Shame by Mechant Deaux

Every woman was best dressed, shining, and swanlike in elegance when Wayne married Lydia in April. The men wore linen shirts with canvas texture, and high-waisted pants, giving the appearance of something strong, something of the fighter or the ballroom dancer. George wore trainers and loose slacks in a vain hope of comfort.

He shifted in his corner chair beside a pile of heels and coats, untucking his shirt, retucking it, and watching the women dance barefoot with sweaty men’s men whose shirts clung to heavy chests just as his stuck to his heavy, middle-aged rump.

George admired the flying hems of dresses, their undoing hair, and their rhythmic bodies. He admired the children for they played, sliding on knees. How the disco lights made the dancefloor, and everyone on it stained glass miraculous. Sipping carefully on a drink, he wondered just how everyone had gotten to this point: happy. How men asked bridesmaids to dance, how children made games and what they spoke about, how the other few who, like him, had come alone were no longer standing alone.

But before coming to any hypothesis, he was separated from the train of thought by a sweaty little girl in green sequins.

 “Uncle George! Do you want to come and dance with us? Pleaselpeasepleaseplease – PLEASE?”  she pleaded with wide eyes, looking up at him – the giant, sweating pustule of a man. He towered above her, even as he sat smoothing the creases in his shirt, and she rocking back and forth like a Christmas tree ornament.

“I don’t know, Laura -” every word he spoke a shame-filled apology.

“Come on, Uncle George, everybody is dancing. It’s really fun.”

He couldn’t even look at her. Acknowledging the discomfort, but not the reality that the child had mastered that which had baffled him only moments prior: Oblivious to the fact that she was offering the answer to  his quandary on a silver platter.

“You never join in. It’s fun—really, really fun,” she mourned.

“I don’t know, maybe later. I just have to finish my drink.”

He had always been this way. George: sipping on a drink, George in the corner, George spoils the fun. Less in the mix, and more the ice cubes diluting the mix. Bad value for money. He thought back to his childhood – back to all of the times he felt this way, with little girls just like her: self isolating at family gatherings while others played rummy, danced, or played hide and seek. Every time they forgot to find him. The whole stupid party was nothing but a reenactment of his youth, all the way up to his sister’s teenage parties. They were twenty years ago now, though he might as well have been sitting in the same chair doing the same thing, uninterrupted. She was that sort of girl. He was the sort of boy to be invited and sit cowardly in the corner wishing to talk to one of her friends, or to wait for them to speak with him, watching as the boys spoke to the girls instead.

Two decades on, George sat the same way at his sister’s wedding. Never married, never satisfied, in a chair watching as others laughed and danced, sang, and got drunk. George don’t drink, George don’t laugh, George don’t stop sweating uncomfortably cold pearls which tickled his ribcage and hit the loner’s carpet.

Even his sweat didn’t cling to him the way everybody else’s sweat clung to them.

The ballroom glittered with triumphant, refracted light, each fragment bouncing like errant sunspots at the corners of his eyes. George sat at his usual spot: a small, secluded table in the corner, half-obscured by a thick velvet curtain. His Cola had gone untouched long enough for the ice to melt, turning the amber liquid into something pale and unremarkable.

George’s shoulders sagged under the weight of his suit jacket, too snug from years of neglecting the gym. The collar suffocating him. He adjusted it again with stumpy fingers feeling as though the fabric conspired to trap him. Made him need to rip his own face off.

Across the room, the dancers moved like cells in mitosis, a stark contrast to the stillness of his corner.

He didn’t belong here. He never had. But Karen had insisted, her text messages laced with a thinly veiled bile.

“You need to get out more.”

“You’re not living, George. You have a sad life.” She had once told him that he ruined every gathering he attended, and yet she made him come to her wedding.

He tightened his grip on his drink. His twenty-fourth birthday. His coworkers who thought they knew what was best for him.

They screamed “Happy Birthday!” Jumped out at him as he walked into the room, a cheer that quickly turned to caustic laughter and him beating his own head on the bathroom floor. At work the following day he had laughed it off.

“George?” Karen’s voice pulled him back to the present. She stood beside him, white dress iridescent. Her smile was warm but firm, a reluctant lifeline.

“You can’t sit here all night. Come on, dance with me.”

“I’m fine here,” he muttered, waving a hand vaguely toward the floor. “I’ll just… observe.”

Her smile faded. “George.”

“Leave him, Karen,” Phil interrupted, his tone laced with impatience as he approached. The acrid scent of his cologne hit George before the man himself did. His suit fit him perfectly, his confidence was palpable, a stark contrast to George’s shrinking. “If he wants to be a loner, let him.”

They both shot James a glare but neither said a word. She turned back to George, “If you change your mind, I’ll be waiting.”

James lingered, leaning against the table. Probably trying to get his scent on as many surfaces as possible. Like a dog marking territory with piss.

“People are starting to talk about you. Why did you even come if you’re just going to sit in the corner like a spaz?.”

George’s clammy hand tightened around his knee. “What do you care?”

James chuckled, a low, mocking sound. “Obviously I don’t. But Karen does. You’re wasting her time.”

He seethed as one of the groomsmen—Phil—stood wide-legged, catching running children and lifting them above his head all Swayze-like, and how they laughed. How Thomas, Brian, Ray, and Laura fought to be next in line. She didn’t give him thought any longer. No more sliding the floor on scuffed knees; the children took to the skies in the arms of Phil. Functional alcoholic Phil. Swillip Phillip.

He slurped the cola dregs from ice remainder, stood straight, tucked his shirt in, and brushed his hair back.

George pushed back his chair with some difficulty. Nobody noticed. He barely noticed as he said, “Fine, I’ll dance.”

The dance floor stretched and contorted before him as he walked toward it. His shoes pinched his feet, the leather was stiff. When he reached the center, he turned to find Karen. She hesitated, surprised, but she joined him.

The moment was right, and as he stepped from carpet to the wood where his face became purple, green, and blue.

The music was upbeat, and George moved. Stiffstepping, awkward — as if moved by a bad puppeteer. He became the rhythm. For a brief moment, he even felt alive. Cheers erupted around him in great gasps, a sound so foreign it took him a moment to recognize it.

People even began to copy his moves. Gyrations made to upbeat music, but George stayed in time, swinging his arms. A mix of smiling people patted him on the back. People even began to copy his moves. Girations made to upbeat music, but George stayed in time, swinging his arms. A mix of smiling people patted him on the back.

“Yeah, George.”

“Oh, look who finally decided to show up!”

“Where’ve you been keeping those moves, Georgie?” laughed Uncle Bruce, tapping his gut. “In your stomach?”

It felt good.

“Uncle George, will you dance with me now?” asked Laura, as she was pulled from the dance floor.

George jumped, he swayed, and he shuffled.

 “This is fine! He thought. Nobody is laughing.”

The world spun in lights wholly blinding, leaving only fuzzy edges and silhouettes. When the DJ spoke, the music got slow. So skillfully, George slowed his rhythm too, high on the encouragement of others. The lights faded, George made it. Everybody cheered him on. He spread his arms basking, spun around when flowers fell at his feet, and Karen – a bridesmaid joined him on the floor. She took him by the shoulder and spun him faster. Oh! It was wonderful: Everybody shouting, cheering them on the center stage. Lydia and Wayne waltzed. But all eyes were on George – the other bridesmaids joined in, and the groomsmen too.

A slowstep too far. Derision crept in, subtle at first. Laughter followed, sharp and cutting. George froze mid-step, his body going rigid. The crowd’s faces came into focus, their smiles twisted into something cruel. He turned to Karen, her expression a mask of pity.

“You bastard,” shouted Karen – “You clumsy oaf. Just get off the floor. – No wonder you’re alone.”

He, absolutely oblivious to her in his fever dream.

“Oh! Always alone George, yeah content to sit by the side and judge,” she prodded his chest with every syllable.

“To soak up all of the attention until GOD FORBID it could be somebody else’s turn,” she said, pulling him from the dancefloor as he continued to dance.

Then a punch in the head, waking him from the trance.

 “Yeah just get off the dancefloor.” screamed one of the groomsmen – James. Everybody stared – entranced, but nobody did a thing.

“Just go back to your seat. Asshole.”

Humiliation. He stumbled back. The laughter gripped him tightly and drowned out the music. Without a word, he fled the floor, retreating to his corner.

George untucked his shirt and returned to his corner seat. He sipped on his drink, now little more than diluted amber liquid. His Sister smiled and waved as she threw the bouquet, and another high tempo song began to find the dance floor flooded.

He considered leaving. But then he remembered: they had laughed—but he had danced.

As the music continued, George sat in silence, His reflection in the glass looked as lost as he felt. What had he even hoped to achieve? For a moment, though, he had danced. And that was something.

Mechant Deaux

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay – a coloured background with silhouettes of musicians and dancers.