Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Country Club Tanguera


               “Did your company move you out here?” She asked, oblivious to the sunlight shining so brightly on her line of questioning and its obvious intent.
               Feeding her not-so-clever inquiry with brutal honesty, he replied, “No, I don’t get anything. It’s all on my own dime.”
               She was a familiar persona since he began dancing: pencil thin, bleach-blond, blue-eyed, wanting to know who he was, how much money he made and did he really belong here. He wondered if she was really blond? Were those contacts? Who knows, he thought and didn’t really care. He’d been subjected to these kinds of inquisition since he started dancing but rarely did he get it at a milonga, a place where tango, and only tango, is danced.
               Her embrace, or lack thereof, told him she was not a true tanguera, a woman who dances tango. If she was, she’d know conversation during the encounter, usually three songs and referred to as a tanda, is impolite. He guessed she was a ballroom dancer from her stiff frame.
               He knew what she would glean from his reply: executive, management or tradesman. He’d been divorced a long time and had been through this routine many times. He was unworthy in her eyes, he could hear her passing sentence, judging him, stereotyping him. He was surprised she didn’t break contact and bolt to the restroom to wash her hands.
               “What exactly do you do?” She queried.
               He sensed some confusion on her part. This was not their first dance. He reflected on their initial encounter. He remembered that she was relieved at his ability to perform: tango is a very difficult dance for a woman to learn, and even harder for a man, a tanguero, to lead.
               In tango, connection is everything. He could feel the distance between them increase. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He wondered why she was here. He figured she was lonely, just like he was, they were here for the same reason. But she didn’t know anything about tango, or care to know. She was clueless to her participation in this social ritual imported from Argentina. To her, it was just another dance. She didn’t know she could fall in love, or have her heart broken, or both. She was unaware of the danger to herself…and her partner.
               She asked, “How did you ever learn how to lead so well?”
               He could hear the unspoken words in that sentence so clearly, it was as if she had actually spoken them. How could someone like you ever learn how to lead so well? That is what she meant to say. Her body language gave her away.
               To him, she was the worst kind of dance partner, capable of mimicking the movements but incapable of sharing the emotion necessary to complete the connection. She was lonely but once her initial desire was satisfied, she became vulnerable and had to put up her walls. She used these walls, he guessed, to keep herself from noticing life going on around her. She had long ago discovered what she needed to build her prison and inoculate herself from what was going on around her: be thin, stay with the money, and he was not the money.
               “So,” she said, “what are you doing here?”
               She was so inured to her own poison, he thought, that she didn’t have any problem letting those words pass through her lips. The obvious answer would be: dancing. But this was not an obvious question and any reply of his would only be addended to the one she had already conceived: he was here to meet a wealthy woman and sponge off of her. He suspected that was the answer she most feared because she was feeling vulnerable. In spite of her walls, he had made it through. She was becoming compassionate and she did not like the feeling because it threatened the fortress where she kept herself locked away from the world.
               He said, “I’m here to dance with women. I’m a guy, I like girls.”
               The poison entered through his ears and drained down to his heart and made it heavy. He realized his partner had no idea what she had just done. She was here because her body told her there was something here that she needed, like a deer foraging for salt next to a busy highway. She was a skilled dancer but couldn’t find what she needed in ballroom, swing or salsa, so she ended up here.
               She wasn’t aware that her line of questioning was not even a conversation. It was a tool she was using to dissect this man and now he returned to his seat at a table by himself, trailing his emotional entrails turning black. That is the difference between tango and other dances. The connection is deep, personal and fragile. She didn’t know she was dancing tango, perhaps someday she will.

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