Saturday Night

It was Saturday night, the boorish April rain pelted the window screen and she danced alone. She played the “Música Urbana” station, a mix of reggaeton, Latin hip-hop and bachata. As the high-pitched guitar from Aventura’s latest cut peeled away her inner-sanctum, she held her arms out and fantasized about the perfect dance partner moving with her body in totally synchronized serpentine motion. She had danced like this before in real life, but tonight she only simulated. Bachata was one of those Latino country music styles that had made its way into the New York ‘hood and been revolutionized by Dominicans who didn’t ride horses or work in a sugar cane field. They were the slick, s-curled or Caesar-cut cats that possessed the perfect mélange of thuggery and finesse, and they could talk their way right into her soul. She wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something different about Dominican men, something that Puerto Ricans and Cubans just couldn’t muster. Maybe it was their accent, maybe it was the authority in their tone of voice when they spoke Spanish, but have one of them whisper a “pero si tú cocinas como bailas mami, Diablo, ta’ to’” and she was through.

Tonight she felt emptier than usual. Parched with neglect, she literally saw a mirage of this fantasy tigre. The way he looked at her, the hunger in his eyes, it consumed her just as much as she wanted to be consumed. She told herself it was a good thing she didn’t go to the club with her girls tonight, because she could have very easily been kidnapped. She pulled the air in towards her with both arms imagining him pressed up against her, his hands guiding her by the small of her back. As she enveloped herself in this fantasy, she started to cry. She held on to the air even tighter as the tears poured down her face, but she never stopped dancing. She felt a release of her soul, a relief that she had inspired this much affection in a man, if only in her dreams. She felt that she had built up enough rapport with him that it was time to let him know just how it could be if he let her into his bed. As the rhythm accelerated to a reggaeton beat, her movement was born from the rapid shimmy in her hips but flourished throughout her whole body, as if an underground spring was watering a 1,000 year old oak. She turned a 180 so he could see the fullness of her hips and thighs as they shook with a mind of their own. She imagined him filled with lust coming up behind her as she playfully pulled away and faced him, waving a “no-no” finger in his face. She would gauge from how amusing he thought she was whether she would give him her phone number or not.

Suddenly, her adorable yet tragic fantasy was interrupted by the land line.

“Hello?”

“You ever gonna answer your phone?”

“Sorry, I had the music on loud, I was cleaning and I-“

“Yeah, ok. Did you get that stuff done like I asked you to?”

“No, I didn’t have time today. I’ll get it tomorrow.”

“Crystalo, I asked you to do it today so it would get done TODAY. Not tomorrow, not next week, TODAY. Do you ever listen to anything I ask you to do? No. You just go on and do your own thing as always. Listen, I gotta get back to work, I’ll talk to you later.”

“I’m sorry, I just….well, I love you and I’ll see you when you get home”

“Yeah, love you too. I gotta go.”

She hung up the phone a little shaken, and suddenly her desire to dance and be desired disappeared and she turned off the music, took out a cigarette and smoked it on the back porch. As she pulled the sleeves of her brown hoody over her hands, she thought about how beautiful the moon looked through the mist and carbon monoxide fumes. She had learned how to be numb to this type of thing because if she ever admitted how miserable she was, she would have to pack up and leave.