Eze came back about 06:30, to pick me up. I was as ready as I could be.
“Come on, we don’t have much time!”
I got in the truck, and we headed out.
“Now listen, I don’t want you getting yourself all worked up over nothing! Confidence, Pooh, you have to have confidence! You may not always know how to do something, but if you’re confident about it, you can probably get it done! Write that down and remember it!”
I started looking for a piece of paper and a pen when he punched my leg. “Are you serious? Pooh, write it to your memory, in your head, Goober!”
I really felt like an idiot now. “Stop beating yourself up, you need to relax, it will come” he said.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I just don’t know when you’re serious!”
“Pooh, I’m never serious! But, if ever I choose to be, stand aside, because someone is fixin’ to get hurt!”
“You mean, like those two today? You were serious about that, right?”
“That? No, I thought I did good today, nobody got hurt. I’m actually kinda proud of myself!”
He actually believed that. He almost killed two people today before I even realized what was happening, it was over with. All that I could do was panic, and he was already done, and it was like nothing even happened.
“Eze, you know they went to the hospital, right?”
“Well, it coulda been worse…”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“They could’ve ended up in the morgue!” He looked over at me with a big smile, “But then, we wouldn’t be going dancing with those pretty girls would we?”
He had a point. I think that he knew he could have done a lot worse to those two, but he actually believed that he didn’t hurt them too bad, and that allowed us to leave the situation without any ramifications.
I think that I was starting to understand that Eze knew more about what he was doing than how he came off.
We pulled up to the dance hall and it was 07:00. There were about fifteen pick-up trucks in the parking lot. It looked like the only ones that were there were us and the employees.
We walked up to the door, and an older lady said “Hi ya’ll. I need to see your I.D.’s and $5 cover please.”
She looked at both of our I.D.’s and said “Sorry boys, I can’t let you in. You have to be 21.”
I was relieved but deflated at the same time. Now I wouldn’t be able to see Pam again. I would never get to kiss her. At least I didn’t have to worry about dancing. That was a load off of my mind.
“Whoa, slow down there Pooh. Where are you going?”
“You heard what she said. We have to be 21.”
“Excuse me Ma’am.” Eze pushed our I.D.’s and $10 back inside. “My Amigo and I are leaving town, and going back to the mountains in the morning. We don’t drink, and are only here to dance. We have dates with two lovely young ladies tonight that told us this had the best dance floor in the county, and that’s what we are here to do, dance.”
I couldn’t believe what he was trying. There was no way she was going to let us in, but Eze kept on.
“My Amigo here has never danced, and I have less than three hours to teach him how. I will make a deal with you. Here are both of our I.D.’s and another $20. If you see either of us get off the dance floor, or drink anything other than water, you can kick us out and keep the $20.”
He was bold, but I think that it was actually working. Then, he went for it all, at my expense.
“Can’t you see this man is a virgin, and this may be his only chance to get laid. We may never make it back. Can you live with that?”
“Oh, my” she said, “You promise you won’t be drinking?”
“Ma’am, if we drink anything, then I will be the one taking you home tonight!” Eze said with his warm smile.
“Oh, well, wouldn’t that be nice?” she said, blushing and fixing her hair. “Alright then, you can go inside, but I’ll be watching you!”
“I’ll bet you will, Ma’am, thank you. You just saved this man’s life!”
Eze grabbed me and pushed me through the door, “Let’s go, we’re burning daylight!”
I couldn’t believe it. We were in! How did he do that? I didn’t care, we were in, and nobody was there. The place was completely empty!
“Come on now, we need to get on the dance floor before I end up having to take her home!”
I asked, “Did you basically tell her that you would have to be drunk in order to go home with her?”
“She let us in didn’t she? Let that be a lesson to you. It’s not always what you say, it’s how you say it. People are only gonna hear what they want to hear. You can have fun with it sometimes!”
Unbelievable! He smooth-talked that woman into letting us in, and then told her the only way that he would go home with her was if he was drunk, and she thanked him! Wow, maybe I needed to pay closer attention to Eze. He was good.
We spent the next hour on the dance floor by ourselves. He showed me how to two-step. He basically simplified it into a slow-slow-fast-fast rhythm with three full steps, and one half step. We practiced it over and over until we were dancing around the floor next to each other.
This was great, I was really feeling it. It wasn’t that hard after all. It was even fun!
“Okay stop!” Eze said.
“You have the steps down, now I need to teach you how to hold a woman, proper. This is the most important thing. If you don’t hold her right, you can’t lead her!”
He took my right hand with his left and then slid his right hand into the small of my back. There was nowhere for me to put my left hand except on his shoulder. I hope no one thought we were gay. I just knew that he was going to kiss me!
Then he let go.
“Did you see that?”
“See what, that we looked gay?” I asked. “You’re not going to kiss me like Tuck did last night, are you?”
“No, you fool! I didn’t even tell you what to do, and you did it! I spoke with my hands, and I didn’t have to say a word!”
Wow! He was right. How did he do that? The whole time I was worried about us looking gay together, and being kissed by another man. I didn’t even think. It just felt natural. I hope that I’m not gay. That was weird.
“You see? That is how you lead a woman. Hell, you’re not even a woman, and it worked on you too!” He was laughing because he knew that I was embarrassed.
“It’s okay. Now you understand how a woman should feel when you hold her proper. Everything that you convey to her is done through your hands. If you are confident, she will gladly go where you go. If you’re not, you will frustrate her, and she won’t dance with you anymore!”
He continued to show me a few more things about what to do with my hands, how to dance backwards, and even a basic spin.
He then let go and started to walk off the dance floor. “That is all you need to know for now! If you just work on feeling it and not thinking it you will be fine! Oh yeah, and one last thing, don’t step on their feet!”
“What? Wait! Stop! How do I not step on their feet? You didn’t say anything about that before! How do I not do that?” I was in panic mode again.
“Relax!” He said, “It’s easy. You can’t step on their feet if you never pick yours up, Pooh! Just slide across the floor like you have been doing.”
He walked over to a table full of ladies, grabbed one and started gliding around the dance floor with her. He was really good, and everyone there knew it. I glanced over at the front door and the older lady was watching him with a teen idol look in her eyes.
This was crazy. I only had a little while to start practicing before Pam and Gisela got there. I went up to a group of women and politely asked the first one “Excuse me Ma’am, would you like to dance?”
She looked right through me and continued talking to one of her friends. Okay, then. I asked another.
“Uh, thanks, but no. I’m waiting on a friend.”
“Ok, great, we can dance until she gets here!” It sounded logical to me.
“No, that’s okay.”
What was happening? I wasn’t giving up. I was getting desperate. I had to dance with a live woman before the girls got here. I had to see if this was really going to work.
I asked about nine more women, and got turned down nine different ways. Now I was starting to get pissed. Where was that coming from? I guess that I would always give up. Not tonight, I was on a mission. I wanted to kiss Pam!
I walked up to a table with eight women sitting there talking amongst themselves and interrupted all of them. “Does anyone at this table want to dance, damn-it?”
They were almost in as much shock as I was. One off to my right said, “I’ll dance with you.”
I grabbed her by the hand, and marched her out onto the dance floor. I got into my stance, took up her right hand with my left and then slid my right hand onto the small of her back and she placed her left hand and arm on my shoulder.
It worked! Just like Eze taught me. It really worked. He said I didn’t have any confidence, I was full of confidence, and this was amazing!
“Um, hi there, would you like to start dancing now, or do you want to just stand here and maybe talk?” The girl politely asked.
“Oh, yeah! We can dance!” I kept telling myself slow-slow-fast-fast, we were dancing! We were really dancing. This was great.
Eze spun by and was dancing circles around us before he backed into me on purpose and whispered, “Nice going Pooh! You didn’t freak out, keep it up!”
I nodded and tried to stay focused. She asked what my name was, but I told her I didn’t want to have a conversation, I just wanted to dance. There was no way that I could talk and dance at the same time. I hope she didn’t think I was being rude, but I needed to concentrate.
We danced two more songs, and I put her back and asked who was next. I danced with the whole group and was getting better with each new partner. This was good. This was really good.
Each of them asked me what my name was and I told them all the same thing, “I don’t want to talk, I just want to dance.” They would giggle every time that I said it. I think it was a joke between them to ask, and see if I would change my answer. I stayed focused and didn’t care.