Chapter Text
“Find us a table, I’ll be right back!” instructs Renée, heading to the ladies' room. Eugene Roe pulls his arms across his chest and gazes around the space. It’s a renovated church; the pews have been removed, and the waxed hardwood floor is vast and gleaming. Tables and chairs are clustered around the sides of the wide open space, along with large fans that are desperately circulating air. Where the altar would have been is now a stage, and one transept contains a bar and DJ booth. It’s not a bad dance hall, though the stations of the cross staring down at him do lend a vague, sacrilegious feeling.
Renée and Gene are residents at the same hospital, and friends - having bonded, initially, over a shared knowledge of the French language, and subsequently through a series of grisly trauma cases. One year ahead of Gene in his residency, Renée has taken a protective attitude toward the younger doctor, sharing her stash of chocolate and trying her best to prevent his ever looming feelings of burnout.
In passing Gene once mentioned going to a few zydeco partner dances back home in Louisiana, and Renée took this as inspiration to buy him a series of “Intro to Lindy Hop” classes as a birthday gift. Gene had little interest in taking a dance class, and even less interest in adding a weekly commitment to his already busy schedule. But Renée insisted that Gene needed something to do with his time outside of work and study besides “drinking with that group of maniacs” or “running around the city all alone in the dark.” The latter refers to jogging, the former is the group of guys who absorbed Gene into their ranks some years back. They are good friends, but Gene can’t deny that they are maniacs. So, dance class it is.
Having arrived early to the first class, Gene takes a moment to glance around at the other participants who are scattered around the tables. Mostly couples, but there are a few single people milling about. Near the bar, Gene zeroes in on a head of red hair attached to a familiar lean figure, who is housing a bag of chex mix. They notice each other at nearly the exact same time.
“GENE!” shouts Edward “Babe” Heffron, his high nasal voice echoing like a gunshot off the high ceilings of the building. Eugene flinches slightly at the sound, but breaks into a small smile as the other man strides across the floor toward him.
“Gene!” he crows again, not much quieter despite their proximity. “Fancy seeing you here! You’re here for the intro class?” Babe upends the remainder of the bag of snack mix into his mouth, and chews around a wide grin.
“Hello yourself, and yeah, I am,” Gene says, his voice low “is it your first class too?”
The taller man barks out a short laugh, unfortunately spraying some crumbs with the explosion of the sound.
“Nah Gene, I’m teaching this bitch!”
Gene rolls his eyes in disbelief, thinking he's joking, but hesitates at Babe’s unwaveringly earnest expression.
He knows Babe as a newer member of the aforementioned group of maniacs. He’s young, fairly new to town, and is a big personality. Gene knows that he’s a lively storyteller, a hard drinker, and at times quite an acrobatic and reckless dancer.
Gene recalls a Friday night not too long ago where, in the hedonistic frenzy of Icona Pop’s “I Love It” Babe ended up sitting on their friend Malarkey’s shoulders and had knocked a disco ball from the ceiling with an enthusiastic fist pump, sending mirrored shards ricocheting across the dance floor.
Babe was, in Eugene’s estimation, somewhere among the top three acquaintances whose health and safety he was most concerned with at any given time. He had absolutely no idea that Babe partook in swing dancing, let alone how he’d been granted a position of authority on the subject.
“Edward, you’re not messing with me, yeah?” Eugene asks seriously, eyebrows furrowed.
“Gene how many times I gotta tell you, it’s Babe!” exclaims the redhead, reaching out to gently shove Eugene’s shoulder “And I’m not messing with you, I co-teach Intro to Lindy on Tuesday nights and Intermediate on Thursdays. Plus drop in beginner lessons whenever I can get ‘em.”
Eugene is, as he often finds himself around Babe, speechless. He just stares as the younger man, grinning, crumples up his snack trash and throws it like a basketball toward a nearby trash can. He misses by several feet.
“Coucou, c’est moi,”chirps a voice behind him. Renée has returned, holding two plastic cups of water. ‘Renée’ and ‘Eugene’ are scrawled in Sharpie in her large cursive script. “Water, for you, I think we will be needing it.”
Eugene takes his cup, already slick with condensation, and glances between Renée and Babe, two people he would never have anticipated meeting each other. Babe's face seems to fall for a second, a micro expression of concern, before being replaced by an even bigger smile. Renée is smiling expectantly, waiting for an introduction.
“Edward, this is Renée, she signed me up for the lessons. Renée, this is Edward-”
“Babe!” interrupts the younger man, reaching out a hand in greeting. “My name is Babe, I’ll be your instructor. And I know Gene! Mutual friends! Ain’t that crazy.” He laughs a little too loud.
The two shake hands and they all fall into a beat of awkward silence.
“Well, Renée, Gene, I’ve gotta be gettin’ busy, I’ll uh, I’ll see you out there!”
“Nice to meet you!” says Renée. Eugene, for some reason, waves. Edward waves back, stepping backwards toward the DJ booth.
Renée gives Eugene a sly glance and switches to French.
"Alors, notre instructeur — vous le connaissez, ou bien vous le connaissez vraiment?” Eugene doesn’t know why she’s even speaking in French, the innuendo in her voice strong enough to cross language barriers.
“Je le connais, ferme la.” Eugene mutters, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. Renée cackles beside him.
“So, should we stretch? Come on Eugene, show me your runner stretches. We cannot have you cramping up in the ER tomorrow, non?”
Eugene spends a few minutes evading Renée’s attempts to get him acting a fool in public, and in no time at all a familiar voice pierces through the room.
"ALRIGHT EVERYBODY Gather round! It’s time to dance!”
Eugene and Renée make their way towards the center of the floor, where Babe stands with a young woman wearing high waisted trousers and a frilly button up shirt. The two of them herd the rest of the students like sheep dogs until they form a large, loose circle around them.
“Hello everyone, welcome to Intro to Lindy Hop!” calls out the woman. Her short black hair is slicked back in finger curls, in a way that reminds Gene of Josephine Baker. “I’m Anna, and this is my glamorous assistant Babe!” Babe does a camp little wave, himself channeling Vanna White, and takes over the spiel.
“We’re going to be your instructors these eight weeks. We are going to be learning the Lindy Hop dance, which is a kind of swing dance. Here at the Fog City Ballroom we teach Lindy Hop, as well as East Coast Swing. You might say, East Coast? But we're in California, Babe! I don't know what to tell you. You can take the boy out of Philly but you can’t take the Philly out of the boy, am I right?”
Anna takes over, clearly used to Babe going off script.
“All you need to know today is that both East and West Coast Swing both evolved from Lindy Hop, which is an African American dance born out of Harlem in the ‘20s. The dance uses six and eight-count patterns, swingouts, whips, and kicks. But what good is talking about it when we can show you! What do you think Babe?”
“You wanna dance Anna?” says Babe with a coy shrug and a slanted smile
“Let’s show ‘em Babe”
“Don't mind if I do! Tony, hit it!”
A fast paced jazz song starts playing from the speakers. Babe offers a hand to Anna who slots herself into his frame, his palm firm against her lower back, while her own hand anchors by his shoulder blade. They angle slightly together and bob a little, Anna snapping to the rhythm, while Babe’s feet pivot smoothly in place, causing his narrow hips to swivel.
Then, a horn hits.
Babe takes a hard step back and they're off, like wind up toys finally set to motion.
They whirl in tight circles, flipping direction on the beat, and Babe sends Anna spinning out with his left hand only to catch her back with his right.
It feels to Eugene as if he is watching one of those sped up old films. The two dancers twist, kick, spin and pull each other back and forth with the kinetic snap of an elastic band. Babe punctuates a spin with a high kick, a grin on his face.
They come together side by side, almost bent over, mirroring each other's kicks and stomps. Babe’s arm whirling like a windmill to his side. As the music peaks, Babe launches into a jump spin, landing on his toes, light as a cat. As the music begins to fade out Anna melts into a half split.
Gene and the other students, who had been clapping in time to the dancers, burst into a round of applause and cheers. Babe scans the circle until he meets Eugene’s eyes, and waggles his eyebrows, his meaning clear; believe me now?
Babe catches his breath and gives an authoritative clap, refocusing the group. “Now don’t worry we’re not gonna be asking you to do that anytime soon! Today is all about the basics.”
Eugene and Renée look at each other with palpable relief.
“First things first,” Anna explains. “Lindy Hop is a conversation between two roles: the lead and the follow.” She gestures between herself and Babe. “I’ve been following Babe tonight. Traditionally, the men lead and the women follow, but...” She trails off, arching an expectant eyebrow at her partner.
“It’s 2018 and we’re in San Francisco for Christ’s sake!” Babe exclaims, “Do whatever you like!” The class ripples with giggles and a few scattered claps of approval.
“I actually compete as a follower half the time. Here, I’ll show you” continues Babe, before cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting towards the bar “HEY BULL!”
Yeah, Babe?” replies the large man behind the bar in a fully audible, regular speaking volume.
“COME HELP ME SHOW THE PEOPLE!”
With a good natured sigh, Bull puts down his rag, making his way over to the class. Tony the DJ starts up a song and Bull reaches a hand out to Babe, who takes it and slots himself into place, a mirror of his previous position. Babe looks small against his partner, shorter and leaner, and Gene’s focus narrows in on how Bull's large hand spans nearly the entire width of Babe’s lower back.
On their second turn out, Bull hoists Babe by his narrow waist and swings him through the air like he weighs nothing at all. Gene’s pulse speeds up along with the rhythm of the music as Bull tosses Babe over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and Gene finds himself shouting along with everyone else as Babe flips through a seamless arc and lands, easy as anything. Babe glows with exhilarated delight.
The students erupt in applause. As the music cuts, Bull claps Babe on the back and tells him to quit showing off and get back to work. Babe just laughs, breathless and quite lovely, and Gene glances down towards his shoes before those bright eyes can meet his own.
“You’re not allowed to try any jumps like that guys” says Babe, with a slight grimace “I’ll get in so much trouble. You need a bunch more classes for that. Anyways! Gender roles are bullshit, yadda, yadda, but we’ve got to split youse up! Whatever position you choose, just stick with that for the next eight weeks, it’ll make your life easier. Leads come stand by me, followers with Anna.”
The class begins to split and stand along opposite walls. After a quick negotiation with Renée, she joins Anna while Eugene makes his way towards Babe’s side.
“Ok I’ve got seven, what about you Anna? Five? That’s fine, nobody move, Anna and I will fill in while we’re practicing. Alright everybody, time to learn the basic rhythm!"
They spend the next 10 minutes doing the world’s worst line dance, trying to get their feet to cooperate as their instructors chant out the basic moves in bouncy rhythm “rock, step, tri-ple-step, tri-ple-step tri-ple step. One, two. three-and-four, five-and-six, se-ven-eight.”
After Babe and Anna deem their efforts good enough, they have a second to drink water, and then they form two concentric circles, leads on the outside and follows on the inside.
Gene and Renée begin paired together, but are assured this will soon change. They learn the basics of how to hold each other, and then followers are instructed to rotate along the circle, as they will do every couple of minutes for the rest of the class.
Eugene watches Renée move on and doesn’t have time to panic before he must quickly introduce himself to his next partner, a woman in her 60s named Maureen. She calls him honey and tells him he did a good job when they part, which does make him feel a lot better because he feels lost.
Next is a nervous college girl named Jia who keeps looking down at her feet.
After her is Brendan, one half of a same sex male couple. Eugene quietly admires how the other man has put himself out there like that, by being the only one besides Babe to defy gender roles with his dance position.
Next he dances with Anna, who is an absolute delight and gives him gentle tips on his posture and arm tension.
After that is Shannon, a rather eccentric woman who seems to be wearing numerous essential oils but, notably, not deodorant.
And then, finally, Babe.
Anna and Babe had just demonstrated the transition from closed position into open position, something called a swingout, and then they tell the class it’s their turn.
Eugene feels a little bit like he’s drowning. Nina Simone is rhapsodizing about her baby over the speakers, and Babe is sidling up to him and maybe he should just quit now and go home? But then Babe is in his arms and he thinks they’re closer than they’ve ever been.
“Hey Gene,” he says with uncharacteristic softness “how’re you enjoying the class?”
Eugene tries to find the words to express that he feels insane without insulting Babe’s teaching, but his face seems to say enough. Babe chuckles lightly and gives his shoulder a little squeeze “Hey don’t worry so much! You’ve got all the separate parts, I’ve been watching ya. Just gotta tie ‘em together. You’re doing great.”
They start dancing and Anna is calling out each part of the dance from across the room. Gene feels a little panicky, trying not to miss any steps, and then Babe’s voice interrupts his thoughts.
“Tell me about your day” Babe prompts. “Were you working?”
“I was working, yeah.” Gene answers
Rock, step
“Anything crazy go down at the hospital?”
To-the-left
“There’s always something crazy at the hospital. Let me see…"
Walk, walk
“…a kid got his head stuck in a chair in the waiting room. We had like, eight people trying to get him out at one point.”
Swing-him-out
“What!” cries Babe, delighted
Pull back
“Yeah we ended up calling EMS up from the ambulance bay and they used the jaws of life on the chair…"
Walk walk
“...he was fine in the end.”
Tri-ple-step
“Jesus, that sounds like something I would have done as a kid.”
And they’re back where they started, Babe in Gene’s arms.
“You a rowdy kid? I don’t believe it.” drawls Gene, sarcastically.
“Oh I was a terror! But hey Gene, you did it!”
Gene had been distracted enough by Babe’s questions to not overthink his moves, and they had accomplished a pretty seamless swingout and return to closed position.
“Guess I did,” Gene says, in a bit of a daze. Babe beams at him.
And then Anna yells out “Switch your partners!”
Gene’s newfound confidence carries over into his dance with Renée, who is delighted to see his progress, but the nervous energy of his next few partners seems contagious, and he feels himself getting disoriented and clumsy. By the time he dances with Anna, he is wishing he was still dancing with Babe, glancing at the other man from over her shoulder. Babe is really very good at this. He greets each new partner with enthusiasm, gently corrects mistakes while building his students’ confidence. All the while he is scanning the floor, seeing how the rest of the class is doing.
They catch each other's eyes over Shannon’s shoulder, and Gene feels a little flustered when Babe sends him a wink.
At the next rotation, Babe actually skips over, and greets Gene with;
“Ok so what were we talking about?”
Gene laughs, and tries to remember as they get into closed position. Babe’s hand is warm but not sweaty, and his t-shirt is riding up just a little in the back. “I think we were talking about what a menace you were as a child.”
“Yes!” laughs Babe. “That’s how I started dancing actually! I was always moving and my ma and pa were at their wits’ end, and they found this community center dance place. They’d drop me off with all my sisters and I’d try and learn Michael Jackson moves”
Gene thinks he’s seen Babe bust some of those moves out on the dance floor before.
“How’d you get into swing dancing?” asks Gene, as he swings Babe out.
“Well, Gene, when I was twelve I saw Dirty Dancing and I really wanted Patrick Swayze to lift me over his head in a river so I started trying to make that happen. I ended up at a swing dance place and the old ladies thought I was so cute they’d pay for my entry fees and classes. I got good really fast and started doing competitions and conferences and stuff!”
Babe demonstrates his skill by doing a flashy swivel as Gene pulls him back in from open position.
“I’d been to a couple conferences in the Bay Area and loved it, so after I graduated high school I knew I wanted to move out here. And here I am! Working in a warehouse, living with a bunch of college kids, and teaching swing three times a week.”
The song ends and Babe and Anna thank everyone for coming out. Anna announces that after every class there's drop in beginner basic swing class, followed by a social dance that’s open to anyone, where they can stay and practice their moves with more experienced dancers.
They all catch their breath and Gene watches as Babe takes great gulps from his water bottle beside him. Gene feels like he’s met Babe for the first time all over this evening. He’s always liked Babe, enjoyed his company, but now he feels a little in awe of the man, even as he dribbles water down his front.
Renée appears at his side and reaches out her hand to Gene, who obliges by giving her a little spin.
“Babe!” she says to the other man. “Thank you so much! I haven’t seen Eugene here this relaxed since I literally tricked him into getting a massage with me.”
Babe looks between them “She had to trick you, Gene?”
Gene nods. It’s true. She had told him that she needed help with some favor and had at the last minute led him into the zen waiting room of a spa. At that point it was too late to refuse.
Gene may be imagining it, but Babe seems a little less animated all of a sudden. Less himself, more professional.
“Well hey, thank you both for coming. I’m glad Gene has you to look out for him! Are you staying for the social dance?”
Gene and Renée make eye contact, and she shrugs a little bit, the ball is in his court.
“Not this time I don’t think, I’m pretty wore out.”
They say their goodbyes, and Renée drives Gene home, smug in the success of her choice of activity.
When Gene falls asleep that night, it's with a swing beat in his head, and visions of Babe’s smiling face spinning, spinning, spinning.