I have, most recently, noticed that I appear to be suf-fering from a rare, yet devastating, hormonal disorder. It is most commonly referred to as Sudden Uncontrol-lable Crush Syndrome or SUCS. It occurs most often when in unknown environments or when among strang-ers. There are no warning signs. It strikes quickly and can leave the afflicted intolerably distracted .

    I went to Lincoln Center to dance. It was Zydeco night and I arrived early for the dance lesson. I found a secure place to hide my pack and joined the lesson. And there he was, Danny Bernbaum; tall, soft, shaggy short hair, unshaven, black jeans, rumpled buttoned up shirt and pointy-toed cowboy boots. He was assisting the dance instructor. The regular assistant had not arrived, so Danny was the replacement.

    He danced Zydeco like he'd been born to it, though with a name like Danny Bernbaum I would assume he had not. His leads were strong, his footwork pre-cise, his rhythm never wavered, and my little heart was overwhelmed with the need to dance with him.

    The lesson ended and I felt I had learned enough to follow the dance with minimal mistakes. Prerecorded music began to play and people began to practice their newly mastered steps. The . rst man to ask me to dance was a nice, short, dark haired, Bulgarian man named Wesley. He was not a bad dancer, but his Zydeco was not strong. We danced for quite a few dances and I was happy to be dancing. He seemed happy to have a partner that didn't run away every time the music stopped ( which is a dancing woman's prerogative and God given right).

    The band started their first set and I continued to dance with Wesley. We practiced and became better, though not great, at our Zydeco steps. We began to waltz and after a few false starts, I remembered how to turn properly. I pined a little for Danny, but I assumed he was helping the band or working the show in some unknown capacity. About half way through the first set, I saw him. He was dancing with the dance instructor. I was distracted and lost my rhythm with Wesley. I regained my rhythm and tried not to search the floor for Danny.

    The band played on and I continued to dance with Wesley. By this time, I was getting worried that I would only be dancing with Wesley. To really enjoy the dance, you have to dance with a lot of different people (or one or two really good people). I continued to lose my rhythm when I was watching Danny dance. This is when I began to pray to God to have Danny ask me to dance. Not something I would normally bother God with but I knew I was not going to have the courage to ask him myself.

Wesley needed to take a break and offered to buy me a soda. With our Pepsi's in hand, we chatted for a while. I learned all about Wesley; his job here in the States, his business in Bulgaria, and the fact that he likes Los Angeles and enjoyed study for his citizenship. We finished our sodas and finally went back on to the dance floor. It was the last song of the bands first set. I left Wesley, headed for the bathrooms and plotted how I could get Danny to dance with me. Well, I didn't actually plot, I just thought about how much I wanted to dance with him (in my pathetic crush-filled mind it seemed like plotting.)

     Back on the dance floor I went to a different corner than Wesley and sat down, avoiding Wesley and looking for Danny. A man named Dave from Seattle struck up a conversation with me and we danced two dances and parted ways. I waited on the side and waited to dance again. Then I saw Danny at the same time I realized Wesley was standing right in front of me, so I bolted to the other side of the floor. I was contemplating asking Danny to dance but I couldn't risk getting stuck dancing with Wesley for the rest of the night.

     On the other side of the floor, I quietly watched the dancers pass. I started to take note of other men who looked like they knew what they were doing on the dance floor. After a while the band came back for their second set. A cute, but slightly odd man, ( i. e. I couldn't figure out if he was drunk, wasted, or just high on life) asked me to dance and I did. His dance was fast and peculiar, not quite swing, not quite ballroom, not quite Zydeco, but fun. We danced four or five times because both he and I were having a good time. Then we parted ways, more because he felt he was "hogging" my time, not because I wanted to stop.

     After all that dancing I still ended up on the opposite side of the floor from Danny. As I contemplated how to smoothly transition across the room, I noticed a big, old, bald man I had danced with on a previous night. He had no partner so I asked him to dance. He didn't do Zydeco either, but his slow jazzy way of dancing was easy for me to follow. He and I danced until the band went home. I never did get to dance with Danny. Big, old, bald man walked me to
my subway train, bought me a cool drink, talked about his plans to bring Latin dancing into the main stream and sent me home with a kiss on the cheek.

It was a crush. He was cute and could dance and I had a crush. He did not dance with me and I did not dance with him. But, honestly, if I had danced with him I would have lost the rhythm, stepped on his feet, stuttered and mumbled incomprehensibly and looked like a loser dork. God had not answered my prayer, but perhaps he had a good reason. Perhaps he wanted to save Him-self the humiliation of having to admit he created me in his own image.
© Melt Magazine 2001