real men do salsa
/Salsa isn’t one of those dances you do with a bunch of tipsy girlfriends while a group of comatose guys look on. And it’s not one of those dances where girls do all the wiggling and men lend a helping hand. The guys in front of me were into every twist and turn.
“They’re not being forced by the women at all,” I shouted. “Just look at them!”
I knew I was gushing, but, but, but . . .
This is how I was talking to Ray as we stood plastered against a wall in a salsa club in Havana. We were at Casa de la Musica with a slew of young Cubans, old Cubans, a combustible mix of hips just short of dislocation, shoulders heaving, derrieres swinging, steam rising, and if I explain any more you will faint like from your first kiss.
“I can’t believe what’s going on here, Ray. Look, look, look!”
The couples were spinning so fast, we were afraid of being trapped like fruit in a blender. Ray is a willing dancer, but salsa, not so much. Me neither. We were hoping if we watched first, fueled by a sense of what happens in Cuba stays in Cuba, we’d have the guts to join in, because did I mention it was not just the women who were making a case for a Category 5 hurricane triggering a volcanic eruption, but the men, too.
Especially one guy, maybe six foot two and dressed in pure white, with deep black Rasta braids down his sharp, muscled back. He was smiling, he was rocking his rump, he was pulling his girl in close, their eyes were locked. A real cool dude. I saw Ray staring at him thinking maybe if this he-man can do it, maybe he, too, could loosen his joints, discover his Latin lover, and find his true macho mojo. His brain seemed to be sloshing in his head like giggling bottoms.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “These people were weaned on salsa. We come from the land that invented foxtrot. If we get in there, we’ll embarrass ourselves, our families, our generation, our country. Even I don’t think we can do it.”
But I wanted to.
“Wait,” I said. “No one here knows us, what harm can it do? Let’s yank our hips out of their sockets, clean out the lard, and reinsert them with brand new parts while we still have the chance. We can’t pass this up.”
But we did.
We survived a good couple of hours near our wall, too scared to even sip our drinks for fear we’d topple over. There was too much aphrodisiac in the air.
We found ourselves later at a nightclub filled with tourists. They couldn’t salsa, either. There was a teacher named Juan trying to change that. He was tight, cute, and vibrating like Jell-O in black silk. He drew me in, turned me, twirled me, jerked me close, whispered, “You’re a good dancer.” Ray ruined the moment, I mean, suddenly showed up.
“You must learn three basic steps before you do anything fancy,” instructed Juan.
“This is not what I bargained for,” droned Ray, noticing the whole room watching.
“Let ‘em watch,” I declared. “Real men do salsa.”
“Quick-quick-slow,” said Juan, teaching the basic one-two-three count for steps. “Salsa is explosive, let go, move those hips, quick-quick-slow.”
“Bad salsa,” he quickly moaned, pointing to Ray’s feet.
“He doesn’t really mean bad,” I murmured. “It’s just the language issue. Probably he means horrible, which sounds so much better in Spanish: or-ee-blay.”
“Remember the dude in white,” I added. “How cool was he?”
Something shifted—his macho mojo? —or maybe it was the rum. As the music swirled around us, Ray gathered his own seismic force. Bad salsa, for a fraction of a second—a barely perceptible moment—turned into good, hot, spicy salsa. Our eyes locked, and horrible turned into or-ee-blay turned into Dude! And the room fell away.