At her post, Rebecca Vilas watches the residents enter the hazy common room, some of them traveling at a rate a touch too brisk for their own good. Henry Leyden stands motionless behind his boxes of LPs. His suit shimmers; his head is merely a dark silhouette before the windows. For once too busy to ogle Rebecca's chest, Pete Wexler moves past with one hand on the elbow of Elmer Jesperson, deposits him eight feet inside the room, and whirls around to locate Thorvald Thorvaldson, Elmer's dearest enemy and fellow inhabitant of D12. Alice Weathers wafts in under her own guidance and folds her hands beneath her chin, waiting for the music to begin. Tall, scrawny, hollow-cheeked, at the center of an empty space that is his alone, Charles Burnside slides through the door and quickly moves a good distance off to the side. When his dead eyes indifferently meet hers, Rebecca shivers. The next pair of eyes to meet hers belong to Chipper, who pushes Flora Flostad's wheelchair as if it held a crate of oranges and gives her an impatient glare completely at odds with the easy smile on his face. Time is money, you bet, but money is money, too, let's get this show on the road, pronto. The first wave, Henry had told her — is that what they have here, the first wave? She glances across the room, wondering how to ask, and sees that the question has already been answered, for as soon as she looks up, Henry flashes her the okay sign.
Rebecca flips the switch for the pink spot, and nearly everybody in the room, including a number of old parties who had appeared well beyond response of any kind, utters a soft aaah. His suit, his shirt, his spats blazing in the cone of light, a transformed Henry Leyden glides and dips toward the microphone as a twelve-inch LP, seemingly magicked out of the air, twirls like a top on the palm of his right hand. His teeth shine; his sleek hair gleams; the sapphires wink from the bows of his enchanted sunglasses. Henry seems almost to be dancing himself, with his sweet, clever sidestepping glide . . . only he is no longer Henry Leyden; no way, Renee, as George Rathbun likes to roar. The suit, the spats, the slicked-back hair, the shades, even the wondrously effective pink spot are mere stage dressing. The real magic here is Henry, that uniquely malleable creature. When he is George Rathbun, he is all George. Ditto the Wisconsin Rat; ditto Henry Shake. It has been eighteen months since he took Symphonic Stan from the closet and fit into him like a hand into a glove to dazzle the crowd at a Madison VFW record hop, but the clothes still fit, oh yes, they fit, and he fits within them, a hipster reborn whole into a past he never saw firsthand.
On his extended palm, the spinning LP resembles a solid, unmoving, black beachball.
Whenever Symphonic Stan puts on a hop, he always begins with "In the Mood." Although he does not detest Glenn Miller as some jazz aficionados do, over the years he has grown tired of this number. But it always does the job. Even if the customers have no choice but to dance with one foot in the grave and the other on the proverbial banana peel, they do dance. Besides, he knows that after Miller was drafted he told the arranger Billy May of his plan to "come out of this war as some kind of hero," and, hell, he was as good as his word, wasn't he?
Henry reaches the mike and slips the revolving record onto the platter with a negligent gesture of his right hand. The crowd applauds him with an exhaled oooh.
"Welcome, welcome, all you hepcats and hepkitties," Henry says. The words emerge from the speakers wrapped in the smooth, slightly above-it-all voice of a true broadcaster in 1938 or 1939, one of the men who did live remotes from dance halls and nightclubs located from Boston to Catalina. Honey poured through their throats, these muses of the night, and they never missed a beat. "Say, tell me this, you gates and gators, can you think of a better way to kick off a swingin' soiree than with Glenn Miller? Come on, brothers and sisters, give me yeahhh."
From the residents of Maxton's — some of whom are already out on the floor, others wheelchair-bound on its edges in various postures of confusion or vacuity — comes a whispery response, less a party cry than the rustle of an autumn wind through bare branches. Symphonic Stan grins like a shark and holds up his hands as if to still a hopped-up multitude, then twirls and spins like a Savoy Ballroom dancer inspired by Chick Webb. His coattails spread like wings, his sparkling feet fly and land and fly again. The moment evaporates, and two black beachballs appear on the deejay's palms, one of them spinning back into its sleeve, the other down to meet the needle.
"All-reety all-righty all-rooty, you hoppin' hens and boppin' bunnies, here comes the Sentimental Gentleman, Mr. Tommy Dorsey, so get off your money and grab your honey while vocalist Dick Haymes, the pride of Buenos Aires, Argentina, asks the musical question 'How Am I to Know You?' Frank Sinatra hasn't entered the building yet, brethren and sistren, but life is still fine as mmm-mmm wine."