Personal Yummy #36
My friend and I leave the ballroom dance social together and head toward the subway.
We stop at the corner of 26th and Broadway, and as he hugs and kisses me goodbye, he tells me how depressing most of these social dances are getting, but that, overall, he had a good time tonight.
“I need to start appreciating you more,” he says, looking at me thoughtfully. “If I go to these dances alone nowadays, I don’t have anyone to dance with… People pair off and then dance with each other all night.” He explains further, telling me about a social he had gone to alone at Ballroom Off Fifth the previous Friday. He had danced with one of our mutual friends a bit, but, he admitted that, in all honesty, he had felt very lonely the entire time.
“Yeah, it’s not how it used to be,” he continues. “Do you remember? At Dance Times Square? It used to be that the teachers were required to dance only one song at a time with a particular student and then move on to the next one.”
He shrugs, as if to express that there’s nothing more he can say about the issue tonight to change it, and then he gives me one more hug and is promptly on his way to get the train at 23rd Street. I’m planning to get it at 28th, but, even though it’s around one a.m., and even though my friend’s nostalgia is still surrounding me, I decide to linger for a bit and enjoy the band that is performing right behind me at Toshi’s Living Room in the Flatiron Hotel, its fluorescent red sign beckoning with “No Cover, Just Love.”
So I walk the few feet to get to the club and then stand outside it in the refreshing, comfortable, May night air, grooving to the music and observing the vibrant scene through the clear glass walls.
The band members standing close together on the small stage are all black or Latin, and the lead singer is a pretty, curvy, black woman with long hair and a commanding voice. They are enjoying themselves immensely and are performing one song after another that I like—popular songs from Drake and Pharrell, and even “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift.
The audience members, sitting at small round tables amid fancy, gorgeous cocktails, dark lighting, and lots of ambience, are enjoying themselves as much as the band members and I am. Everyone in the crowd is well-dressed and seems well-off. The crowd is predominantly black, but there are a few tables of blonde women interspersed throughout, as well as some blondes sitting at the long, high table just a few feet in front of the bar, which is in the back of the room. There is also a table of white, good-looking, metrosexual guys with dark hair—Italian or French, I would guess.
I stay there for quite a long time, taking it all in, and then serendipitously the performers begin singing one of my favorites: “Hold On, We’re Going Home” by Drake. This sensual, lusty song places its magic on me, as it always does when I listen to it, so I am not so surprised when, suddenly, out of the side door—or out of nowhere, it seems—an attractive Latin guy appears. He is a bit heavyset, but nonetheless rather sexy, and reminds me of someone, although I can’t figure out who.
With no hesitation at all, and with a complete confidence that impresses me, he approaches me and starts singing to me—“Cause you’re a good girl and you know it… You act so different around me”—smiling and looking me directly in the eye. He is singing into a cordless microphone, and his left hand is holding an expensive-looking, oblong-shaped glass bottle of water. I assume that he must have been at the bar before he came out to sing to me, because I hadn’t seen him onstage.
He continues to serenade me, flirting and grooving with me—as I do the same with him—and as he sings “I got my eyes on you… You’re everything that I see… I want your hot love and emotion endlessly”—I feel myself blushing profusely, and completely against my will. All I can manage to say to him between lyrics is, “Oh, so are you really a part of the band?” because I’m thinking that he is most likely just one of the spectators and is innocently having some fun connecting with me. But when he finally heads to the stage, I realize otherwise.
I stand there for at least another half an hour—the music is so good!—and during this entire time, he often looks at me and sings to me from his spot on the stage. I keep thinking that I should go in through that same side door and maybe get a drink or simply hang out inside—after all, carpe diem and all that, you know!—but I don’t.
I thoroughly enjoy myself, just the same.
Eventually, a young black guy walks by quickly—a thin toboggan on his head and a backpack slung over his shoulder—but then he stops abruptly, turns around, and ends up standing beside me. Obviously, the music is calling to him, too. He joins me without saying a word—observing and living. He seems completely mesmerized, however. His eyes look tired and heavy but, at the same time, totally engaged. I can sense that he is fascinated by the skill of the musicians—the guitar player and the keyboardist, in particular.
Just like this young man, I can hardly take my eyes off this intoxicating scene, but out of the corner of my eye—and directly on the corner of 26th and Broadway, where my friend and I had said goodbye for the night, which now seems like such a long time ago—a man and a woman divert my attention: another intoxicating scene, for sure. They are unquestioningly off in a world of their own.
He is short, and she is tall—about three to four inches taller, in fact, given the black stiletto boots that she is wearing, and she has short, black hair, is clad in a body-hugging black leather top and short skirt, and is leggy and sleek. Surprisingly—or not so surprisingly, really—she is in the dominant position and has him pinned up against one of those metal newspaper racks that can be found all throughout the city. But although she is in the masculine position, he is the one who is really in control, or trying to be in control, because it is obvious that, between her puffs on her cigarette and the deep kisses that she is laying on him, she is the one who has consumed the most alcohol and who is at the greatest disadvantage. He is playfully—and sometimes aggressively—pulling her close and laughing with her and cajoling her, a plan for the rest of the night undoubtedly forming in his mind. Their combustible interaction is a combination of lust, abandon, control, desire, and foolishness—all precariously mixed up in one.
Despite my involuntary focus on this couple—and my concern for her—I gradually must turn my attention back to the band. Unfortunately, they are performing their final song for the night. Once they finish, the people at the tables begin chatting, and some of them get up to leave. Just then, a red, shiny motorcycle with a sidecar—I can hardly believe it—drives up and stops at the red light at the intersection. It is one of the few vehicles on the street in this area at this time of the night.
I unexpectedly hear more music, and I’m not sure if it is coming from the motorcycle…or not—it really sounds as if it is emanating from a few blocks away—but the deep, penetrating, haunting sounds of a saxophone playing a slow, sultry version of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” fill the night air.
Once again, even though it reveals itself to me constantly, I am shocked by the mysticism of this city.
I finally head toward the subway—reluctantly—the red and blue lights of the Empire State Building in the distance, secretive and seductive and mysterious.
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