I do not own Dirty Dancing.

Chapter Fifty Two

POV Max

Slipping Away

"Hei, landsman, vos hert zikh mit dir?" Tito's voice said from behind me. Yiddish words for 'Hey, compatriot, what's to hear with you?' Tito had been here as long as I had, from the very beginning. It wasn't surprising that he had picked up Yiddish over the years.

"Freg nisht," I responded, which meant, 'Don't ask.' I'd been playing this game for 40 years. Friends had come and gone all year long, staff changed out, but I was always here. And for the first time... I was bored. "You and me, Tito, we've seen it all, eh? Bubbah and Zeda serving the first pasteurized milk to the boarders. Through the war years when we didn't have any meat. Through the depression when we didn't have anything."

"Lots of changes though, Max," Tito commented. The Conductor had aged well. He was still skinny as a broom, sharp as ever, and no arthritis had set in yet, or so he said. Me... not so much. "Lots of changes."

I rubbed a palm across my face. The game had become exhausting. I couldn't keep up anymore, try as I might. "It's not the changes so much this time, Tito... it's- it's that it all seems to be ending," I sigh. We'd already lost 10% of our average business from last year. Fewer kids were applying to work here. And now, I needed to find a new Dance Instructor for the rest off the year. I'd never told him, but Johnny really had been the best Dancer I'd ever seen. "You think kids want to come with their Parents and take Fox Trot lessons? Trips to Europe, that's what the kids want. Twenty-two countries in three days," I said with an exasperated eye roll. "It feels like it's all slipping away,"

Another disclaimer: I have no idea if Tito and Max are actually speaking Yiddish in the beginning of this scene. My source on that one, I don't believe is 100% reliable, and I'm not Jewish, so I don't know if that really is Yiddish, but I do believe that what I have written here is more of a pronunciation guide for those of us who are unfamiliar with the language.

It would make historical sense for there to be some who speak Yiddish at Kellerman's, given that WWII had been over for nearly 20 years at that point, and many Jewish People probably left Europe during that time period.

So, I'm not 100% sure on how accurate this is, but if any of my readers know better, if you can understand what Max and Tito are saying in that scene, or speak Yiddish (Or, for all I know, this could be Hebrew, because as said, I'm not Jewish, and I don't entirely trust my source for this, so I wouldn't know.) Feel free to correct me on this if you have a better understanding on this subject than I do (or rather don't)