Rug Cutters-Digital Collage 4" x 6"

Duke and Donna's emphatic but inept version of The Twist ruined the lovely little early summer get-together up on our roof that Carol and I had organized. Duke, a friend of Carol's boyfriend Carl danced the same way he did everything: belligerent and without grace. Where he unearthed Donna is anyone's guess, but in her he found an ideal partner. Brash and oblivious the two of them thrashed and flailed out of time to the music. It was mortifying. Guests who moments before had been mingling, cleared a wide path to avoid getting kicked or punched. When the song ended I raced to the record player and put on the slow and soothing, Under the Boardwalk. I thought for certain this would put a stop to to the melée, but as if in a trance Duke and Donna kept at it. Exasperated, I turned off the record player only to have Duke berate me. I turned to Carol and pleaded, "Please ask him to leave". Carol spoke with Carl who then took Duke aside. The normal response would have been to apologize and bow out of the party. Instead, Duke and Donna started to yell at my guests and me. "You're all a bunch of squares!" The always polite Curtis yelled back, "In that case Hep Cat, why don't you embarrass yourself down at the Peppermint Lounge." Some shoving followed and moments later Carol and I found ourselves apologizing to friends as we showed them to the door. Carl and a friend dragged Duke down to the street. He looked up to the roof where Carol and I leaned over looking down on them. Shaking a fist at me, he screamed that an uptight girl like me couldn't deal with the raw manliness of his dancing. Carol and I howled with laughter and waved goodbye. Afterward we retreated to two beach chairs up there on the roof and quickly polished off two bottles of chianti.