I Woke Next to the Corpse by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Page 83

As the party dancing got underway, newcomer Meyer (The Little Jew) Zelensky watched Elsa from a distance, then decided to interrupt, cutting in as she danced with Georgie (The Big Jew) Schwartz.

Meyer urged Elsa to leave Jersey City and to go with him to Vegas, but Elsa simply turned away. Georgie (The Big Jew) Schwartz then got her attention back and told her that she will bite the linoleum if she stays here. Elsa looked upset, though not surprised, and turned away again, to immerse herself in the center of the party. As people were drinking and dancing, an unexplained explosion rocked the place, making the vinyl record

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skip and eventually shut down. No one showed any reaction, other than jerky dancing for a while before they sat back down. Elsa then asked if anyone could play some music, a man unknown to me replied and went to play the piano. He was a middle aged, plump, chrome domed man with clear blue eyes that managed to have a friendly expression without really having any expression at all.

He had a cup of black coffee in front of him and he held a dappled thin cigar between his neat careful fingers of his left hand. He reminded me of a District Attorney on the prowl. He asked Elsa if she had any requests, to which she replied; “Any swing music.” As the music unfolded, it sounded something like Benny Goodman’s popular swing ”Let’s Dance” without the clarinet, any innuendo remaining purple. Elsa climbed up onto a cocktail table and started dancing alone.

I Woke Next to the Corpse