Caught Perrididdling

"i need a step," I tell Annette one night in the kitchen. "If someone says, 'You tap? Show me a little step,' I can't."

"You know lots of steps," Annette says, rinsing off a dinner plate. "Flap, Heel, Shuffle, Truck, Chug --"

"But I can't put them together. I need something, I dunno, self-contained. Like a riff."

"You mean like a time step?"

"Yeah!" Pioneers of tap used the time step as a two-bar intro to show their live accompaniment what tempo to play. The time step has endless variations. I have the tap dance dictionary to prove it. "Uh … is a time step too hard for me?"

Annette gives me her assessing look. She shoves a stray curl behind her ear, and ventures, "I could show you a Perrididdle."

"Cool!" All I know is that drummers do them, too. "What's that?"

Annette tosses her dish towel onto the counter and turns so we face the same direction. She lifts her left foot slightly, then straightens her knee so that her heel strikes the floor, but her toes do not. The rubber sole makes a dull thud. "That's called a Dig," she says. Then she whaps her toes down while jerking her foot back and up, as if the floor were red hot. "Spank," she explains. Then she touches just the toes back to the floor. "Step." She drops her heel with a nice solid thud. "Heel." Her brown eyes check to see if I get it.

"Okay," I say.

She shifts her weight to free up her right foot. "Then you do it on the other side, like this. Dig. Spank. Step. Heel. Then you just alternate." She shows me. Even without her taps on, each foot fires off its four beats evenly and rapidly, the other foot picking up the beat so it all sounds like one continuous tattoo.

"Got it," I say. I mean conceptually. I try a solitary Dig. Mugs hanging from a decorative stand clink together. On the Spank, the toe of my hiking boot sticks to the ground. I pick it up and do a retarded Step, looking like Jerry Lewis learning to tip-toe. On the Heel, spatulas and spoons hanging on the wall tremble.

Irrationally shy about practicing in front of Annette, I say brightly, "I'll work on it! Thanks!"

She shrugs and resumes cleaning the kitchen.

The next night, while she is out teaching classes too advanced for me, I have the house to myself. With my tap shoes on, I blap into the kitchen. Out the sliding glass door, I see the house behind ours with its lit bedroom, kitchen, and TV room glowing golden in the black night. My neighbor to the rear has a TV measuring at least 50 inches, and from my kitchen I can easily recognize what video game he or his son is playing. And if I can see them, they can see me. I seriously consider practicing with the kitchen lights off. Finally, I decide that my lunging and hopping and staggering in the dark would look creepier to the neighbors than just dancing badly in the light.

I warm up with the Shucking Fuffles, and don't totally suck. I hit a few Air Shuffles partway through, but at least I don't scramble for balance like I used to. When Ella finishes singing, I sigh. No more putting it off. Time to Perrididdle.

On the counter next to the Kaboom Box, I find a CD labeled Dirty Vegas. This name evokes slinky grindy lounge music, but when I put it on, it is the kind of cool Brit electronica that sells Mitsubishi Eclipses. I find a mid-tempo song and launch into the Perrididdles.

I watch the ghostly reflection of myself in the sliding glass door. Perhaps when I get good, the ghost dancer will become solid. As I watch my feet cycle through the Perrididdles, for the first time ever, I look like a tap dancer. The faded linoleum yields a satisfying snap even though I am working little. I sound like a tap dancer, too.

Suddenly I love Perrididdles. Like, I can do them! And they go with the music! And they look kinda cool, not like dork tap. I must Make Them My Own.

The song ends and a slightly faster one begins. When I hear the tempo, I catch my breath in dismay. Then I dig in. Hey! I can keep up! Dig Spank Step Heel, Dig Spank Step Heel.

I get rid of Dirty Vegas and throw in another CD at random. It turns out to be James Taylor's October Sky. Song after song, I can Perrididdle to anything in 4/4 time. I test my control by emphasizing different beats: dig Spank Step Heel, dig Spank Step Heel, Dig spank Step Heel, Dig spank Step Heel...

Your average adult contemporary song (think Clapton, Sting, Bonnie Raitt) puts the snare on the third beat of each measure. When I try Dig Spank step Heel, Dig Spank step Heel, the snap! of my Step locks in with the ka! of the snare. I am merely faking my way along, but suddenly it sounds choreographed and professional. A thrill shoots through me. I am da tap dancin' man! Just listen to me!

I discover I can travel the Perrididdles in tiny steps. I groove my way down our long skinny kitchen, tapping a victory lap toward the refrigerator while J. T. lays on the bluesy sax. As I draw near, the refrigerator and the stove jostle together, as if trying to keep straight faces while elbowing one another. Unfazed, I turn and groove my way back to the kitchen table in funky abandon.

That's when I notice the guy in the house behind mine staring out his second-story bedroom window, across my black lawn, to where my kitchen spotlights me. He has the same first name I do, and for a moment he seems like the old me, peering at the dancing me, mystified. I feel so exhilarated, I don't care. Mere mortal concerns fade now that I can dance like the wind. OK, actually, I dance more like Extreme Slow-Motion Hail, but now is not the time to get picky. Now is the time to celebrate. Live to Perrididdle! Perrididdle to live! For tonight, I have my first toe-hold on Tap. ##