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Salsa Saves Lives
By Kate
Salsa saves lives. It was at the Copa Cabana in 1998 where I met Luis. He cruised over to me in beige Dockers with a pleat ironed down the front. Three months later I’d be the one in the kitchen ironing in the pleats. He had a big head and thinning hair and an obvious nose - and I kid you not, his first words to me were, “¿oye mamí, qué pasa?” as he looked from my chest, down to my knees, and finally up to my eyes. “Is this fucker for real? Does he even think he has a chance with me?” You see, back then I thought I was the real shit, filled up tall with tequila and cocaine. Better than everyone – too good for friendship, to busy to listen, salsa was just another drug. I liked the way it made me feel. Trombones, piano, bajo, timbale, congo, bongo, tres, maracas y güiros, and the coro all like a hurracane blowing over me as I danced sola in front of the stage – first the head then the rhythm passed through my shoulders and into my legs forcing my hips in a circular motion as I shifted my weight, bah, bah, bah. “I’ll have a drink if you’re here to buy me one,” I answered.
At home I needed the big man off my back. My father had looked at me with disgust one more time as I lifted my head from the mirror, a drop of blood falling onto the glass, a one hundred dollar bill rolled up and held between two fingers like a cigarette, a sip of Patron to chase the drip, and the words told to me by him, “you’re playing with the Devil’s dandruff.” And then he’d turn his back, and walk out of the kitchen.
I’d lock myself in my one room up on 184th street and eat tofu and brown rice and watch The African Queen, Basquiat and Grand Canyon, and The African Queen, Basquiat and Grand Canyon, and The African Queen and Basquiat, and Basquiat, and Basquiat and then I’d get dressed and go out. It was one night in Queens at an Indian restaurant. There was a line and a bar next door. I said why don’t we wait at the bar? Luis said sure, but I don’t drink. He could have told me that he just picked six and I wouldn’t have been more taken a back. “Mujer, you got a problem with that?” he asked me. I looked at the bar with its pink neon sign that flashed “open, open, open,” then back at him and answered, “Not if we can still go inside and I can have a drink.”
He smiled at me and said “lo que quiera, nena.”
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