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Flo Fitzpatrick, click here
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Disco-era night on the town in Spanish Harlem.
Upper West Side Manhattan, 1976
Spaghetti stains dotted the front of the refrigerator. And the cabinets. And the dish towels hanging on the front of the oven. And..they were everywhere.
I’d just come home from substitute teaching an advanced exercise class to a group of very pampered, wealthy women who didn’t want to sweat, and I wasn’t thrilled to see examples of early Expressionism throughout the kitchen.
“Susan!”
“What?”
“Have you seen the artwork Mimi left on the fridge?”
Susan strolled into the kitchen, cocking her head to one side, and then peered through her fingers like some demented critic.
“Hmm. Intriguing. Texture meets Chaos. Did you know she’s never had an art lesson in her life?”
I glared at Susan, then back at the spots, then back at Susan absently noting that the colors matched her curly hair.
“We’re living with a pig who has the brains of an ashtray. Which is an insult to the pigs.”
Susan didn’t even bother to respond. I’d been complaining for weeks about Mimi’s clothes hanging all over the TV, her cigarette butts staining the bathroom sink, the thong underwear decorating the living room ceiling light, and of course, the war zone we called a kitchen. I’d been worried that the worst could, and would, happen when we took in a third roommate who was in the process of divorcing her Mafioso husband and working at an escort service called Lady Vivian’s Vixens. I just hadn’t realized the worst extended to our apartment topping the 1976 “Ten Filthiest in Manhattan” list.
I sprayed lemon-scented cleaner on the offensive dots before stomping back into the living room. Susan was sitting cross-legged n the floor, intently focused on replacing batteries in our one large flashlight.
She glanced up at me. “Did you know you have little red dots in your hair? I guess they dripped down from the ceiling? Kind of cute: highlights the blonde.”
Ignoring this inane comment, I countered with one equally stupid. “Forget the dots. I’m so bored they’re almost welcome as a diversion. I can’t take this excitement anymore. My heart may stop. Actually, that dead flashlight currently generates more heat than anything else around here on Friday nights.”
Susan grinned at me. “Am I hearing strains of melancholy from Miss I’m-So-Tired-I-Just-Want-to-Flop-on-the-Couch-and-Read for the next six months?”
“I know. I know. I said that. And I meant it. But I’ve changed my mind. I am bored, do you hear me? Bored! And after three months of not dating, I’m starting to miss the male species, even though I know in my heart they only lead to trouble.”
“You’re just saying that because your romance with Larry ended…well…badly.”
“BADLY? BADLY? Ya think? Yeah, I’d say ‘badly’ covers it. I’m never falling in love with an actor again. I mean the fact that the guy playing Thomas Jefferson in a lousy summer stock production of 1776 preferred the guy playing John Adams to me could be termed as a bad ending. If he’d just been honest with me, we could have had a beautiful friendship instead of a disaster in the making.”
Susan snickered. “Larry just left you because John Adams was prettier. I mean, those gorgeous black curls and deep blue eyes. You’re a shrimpy blonde porcelain doll. I would have left you too. By the way, how did their show go?”
“BADLY!” I smiled sweetly. “The reviewers hated it.”
I sank down into the nearest soft chair before continuing to discuss my woes. “I gotta tell ya, though, I do miss male companionship of the straight kind. I’ve taken twenty dance classes this week, gone to ten auditions, five rehearsals for a workshop, two acting classes and not seen one heterosexual male. I mean, I adore all my gay friends, but add this week to the fiasco with Larry and it makes me wonder if I should change professions and start a catering service to pipeline workers in Alaska.”
Susan lapsed into silence for at least two minutes.
Finally, she spoke. “I like it. I could join you and wear the new coat i got secondhand at Goodwill. I like snow. I like huskies. Do you need a driver’s license to run a dog sled? Do you realize you’ve lost your mind? Do you think you can hand me the screwdriver from the top drawer?”
I sighed, gave her the screwdriver, and grabbed a book from the coffee table. Spaghetti stains dotted the cover.
I began grinding my teeth.
Susan’s eyebrows lifted. “Pretty sound. Serenade of Teeth in the Key of ‘G’?”
I ignored her.
She pointed at my book. “So, whatcha reading?”
“Agatha Christie’s ‘The Third Girl.’ It’s about several young ladies who share a flat in London and one murders one of the others…I’m memorizing means and opportunities.”
Any reply Susan might have made was mercifully cut short by the sound of our apartment’s buzzer.
I jumped off the couch, ran to door, and flung it open.
Susan shouted, “Katie! Katie! What’s wrong with you? You worry all the time about getting killed by one of Mimi’s overnighters. Then you go opening the front door without a care. At least LOOK through the peephole before you let in God-knows-what trash!”
Our neighbor, Jana, from 8-C, strolled in, short hair sopping wet. “Hey! Who you callin’ trash?”
Susan grinned at her. “Wasn’t you. Really. It’s Miss Texas Congeniality here opening doors. I was afraid she was going to let in some pervert.”
Jana nodded. “It’s okay, Susan. All the perverts are lined up at Jake’s Deli. I hear there’s a special on the pastrami sandwiches. And yes, it IS raining, thanks so much for not asking, and YES I am dripping on your floor.” She winked at me. “So, Katherine Elizabeth, you guys got anything going for dinner?”
“Yep. A ton of spaghetti. You’ll find most of it on the fridge.”’
“Ah. The slovenly slut has been cooking again.”
I smirked in triumph at Susan. “See? The whole building knows about her.”
Susan threw up her arms in surrender. “Talk to the legal department in housing for New York or whatever. There’s all these weird squatters’ rights laws they can tell you about. Not my fault.”
Jana stared at her, then back at me. “Hmm. I sense a little tension here. No matter. I’ll help you figure out a way to get Miss Mimi out of her some other time. But for now….”
She approached the chair where I’d dramatically arranged myself and peered into my face. “I’ve come to ask a favor.”
I childishly stuck my tongue out at her. “You cannot borrow my cream-colored sweater again.”
“That wasn’t the favor, but…why not?”
I giggled. “Because you still have it!”
Susan threw a pillow at me. “Ignore her. She’s nuts. So, Jana, what exactly can we do for you?”
“Our band, Slick City, is playing at a club tonight. It’s our first gig there and I need loyal supporters in the audience to help me calm my nerves.”
Susan glanced at me. “Katie has been complaining of boredom now that her big romance with Larry has gone further south than the Florida Keys. This could be fun. Where is this place?”
Jana paused. She looked up at the ceiling. She looked at Susan. She looked at me. She took a deep breath. “Spanish Harlem. Near 145th Street.”
I started to choke and laugh simultaneously. “Loyal supporters? Are you serious? What you want are two dancing fools who can do high kicks in heels, thereby protecting you from muggers and murderers on the way there and from the rowdy crowd once you get there, assuming you get there! Let me see if I’ve got this right. Three artistic-type babes who have the street smarts of an Oklahoma tourist will be traveling to a club in gang-territory after leaving the A train on a rainy Friday night. Yep. Sounds like tomorrow’s headlines in The Post. Susan, this is WAY better than Alaska.”
Jana grinned. “There’s good news in all this. We have transport. Don’t have to take the subway. Our drummer, Danny, has this ancient old VW bus and there’s room for all of us if you don’t mind holding a cymbal and a few drumsticks. Maybe a cowbell.”
I considered this last comment, along with my boring life, and my options. Private transportation to a club still doubtless filled with rough characters sounded much more appealing than sitting home reading Agatha Christie (no offense to the author). I had been moping for too long about Larry. Getting out might do me some good. Susan was already heading for her closet to grab one of those outrageous outfits she insists on wearing whenever we hit the discos down in Greenwich Village.
Jana was still grinning. She knew she had me. “You and Susan have an hour to become beautiful…or at least wash the spaghetti smell off! Later!”
She waved, turned around, and whirled out the door. I headed for the shower. Mimi’s cigarette butts were jammed into the drain so I took a few minutes to clean them out.
Fifty-five minutes later, Susan was decked out in a gold lame jumpsuit and go-go boots leftover from the British music invasion of the early 1960s. She’d frizzed out her hair and added silver highlights to her blue eyeshadow. The ensemble was reminiscent of an exotic alien being I remembered from an episode of Star Trek but somehow on her…it worked. I’d gone for simple; wearing the one fancy dress I’d brought from Texas…a cute little black one-piece with a handkerchief hem that swirled when I twirled and showed a good deal of leg. I carried my Latin-style ballroom dance shoes (also black) in a bag so the soles wouldn’t get ruined, and had pulled my hair back with a barrette, letting it spill over my shoulders.
Susan nodded approval. “Not bad, young lady. Not flashy. Not bad at all.”
The buzzer rang. This time Susan flung it open without bothering to check the peephole.
Jana waved at us with the flute case she held in her hand. “Danny’s waiting for us. Hop to, ladies.”
The exterior of the Volkswagen bus displayed a collage of messages, dating back at least 10 years. Painted Flower Power slogans lurked beneath McGovern ‘72, Impeach Nixon! and Moratorium Against the War ‘69 bumper stickers. A psychedelically colored bunny with a sign reading Jefferson Airplane Tour 1968 was juxtaposed with a Raritan Valley, NJ, All-State Band 1963 sticker. Printed in plain black letters on the van itself was the band’s name, Slick City.
The Volks’ interior was spotless. Danny had taken out the back rows of seats to make room for his percussion instruments. Susan, Jana, and I squeezed into the van, arranging ourselves amidst snares, cymbals, and bongos. I ended up with a Brazilian rainstick dangerously near my neck. Jana held her flute case and a bass-drum pedal in her lap. Susan stuck a couple of drumsticks through her hair. Danny took off, headed for the West Side Highway.
Susan snuck a peripheral glance my way. “Aren’t you glad you decided to come? Aren’t you already having a great time?”
I did not respond. I was busy watching an Audi in the right lane over veer across the line about a foot from our van, as the driver cursed in some ancient dialect…Farsi, perhaps? Jana was shaking her first at a white-haired gentleman in a Rolls who’d tried to cut us off at 96th Street and who was currently flipping the bird our direction, albeit rather elegantly. Behind us, two NYPD ‘black and whites’ with lights blazing and sirens wailing, headed onto Riverside Park by way of the sidewalk. Riding the “A” train with heroin addicts and perverts was rapidly gaining in appeal as a kinder, gentler, mode of transportation.
Jana told us that Nuevo Magio del Club Nocturno was somewhere above 145th Street. I’d never been above 96th Street in my 18 months in Manhattan so this was a new experience…like stepping into an entirely different city. I took note of where we parked…illegally in the driveway of a shop bearing the logo Disco Latino) in case I got separated from Susan and Jana later and needed to find the VW bus in a hurry.
The night air was a bit ripe (not in a good way) thanks to the remnants of New York City’s last garbage strike (settled only the day before). On the northeast corner of 145th Street five shirtless, sweaty teens were playing a game of one-on-one basketball without a hoop. Pulsing Latin rhythms from Puerto Rico blasted out of boom-box recorders, clashing with the sounds of Brooklyn’s own Crown Heights Affair disco tunes issuing from radios on the opposite corner. Incongruously, Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” could be heard from an open window somewhere above us and to our left. Unfortunately, Barry wasn’t the one singing.
The four of us climbed out of the bus and hauled instruments inside a small building using the back entrance. Jana pointed to a table about ten feet from the slightly raised bandstand.
“Grab that one. I’ll come sit with you guys when we’re on a break.”
Susan and I sat, then surveyed our surroundings. We were used to discos featuring tacky neon mirror balls swinging above gigantic dance floors, with buffet-style tables set up at the sides where numerous bartenders (all of them out of work actors) provided slushy drinks we avoided since they created more thirst than they quenched. Nuevo Magio had a small dance space, no mirror balls, spotless tablecloths, and great-looking waiters. One middle-aged bartender sent water up to the band members via one of the handsome waitstaff. Susan and I ordered a couple of gin and tonics with water on the side and settled in to watch the crowd sauntering in. Five minutes later, the place was filled, but not packed to the point of claustrophobia.
The band started with a mambo. Two cute guys dressed in red shirts and jeans approached our table.
“Bailamos?” asked the taller of the pair.
I’m from El Paso, Texas. I know enchilada, chili rellenos, tacos and how to count to ten in Spanish. Even so, Bailamos was a new word for me, but it was obvious these hombres wanted to dance.
I accepted the hand held out to me. Susan and the other hunk were already moving across the floor. Soon, all of us were sweating and gyrating and having a great time.
Three songs later, Susan and I plopped back down at our table. A waiter who look ed like Ricardo Montalban hurried over with two more gin and tonics, set them down, and pointed to a group of grinning males waving our direction. Life was getting better by the minute.
For the next hour, Susan and I danced every dance. I was starting to get a bit tired (those twenty dance classes over the last week) and turned down a Latin hustle set to Lady Marmalade to just sit and watch for a song or two.
Lady Marmalade ended. Jana winked at me from the bandstand before lifting her flute to her lips and beginning the opening notes to “Hernado''s Hideaway”, the tango made famous in the musical The Pajama Game ( a show I’d done last summer in a theater in Virginia). About three quarters of the dancers out on the floor returned to their seats. I took a sip of my drink and prepared to enjoy the song.
Which is when the man om black appeared at the table.
More than six feet tall, he had eyes as black as his shirt and the longest, blackest lashes since Maybelline created volumizing mascara. His black hair was wavy, his chin strong, his nose straight. Four hundred years ago, he would have been dressed in armor, conquering Peru. I would have been first in line volunteering to be conquered.
The beautiful man extended his right hand to me. I rose, in a stupor, from my chair. He led me to the dance floor. For the next eight minutes, “El Capitaine Conquistadore” and I made the floor our own. He had perfect timing, impeccable leading skills and the mix of staccato sharpness and total sensuality needed to really pull off a proper tango. If a tango partnership is to succeed, the couples should dance as one, anticipating the other’s moves, and with as little space between their bodies as possible. We soon had a GREAT tango partnership going.
The eight-minute song still ended at least six minutes too soon for me. When the last note sounded, my partner escorted me back to the table, bowed…and disappeared into the crowd. He hadn’t spoken a word. Jana announced a samba and I vaguely realized the red shirted, blue-jeaned varon who’d originally queried “Baliamos?” was leading me to the dance flor. The samba became a cha-cha, a Latin hustle, then another mambo.
Abruptly, the band began another tango. Just as abruptly, “El Capitaine” materialized at my side and we took control of the space. When the music stopped, he once again politely ushered me to my table, bowed, and disappeared into the crowd.
Susan was staring at me. She was barely blinking.
“What?” I glared at her.
“Oh…nothing. Just enjoying the show.”
“Well, enjoy it with a napkin, why don’t you. The drool is sliding down your face and making puddles around your coaster.”
She leered at me. “Is this the same jaded, uncaring, bored lady who was scrubbing spaghetti off the fridge like a maniac in an effort to forget men?”
I smiled.
Six more times that night, the Spanish conqueror and I danced together. We never varied from the tango. I never saw him dance with anyone else. He never spoke a word.
Around 3:30 in the morning Jana announced the last song of the night …Tango of the Roses. The song is one of the most passionate of the ‘traditional’ tango melodies with a dominant, persuasive percussion sound that more than hints of a wild conquistador preparing to reap the rewards from the fight. It’s powerful, atrociously sensual, and romantic, and calls for near perfection on the part of leader and follower.
My partner appeared once more by my side.
We danced. Not another soul dared to take the floor. If my life had ended at that moment, I would’ve told Saint Peter, “Fine…it can’t get any better than this.”
The tango ended. He escorted me to the table. He bowed. He disappeared into the crowd.
Neuvo Magia closed at 3:45 a.m. Susan and I helped Danny and Jana reload the bus. I went back inside to retrieve the coats we’d tossed over the back of our chairs. I was about to throw mine across my shoulders when a warm hand touched my back.
I turned around. El Capitaine stood in front of me smiling. He gently laid one perfect long-stemmed red rose into my outstretched hand. He never spoke a word.
He bowed, kissed my hand, then disappeared into the night.
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Web Site:
Flo Fitzpatrick
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Warm regards,
lauren
I read once that you can always tell an Italian home because Italians cannot talk without waving their arms wildly. Therefore, their dining room walls are always stained with spaghetti sauce.
During the Friday noon hours in 1961 high school, I learned to dance from a former Arthur Murray instructor who was our local radio announcer among his many occupations. He taught the tango and the mamba to us. I got to try them out on some of the hottest girls in our senior class.
Later, during the Summer of Love in San Francisco, my ideal was the anonymous flower girl who I never quite caught after a brief stint on the dance floor.
But I never danced than tango again. When I finally saw the Last Tango in Paris. I found a jaded Marlon Brando in a rather boring movie.
Ron