Clear the Floor, I’m Dancing
I hope I am ten when we receive the invitation to a hoedown-themed party hosted by a family up the road. They live on a farm but are not actual farmers, just wealthy enough to have bought a farm. So, all us residents in the Leighton Estates development, a predominantly nonagricultural neighborhood, are invited to this gathering. It’s an evening of socializing, eating (the event is billed as BYOV - Bring Your Own Vittles) and square dancing. Western-styled attire is recommended, “Yeehaws” encouraged.
I’m against going to this hootenanny. I’m not keen on mingling with adults, the majority of which I don’t know. My lack of maturity compounded by their lack of immaturity creates a generational chasm. Without legal documentation declaring myself an emancipated minor, I am forced to accompany my parents for a night of rubbing elbows and kicking up heels. I don’t know how my brother and sister got out of it, but they did.
In full regalia, we enter the barn serving as the dance hall. Ladies in vibrant gingham dresses and men in crisp blue jeans exchange heartfelt “Howdy” greetings. There’s minimal air circulation in the venue as the doors and windows are closed, keeping out the early October chill.
Folding chairs line the right and left interior walls. The far wall has the square dance caller’s audio equipment on a riser, overseeing the middle area which is designated for dancing. Situated along the final wall are long tables that creak under the strain of the home cooked, calorie infused buffet. This is the 70’s. Gluten is not a four-letter word. Everyone’s food pyramid is built upon a solid foundation of lard. And a day without sugar is like a day without juvenile diabetes.
The enticing aromas of baked beans with bacon, potatoes that had been scalloped or mashed or au gratined, ham, chicken, meatloaf, stuffing, mac and cheeses, hearty casseroles and fresh baked breads seep out from their respective containers covered with aluminum foil. The smells commingle in your nostrils, greeting each other like old friends at a high school reunion. Decedent cakes and pies along with an array of puddings and whipped cream concoctions round out the dessert section. A side table is dedicated to beverages, including apple cider, my seasonal favorite. Finding solace knowing my belly won’t be empty, I load up a plate, fill up a cup and stake my claim to an empty chair closest to the food. It’s 6:30.
A steady flow of people arrives and by 7:30 the evening is in full, boot scootin’ mode. Dancers follow the caller’s (probably named Tex) unbroken, nasal warble. To me it sounds like gibberish. But to the discriminating ear it is directives, and the middle of the room pulsates in unison.
I recognize some faces while ignoring others as I attack my replenished plate of fried chicken, baked beans and cornbread saturated with butter. A cider chaser follows every other bite. I’m in my happy, gluttonous place when some lass feels that this satiated wallflower should blossom. The unfinished eighth course is dislodged from my greasy fingers. I am uprooted from my chair and interjected into the undulating sea of adults synchronized with Tex’s instructions. What just happened? Since I still haven’t mastered the “pat your head” portion of the “pat your head whilst rubbing your belly” brain exercise, dancing is out of the question. There’s a distinct possibility it could lead to my premature death.
The innate Flight or Fight response presents itself. I opt for Flight because I am outnumbered, unarmed and only four feet tall. Being small in stature but big on leaving, I formulate an exit strategy. I will shimmy my way backwards, hoping to get enveloped in the throng of bodies and via a form of group peristalsis, be dumped out on the perimeter.
However, my attempt at reverse navigating the bevy is misconstrued as dancing. This triggers encouragement from the gals. “You go, little man” and “Whoa, look at those moves” are lobbed my way. These solicitous, yet unfounded, accolades transform my attitude towards dancing. I believe their judgement is genuine. I arrived a shy tot happy to sit by myself and eat but am now convinced I’m a dancing prodigy.
My sullen demeanor evaporates. The contentment of stuffing my face is replaced with the need of whirling my dervish. Like a transformative experience, I morph into a social butterfly and clumsily flap my wings. This newfound confidence fuels more praise from my fellow two-steppers. Again, just the females. Not hearing any support from the guys. Jealous of the talent on display I suspect.
Gyrating to my own fractured meter, I unveil a set of moves destined to amaze. I incorporate a part mimic/part improvisational series of wild gesticulations. In my prepubescent mind I resemble Fed Astaire floating across the floor. In reality I resemble an epileptic kangaroo trying to exit a partially deflated bounce house.
As the revelers perform the choreographed dance, I’m stationed front and center delivering a spasmodic rendition of the Hokey Pokey. I flail my arms up and down as my feet remain embedded in the floor. Then gravity locks my arms against my body allowing my legs to quiver in response to the short-circuiting, electrical impulses emitted from my cerebellum.
There’s no patterned logic for my movements. This complete disregard for cadence is apparent to everyone with the obvious exception of me. Doesn’t matter, I’m “dancing” and that’s all that counts. I believe everyone is spellbound by my moves. In fact, a good portion of the folks are, but not because I’m talented. Some people watch with incomprehension, some with bafflement, some with disdain and some with a combination of all three.
The song ends. The ladies applaud my feeble attempt. Strutting back to my chair, my chest is swollen with self-infused confidence. I attack the remaining congealed fixins on my plate then toss back the residual, tepid cider. I need carbs to cut a new rug. Then comes the very specific announcement: “Grab your PARTNER for this next dance,” and I think, “Oh, don’t you worry Tex, I’ll grab my PARTNER alright…as soon as I get out there.” I lick my fork and scurry back to the assemblage.
My return is not greeted with the same enthusiasm as my inaugural appearance because I have failed to recognize the original invitation was a limited time offer, expiring when the first song concluded. Nobody emphasized this stipulation. I thought I had carte blanche access to the middle area for the rest of the evening. My assumption was so very wrong.
This dance has the fellows form an outer circle looking in while traveling counterclockwise as the women form an inner circle facing out and traveling clockwise. Each pair is to interlock their right elbows, complete a half-rotation, then reach out to the next person in line and repeat with their left elbows. This continues until, when instructed, the partners twirl each other around multiple times. Then everyone reinitiates the interlocking elbows/rotating sequence. The dance ends when you weave your way around the circle, rotating the others until you end up twirling your original partner. It’s sort of a platonic, wife-swapping do-si-do.
As a newly minted Casanova, I take my rightful place with the girls. My presence is a colossal mistake. I am not so much the third wheel as the 23rd wheel; a unicycle in a procession of bicycles. I don’t realize this and even if I did, I wouldn’t have cared. I need to trip the light fantastic. Dancing is my new, lifelong passion.
Disrupting the rhythm is bad. Getting in line with the womenfolk is worse because it means I’ll be paired with menfolk. Menfolk who have tired of my presence and resent dancing with some snotty nosed kid reeking of cider. My existence is a burr in the boys’ saddles. Who knew jockeying for attention to receive accolades from the dames would create animosity from the dudes? Well, everyone. Everyone except me.
The dance begins and immediately the flow is off kilter. The locking elbows is skipping a beat because I am an extra tooth on the cog. And me having a partner during the twirling portion forces the lady I’ve bumped out of position to stand aside, uncomfortably clapping to pass the time before rejoining the dance. Befitting the aggressive nature of Alpha Males with a vendetta, an unspoken competition of “Who can spin the kid the fastest?” begins. There’s no gentle twirling. I’m spun with pronounced gusto. The dance has transitioned into “Crack the Whippersnapper.”
I enjoy the rush of spinning. It’s fun. It’s fun until it’s not fun. It’s fun right up to the moment my stomach decides that’s enough of this nonsense and begins the irreversible muscular contractions needed to jettison the accumulated food which has been sloshing about in my belly.
When kids get sick, there’s not always an advance warning that an unholy, gastronomical event is about to transpire. There’s not always a “T minus ten seconds to lift-off.” Or more appropriately, “splashdown.” That holds true tonight. The interval between the onset of the telltale percolation in my gut to when I recreate that iconic scene from The Exorcist feels like nanoseconds. I have just enough time to turn my head 90 degrees outward in an evasive maneuver so as not to Jackson Pollack my tormentor, who is still spinning me at terminal velocity. Centrifugal force takes note and says, “Hold my beer.” Then I proceed to cast a wide net of spew over a fair portion of the dance floor. Thankfully, nobody is in the splash zone.
And thus concludes the Leighton Estates’ hoedown.
The distinctive sounds of retching followed by chunky liquid hitting concrete signals the end of any party, I don’t care how great a time those in attendance are having. Silence storms the barn. The once bustling scene grinds to a halt. Tex stands atop his platform as the hand holding the microphone peels away from his face. With eyes dilated and mouths agape, those nearby appear frozen in a unified, perpetual scream.
After being escorted away from the biohazard slick and back to my original chair (the same chair I would have content sitting in the entire night, by the way), I feel someone holding a damp cloth against my forehead. That someone is Mom. Without hesitation, she’s tending to me after witnessing the purging debacle. She is there like she has been many times before and like she will be even more times later because that’s her. She never shirked her parental responsibilities, even when bodily fluids were involved. That’s the role she embraces. She and Pops are a good team. Mom tends to Pukey McPukester as Dad brings the car around front.
I don’t recall details after administering the party’s deathblow. My brain must have stopped recording the remainder of this historically embarrassing night. Retaining an epilogue to humiliation of this magnitude for prosperity is not needed. I am certain though that we didn’t get a “Thanks for coming” pleasantry or a “See you next year” reminder on the way out.
This wasn’t the first or last time I did something that would be edited from the family’s Year in Review letter mailed to friends and relatives during the holidays. Despite my blunder, life continued, as it always does. My ego was bruised but not shattered. The sun rose and set the next day. Then a new day was again gifted and then another and then another after that. Each a clean slate, presenting opportunities which were navigated with varying levels of triumph and defeat.
We must embrace our setbacks and persevere knowing if the present isn’t allowed to become the past, then the future will never become the present. And we will thrive in the present. Overcoming our gaffes is how strength is built. If we can reflect on and take something from our victories as well as our misfortunes, we will experience growth.
From that evening, I can reflect on the fact I know the genesis of why I don’t like dancing. And I’ll always take a cup of cider. In moderation.