintet pulsed eight to the bar, breathing life into the madcap melee. Walter Dempsey, center stage, had the crowd crazed for more, singin’ ‘bout rhythm itself so every soul on the floor could be swept up in the metaphor of the moment. This was The Place, as hoppin’ as it was happening, where dancing was non-negotiable, and stamina sacrosanct. From the way patrons talked about it, you might think it was for the best of the best, and it was, but “best” had a new meaning on those springloaded floorboards. No one who was anyone in the real world would have dared step over the threshold, not if they knew where life was taking them. The Place was for the stranded, the dreamers, the transitory, where lost souls could find direction in their soles; all the working-class girls with their one night off and the boys who couldn’t cut the draft. All together they were a heap of hepcats hyped on their good fortune, fortune savored particularly because under any other circumstances it would be anything but. So they danced all night, because they were free to do so. Because it was all they could do. The band took a brassy breath with the end of the song and then took it slow into the next. The trumpeter stepped forward, filling the room with a sound that was soft and forlorn until the drums tapped out a swift rhythm in answer. It was the tempo of a heartbeat aflutter, like so many beating just so on the dancefloor, bringing the floor alive with the sentimental sound of dreams. But it was the dreams in one girl’s eyes that gleamed beyond all others with the force of her longing for them to come true. She sat coyly enough to suggest she’d like to dance but ignored the contents of the crowd. A band of soldiers had crashed the party an hour ago and the regulars didn’t have the heart to throw them out. And the soldiers, well, they knew they didn’t belong, but on the eve of being shipped overseas they didn’t belong anywhere, really. Some of the gals didn’t hesitate to wrap themselves in the arms of a man in uniform, but this gal preferred to keep her distance from posers in pomp and pomade.
