When I was small, my mother and father would sing polka songs to my little brother, Ricky, and me when they wanted to embarrass us. This was especially fun for them when one or both of us had friends over. The favorite by far was “Roll Out the Barrel,” both for entertainment value for the parents (and its equal and opposite effect on us) and for the catchy, easy-to-learn lyrics. I’ve noticed that a lot of polkas have easy lyrics. The better to sing when one is….not fully sober. My mother, in moments of exuberance, has also been known to ambush me with an impromptu polka around the room, jumping and bouncing me around until either we tripped on something, or I managed to get out of her surprisingly strong grasp. I came to see the polka as my natural enemy, sworn from birth.
As I sat, typing a list of things I had never done before, I decided to include “dancing polka” as a sort of good-faith item, that I wouldn’t really end up doing. I even posted it to my blog. When my girlfriend saw this, her eyes shone with an evil light. No. Oh, no. “We can go polka dancing!” Why me? What am I being punished for, God? I was reared in the suburbs, about half an hour’s drive from downtown Minneapolis, downtown St. Paul, and a plethora of things to do that did not involve beer, sausage, and/or strange bouncing dances that evoke Lawrence Welk-era ruffled dresses or (possibly worse) lederhosen. I had several other entertainment options on any given night, thank you. “Come on—you have to try it before you can really say you hate it.” Damn. Hoisted by my own petard. And it’s Saturday night—I had been really hard-up for new experiences that were interesting as well as legal. This might be my only option.
We went. I was strangely looking forward to it, after spending all day at work—anything seemed like fun after that. We got into my car, drove from her house in South Minneapolis to the corner of second street and Hennepin Avenue (Near Nordeast, for those of you who go by neighborhood). Nye’s Polonaise. Trying to find a parking space in the dead-end lot was impossible, so we parked in metered parking one block south. It was about 9:15, and the night was a little chillier than I had anticipated—September weather for sure—but the chill didn’t seem to cut through the inescapable stench of cooked cabbage that seared my nostrils. My miniskirt seemed like a poor choice in the breeze that flirted with the tops of the trees. The Mrs. wore a black button-down and skinny jeans—she laughed at my wardrobe choices. We crossed the street and had to walk through the noisy tail-end of a bachelorette party (“You may pass in peace—this time,” slurred a dyed-blonde woman, in a skin-tight black dress, who bowed imperiously, while the gaggle of similar-looking women around her giggled). We got past the door, and polka music more than filled the air. It was the air. It reverberated through my body and it was….dare I say it?....cheerful and sort of welcoming. In another bar, this would have felt sinister; here, it was like a broad wink to guilty pleasure. On our right, there was a photo booth, and on our left was the bar. We thought we’d have dinner first, though, before attempting dancing. Best not to look like an idiot on an empty stomach.
We made our way through the crowded bar, into the restaurant behind. With dark wood paneling and a smaller, quieter bar, and tables and booths that looked like they were from the 1940’s, and an elderly gentleman playing a beautiful baby grand piano surrounded by more patrons d’un certain age, it was like being enveloped in the past. Polka still blared in my ears every time the swinging door opened between bar and dining room, periodically drowning out the sound of the piano. It was like listening to my fate beckoning me—like the flames of hell visible to Dante Alighieri protagonist in the Inferno before Virgil appears to lead him down. The pianist had a beautiful tenor voice, though, and a tender, wavering vibrato as he sang songs that sounded like they predated Sinatra (and seemed like a blessed respite from the prominent tuba sounds from the polka band). In a surprise move toward the end of our evening, he followed a sing-along version of “Edelweiss” with a sing-along “Sweet Caroline,” complete with drunken “Bah, bah, baaah” in the refrain, courtesy of some gentlemen who were enthusiastic, but off key. In front of him at a shallow, long table, hunched over and looking for all the world like she could be focusing on a BINGO card, a woman about 70 or so years old was singing, too. A sweet, crooning soprano. Incongruous with her looks, which were decidedly ordinary. In a sequined gown and with different hair, she could have been a torch singer in a smoky bar way back when. She and the pianist traded songs—she did a seductive, teasing “Mack the Knife,” about twenty minutes after The World’s Most Dangerous Polka Band performed their significantly more oom-pah rendition. These performers may look old on the outside, but they’re still young at heart. My cockles were warmed by that, somehow (in between chills down my back from the impending polka—pardon the pun, but soon I’d have to face the music in a very literal way). Likewise the manager, who wore a robin’s-egg colored blazer from the mid-1980’s, a bouffant Amy Winehouse would have envied, and earrings to match. Somehow, the look worked. I don’t think it would have anywhere else, though. We ordered sausage and pierogis—stodgy, Polish food. Starch wrapped in more starch and served with sauerkraut and as far as I could tell, and it made my stomach feel violated inside—like I had committed some awful gastronomic sin by placing nothing that could even be loosely termed a vegetable within gut’s reach. At least we weren’t dancing. Yet. I waited. Dinner continued. I plied my girlfriend with beer, and encouraged her to eat more—if I could just get her to the point where she was too full to move, I could maybe avoid the dreaded dancing. I even ordered a chunk of chocolate cake the size of a small dog for dessert (I would probably have done this anyway, but we’re remembering it as a strategic choice, to provide an insurance policy against having to actually dance).
Time’s up. I’ve stalled enough—it’s been nearly two hours, and I’m on borrowed time. Oddly, as the prospect of bouncing up and down in a bar full of middle-to-not-so-middle-aged patrons dressed like normal people (no ruffles! No lederhosen! Just mom jeans and the intoxicated “fun” dads from anyone’s elementary school soccer league to be seen! Even young people! This….doesn’t seem so bad after all…) nears, I’m warming to it. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been in the Mrs.’s beer, or the food, or the old pianist and his beautiful voice and the manager’s blue Golden Girls blazer, or a truly impressive sugar high from the cake, or even the faint glimmer of my long-dormant sense of fun, but I’m ready. I’ve made my peace with this last shred of my concept of myself as somehow “above” polka—too cool, you know—being a distant memory after tonight. I’ve had my last meal as a polka virgin. I’m starting to perk my ears up, since I heard the opening strains of “Roll Out the Barrel.” They’re playin’ my song. So, I tell my girlfriend I’m ready. She has to use the restroom. I let her go. She’s gone a while. In between wondering if she’s ok, a terrible thing happens—the band takes a break. And I have to work the next morning, and write about this as well, and I finally got what I had been angling for all evening—we weren’t dancing—but I was struck by disappointment. It felt unfinished, really. Cabbage smell, heavy starchy food—it didn’t matter anymore. I wanted to dance (finally!), and I had missed my opportunity! We walked back out into the chilly night, over to my car, and we decided we’d try again soon. Only next time, no pierogis. Or, no pierogis followed by a hunk of chocolate cake that deserves its own zip code.
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