Come and Join the Dance by Joyce Johnson

conversation.
    â€œI hate the way they let themselves be taken in. They’re suckers, and suckers are stupid people. God, how I hate stupidity!”
    â€œMy!” Susan said. “You’re awfully violent.”
    â€œStop flirting with me. I’m serious.”
    â€œI’ve never flirted with you,” she said, embarrassed. “I hardly know you.”
    â€œOh no? What about the Riverside Café? We’ve been flirting for two years now.”
    There was something attractive about his ferocious determination to be taken seriously. For once she felt older than someone. “You might be right, at that,” she said. It was true that for two years Anthony’s eyes had signaled to her over all the heads in the Riverside Café, where he was to be found every night standing at the bar until four in the morning, and that she had never been able to resist smiling back at him, even though she knew he grinned appreciatively at all the passing girls. “A campus bum,” some of the girls at school had labeled him. But there seemed to be more to him than that. Once when she had been alone in the Riverside, Anthony, drunkenly dodging the little tables in his path, had come over to talk to her. He had told her that he wrote poetry, was a Communist, was only eighteen, and that he had just been expelled from college for bringing a girl up to his room, and could he walk her back to the dorms. She had said, “No. I think I can make it myself.” “ C’est la vie, ” he had shrugged sadly. “ C’est la vie .” To her surprise, he had walked quickly away from her.
    â€œI saw you with your boy friend last night,” Anthony said accusingly, as if there were some dark meaning in having seen them.
    â€œDid you?”
    â€œAll dressed up in a black dress, getting on a bus. Did you have a good time?”
    â€œWe broke up,” Susan said, feeling the words carve themselves at that moment on the walls of the living room. Somehow she had been waiting for a chance to tell Anthony that. Jerry was further away than ever now—history.
    â€œGood!” Anthony cried exuberantly. “Glad to hear it! I think people should break up more often. Did you know that I’m a girl-stealer?”
    â€œAre you really?”
    â€œYes. Also a parasite. Also a genuine indolent bum. There are terrible stories about me.”
    â€œI’ve heard some,” she admitted.
    â€œAll true. But someday I’ll be a great man. I think society should take care of its artists.”
    â€œOh definitely,” Susan agreed gaily.
    â€œOh definitely,” he jeered. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve got rich parents. I suppose you believe in truth and beauty like all the other poopsies.”
    â€œI do believe in truth and beauty. Even if it’s kind of a cliché, I guess.” She couldn’t be angry with him; she liked the ridiculous way he flailed the air with his arms when he talked. He looked a little like a windmill, she decided. “What are poopsies?” she asked.
    â€œSensitive souls who won’t drink anything but Italian coffee and talk about Paris being better. There are armies of poopsies at the Museum of Modern Art—all waiting to be picked up.”
    â€œWhat happens to poopsies in Paris?”
    â€œNothing serious. They get laid a few times.”
    Susan laughed. “I’m going to Paris.”
    â€œYou’ll get laid too.”
    â€œNo,” she said gravely. “Maybe I’ll just walk around and look at things.”
    He smiled down at her benevolently. “You’re a funny chick,” he said. Stretching out one of his long arms, he tentatively touched her hair. “You have pretty hair. That’s something.” His hand lingered on the back of her neck. Susan sat very still. She thought of saying, “Look here, we hardly know each other,” but she