DUDES DANCING

I was walking through my kitchen--just moments ago (as I write this...period.)--and I started to shuffle to the strains of The Rolling Stones's "19th Nervous Breakdown" which was, in fact, issuing forth from my computer.

[It's a cool screen-saver, one in which your photos and your digitized music enter screen-right after, say, five minutes have passed. Okay, I'm preaching to the choir. Anyone who reads this is probably like, "No shit, dude. That's five-year-old technology." Whatever. It's new to me and I find it cool.]

But it struck me, then, as I was doing whatever ill-advised, should-have-been-aborted shuffle that I do every time I dance, "Why in the name of God's green earth do men try to dance?!" Why?! Please! Heavens! Open up and spill some manna of knowledge that will answer this query! I'll beatcha to it, Your Godliness: sex. or maniacism.

There are three types of dances that I have done:

***

One: The "first dance." Ever. With a girl!

It was a Catholic school's version of what? some kind of retreat/camp? And one night they held a dance. I was an eighth-grader and terrified of girls. (I took--and still sometimes take--Shy to a whole other level.) I always felt that I acted stupid around them. (Which I assuredly did.) But, anyway, the camp's dance.

I shambled over to Anne Kosta (names have been changed here, kids), on panic-stricken legs and asked if she like wanna maybe if she wanted to like dance with me.

She smiled warily. "I'm dancing with Anthony, next song, but sure, after that I'll dance with you."

I stammered some sort of Okay-Good-I'll-wander-over-by-the-soda-pop-table-with-my-hands-in-my-pockets-and-wait-for-you-to-finish-dancing-with-the-cool-kid reply. She nodded but she must have sensed the panic in my eyes, because her face took on a guarded expression.

I shuffled aimlessly around the "soda pop table" and snuck glances at Anne and Anthony dancing maniacally and laughing to that oft-repeated and oft-beloved lyric (which was censored, somehow, by the powers that be): "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fiah! We don't need no water, let the *********** burn!" (All the black guys sang "motherfucker" with narcissistic vitriol, as if those who'd recorded the song intoned "motherfucker" for their ears only. Hell, it was only eighth grade. Kids are kids.)

The song ended and my heart began to hammer. Anne walked over to me, her face flush with energized excitement. "You still wanna dance?" she asked. I nodded and took her palm with my clammy deathgrip. "Ouch," she said. I muttered an apology.

Now, listen: I was cool with jumping around and laughing with the music. In fact, that was what I had hoped for. No such fucking luck. Instead, it was a--cover your eyes, kids!--a SLOW SONG. Sung by whom, I can't even remember, anymore. But I *do* remember that it was slow. And that I was dancing with my crushiest crush, Anne Kosta, a Chaldean beauty who had matured before the rest of her compatriots. (A fact that Anthony had also noticed, in-class-sneaking quick gropes up from his seat-behind her. Now, I say, more power to the kid! But then? I was red-jealous.)

"You, uh, still wanna dance?" I managed.

She smiled sweetly. She knew--even as an eighth-grader--that I was smitten with her. (Word travels at light-speed in junior high school--whatever is not nailed down, will mumble.) "Sure, Adam. Let's go."

So we danced to that Slow.Song. Four minutes of Hell and four minutes of Heaven, intertwined with a sappy beat.

My heartbeat wasn't sappy, though. My heartbeat was rocketing. My sweat pores opened. My voice cracked. My hands trembled as I "led" her throughout the dance. I bumped into her breasts, and the sweat became a shower.

"Hot in here, isn't it?" she smiled.

I stammered some sort of inane answer as the sweat continued to pour down from my--even then--high forehead.

We rocked back and forth for a couple minutes (YEARS!), my sweat continuing to drip embarrassingly, exponentially, and, like time-elapsed photography, her formerly-ebullient grin receded, receded further, became a tight death-scowl.

Ah, but the sensations! I felt, with my hands, the musculature of her tiny waist, sheathed with a slick material. The smell of her perfume. The taste of my sweat, ringing my eighth-grade maw. The sight of her breasts, just inches from my then-concave chest. It was Heaven and it was also Hell.

The song ended, she thanked me for the dance, and she scurried--quick-like, rabbit-like--back to her friends, KaTee, Shelly, Kathy and, my other "crushiest crush," Susan Loobenski.

I staggered back to my home-boys, on slightly-off-kilter legs. The sweat from my brow continued to flow for another five minutes but, by then, the counsellors were closing up the dance. So it didn't really fucking matter. Any thought of hey-wait-for-the-sweat-to-stop-and-then-ask-her-again had faded. Like the lights in the barn.

Two. Drunken Wedding Dancing.

At weddings, I get drunk and dance stupidly. I feel ten-feet-tall but I'm actually a sweaty mess. Next!

Three. By-Yourself Jubilant Dancing.

Drunk, sober, whatever. People--women and men--dance. Human beings dance to express joy. They dance to express disdain for their fallen enemies. People, throughout history, have ritualistically danced to mourn a beloved's passing. Dance. Dance. Dance.

I wrote of two dances that I have done. The third? I've done it. Jubilant dancing. I've done the "Tax Returns A-Coming" shuffle-shuffle-step. I've also done the "She Likes Me, Really (She Likes Me)" two-step. I've done the "Life Is Beautiful" goose-step mimickry. I've done the "My Team is the Best" double-fist-pump dance. All jubilance. All.

I'll add a fourth dance, here, because EYE AM THE 'BLOGMASTER AND EYE CAN DO JUST THAT! I dance to the guardian angels that surround us, always. Without them, many of us would have been living an altered life. I dance to the fact that, while life is not always the best, it is what it is: a gift.