It’s my party and I’ll dance if I want to!
Published on 27 Apr 2005 at 4:44 pm.
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Filed under Essays.
It’s seven-thirty, I’m driving down Fell Street, the harsh evening sun illuminates a layer dust and a graveyard of bug carcasses on the cracked windshield. I eat rice cakes one after another, I don’t really like rice cakes but I am nervous and find the soft crunching sound strangely comforting. This is our biggest show yet and we’ve neglected to rehearse. I stop to get gas and pry open the gas cap cover with a twelve inch screw driver. People look at me and smile. I’m wearing a short leather dress, it’s purple with white stitching and a thick white belt. I have on tall white platform go-go boots. My hair is freshly hennaed bright red. I look like a character from a children’s book. It’s my birthday and I can do what I like. Today I’m turning 38, and tonight I am go-go dancing with Tom Jonesing, a Tom Jones tribute band.
Like all good things, this go-go venture started out as a joke, a lark, a one night goof. Things got a little out of hand. Now this thing has become a thing.
I try to run through the moves to ‘She’s a Lady’ in my head while waiting at a stoplight – I come up blank. I’m even more nervous, I chomp a few more rice cakes and turn left onto Gough Street. The front wheels make a disturbing grinding sound and the car shutters a little. I’m driving my mechanics car, mine has been in the shop for over a month. My mechanic took mercy and lent me his car for a couple of days. The car is big and American, the paint is oxidized and a glob of something white is fused to the hood. The license plate is hanging by one bolt, a large rock is stuck in the cup holder, the tail light lenses are made of red tape. He made me promise I wouldn’t eat or smoke in it. He insisted I fill it with supreme. Driving it, I look like an alcoholic real estate agent.
I arrive at Slim’s and meet up with my dance partner Ali, together we are the Sugar Licks. While the band does their sound check, Ali and I go down to the dressing room to find a place to do a quick rehearsal.
The dressing room is barely big enough to hold three dresses. We set up go-go camp in a quiet alley next to the club. Two men from an office that looks onto the alley watch us from the window and quickly learn the moves to "It’s Not Unusual". I worry that they are better than us. It’s eight-thirty now, time to get dressed and do our hair and makeup. The tiny dressing room is a beehive of activity. The other eight members of the band are putting on their stage clothes and preening like teenage girls. I think about my daughter and I’m glad she can’t make it to the show. No good could come if it. She’s fourteen, and embarrassed to sit next to me on a bus, seeing me on stage I imagine, would be nothing short of mortifying for her. At the very least my performance, even if stellar, would provide her with fodder for insults for the rest of my life. I’m nervous enough thank you.
Hoping to calm our jittery nerves, the Sugar Licks slug down cocktails. We wiggle into our matching outfits, white mini skirts, white tights, white boots and pale blue halter tops that seem to erase our bust lines. We look like characters from a Japanese comic book. My hands shake, I smudge my eyeliner. We scramble around looking for a set list, then a pen to mark the songs we dance to. I slug down another cocktail. I worry that I’m drinking to much, I find myself thinking that I don’t care what I remember tomorrow as long as I can relax enough to remember the dance moves tonight – faulty logic at best. My friends surprise me with a birthday cake and though I am in the presence of vocal greatness, I am still subjected to the ritual off key birthday durge. Our stomachs are all in knots, no one wants cake.
Vic Doublelongo, a.k.a. John Hell, a.k.a. Michael, a.k.a. Ali’s husband, dressed in mirror studded tuxedo, climbs on stage and introduces Tom Jonesing with a glorious showman’s flourish. The room is full but not packed, the audience starts to move toward the stage. The band breaks into their first song. They sound fat and loud and on key. Vic stands with us at the edge of the stage, we enter on the third song. He pulls a pint bottle of Hennesy from his coat pocket and hands it to me. I take a slug for luck, then one because it tastes good, then another because I’m getting a sick thrill out of feeling like Janis Joplin.
I look at the stage and remember all the fabulous bands I have seen here; Jonathon Richmond, Richard Thompson, Alex Chilton, Garbage, Cowboy Junkies. They all performed on this same stage, this stage that I am about to climb onto and embarrass myself. I wish someone would stop me. I can see a few friends in the audience, I wish one of them would grab me and drag me from the club. They smile, I imagine, in anticipation of watching me humiliate myself. I remind myself that I am a highly trained professional, it doesn’t help. I take another slug of cognac, it helps a little.
Our cue comes, Ali and I strut onto the stage, we don’t walk or dance, we simply strut as if we have all the time and all the confidence in the world. We arrive at our places and stop. So far so good. We are greeted with a cacophony of hoots and hollers. From where I’m standing I look out onto a sea of arms waving, people screaming with equal parts camp and genuine excitement. I am sideswiped by the success of our little chuckle. What I thought was a throw-away comment seems to have turned into the funniest joke in the world. The whole room is willing to participate in the joke, and the joke suddenly becomes real. In fact it becomes the only thing that matters.
We make it flawlessly through the first song. As Tom sings, a flurry of panties sail through the air like a flock of strange birds and settle in drifts around our feet. I step on Ali’s foot. We keep dancing. Ali elbows me in the nose, really hard, we keep dancing. The audience smiles at us with a sincerity that tells me they aren’t just being polite. Vic flashes an approving grin from the side of the stage. The audience starts to mimic our movements. Arms wave back and forth during "Delilah," people cry out "whoaaa – oh -whoaa-whoaa" during "What’s New Pussycat." My body is sticky with sweat, my hair is tangled around my neck and I’m beginning to feel a stitch in my side. I smile and dance harder. The music burns through me like fire, I look around the stage and everyone is beaming, glowing, basking. We all know this is a very good thing. After the show we crowd into the tiny backstage and sigh and giggle and swap stories about who tripped over whose cord. Over and over all ten of us look at each other and say "that was soooooooo fun!!!!"
We eat cake. I feel my body starting to relax. The cognac works some strange magic with the adrenaline and endorphins. I search for words to describe my state of mind – drunk is all I can come up with. Later that night, after a taxi ride home with my roommate, I unzip my white boots and wonder how it is that at 38 years old, and up until two months ago having never set foot on a stage, I have ended up becoming a go-go dancer. I also wonder if I’m old enough to be considered eccentric, or still young enough just to be strange. I say a little thank you to the gods and pour myself into bed.
The next morning I wake with a raging hangover. I’m filled with a nebulous feeling of embarrassment but can’t trace its exact origins, general yes. I run through the previous nights events and find myself laughing out loud when I get to the part about dancing on the bar. Part of me knows this isn’t appropriate behavior for a mother. Part of me doesn’t care. My daughter is used to this sort of thing manifesting itself in one form or another. For me parenthood has never been like the brochure promised, and for that I am thankful. My daughter must feel the same about her childhood, though I’m not sure thankful is the exact word she would choose. Though she is well fed and well educated, I can still imagine the transcripts from the future therapy sessions.
I remember the car and worry that in my anxious state of mind, I’ve parked somewhere stupid. I throw on some clothes and stumble out the door and hop on the bus, the wrong bus. I smell of smoke and alcohol, last nights glitter is stuck to my chest. I find the car safely parked in a handicap zone, and think that with last night’s blisters, I might actually qualify. The car looks every bit as rough as I feel. I climb in, start the engine and pull away. I round the corner, the grinding seems louder than last night. I think about the show I can’t wipe the smile off my face. There are still stars painted in my eyes and I wonder when I’m going to start feeling old.
