Saturday, December 31, 2011

Tango Zombies: Chapter Two - The Zombie King


                By the time Zac arrived at the tango classroom, on the other side of the building, having navigated a labyrinth of hallways and closets, he felt like a cow that had been milked too soon. He suspected Angelina was not romantically interested in him and was just using him to open an account at the local sperm bank. He recounted the times they had sex in the thirty minutes it took them to traverse the building’s corridors. Once in the lab, another in the janitor’s closet, just outside the doorway to the lab, again, at the other end of the hall, and a final time in the men’s lavatory at the top of the stairwell.
               At twenty-two years of age, he had experienced similar bouts of sexual activity but never in such rapid succession. It was the serum, he concluded, he could still feel its heat in his veins, making him feel more alive and extremely virile, and hungry.
               He guessed Angelina’s age to be about thirty, using her recollections of scientific expeditions to make the calculation. To him, she was bright and cheerful, yet detached in a way he couldn’t figure out. He always felt like she was observing him, the way a scientist watches a rat go through a maze. She could turn on the sex appeal when she wanted, as he just found out…for the fourth time.
               His head was reeling. He was in way too deep. In the past 72 hours, he watched a woman be torn to shreds by zombies, got shot in the chest, three times, by the Philadelphia Police Department, was brought back from the dead and turned into a human sex machine. He wondered what was going to happen next? 

               Dance class, he mused, how dangerous could that be?
               The guest instructor’s name was Drusilla Arcula. She was from Argentina. She had thick blond hair that flowed halfway down her back and was constantly pulling on it, shaping it into a ponytail and letting it go. Her accent was thick but she took time to enunciate each word clearly. Her voice was deep and powerful, even when she was speaking softly; it was seductive.
               He noticed she was very shapely and found himself lost in thoughts of lust as she guided the class into performing molinete, the very heart of tango. Each student moved around a private, imaginary rectangle, pivoting, stepping sideways, all to the beat of the music and under the instructor’s constant attention. When they began moving to half-beats and quarter-beats, Zac noticed some of the pupils struggling to keep up.
               An hour into the lesson, Drusilla had the students pair off into couples and practice today’s movement: the volcada. If one of the partners had trouble, usually the leader, she would interrupt and assume the appropriate role, man or woman’s, so the other could experience the perfect response.
               Zac couldn’t keep his mind from wandering into the triple X theater when she paired up with one of the ladies. Once, when she was holding a lithe young woman with curly-brown hair in close embrace, she caught him looking. She locked onto his eyes with hers. It seemed to him as if the whole room fell silent.
               She whispered to him, eyeing him intensely with her dark brown eyes, “You like this?” Her eyes darted to the girl and back to him.
               He was surprised by the question and glanced around the room to see if anyone was paying attention to what she said but they were oblivious to the question.
               “Yes?” she queried. It was such a simple word, yet she loaded it with sensuality.
               He felt himself being drawn to her like the moon's pull on the tides. His heart ached for her and the blood rushed from his head to parts south.
               “No?” she asked, almost playfully, the other woman’s head buried in her chest as she led the movement.
               Zac tried to respond, he even opened his mouth but no words rolled out, not even a guttural chirp. His arousal was beginning to become noticeable.
               With a deep, sinister laugh, the instructor said,  as she looked downwards, “Yeeeesssss, you do.” Her voice rumbled like a gentle thunder from heat lightning in summer. 
               He had to exit, stage right, or even to the left. Angelina spied the bulge in his pants and smiled at him, knowingly. In a moment, he was in the hallway, sitting on a bench.
               He sat there, trying to think of something to calm himself down. He was distraught. He struggled not to think of the Drusilla’s thick blond hair, the sound of her voice, the compelling look in her eyes. Five minutes passed and he still had not regained his composure.
               The door opened. He was not surprised to see it was her. He stared at her and could not turn away until her eyes darted to a doorway to his left, just past a wall-mounted water fountain. The sign on it read, “JANITOR.” He followed her eyes and looked to the sign, then back to her. She smiled broadly.
               Grabbing his hand, she led him, like a little boy going to the zoo, into the closet. Inside, there were no cleaning supplies, instead it was outfitted like someone’s secret hiding place. It was furnished with a reclining chair, a television and a small refrigerator. Drusilla sat in the chair and pulled him into her, between her legs.
               He moved instinctively, propelled by the serum mixing with his blood supply. Somehow, her breasts popped out of her shirt. Soon he was inside her. He felt her full lips on his neck, her warm, moist tongue pressed against his throat. He was enthralled, consumed. He experienced a sharp pinch and felt her fangs sliding into the meat of his neck. He could feel the blood being drained from him, yet he did not resist: he wanted her to have it.
               Ms. Arcula paused for a breath of air and said, “My dear boy, I should probably restrain my appetite but you are so, so…..tasty.” The last word rolled off her lips with glee. “I have never tasted blood so….spicy! I’m so sorry, but I am going to need more…a lot more!”
               With those words, she bared her fangs and sunk them into Zac’s juggler. His body spasmed as he felt her drink him in, her tongue, hot and wet, pressed firmly against his skin. Once again, he was falling into unconsciousness. What little light there was in the room, began to fade.
               Suddenly, everything was illuminated. The door was open and there stood Angelina.
               “Zac!” she cried, sounding disappointed. “You’re with a vampire!”
               Drusilla removed her fangs from her victim, dripping blood, and hissed at the woman standing in the doorway. Cat-like, she lunged. Angelina, with the skill of a kung-fu master, deflected her body over her, rolling onto her back and planting her foot firmly into the instructor’s chest. When she hit the ground with her back, she used her momentum to toss the vampire across the hallway and into wall on the other side of the hallway.
               The blond-haired woman hit with a loud thud and the vibration shook the whole building. She collapsed in a heap, her hair covering her face. Angelina guarded the entrance to the closet with her body. She stood there for a moment before turning and going to the young man’s aid.
               “Zac,” Angelina said. She grabbed his arm, preventing him from falling over. She wiped the blood away from his neck to reveal two small holes, “my poor, dear lab rat. You shouldn’t mess with vampires. You can get AIDS! They really are dirty people, honestly….” Her voice trailed off as she led him out of the enclosure.
               The classroom door opened and other students, alarmed by the loud bang of Ms. Arcula’s body slamming into the wall, poured into the narrow hallway. Drusilla looked at them and then to Angelina, blood still dripping from her lips and her chin. Her eyes flashed with anger, then confusion. She fled down the hall and into the stairwell.
               Mustering her best Dixie Chick impersonation, Angelina met the confused stares of her fellow dancers and said, “Ahhya guess she weren’t woman ENOUGH to take my man!” She cocked her head side-to-side, lifted Zac and led him away. Reaching into her tiny purse, she produced a chocolate bar and handed it to him.

              
              
              

              

Friday, December 30, 2011

The Tango Embrace


                As a fledgling tanguero at practica, an extremely attractive tanguera confided in me that one of the men had a super-duper embrace.
               “I just love (blank)’s embrace!” she exclaimed, loudly.
               She said this to help me understand there was something lacking in my embrace. She wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings but it stung, all the same. Today’s piece is about my quest to help women enjoy my tango embrace.
               My first thought was there should be a college course in holding women. When a couple applies for a marriage license, the man should be handed an application form for the class. Only upon successful completion of the course can they be allowed to marry. I’d probably still be married...if I knew then what I know now.
               As with all elements of this dance, acquiring the skill to convey it correctly, takes a plan. As with all my plans, there are only beginnings that lead to course corrections and the next step of the plan. It is kind of like running a difficult set of river rapids: you can have a plan, but it always changes after the first unexpected event, so why plan beyond it?   
                I began with Sharon Hillman’s Close Embrace Workshop, in the basement of the Unitarian Church in Bethlehem, PA. Each class was two hours long and entailed two sessions. I am slow to learn, so I took the class twice, six weeks apart.
               The lessons were extremely sensual and had my hormones firing on all pistons. Steam was coming out of my ears and I couldn’t think for weeks afterwards. I attended a practica and found I learned nothing, other than differing ways on how to steel myself for the onslaught of the sensuality of a woman in close proximity.
               Actually, steeling yourself from a women’s sensuality is a big part of the embrace, speaking only for myself. With me, it is a constant battle to put away the infatuated little boy, who falls in love far too often and bring out the man who could skillfully maneuver a kayak in class five whitewater rapids, where one mistake means near-certain death.
               For two solid years, I worked on my embrace. It was difficult not to fall in love. Eventually, I was able to ignore a woman’s sensuality and focus on navigating while in tango embrace. It turned out, this was half the problem; the other half was learning to relax. The more I relaxed, the more I began to notice that my partners were relaxing, too. 
               It was at this point that I realized tango had cured me. Until this time, I eschewed all forms of physical contact unless it was with my ex-wife or a girlfriend. I always attributed this to growing up in a large family and being packed, sardine-like, into our yellow, Rambler station wagon. My armchair psychiatrist friends always diagnosed it as homophobia. In a way, they might be right. Homophobia might be a defensive instinct. I can remember several attempts by older males to molest me when I was a kid but I always managed to escape. Such was life in a depressed coal-mining town.
               Once I got the embrace down, tango became a universe and I was Captain Kirk on the Starship Enterprise, on a five year mission to seek out strange new worlds…and dance with their women. Before I had mastered the embrace, nervous women always seemed to be crazy. Afterwards, they were just nervous and it became a game to wait them out, to see if they would calm down; the rewards were often great.
               “The rewards were often great.” Yes, they were and not in a way to which I had grown accustomed. Maybe it is because I’m older, maybe it is because of tango, who knows, but now I find it extremely gratifying to be the vehicle through which a woman discovers tango. Those are noble words and so antithetical to the ways of a whitewater river guide, who is happiest in the chaos of the rapids. I must be heading for calmer waters or it is my attempt to calm the waters myself.  
               It might be time for a camping trip; maybe to Assateague Island and visit the wild horses. If I get a contract signed for work, that is what I’ll do. I’m up for an embrace of another kind….Nature’s Embrace. It took me twenty years to get that one down, but now, it is mine forever.
              

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Tango Depression


     It’s 2 a.m. and I’m depressed. Maybe blogging will cheer me up. I have to ask, “Has it all been a waste of time?” I just watched a movie, Midnight in Paris. It is about a writer wandering the streets of Paris. He seems lost. He is like me. It ends with him meeting a girl and they walk off in the rain. It didn’t seem to me like he found himself.
     I applied for a job in Baltimore. It is for much less money than I’ve been asking but it is the position I want. I worry that there won’t be tango in Baltimore. I know a woman from NYC who works in Baltimore. When I asked her about tango, she shrugs, “Not much.”
     I pulled up my map. It’s been awhile since I had to plot a course for a new tango venue. It’s too far from Philly to Baltimore, DC is closer. DC has great tango but there is too much hoi poloi; everybody’s a diplomat or engaged in some foreign enterprise. It’s one thing to shrug off the little boy in me to dance with a beautiful woman, it’s another thing, entirely, to shake off the river guide in me and mingle with Beltway-types.
     The nice thing about NYC is the people are down-to-earth. They like river guides. Philly people, too, are like that, now that I’ve gotten to know some of them better. For me, now, tango is becoming less about learning the movements and more about the people. Sometimes, I want to dance with a stranger, other times I want to dance with a friend.
     I’m not particular about the music, I’ll dance to anything but sometimes I love to hear the classics, like La Cumparsita or Don Juan. I remember listening to the soundtrack from the movie Amelie. It was November and it was cold outside. I was driving back from tango in NJ at midnight. I think that was the time I realized there was no turning back.
     I guess I’m lucky I have tango. It gives me something to do while I transition into a new job and, hopefully, a new career. It’s led me to blogging which has helped my writing immensely. I’m more comfortable writing every day. Yesterday’s blog was a little forced but I think I managed a few good thoughts. If I didn’t have tango, I’d be in Afghanistan, no doubt.
     It’s the end of the year. That’s probably the reason for my melancholy. Outside, the wind is howling and it is cold. There’s no turning back so I guess I’ll go forward. If I don’t tango tonight, I will find someplace new on Friday.


(For a more in-depth looking into the mind of the Kayak Hombre and his thoughts on tango, buy his book: River Tango, now available on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/River-Tango-perri-iezzoni/dp/1453865527

Monday, December 26, 2011

Tango Zombies: Chapter One...(cont.)Mayan Blood Gods, Mad Max and more:-)


               Zac awoke on a guerney, back in Angelina’s lab. He was cold and the room seemed silent. Somehow, he knew he was naked, covered by a thick white sheet. There was an intense pain in his chest and abdomen. He wondered how he got here and tried to remember last night’s events. Was it last night? A window near the ceiling told him it was dark out.
               “You’re awake!” Angelina shouted, her face popping into his field of vision, suddenly. “Oh, I bet you have some questions for me. I know, I know, you’re mad at me. You have every right to be but these are desperate times.”
               She disappeared from his sight. He could barely hear the sounds of her skittering around the lab. He tried to move his head in vain. He moved his arm but it took a great effort.
               “Stay still,” she commanded. “You’re still a zombie and I need you to be still just for a moment.”
               Looking towards his feet, through his eyelashes and past his nose, he could see her holding his arm, a hypodermic needle was poised to deliver its payload into the vein of his left arm.
               With a giggle, she said, “This won’t hurt a bit. Nightie-night.”
               He could see the needle going into his arm but he didn’t feel it. Slowly, he became aware of a tiny bit of liquid inside his arm: it burned. It seemed to be liquid fire and it was growing. It spread in both directions from his elbow to his fingers, and to his shoulder. The pain was intense.
               He tried to scream but all he could hear was a muffled groan. He wondered if the sound was coming from him. The pain spread to his brain. He felt his entire body convulse and spasm. His spine tried to leap off the table but was held down by his young body. Flames seemed to engulf his entire body. He tried, again and again, to scream, hearing only groans, then, finally, a change in pitch before he passed out.
               When he awoke again, daylight beamed in through the window. This time, he sat bolt upright. He noticed his body was different, he felt…alive! Still draped in the white sheet, he moved both his legs beneath the cover. His hands went to his chest where the bullets struck him. To his amazement, he was completely healed. Holding up his right wrist, he ran his fingers over the place where the handcuff had scraped his skin off.
               “Hello,” a voice said behind him.
               He swung his legs around, holding onto the sheet to maintain his integrity. He was hit in the chest with a some clothes. It was her. He groaned and the sound of it felt good in his throat. Every nerve in his body tingled, his muscles were relaxed and rested. His brain, however, was spinning. He was so confused. His instinct told him to run but he didn’t like how that turned out last time, so he just sat there, holding the clothes against his body for warmth.
               “I guess I owe you an explanation,” she began, dressed in a white lab coat, blue jeans and sneakers. “I hesitate to give you the full truth because I believe men can’t handle the truth. You’re likely to run out and get yourself shot, all over again. I had to pull a lot of strings to get you back. Get dressed, and please, please, listen to the whole story before you bolt out of here like a bat out of hell.”
               Zac stared at her, dumbfounded, then began putting on the clothes which seemed to Mexican, or Latin American, in origin: a t-shirt, underwear, heavy, white wool pants and a thick wool shirt.
               While he dressed, she continued her story. “First, the Boolean Glue I used to heal your wrist, it is an invention of mine, synthesized from a South American moss, called hyacintho mortuus musco: 'blue moss-dead' man in Latin, ‘zombie moss’ to the locals. I discovered it on a dig near Machu Picchu. I used it, first, on my dog, Einstein. He was old and had severe arthritis. I put some glue on his back but he died, came back to life and kept trying to eat my leg. I couldn’t sleep with him in the room or I’d wake up to find him chewing on my toes.”
               She hoisted herself up onto a table with ease and proceeded with her story, “I realized, too late for Einstein, that the application of the glue needed to be a two part process: Boolean Glue for the wound, followed by a special testosterone serum after healing had been achieved. To make it easy for your one-track mind: the glue turns you into a zombie and the serum brings you back to life.”
               “It takes seventy-two hours for your body to complete the zombification process. In that time, you were pulled from the river, declared dead and sent to the morgue, where I retrieved you for organ donation. Your parents were quite surprised, and, despite their obvious remorse, were quite proud of you, being so selfless with your remains.”
               Jumping off the table, the female chemist walked about the room and carried on with her explanation of events. “The zombies are from Argentina. I believe they were kidnapped as part of Operation Independence, in the 1970s, by the right-wing government of Isabel Peron. They were imprisoned in a place where zombie moss grew. “
               “This zombie moss is strange and seems to empower, or program, its victims to seek retribution, or at least that is my conclusion. How else do you explain their appearance, here, in Philadelphia: a city with a large Italian demographic, and, coincidentally, the suspected hiding place of the criminals who ran Argentina during the late seventies and early eighties.”
               “I’ll bet you’d like a nice hot cup of coffee.” She offered.
               To Zac’s surprise, he found this incredibly appealing.
               “That’s one of the side-effects,” she said, “an insatiable desire for caffeine.” She walked over to a coffee maker, something he hadn’t noticed before, and continued talking while preparing the brew in a large, white Styrofoam cup. “Sugar, too, but both cravings will subside once the medicine wears off and your normal body functions resume.”
               “You’re probably wondering who I am. I am Doctor Angelina Martire. I graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, with dual degrees in medicine and chemistry, at the ripe old age of eighteen. Under the tutelage of the famous Russian archeologist, Svetlana Petrovic, I worked on the team to examine the mummies of Machu Picchu. It was there I was introduced to zombie moss, zombies, and, yes, even vampires.”
               “There is more, and it is even more unbelievable than what you’ve just heard. It involves Mayan Blood Gods, the Zombie Apocalypse and a man called ‘Mad Max’, but allow this to sink in for awhile. There is a tango class beginning in a half an hour. You are going to need to eat first, and, I’ll bet you’re incredibly horny, another side-effect I’m afraid. There are some cupcakes upstairs and I can help you with that other thing.” She pointed to his pants.
               At that moment, Zac realized he was now so aroused he couldn’t even blink; his erection was pulling on the rest of his skin. There was a huge tent in his pants and he had the most profound craving for chocolate icing.
              
              

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Sangha Space, Christmas Eve


               It was a terrific night for leaders. The followers seemed to be happy, as well, so it might have been a Christmas Miracle. I danced with Lady X and all was wonderful. We even did a lateral volcada! I also danced with several other new tangueras and am enjoying the Philly Tango Scene much more thoroughly.
               It was lightly attended but all were experienced milongueros. The music was primo. The food was the best I’ve had at a milonga in a long time. The whiskey cake was incredible! :-)
               Thank you, Lori Coyle, you are an excellent hostess and an admirable person. You practice what you preach and that is a truly noble accomplishment. Merry Christmas and Namaste!