Salsa

I was early. Uncomfortably alone in the bar, with my first human interaction since Sunday (other than a minute with my landlord and a shouted discussion with the repairman who liked my photography and my ShopVac), I ordered a soda. I ordered an appetizer. I left them both on the bar for my "one, two, three... five, six, seven...."

I wore the wrong shoes. I stuck to the floor a little too well and worried more about tripping than slipping for once in my life. There were more boys than girls. More men than women, actually, ranging in age and style from the confident young man in the blue shirt to the boy from Ethiopia who just couldn't quite grasp the steps, the military looking bald one to the long hair in the corner.

After the beginners' class, after stepping and swinging, after trying a few steps on our own and an hour of instruction, I retreated to the bar, to the hummus I had ordered before the man with the mic started talking.

One of my friends joined the intermediate class. Another joined me at the bar where we found ourselves pulled reluctantly into conversation with the man to my right. Somehow we split. I chatted with the man on the right, she with the one on the left.

"I'm trying to get a woman," the man on the right but far from being "the right man" told me. That's why he didn't have pets. "I don't want a woman to come over and say 'This place smells like cat' or 'I'm afraid of dogs.' I'm not even sure about getting an aquarium."

"That's very... single minded of you."

"What?"

"You seem to know what you want."

He actually had a bounty out on a woman, any woman over the age of 35. Five thousand for the broker. One hundred thousand for any woman who stayed with him a year and gave him a baby.

"Is that too much?" he asked.

"I really don't know. It seems like a lot but I don't have experience with this sort of thing."

I heard about his job, his clubs, getting kicked out of a church and a dining club. I heard how he fell three stories when he jumped off a balcony to a tree.

"I'm a monkey," he said. "I like to swing on things."

Eventually, though, he ran out of stories or I ran out of attention as I watched the dancers twirl. He disappeared into the crowd, and a friend and I planned to leave. I asked for a box and found myself dancing before it came. Right, left, right... left, right, left.... We laughed and tried to help a man who knew even less about the dance than us.

On our way out, the instructor told me I had moves. I hadn't paid enough to warrant flattery, so I took it as a compliment and vowed to return, to learn a little more about salsa than chopped vegetables and a basic step or two.

Note to self: Next time - more dancing and less talking. It seemed safer that way.


Tag: Dancing Friends