M, my girl friend of more than 20 years, sits with me on the fringe of the makeshift dance floor at a house party. I flew in from across the Pacific just yesterday and I struggle to shake off the dizziness, the disorientation and the disconnection from reality that come with jet lag. She dragged me here; I was too out of it to object.
“You must come and meet my boyfriend,” she insisted. M is 49, single, and has been looking for Mr. Right for God knows how long. I haven’t seen her in a whole year. I drag myself there.
We enter the party and her boyfriend greets us at the door. His gaze is fierce; his eyes, blazing brown as an acetylene torch in the dark. But he smiles and his eyes slant upwards. He stops looking scary. They touch one another’s forearm and are locked in a hold for what seems like forever. M forgets I am there and I shift my feet to remind her.
“Oh, sorry. This is Silvio,” she says. He is Italian, tall — quite imposing. I stare; he is the type of man you stare at. I take in as much as I can without being rude. His jaw line is not strong. I normally do not like this. But he has dark stubble crawling across his jaw and his upper lip; it redeems him. His hairline is receding. This, I like: bald or nearly-bald heads that are perfectly shaped.
“Come,” he tells us and the three of us go in and join the fray. The next thing I know I have eaten heartily and I am seated in the most comfortable spot in the room with an after-dinner drink in hand. He engineers all this.
The lights are dim, the music blares, and I have a good buzz going from the jetlag and the cognac. The tableau at the dance floor seems surreal. I sit back and shake my head slightly to make sure my brain is in the right place. I focus again. A Coldplay song comes on. I am turned off. Chris Martin gives me a headache. But apparently everybody else likes him. The guests go nuts. They swarm the dance floor and shake their bodies as though the swine flu would claim all of us tomorrow.
This one man catches my eye. He is Caucasian. He wears a plaid shirt. Who wears plaid anymore? He shimmies like crazy. He looks like he is convulsing; his body is freaking out. His limbs are manically trying to disengage from his trunk. Arms: left and right; legs: left and right, moving away from his center of gravity in opposing directions. The Pinoy term, kanya kanyang biyahe, comes to mind. I swallow my drink fast. I try not to laugh. It is next to impossible. I look at the ceiling and make my gaze linger.
I look back at the dance floor. There is this other man. European, I think. He is dressed very well: slim gray trousers, midnight blue shirt, both impeccably tailored. He has good shoes — shiny and all. But he starts to move and the nightmare starts. He grinds his hips as though he were trying to shake something off of his butt and he flails his arms as though he were wanting to scratch an itch somewhere and yet can’t find exactly where it is.
And there is yet another one, Chinese-eyed, with jet-black straight hair this time. He is promenading on the dance floor. He is walking across the dance floor… and back again? Or could he be dancing? His head is down. Is he looking for something? Like a lost quarter maybe, or a dropped contact lens? I lean in to watch a while longer. S**t! He is dancing, all right.
This is too much, I say to myself. I tell M I need to grab another drink. She stops me. “Sit. Watch,” she says as Silvio materializes on the dance floor from out of nowhere. He is dancing. Huh? Dancing?
I panic.
“M,” I whisper and tug at her arm. “I’m going to have a coronary if I have to watch yet another man dance. I have a quarrel with men who dance.” I tell her what she has already known for ages. “Tell Silvio not to. I beg you. I already like him. He looks good. Let’s leave it there.”
“No,” she insists. “Just watch.”
Real men don’t dance. I’ve said it many times. I’ve written about it here and gotten flak for it. And I say it again without fear or shame: Men. Don’t. Dance. I have also said countless times that I don’t write about politics or religion. But this is my politics and my religion: men don’t dance, period. I am of a mind that unless you are Al Pacino dancing the tango in Scent of a Woman or John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever or Pulp Fiction, you have no business on the dance floor.
But M is a good friend. So I sit tight. I watch.
There are many people on the dance floor and he moves alongside them. I wonder why she doesn’t join him but I’m too lazy to ask. He doesn’t dance with anyone in particular. He sort of just grooves to the music. Ordinarily, I would have labeled him a showoff or garish, gaudy and gross. But I am jetlagged; my senses and wits are warped. And he starts moving — his feet first then his arms — to the beat of the music, instinctively. I cradle my drink on my lap and keep watching. I am thinking, in a minute this Italian dude will let his true colors show and make a fool of himself. And I will prove myself right once more. Real guys do not dance.
I hold my breath. It doesn’t come. House music plays. His moves are fluid. He is looking at M and only at M. It is as though she were the only person in the room. I look from her to him and back to her again. They are transfixed. But next, he looks away and smiles at everyone else as to not make anyone feel uncomfortable, as to not look sleazy. I look at M again. Her mouth is open. “M,” I nudge her, “Shut the mouth. It’s unbecoming.” She obeys.
We return to him. He is lost in the music. He is having the time of his life. There are sidesteps. There are slight hip sways. There are controlled arm shakes. Everything is in rhythm. Not a single movement is out of synch. Nothing is awry. He is physically coordinated. He is graceful in a manly way. He is cool — way cool.
I am dumbstruck.
“M,” I say in disbelief. “He can move.” “Told you,” she replies. “That’s what got me.”
I check him out again. I whisper to M, “He doesn’t have an athletic body. He’s not buff. His limbs are long — longer than his torso. Definitely not a swimmer’s body. Not a runner’s, either. I can’t place it.” M looks at me with a scowl and spews, “Do I look like I care? He looks good. He moves gooder. He treats me goodest. End of story.”
“You gonna marry him?” I ask her in a panic. She fires right back, “Because he can dance? Nah! Of course not!”
This can’t be happening, I tell myself: a plebian, a stranger, debunking my lifelong theory. No way. But there he is. Moving as though he were descended from Olympia, as though he were infallible, as though he were not human. Dang! And he does look good. Too good. Best of all, he is having a great time, by himself, so comfortable and at home on that dance floor, moving as though no one were watching.
So what is it? I look harder. I think harder. (Well, as hard as I can with my jetlagged sensibilities.) On the one hand, however strongly I despise men who dance, there are a few significant others, their loved ones, who view them through rose-colored spectacles and who will always think they look terrific, whether they monkey along the dance floor or not.
On the other hand, there are the rare few who truly move as though they were born to do nothing else but dance. Blessed are they for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Silvio belongs there, I concede.
But only this one time. I still have a quarrel with men who dance. Call it freedom of thought and speech under a democracy. That settled, I raise my glass to M and we toast. And then we look to the dance floor and continue celebrating Silvio and his dancing.
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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com or visit my blog at www.fourtyfied.blogspot.com.