The Life-Changing Mistake of Laughing
An excerpt from The 4th Pip.
Three years ago I posted my first story on Substack. As shamelessly sentimental as it was downright wacky, The 4th Pip was the whole cloth fabrication of "the man who inspired a Midnight Train to Georgia;" Red, the 5'4" "White Boy Pip;" and The Bulldog, a belligerent, pug-faced woman who sang exactly like Gladys Knight.
In this excerpt, Red meets Carolyn and David, two unlikely future dance partners.
Storming, Norming & Forming
“One interesting thing about you, then a treasured possession, then your spirit animal.”
The Residential Advisor for the incoming Freshmen was holding a get to know your fellow students. “Storm ‘em, norm em, and form ‘em,” he joked. “We’ll go counter-clockwise. How about you start us off, David?”
The Constitution
David began. “When my mother was in high school, she went to the post office after school every day to tap dance.
“She brought her tap dancing shoes, a box of dancer’s rosin for a smoother glide, and a straw broom to clean up after herself. She arrived at exactly 4:35.”
The first time the postmaster heard her dancing in front of her postbox, he came out and watched her in her rosin circle. I’m not a fan, he said, but he supposed she had a constitutional right to dance if she swept up after herself and was out before 5:00pm. I’m a stickler for the Constitution he said. Out by 5:00. No exceptions.
“Polished cement government floors are the ideal dancing surface,” interjected the girl that had been sitting to David’s right. She had oversized red knees and long legs that stuck straight up like a grasshopper. “Also, it was postbox #122. They’ll need to know that later.” Clearly, these two knew each other. And, hi-ho silver, she had a deep voice.
Someone chuckled, felt terrible about it, and the entire group fell awkwardly silent. Grasshopper legs completely ignored it, and her legs toppled in slow motion towards the neighbor on her right like collapsable tent poles. The boy had to clear out sideways like a small crab.
“Storming!” cried the R.A. before regretting it, but they’d barely given him any training other than the three questions, a spot to assemble on the quad lawn, and a warning not to run over into Registration.
“Then every day at 4:55 sharp my mom tucked her rosin box back into her postbox, swept up, and tapped her rosin into the paper wastebasket below the MOST WANTED signs.”
A Handsome, But Nosy Boy
“Then it all fell apart. A boy from school started to show up precisely at 4:42. At first he watched her through the window of the post office doorway, but then he sat down on the wooden slat chair below the MOST WANTED signs.
He was very handsome, but nosy.
He had a constitutional right to sit there, said the postman, but the boy’s staring left David’s mom with only had 4 minutes a day to practice without feeling self-conscious. Her embarrassment grew particularly strong when she practiced her hunched run in place windmill arms tap dance move.
“Can you please not watch me?” she said without looking at him. She had over-rosined the floor and was getting up from the ground. “Do your own dancing, why don’t you?”
“The next day the very handsome, but nosy student showed up with a small cigar box and sprinkled something in front of his own family postbox just down the wall in the low #200s. Then the boy started tap dancing.”
“You left out that he didn’t bring his own broom,” said the collapsed tent, who lifted up her red knees and leaned back on her arms like a suspension bridge. Her arms were so long, that her suspension towers were symmetrical.
David continued. “Well, it turned out that the very handsome, but extremely nosy boy was dancing on sand and kicking it everywhere, and now she had to sweep his sand up, too, and finish three to five minutes earlier to deal with his mess. It was outrageous. He was going to get them both kicked out.
“You’re going to get me in trouble with the postmaster, Constitution or no Constitution.”
Slap Shot
“It was Rosin versus Sand for weeks, and whenever the, come to think of it, very, very handsome, but nosy boy tap-drifted too close to #122, she would shoo him from her rosin circle with her broom.”
David demonstrated this like he was dribbling a hockey puck and taking a slap shot. “Eventually, though, she lost control of her emotions and pushed the, okay just say it, extremely handsome boy out with her broom on his backside, and he hopped up in the air like an Irish tap dancer.”
“She made the life-changing mistake of laughing,” interrupted the suspension bridge, but wistfully.
The suspension bridge said this with far more romance than anyone thought would come out of a woman with such a deep voice. “In the end, they couldn’t stop dancing on time and the postmaster had to unlock the front door to let them out.”
“Norming” sighed the RA, but now he was referring to David’s mother and the very, very handsome boy.
Love & The Constitution
“He knew she’d fallen in love the day she forgot to bring her rosin, and he swept some of his sand over towards #122. He used his foot,” said the suspension bridge who had turned back into a grasshopper. The girl simply couldn’t keep still.
“We need to let a few others share as well,” said the residential advisor who’d raised his hand to be called on. “Registration is going to open shortly.”
David ignored him. “You know the two of us can never be together. It’s still 1957, my mother said.”
Suddenly, David started choking up.
“Can you tell the rest?” David asked the grasshopper. She nodded.
“It did not require a Kodakcolor picture of the two of them to understand the problem,” she whispered significantly in her deep voice.
Heads started to lift and mouths opened with understanding, and a flash of fury bordering on a civil right movement expressed itself in outraged grunts. It was 1983, everyone’s first day of college, and they’d come locked and loaded for exactly this.
David interrupted the telling of his own story and possibly wiped the corner of his eye.
“My dad laughed off the 1957 Constitution. You know we can be together. It’s 5:18 and my curfew doesn’t end for another two hours and forty-two minutes.”
The Midnight Train
“A trimester later, his mom took the midnight train out of Los Angeles headed for New Mexico, and nine months to the minute of the boy’s curfew, David was born in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.”
The Freshmen were so locked in now, they forgot the possessions and animals they’d been anxiously preparing for their own turns. College was everything they’d hoped.
“Before saying goodbye forever, my mom stuck an envelope into postbox #221. She bought him a $2 stamp of a migratory bird and tucked it inside the envelope itself.
“This is not a stamp. It is art, and it is forever. I am like the migratory blue-winged teal. Someday, I will fly back to you, and you’d better still have it. Also, I left my broom for you under the MOST WANTED sign. You need to start using it, Mr. Sandman.” She sprinkled rosin in the envelope. The postman unlocked the door to let her out.
“And Voila! Forming!” cried out the R.A.
The full story of David, Carolyn and the 4th Pip here:
Evidence of how much I love your stories: I saw your post pop up yesterday, flagging it for a quiet moment to dive in. Only to finally open it up and discover it’s one I’ve already read! No matter though. A great read is even greater the third time around. (And don’t laugh, when I first read this, I had to try out grasshopper to suspension bridge irl just to make sure the picture in my head matched reality.)