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Jean is tired of a lot of things, but what exhausts him the most is this damn ship; more importantly, the people on this damn ship.
He loves company, but he hates the company when all they talk about is their businesses and their women followed by their fake laughter.
“My boarding docks are so full, I haven’t a clue where to put the rest of the ships that have yet to come in!”
“You don’t say? I wonder what it’s like to have that many ships - the missus bought so many diamonds we couldn’t get another one!”
“Ha ha ha! More brandy for my friend here!”
Rinse and repeat. There is nothing new and nothing genuine for him on the upper decks; it’s the same cycle of false interest in other affairs, making yourself look much wealthier than you are, and sniffing out potential connections to hold on to when the ship finally docks. Jean doesn’t think there’s a shred of human compassion up here - just forced laughter, brandy, and wives who gossip more than they spend their husband’s money.
Putting up a front is exhausting, especially for Jean who wants no part in it. He smiles, he nods his head at the appropriate times, and tunes out the monotonous conversations in favor of wishing he was somewhere else. Maintaining the face of someone who cares is hard work, and there isn’t enough brandy in the world that could make it easier.
Everyone buys his facade except Marco Bodt. He doesn’t belong on the upper decks aside from the job he’s assigned, but he’s so familiar in the art of facial expressions that looking at Jean Kirschtein is like looking at a book that’s not only open, but begging to be read. In the crease of his eyebrows, Marco sees Jean’s plea for someone, anyone, to notice how much he truly doesn’t care about conversing with these men. In the slightly downturned corner of his lips, Marco sees whispers of sighs, and the furrow in his brow is the restraint Jean tries so desperately to hold onto so he doesn’t roll his eyes. Marco Bodt is extremely observant and, for a man who isn’t of money, has learned to keep his readings in check, lest he find himself in more trouble than he can talk his way out of.
He doesn’t want to talk himself out of anything at the moment. No, right now, he wishes to talk himself in to something. It’s probably dangerous and unheard of for a man of lower social status to be attempting to covet someone higher born, but Marco is also a gambler, and right now, he’s far too interested to be hiding his hand.
Mr. Evans and Mr. Johnson are engaging in what is probably the most weary debate on business tactics when a waiter appears to Jean’s right.
“More brandy, sir?”
The waiter is smiling behind a spray of freckles, holding out a metal tray with a fresh class of drink for the taking. Jean is about to decline, but he sees under the class a folded piece of paper with a poorly drawn music note in the corner.
Jean’s not sure what to make of it, so he looks back up at the waiter, who offers him a wink and a slight push of the tray closer. Curious, Jean puts his empty glass next to the offered and accepts it along with the note. “Yes, thank you.” The waiter turns on his heels and walks out of sight. Jean swears he left whistling.
Making sure his tedious company is still occupied, Jean puts his glass on a small table to his left and carefully opens the note.
I can only imagin that what their talkin about is nothin short of borin, and you don seem like the type to wanna put up with it.
Downstairs is more fun.
- M
Jean hums and taps his forefinger against the edge of the paper. A brief smirk and the raise of an eyebrow is all he allows to show of his amusement, for this certainly does not seem like the type of note any upper class person would be sending. Regardless of the spelling mistakes, they wouldn’t dare to even think about the lower deck and its inhabitants to begin with. So for this note to reach Jean’s lap, someone had to go out of their way to make sure it got there without suspicion.
Well, who is he to refuse an adventure?
-x-
After the two men in Jean’s party were sufficiently drunk and oblivious, Jean slipped away unnoticed and made his way outside.
The air was cool and the sky was a seducing cobalt blue. On the back of the note Jean received, there were directions on how to reach the back staircases that led to the lower decks. Jean obeyed, turning corners and avoiding people as best as he could, until he came to the end of the ship and a brown door. It’s color was dull, resembling worn leather and nostalgia, and had diagonal scratches along the frame. Unlike the gold knobs of the upper deck, the door’s was bronze and lackluster, with similar scratches along the circumference of its shape. Jean could hear his heartbeat in his ears; if anyone were to turn the corner and see Jean descend the steps to a lower community, his own name would be questioned, and word would get back to his family. What would they do if they found out? What would they say? How would they react, seeing their youngest son who came from wealth surrounded by rags and presumed con artists unworthy of being in proximity with someone of high name?
It made him laugh.
Let them find out.
Jean turned the squeaky knob and opened the door.
Pitch black, but warm and the kind of inviting that tells you of danger and caution and red alert discretion. Jean abandons all three and makes his way down.
-x-
What he finds is not a welcome party of thieves holding knives ready to pounce, but laughter, music. True companionship.
It’s not very well-lit; the dim bulbs provide just enough light to be considered cozy. He’s not in their living quarters, rather he’s in one giant room surrounded by the same worn wood as the door from atop the staircase. It adds to the comfort, and Jean doesn’t feel scared.
He feels elated.
There’s music and dancing and so many people. Jean doesn’t think he’s seen this many people in his life be this jumpy. There are tables for talking, dancefloors for moving, and instruments for playing that don’t seem to have stopped for hours. Jean wonders how he didn’t hear it from upstairs, for the sheer volume of the notes can be well heard throughout the entire room.
The atmosphere is talking to Jean, and it’s saying, We took a bad situation and turned it into something enjoyable. Why don’t you join us?
He feels like he’s being pulled, but Jean doesn’t complain. He finds an empty seat at a crowded table, hesitantly sits himself down, and watches the faces of everyone around him.
The table goes quiet for a minute. Open mouths stare at him, his expensive clothing, his groomed hair and closely-shaven face, and Jean can see on their faces what they’re thinking.
Why would an upperclassmen want to come down here?
Jean can feel his hands start to sweat and he begins to think this idea is foolish. Coming down here was a mistake. He shouldn’t have any part of it - after all, it’s his kind of people that forced them all down here to begin with. Why should he take away the one thing they made bearable, even entertaining for themselves?
His hands grip the sides of the chair’s seat and he’s ready to stand up when one of the men at the table, a scruffy, shaggy middle-aged man, holds up his cup of beer and cheers with a smile on his face. The rest of the people around him do the same, and Jean lets out the breath he was holding in. Someone stands up and quickly sets down a big glass in front of him, contents sloshing over the sides and onto the table, and Jean carefully accepts with a tentative smile. He sips, and the taste resembles something akin to piss, but he chugs down a mouthful and sets it back on the table. The people cheer again before going back to their previous conversations, and Jean feels better than he did before.
Jean lets himself relax against the back of his chair and allows his eyes to roam the room. He sees old couples sharing secrets, children running around with toys, partners dancing all around. There’s one set of partners that catches his eye, and in this duo is a man in a newspaper boy cap dancing with a young girl. She has beautiful tight brown curls that bounce along her shoulders as she dances, the bow in her hair jostling as she goes. Her dress is tattered, but Jean can tell by the sparkles in her eyes that it’s not a concern she has, and the only one at the forefront of her mind is not stepping on any feet. Her laughter is loud and bubbly, the kind Jean had forgotten.
The man she’s dancing with is equally as frayed, but again, not a thought of priority in such a setting as this. His cap has a hole on the right side not big enough to be a problem, but big enough to warrant attention as it covers a mess of black curls spilling out from under the brim. Black slacks are supported by suspenders over a white button down that has seen better days, but clean enough to be deemed appropriate for a party gathering. Jean stops himself though, because he’s come to the realization that the condition of one’s clothes in a place such as this does not matter as much as it does on the upper level. Jean feels stupid, like he’s becoming more and more like how his family has tried to train him to be.
Still, he watches the duo dance, and subconsciously, begins clapping along with everyone else and laughing. The man tips his holed hat at the girl as she does a loose cursty, and they join hands. He twirls her as if she were but a rose in his hand, letting the stem roll between his fingers as the petals swirl. Her laughter only increases, as she dips backward and continues making her way around the dancefloor with the jubilant man who leads her.
The two keep dancing until the man looks up and sees Jean at his table, mouth to the glass of horrid beer and an inquisitive stare. If Jean had any shame he’d look down and away, but he doesn’t. He keeps watching and he holds the stare of the newspaper cap boy, who does the same. What Jean doesn’t expect is the song to be over and the man to be walking over with the little girl at his side, giving him the same wink he did when he was serving brandy.
Clapping erupts from the crowd with the end of the song, and Jean can hear the faint beginnings of another. The man is on one knee next to Jean’s table, kneeling before the girl and telling her, “That was a lovely dance, Princess, thank you. I’m going to dance with him now, alright?” The girl nods her head and the man holds out his hand. “Come on.”
Jean’s heart sinks right down into his feet. “What?”
“Come on! Come with me.” He wraps his hand around Jean’s.
Jean is hauled from his seat, wide-eyed and a little afraid. “Wait!”
They’re on the dancefloor, inches between them but minds miles away. Jean hasn’t danced since he was given lessons as a boy in his mother’s parlor with an instructor who always slapped at his back for never being straight enough. This man is just happy his invitation came to fruition, because now is the best time to show him what it means to be alive and true.
Swimming in nerves, Jean looks into brown eyes alight with the fire of dancing and tidal waves splash in his ribcage from erratic heartbeats. “I - I can’t do this.”
Instead of quelling his fears, the man just says, “We’re going to have to get a little closer, like this.” He pulls Jean closer, splaying his fingers across the small of his back and smiling something devious. Over to the side, the little girl pouts at being replaced. The man tears his eyes from Jean and looks over to her, tips his cap and says, “Don’t worry, you’re still my best girl.”
The song starts up in full swing, and he starts to pull Jean along. Jean can already feel his feet tripping up under him and sensing the stumbles before they can begin. He blurts out, “I don’t know the steps” before he even has time to think about forming a sentence as jumbly as his footsteps.
He feels better when the man tells him, “Neither do I. Just go with it.”
They do.
Round and round they go, listening to howls from the men playing instruments, the giddy jumbled shrieking of the dancers that remind Jean of bubbly champagne. They move around the floor, watching the blurry faces past them and making up the steps to their own improvised dance. It’s exciting and new, something Jean didn’t think he’d find on a ship filled with materialistic women and men who have their heads permanently shoved up their ass. It’s genuine and true, all thanks to a little note slipped beneath a glass of brandy.
Jean finds himself being as loud as everyone else; his voice has never reached a level of hilarity before, and it’s interesting to his ears, but not enough for him to quiet it. Instead, he embraces it, clinging on to his strange dance partner for dear life as he brings him around the group of people making up their own dances and steps as well.
He lets go. And it’s the happiest he’s ever felt in a single moment in his life.
They pause for a brief break, laughter still playing on Jean’s lips, eyes as wide as saucers and bright as any chandelier. Both of them are panting, catching up the breath they expelled, and Jean says a little loud so he can hear over the music, “What’s your name?”
The man answers just as loudly, “Bodt. Marco Bodt.”
Jean smiles wide and it hurts, but he reasons in a good way. “Jean Kirschtein.”
Marco yells into Jean’s ear, “I know,” before dragging his hand and pulling him up onto a wooden platform in the middle of the dancefloor.
Again, Jean finds himself saying, “Wait!”
Marco has proved to be a man who does anything but wait.
Jean looks around at all the people looking up at them, and his nerves return. He grips onto the seams of the sides of his pants, a bit scared at the sudden attention, but it’s washed away when his focus is turned to Marco’s feet.
Pat pat pat, they go against the wooden boards. He rapidly taps with the heel of his shoe, the tip, the side, and makes up ridiculously fast-paced steps Jean is sure he’s never rehearsed in all his years. Jean watches on, mesmerized, and laughter finds its way onto his lips again. He’s always been one for a challenge, and after watching another few seconds of Marco’s tapping, decides To hell with it .
Jean shrugs off his coat jacket and throws it to a random person to hold. He’s never done this sort of dancing before, but then again, he didn’t do anything like the dance they did earlier either. He did as Marco did; tap tap tap against the boards and making up his own pattern of ad-lib dancing. Marco looked on, a grin full of teeth spreading across his face as he clapped once and resumed his foot-tapping.
Together they danced in front of everyone, with the organs and violins assaulting their ears and the claps and hollers of the onlookers cheering for them to continue. Their feet slapped the wood in staccato beats, dancing like they were on a bed of hot coals. They clasped hands and spun each other around and around the small stage as other groups began to join in, giggling uncontrollably and marveling in a moment stolen. It was nothing short of invigorating, borderline intoxicating, and Jean didn’t know if he’d ever be able to pull himself from it.
Or, the better inquiry, he didn’t know if he wanted to pull himself from it. Or from Marco.
-x-
“You’re a natural!”
“Am not.”
“Are too! I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone dance like that.”
“You’ve also never seen that dance before because we made it up.”
“Hmm, good point.”
Dancing for extended periods of time takes it’s toll, and after Marco and Jean had learned to stop spinning and break away from each other again, they grabbed fresh glasses of crappy beer and headed for the staircase Jean had come down. There they sit, half-empty pints next to them, long-since forgotten; the fascination has been found in the other party, not the drinks.
(It’s like a sigh of relief for Jean.)
They reintroduced themselves not by class status or questions of where they were born, but their names, their interests, and their aspirations for the future.
Marco Bodt loves to dance, to make people smile, and is apparently very good at cards because he can “read the lies right on the player’s faces.” What he hopes for is not money and not a high-paying job when they descend the steps onto land once more, but happiness. He wants to find happiness on new land with people that will come to mean a great deal to him, and he wants to share that happiness with anyone who’s willing to receive it.
Jean Kirschtein is an avid reader, he enjoys watching plays, and he has a talent for bullshitting, because apparently it is “a skill one needs when dealing with fake, rich, fat motherfuckers.” He wants not more money and not any more success than his family already has, but he wants to give. He wants to find people who are true, genuine in their laughter, and he wants to give back what tonight has given him: joy.
Jean is glad for that note, and he is glad for their crossed paths. He wants to ask why and how Marco knew to give it to him, but he doesn’t want to ruin the magic of the evening. It seems surreal, like those stories that tell of boys being whisked away by magical creatures in the night, never to return. Jean feels like one of those boys, but if it means he can find laughter and excitement in someone he’s befriended on near accident, then he doesn’t mind never returning.