Chapter Thirty-Seven Company
A couple of weeks after I cut my parents off, I was on a tap Discord looking for advice on getting a new board, because my current one was getting pretty battered, when someone mentioned that The Black Tap Company was looking to replace a member who’d moved to Baltimore.
The company was based in Toronto, and I thought, Why not?
I checked out their website and recognized one of them, Annie, from some tap festivals I’d attended.
All the company’s members were Black. My heart sank.
I didn’t know what they’d think of me auditioning.
But I figured I had nothing to lose, so I emailed their contact, Donie.
She called me back a day later. I could hear kids laughing and shrieking in the background.
She told me to come to her dance school at eight thirty Friday night and “show me what you got.”
The next day, I brought my tap shoes and my dance gear to work and had dinner downtown.
Well, I tried to eat, but I was too nervous.
I bought a bottle of cold water so I could stay hydrated.
Then I walked to the studio. The sounds inside the studio reminded me of when I’d belonged to a company.
I’d been tapping solo for so long I’d forgotten how good it felt to be around other tappers.
When I got to the top of the stairs, another guy was there waiting.
He was a little shorter than I was, stockier, and younger. He was wearing Bloch tap shoes.
“You here for auditions?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Craig.” He held out his hand.
For a second, I thought he knew me from somewhere. Then I realized Craig was his name, too. “Same,” I said, shaking his hand.
This wouldn’t be confusing at all.
While I waited, I started stretching. Then I sat on one of the chairs against the wall because I was so nervous I felt like I was going to puke. I remembered Eddie’s trick and pressed the cold water bottle to the back of my neck, and it helped.
Then a woman opened the door and said, “Come on in, Craig.”
We both got up and went in.
It was a big room smelling of sweat and full of mirrored light. Four people were inside: one man and three women.
“Shit,” said one of the women. “There’s two Craigs.”
“We’ll call them Craig and White Craig,” said the man. “I’m Royston.”
“I’m Stasia,” said one of the women. “And we aren’t starting till I’ve got my tea.” She left through a door and came back a minute later with a bottle of peach iced tea, which, I had to admit, looked pretty good, since my mouth had gone totally dry.
I recognized Annie, so the woman who’d let us in must have been Donie.
“Who are your influences, White Craig?” said Donie.
“Hal Le Roy,” said Royston, looking at me, and he snickered.
“Teddy Hale,” I said.
“Can you rap like Snow?” said Royston.
“I can’t rap,” I said.
I handed Donie a folder with my photos—the ones Eddie had taken me to get—and my résumé.
“I know White Craig,” said Annie. “We used to do competitions together back in the day.”
Craig and I looked at each other. Were they going to have us audition in front of each other?
Yes, they were. They asked Craig to do his audition first. He was a lot more athletic than I was.
He was spinning and dropping into the splits like the Nicholas Brothers.
I expected him to jump over a chair to finish his routine.
When he was done, he looked at me like it was a challenge, and Donie told me to go ahead.
I played my music and went into the routine I’d been rehearsing since before Eddie and I split. And I was letter-perfect.
Donie stopped me before I was done. “Let’s see if you can improvise like Teddy Hale, White Craig.”
Then they made Craig and I trade with each other acapella.
Which was super hard because we didn’t know each other’s rhythms. It was like kissing someone for the first time when you haven’t quite synched.
Craig was a lot faster than I was, and his tempo was making me work above my normal pace.
I wasn’t showing off my best work. But the more we got into it, the better we worked together.
Then, a couple of minutes in, I felt a shift.
We stopped competing and started collaborating.
When Donie told us to stop, we looked at each other, like, That was good, right?
“So, White Craig,” said Donie. “Why should we give a spot in our company to a white boy in favor of Craig here?”
Things got quiet. No more banter.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “You could take both of us. My last company had six dancers. I’m used to choreographing with six people.”
It was clear from their expressions they hadn’t considered that option. They told us to wait outside. Craig stood at the closed door with his hands in his pockets, not hiding that he was listening in.
“What are they saying?” I said.
“Can’t tell.”
That was when I realized how much I wanted to join their company.
Ten minutes later, they called us in.
And they gave us both the good news and took our measurements for our new uniforms.
I left feeling shattered, nerve-racked, and a hundred feet tall. Craig and I walked to the subway together, bumped fists, and separated at the bottom of the steps.
When I got home, I sat on the couch, and I realized I had no one to celebrate with.
He would have been so happy for me. I knew he would. And I cried.
––––––––
Getting into The Black Tap Company was the one good thing that happened to me that shitty spring.
I was lonely sometimes—a lot of the time—but I wasn’t alone anymore.
On National Tap Dance Day, we drove out to the cemetery in Oakville to pay our respects at Gregory Hines’s grave.
There was a portrait on the stone of Hines with his fiancée.
They looked so happy. I wondered where I’d be buried and if maybe it would be near Eddie.
The Black Tap Company were more than my friends.
They were like family but not the way Eddie had been.
No one could take his place. Sometimes when I was at rehearsals, I’d feel Eddie’s presence.
I’d spent so long practicing while he watched that I kept expecting him to be there.
Then I’d turn my head and get a jolt seeing Craig or Royce or my own reflection.
After what had happened with my parents, I was afraid to come out to my company, but I let little things slip.
They knew I used to be engaged but that I was single now.
What made me finally come out, though it meant possibly being kicked out of the company, was thinking of him.
If they weren’t okay with me being bi, then I couldn’t dance with them anymore.
Because I didn’t want to be with people who wouldn’t have accepted Eddie.
Even though we weren’t together anymore, I carried him with me everywhere, and I didn’t want to live a life where he wouldn’t be welcome.
So, one day when we were packing our stuff in the van to go to a show, I told Donie I was bi.
She’d mentioned casually that she’d had a girlfriend for a few years, so I knew I could tell her, and this time, when I talked about being engaged, I said Eddie’s name.
And it wasn’t a big deal, so after that, I told the whole company.
I guess because of Donie, the company just accepted that I was bi.
And we all went to Pride together. I thought I saw Cub shirtless on one of the floats.
I looked for Eddie but didn’t see him. But I didn’t go to Pride for him.
I did it for me. And when I got home that night, I saw myself in the mirror, and I looked different.
The self-acceptance I’d admired in him the day I met him—part of what had made me fall in love with him—was in me now too.
Afterward, I stitched the little bisexual flag I got at Pride onto my warm-up jacket.
See, Eddie? I’m not ashamed of us.
Not that he’d ever know.
I thought about contacting him, apologizing, telling him what I’d done. Maybe...maybe if I did that, he’d consider getting back together.
Then I got a reality check.