The Dance

Talk about your woman, boy
I wish you could see mine.
Talk about your woman, boy
I wish you could see mine.

She got feet as fleet as lightning
Lips as sweet as cherry wine.

By Jim Parks

The girl liked to dance. She knew rhythms and things to do with her body that no one else knew, and I loved her for it.

I had seen her at the kind of lame ass little dances they have for kids - the bubble gum music, the funny little bop steps and clumsy slow dances, but it wasn't her style. You could see it in her hips, her flashing black eyes and curly hair - the big rack and delicate little toes jammed into strappy sandals. So I stole her for the day - her and the jet black hair, the hoop earrings and the olive complexion of a full-blown latina, a native New Yorker in the Bible Belt with the transistor at her ear, gum snapping and hip slung, giggling and winking.

She wanted it and she wanted it bad.

So did I.

We went to the beach with a six pack and some condoms, wearing cut-offs, she wearing an extreme string bikini. When we got there, we were all alone on the dirty ass Gulf Coast sand, all tarry and briny from the low tide.

She fiddled around with the radio for a minute or two and got Dizzy doing "Manteca." I had never heard it before, but the way she danced like wild fire, she could have been on the stage of a sophisticated venue like Lincoln Center, a corner in Spanish Harlem or that beach where white birds circled around her head, her eyes closed, hips undulating, bare feet gripping into the sand for more and better purchase on the Earth.

It was quite a show. To the wild drums and horns, the dudes in Dizzy's combo sang, falsetto, "I never go back to Georgia; I never go back. I never go back to Georgia; I never go back." Then, whistling their little rhythm and going back into the chorus again and again, they wove a series of colored ribbons in the air around that dark, muscular girl's body and legs.

She snapped her fingers and pointed at me, crooked a finger and commanded me to come to her and we danced like crazy gone wild until she used the same finger tip to put me on my back, supine in the sand, and straddled my electrified body. We made out for awhile, then she pointed to a little pier built over the sand where we went into the shade with the blanket and spent the afternoon screwing while the music of the spheres sang in my ears.

It was good to be alive.

She made me grateful.