Angelina Tango: Warrior Woman

               Angelina Tango rode her black Ford F-250 down Highway 550 towards Albuquerque. Barreling along at 80 mph the large wheels and heavy suspension struggled to create the impression of control. A sticker on the pickup truck's bumper read, “Silly Boys Trucks Are For Girls.”  On the edge of New Mexico's Navajo Reservation her speeding vehicle painted a disappearing black line in the fading winter sunset in this desolate land of sage brush and tumbleweeds.
               Working as a superintendent for Haliburtons's southwestern gas well operations, she was mentally fried and physically exhausted after weeks of riding herd on hillbilly oil-riggers from Louisiana. She needed to get away, to relax and do something feminine, something social, or she feared she would lose her identity and possibly her sanity. The gas industry was a man's world and she worried that she would become one of them if she didn't get back to civilization for some gender recognition. She was going tango dancing.

               From her large leather purse she produced a tube of hand lotion and squeezed out a dollop onto her hand as she passed two young Navajo bucks stumbling down the side of the road, thumbs sticking out at their sides. Slamming on the brakes she stopped and waited for them to run up to the truck, spreading the lotion over both hands thoroughly, hoping she could soften them up before the dance tonight. She needed to feel like a woman and she didn’t want the men she danced with to react to her rough hands as they often did. 

               As the young men neared the vehicle she wondered if this would be the last time she picked up strangers in the desert. She laughed and unlocked the doors with the touch of a button.

               “Don’t mind the mess,” she said as the two climbed in, one clutching a bottle of liquor, both smelling of cigarettes and alcohol.

               Forty miles later darkness had fallen when she dropped them off at their shack near a mesa, two miles off the highway and down a dirt road. She was glad to be rid of them and their stench but she had done what she thought was right, wondering what their night would have been like walking as the temperatures dropped way below freezing.

               Her thoughts flashed to her two daughters who were in college a hundred light years away, spending her hard earned money. In her rear view mirror she saw one of the men pissing on the side of the shack in a cloud of frosty steam, she imagined her oldest girl, Chloe, with a frat boy stumbling home on her own adventures this night.

               Two hours later she was showered, dressed and parked in front of the dance hall.
               Usually she went country dancing with the cowboys but lately she had soured on the rodeo mentality of the men. That was exactly the kind of atmosphere she was trying to escape. She needed a man but not that kind of machismo.
               Recently she had been learning the tango and liked how close it got her to the men; she like the anonymity maintained by the dancers. She found the men masculine but also civilized.  

               Looking at the steel door illuminated by a yellow light dancing above it on a wire in the chill wind, her thoughts went back to Max, her husband, who was killed by an angry spouse while he was sleeping around on her when she was deployed as an Army chopper pilot in Iraq.

               “I miss you Max,” she said to no one as she sat there in the throne of her truck, “you cheatin’ bastard of a man.”

               With that said she drew a breath of warm air and stepped out into the cold to cross the narrow strip of pavement to the doorway. It was 10 o'clock and the street was deserted but she scanned both directions thoroughly, looking for snipers and signs of landmines.

               Before she opened the door to the hall she freed another button on her silky red shirt just in case the men didn’t notice her. She was almost certain they would, they were, after all, men, primal creatures slightly more evolved than apes and often not as bright. She paid her money to a gentleman seated at a table inside the foyer. She mused that he must be gay because he didn’t look when she leaned over to sign the register.

               Moving to the main hall she felt at home. The room was large, the ceiling so high that it could not be seen in the darkness. The space was illuminated by two large lights hanging above the dance floor surrounded by cocktail tables covered with red tablecloths. Each table hosted a vase with a fake rose and a small tea candle. She liked the ambiance. It was like an airplane hangar in Kuwait without the smell of oil and gas.

               Sitting down at a table by herself she was thrilled to feel that she was slightly nervous. She felt young, adrenalin coursed her veins in anticipation of attention from the men around her. She did not look around the room as she bent over to put on her heels, her breasts dancing inside her shirt like children playing without a care. Her nipples hardened as the gaze of a hungry wolf locked onto her.

               She didn’t need to look up to know he was staring at her, waiting for her to strap on her shoes so he could invite her onto the floor. All of a sudden the hot flash came, much to her annoyance. The buckles secured, she sat up and saw who was staring at her. There were several, it was going to be a good night.

               She tried to smile as she made eye contact and accepted the purely visual invitation but her body had become so hot she hardly felt comfortable. A white-haired man dressed in black walked over to her table and extended his hand; she rose to take it.

               Suddenly she was back in Iraq, in the desert heat, she could hear chopper blades whirring and the shrill scream of massive engines whining penetrating through her earplugs.

               Then she was back, moving towards the gentleman’s chest with her own. With her three inch heels she was just as tall as he. She easily slung her left arm around the top of his shoulders and made a soft landing on his frame. 

              Man at last, she thought, and briefly forgot about everything: her job, her children, her bills, menopause.

               He slipped his right arm under her armpit and around her back, his hand resting lightly beneath her right shoulder blade. His chest pushed firmly but not offensively against hers and his shoulders offered not a hint of tension. She inhaled; he smelled like a man and nothing else, freshly showered.

               Red lights flashed in her mind as the music began to play and she grasped the thumb on his left hand, trying to make as little contact with his skin as she could so he wouldn’t notice the roughness of her palm; she did not succeed. She felt him recoil ever so slightly, his muscles tensed; there was disappointment.

               She began to sweat. She was uncomfortably hot. Her head was spinning. Why did she come here, she asked herself. She thought about cold beer and rock n’ roll music. She began reciting the the pledge of allegiance to herself in preparation for being captured by the enemy. 

               She could hear the music, it was sad, like her. She could barely discern a rhythm when the man began to move.

               Hopelessly she rested on his diaphragm and rode him live a wave on an ocean of despair. The music was relentless, it was so sad and together they became friends because it was more hopeless than she, sadder than she could ever be. Barely aware of the man in front of her she moved backwards through the crowd, trusting him to steer the ship that was them, taking care to stay on her toes lest her heel catch the ground and cause her to stumble.

               A river of emotion flowed out of her and into her partner. She felt relief in having a place for it to go and the room began to cool down for her. The song continued with its rhythm and sad melody. His frame relaxed and suddenly she could sense his intention much more clearly, the disappointment was no longer evident and there was something else, something primal but remote. She listened to his body more intensely to hear a feint sound in the wilderness that was a man. It was barely audible but she could still hear it. It was the sound of a lonely wolf howling softly.

               The song ended and she stared at him meekly, trying to smile unsuccessfully. In tango the dance does not end with one song, there would be more, two, maybe three, before the cortina plays and the two could disengage.

               Another tune began and he presented his hand. She charted a course and landed in the same spot but with more familiarity, with ease and grace. She could feel him swell with confidence and she fed on it like a starving baby sucking on the tit. She couldn’t get enough at first, moving with him to the melody, stopping with him when he paused passionately as he breathed her in.

               Her perfume was working, she mused with an audible sigh, worth every bit of seventy dollars. She began to feed more calmly, steadily, the river was flowing back in her direction. She could tell he was feeling the music, letting go of his own emotions, relaxing into her embrace and moving with certainty. 

               She imagined a wolf running through the snow of an open field. He wanted her.

               The song ended and she stood there again trying to smile. She did not manage it but she was able to look into his eyes and try to express her gratitude for making her feel like a woman again, to let him know that he was……he was winning.

               Another song began and she melted into him. The tune was sad, sadder than the previous two selections. She closed her eyes and let him lead her to the melody, through the crowd which then disappeared. She found herself on a boat in the ocean at night. The waves rocked her gently. She became warm again but it was not a hot flash this time, it was a soothing warmth and she bathed in it like a hot bath.

               In his embrace she felt safe. He was confident and hungry for her. She felt like he could protect her from the others in the room so that he could devour her all by himself. She wanted to be his meal, to feed him in return for what he had done for her, for helping her to remember who she was once again…a woman, not just a worker, a mother, a paycheck. She was half of something wonderful and she was alive in a world full of promise, full of things that could happen, joyous things, horrible things, any thing. She could go on again.

               The song ended and the cortina played. She found it awful and shocking, part of some rock n’ roll tune. It was the cortina, definitely not tango.

               Almost smiling, she said to her partner, “Thank you, thank you very much.”

               Wobbly kneed she made her way back to her table and sat down, the room spinning. Fixing her eyes on the flame from the tea candle she exhaled completely and said to herself, “I needed that.”

               Leaning back into chair she could feel the eyes of another wolf upon her. She met his gaze without fear and waited for him to come over and to be devoured once again.