No matter what they said, we didn’t. Nope, no way, Jose.
It might have looked like we did. It was summer and you know, things get out of control in summer. Those wild songs were playing. Santana. You’ve got to change your wicked ways, baby. The infectious beat, you just had to dance, shimmy the hips, chop the beat with your feet, sun pouring through the car windows, the radio blaring. We always turned it up, beat on the outside of the car doors, bare arms through the open windows, tee-shirt sleeves rolled up, hems tied tight around our midriffs, or left loose over bathing suits.
We bumped over the rutted farm road, unmarked but well-known, out to the swimming hole, along the west side of the Niagara River, parking in the heat of the meadow, grasses already bent with seeds, or flattened by cars, by cows, by us dancing over to the big rocks . We’d jump off into the deep dark pool, an eddy of the main pull of the river, the one that could drag you over the falls. Yes, those Falls.
A boombox turned up as high as it could go, we’d bump and shout, we’d want to hold hands, we’d change our evil ways, plunging into the cold, jumping to the bursts of the saxophones, the wail of the guitar licks plugged straight into our brains, the cold swirling water, the hot rocks, the whir of the grasshoppers, the rising song of the cicadas measuring out the heat, the beat of the timbales, Oye como ova, mi ritmo. We’d sashay, we’d prance, we’d shimmy and shake, we’d parade, do silly jumps, dive down as far as we could.
The water was dark and cold, mysterious, a black magic of its own. It set the table for all that happened later, all the things we didn’t do, all the things it was assumed we did.
(This is a small piece written to prompts from Jumpstart Writing Workshop, November, 2022. )
