Tales of the Southwest: Can't Dance for Sh*t

  

  I did some checking before I started this story.

  I checked to see if an Albuquerque nightclub I went to 30 years ago was still around.

  Nope.

  Midnight Rodeo was torn down recently. 

  I don’t believe I’m wrong in saying Midnight Rodeo was a chain of country-themed nightclubs around The Golden West.  If not there were a bunch of nightclubs across The Great American Southwest with the same name in Tulsa, Amarillo, Lubbock, San Angelo, San Antonio, Houston, Austin and Albuquerque.

  I was new to the Duke City…I had a groovy pad…a studio apartment in an old motel on the city’s notorious Central Avenue.  It wasn’t half bad for $200 a month…it was right across the street from a Smith’s Supermarket and a movie theater cineplex.

  I had a job running heavy equipment at a construction project.

  Now it was time to find a girlfriend.

  So where else does a guy find a girlfriend than at nightclub and the club that seemed like just the place was Midnight Rodeo where Country music was the big thing.

  There was another popular club in town called Caravan East, about 30 blocks down the street from me on Central…but the guys on the construction job said it was basically a club for old farts.

  Yep, Midnight Rodeo was where I needed to go.

  So one October night I threw on my jeans, button-down collar shirt, grabbed a wad of cash, my Moose River camping hat modified with feather and decorative pins (like the one that was a tiny bottle of booze with the words “Liquor is Quicker” on it), my crepe soled chukka boots and headed for “da club,” country style.

My "Moose River" hat looked like this, except it was adorned with hat pins like these...

And I went out dancin' in a pair of these....

  I got to Midnight Rodeo and found the place packed.  I ordered up a beer from the bar and headed for the dance floor.  I thought I’d just hang out and watch for a bit.

  The most danceable country tunes of the day were blaring to a huge, crammed dance floor. 

  The thing that hit me was these people knew how to dance.  This was dancing like I’d never seen before…it beat the hell out of dancing at a hillbilly honky-tonk or bar dance back east in the mountains.

  I didn’t know what they called this dancing but it sure wasn’t like what I called “The Hillbilly Shuffle.”  The Hillbilly Shuffle was basically a guy and a girl leaning into each other and moving around the dance floor.  Nope, there was fancy footwork going on on this dance floor in Albuquerque.

  I finished my beer and made my move to do some dancing.

  “You wanna dance?” I asked a woman who looked about as old as me.

  “Sure,” said the blonde, and off we merged into the mass of humanity that was dancing round and round.

  Soon we were on the other side of the dance floor and my partner was setting me free.

  “You cain’t dance for shit,” she said smiling, and she was gone.

  “But…but,” I was talking to no one. 

  She was doing that fancy footwork dance and I was doing a mismatched Hillbilly Shuffle.

  I scanned the room again for another prospect.

  “I’ve been told I can’t dance for shit,” I said to my new prospect, a brunette.  “I was hoping you might give me some pointers.”

  The brunette looked me up and down.

  “I ain’t got time,” she said and with that she walked off.

  I found another prospect we walked out on the dance floor…she did her fancy footwork and me my Hillbilly Shuffle and she shuffled me right over to the other side of the room and let me go.

  “YOU CAN’T DANCE FOR SHIT,” came a voice, an older one that came with a cackling laugh.

  I looked around.

  There was an old woman with a beer and a cigarette.

  She was motioning me over to her table with her cigarette hand.

  “GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE, BOY,” she yelled.

  The old woman’s voice made me flash back to living with my grandmother 25 years earlier, her calling me in for supper.

  I made my way over to the woman’s table.  She leaned over, pulled out the chair next to her and patted the seat cushion with her hand holding the cigarette.  A little bit of ash fell off the tip on the seat vinyl.

    “SIT DOWN,” she yelled over the music.

  I dutifully sat down next to her.

  “I’ve been watching you, boy,” she said while chuckling.  She was probably a good 30 years older than me.  “Jesus Christ, where the hell are you from?”

  “Back east, back in the mountains,” I said with a measure of pride.

  “Damn,” she said, “I shoulda guessed.  I wasn’t far off.  I was going to say eastern Kentucky.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “That was about 100 miles west of me.”

  “You come in here with that damn hillbilly hat and those pussy shoes.”

  “Pussy shoes?”

  “Who the hell wears chukka boots anymore?  Damn.  Boy,” she said pointing at the dance floor with her fingers and her dwindling cigarette, “Look at what everyone’s wearing out there….”

  I looked out on the dance floor.

  “Cowboy boots,” I said.

  “No, not cowboy boots, BOOTS,” she looked me in the eyes.  “You go around calling a hat a ‘cowboy hat’ and your boots ‘cowboy boots’ folks around here gonna KNOW you’re from back east.”

  I smiled and nodded.

  “Lose that damn hat next time you come here,” she said, “Save it for when you’re canoeing in Minnesota.  Go out and get you some ropers and a decent hat.”

  “Ropers?” I asked.

  “Boots good for dancin’,” she said.

  “What is that dancin’?” I asked pointing at the dance floor.

  “Two step,” she said, taking a drag on a newly lit cigarette.  “What the hell is that dancin’ you’re doin’?”

  “Hillbilly shuffle, I always called it,” I said.  I looked out on the dance floor and spotted this one woman who was light on her feet and doing a kind of dance/hopping around the floor.  I pointed, “What’s that dancing?”

  “Oh hell, I bet if you asked her it’d probably turn out she’s up here from Las Cruces.  They dance fancy down there.”

  The old woman took a drag off her cigarette.

  “Boy, if you’re gonna get a girl here you damn well better know how to two-step.  C’mon…” she said as she stood and stubbed out her smoke, “I’m gonna give you a dance lesson.”

  We held our hands like dance partners do.

  “NOW WATCH MY FEET,” she yelled over the music, “SEE?  DO THIS…STEP, TOUCH, STEP, TOUCH, WALK WALK AND REPEAT.”

  “STEP TOUCH, STEP TOUCH, WALK WALK,” I said loudly, “STEP TOUCH, STEP TOUCH, WALK WALK…”

  “LOOKIT THAT,” said the old woman, “LIKE A DUCK TO WATER.”

  She and I were making our way around the dance floor with me looking like I knew what I was doing.

  We made our way back to the table.

  “Well,” I said, “I sure appreciate your help.  What’s your name?”

  “I’m Sally,” she said, “I’m a retired hooker.”

  I my eyes opened wide.

  “Ha ha ha,” said Sally.  “You shoulda suspected something, not many women talk straight like me.”

  “Well,” I said, “I just thought you were a teacher or something.”

  “I thought I recognized a hillbilly when I saw one,” Sally said.  “I grew up in western North Carolina in the Smokies.  Came out west and made a lot of money ‘getting acquainted’ over the years with the boys at the air bases…Kirtland, Holloman.  I come here from time to time for the atmosphere.”

  I nodded.

  “Now tomorrow you get out and go get you some boots and don’t get no square-toed boots, dead giveaway you’re an easterner,” said Sally, “And get you a good hat.”

  Sally smiled and patted me on the back.

  I made my way through the crowd and headed for the door.

  I was done with my night on the town.

  Besides, I couldn’t dance for shit.

 

E P I L O G U E

  I didn’t go back to Midnight Rodeo.  It’s not that I didn’t like the place, it’s just that it was populated by people who just weren’t my “tribe.”  So much importance put on dancing just right wasn’t my cup of tea.

  Besides, when I tried dancing the two-step again I had trouble paying attention to my dance partner while I was watching my feet and saying, “step touch, step touch, walk walk…” in my head.

  I did find an enclave of my “tribe” in the mountains beyond the Sandia Mountains.  Back at the end of the ‘80’s the village of Madrid was home to a funky bar that had Bluegrass music on Saturdays.  I would make the drive to Madrid, kick back and listen to the tunes then mosey on back to Albuquerque.

  The construction job ended.  I got picked up for a part-time gig at a pop music radio station but my heart was hoping for a job that never came at the city’s big Country station.

  Then one night I picked up a radio station on the AM band blasting 50,000 watts of Country music joy out of Roswell…

  …and knew where I belonged.

-30-

Ain't no pins or feathers in my hat these days.....