The Magic of the Rhythm

One night I took my mother to a club, and then the unexpected happened.

The Magic of the Rhythm

 

“Mamí- did you know that Daniel Santos is coming for one night?” 

  

“Yes” my mother replies. “I heard on the radio”.  “So-- do you want to go?” I ask while gathering my toast crumbs from the kitchen table.  “Why”? she asks.  Roiling my eyes inside my head, I reply “because you like him.”   Catching my slight irritation, she says, “Well the tickets might be expensive.”  “They are not” I replied. “Already checked”.

 

I knew she liked his music.  As adult, the music of Daniel Santos came on the kitchen radio. She stopped in her tracks and began to sing along with her beautiful melodic voice. As the song ended, she told me that the song reminded her of a man she had been very much in love with. Daniel Santos was his favorite singer she said.  I asked her what happened to this love?  “He disappeared from my life” she says with no emotion.  After a pause, she adds with a tinge of sadness, “I later heard he died.”  

 

With my father in Puerto Rico visiting family and finalizing their retirement move to warmer temperatures, I thought going to this show would allow us mother-daughter time and maybe allow her a forbidden trip down memory lane.

 

Daniel Santos, a Puerto Rican composer, and singer defined my parent’s generation. Originally from Perto Rico, Santos got his big break in New York City in the 1940’a. In the 50's and 60's he went on to become a music icon in Latin America.  His following was solid with this generation.

 

Arriving early on a crisp October evening, we enter the Ultima Copa.  This bar lounge is among the last of its kind on the northwest side of Chicago. It has survived the onslaught of gentrification. These small music clubs once common to the area are giving way to more trendier bars that cater to younger, affluent non-hispanic patrons.

 As we make our way inside the tightly contained space, I take in the décor with its small- round tables that squeeze 2 to 4 persons, low ceilings that give the place intimacy. I focus on the lower-level parquet dance floor that doubles as a band stage, holding a small piano in corner.  Being early, the maître leads us close to the dance floor.

 

Slowly, the Ultima Copa begins to fill with couples of my mother’s generation.  Men in suits with neatly tied ties and brim hats enter with their dates.  The men remind me of  “Rico” the main character in the Barry Manilow 1978 disco hit  “Copacabana.” 

The women, however, do not look like “Lola”, the aging show girl.  They look like my mother, women who work hard, and now have a chance to wear their Sunday best with sensible heels and matching handbags. Single men of older age, gather around the bar in the back with drinks in hand vying for the few wooden bar stools.

 

My mother not used to clubs or bars looks slightly timid as she sits at the table making very little eye contact with anyone other than me.  She focuses on the straw of her tall ice filled glass of 7UP, keeping the plastic cylinder encased in her full ruby lips. I, on the other hand, am scoping the place for younger men who will make suitable dance partners. After spotting a couple prospects, I turn back to my ‘whisky on the rocks’ feeling totally ready for the evening.  Wearing my casual but totally fashionable late 80’s attire of broad shoulders, skinny leg pants and high-legged boots, I'm set.

 

A front band starts the evening with a ‘warm up’ giving the young waiters a chance to gracefully weave in and out of tight tables juggling drinks and peanuts. It also gives my mother a chance to settle back in her seat, let go of the drinking straw, and relax her iron clad grasp on her oversize handbag.

 

Shortly after, an intermission marks the end of the first set and signals the upcoming main performance.  The anticipation is felt. The 'warm up' band gather their instruments, the main act musicians begin to set up, the women in the club excuse themselves as they make their way to the ladies room, while their dates ask for another round of drinks.

 

As the lights begin to dim and the last of the women emerge from the restrooms with reapplied lipstick and additional spritz of hairspray, the main act musicians make tuning sounds.   Suddenly the lights dim. There is no sound except for the excitement crackling in the air. A round spotlight appears casting its shine upon a short elderly man with all white hair and white mustache.

“is that him?’ I whisper turning towards my mother.  She is misty eyed and says more to herself than me---“ He really has aged”. I nod. This is not the man from the vinyl record cover of jet-black wavy hair and dashing mustache. This old man dressed in an off white traditional ‘guayabera’ shirt greets his audience like old friends. They respond back with the same affection.

 

As he breaks into “Nuestro Juramiento"  a much-loved Puerto Rican song that speaks of broken love promises, his voice hits the same notes with the strength and silkiness of his vinyl records, some of which now make up my inheritance. Couples sitting at their tables, close their eyes and sway with nostalgia, others slowly make their way onto the dance floor, their bodies remembering old dance steps to the rhythm of the “guiro.”

 

At a distance, I see a “not so old” man with clear intent making his way across the dance floor. Absolutely sure that he is coming to dance with me; I sit a little straighter and give my small handbag a slight shove out of the way.  Trying not to look obvious, I look into my whisky glass and out of the corner of my eye, I see his arm extend. It takes me a second to realize that this extended limb is not for me but for my seat mate. He turns his head in my direction and says, “Can I dance with your mother?”   My mother looks at me.  I can’t read her look but stammer “Of course”, adding a silly statement that I will watch her handbag.

 

As I watch her glide in her sensible heels, I am reminded of the time I was a teenager.  She, my father, and I attended a family party.  A most handsome stranger maybe a few years older than me, was there as a guest of a cousin.  I watched him at a distance. As the music began, I watched the tall handsome man make his way to our side of the room. As he approached our chairs, he turned to my father and in a very polite manner asked permission to dance with--- my mother.  Feeling embarrassed after I had been so sure that it was me he was coming to dance with, I sat pushing away jealousy.  Both my father and I pretended not to watch my mother, but you could not help and watch as she graciously swayed and turned to the slight wrist commands of her partner. She kept beat with her swaying hips making her A-line skirt flutter at the hem. Her high heels slid easily on the linoleum floor.  She looked so young and beautiful.

 

Coming out of my memory I now look at my mother and do not see the elderly woman in her Sunday best but a beautiful woman in a fitted top, full skirt and high heels, her red lips smiling as she twirls to her partner's command.   I blink again, but all I can see, is this hazy smoke curtain that binds the low ceilings with the smoke tendrils from the long-forgotten cigarettes. Young dashing men are twirling young women as they shimmy to the singers international hit El Mambo Es Universal.  Stunned and confused, I turn and look at the singer, as he belts out ” this is how it feels to feel the mambo.”  I blink again. His hair is jet black and he is ‘stepping’ in the body of a much younger man who is keeping the rhythm going with his maracas.

 

 As if in a dream, I l slowly look around and realize that what I am witnessing is the magic of my mother’s music-the magic of the rhythm.

 

Luz Maria Martinez

2021

Author's Note

Looking for feedback; good or bad. Its my first story so anxious to learn.