The year was 1989, the year that Kaoma seized the world with the “Lambada,” a dance so close to sex it was scandalous—outlawed. This song hung over these years like a canopy, though more like it ran through her veins, her blood, her six children, a title soundtrack. It was cinematic, even. That song was released the year that I, personally, at four years old, was wrapped up in a sex scandal. Genius. The song played when you walked into a deli that year. It was the year of the lambada, and the heartache in it burns, twists and turns, and it became my favorite song.
It was a song that began in heartbreak that became the sexiest dance on earth. Angelica flashed her brows at me, sort of innocently, when she told me. “The closest thing to sex you can do with your clothes on,” and we danced it every day. I was four, on the edge of her bed, like a little girl being told a fairytale, and that was touching as, already, at that age, Dr. J’s sexual behavior had disturbed me but so did been the attitudes I was picking up on about sex. I was so confused.
This is a snapshot of my inner monologue at four, to illustrate the point.
My first field of study, at four, was “pure regards.” I was studying “pure regards” in a Sunday hat, in church, every Sunday. Dr. J had “a pure regard.” In other words, she had a “pure” quality to her, in her eyes as wide and blue as the sky. That struck me because she was so impure. I got the picture. I was four, so I understood that I was pure, no? Okay, so now, I didn’t understand. Why was sex “impure,” I got that feeling, even from the Catholic Church, if I am pure? If sex is impure, how did it make me pure? You see? And I found someone else with sexual problems in church because of it. He caught my eye. I got a feeling from him, about him, that matched Dr. J. He felt similar. I watched him, only him. I spent my Sundays contemplating him. “What’s going on there?” I wondered if this happened to him, too, and I learned, in that moment, reflections, that this didn’t just happen to girls. “Oh, I see.” I learned, because of him, that this happened to boys, too. I did not know the details, I did not know what that meant, physically. I was not aware of my body, really.
I didn’t think that maybe he had this problem, that he might have had sexual problems like Dr. J, but rather that he had been a victim of it… himself. I tested his reflexes. I threw my arms, BLAH! Stomped at him in church, threw my limbs around. I stared at him, waited. He didn’t jolt, go “what?” I held my gaze—I just hit your knee, sir, with an instrument, basically. He turned, slowly. He lagged behind. He looked at me with the biggest purest eyes, and then, he laughed. Huh, we locked eyes for a moment. No conversation, no comment. Just a laugh, in the end. Strange. I skipped away. “Pure regard.” Many years later, I heard that he had sexual problems. I was shocked, because why would I take my psychological experiments as a four-year-old, seriously? But I was right. I saw it when I was four. He might have just exposed himself to a couple of kids, but you’re not supposed to do that. Why I was so sensitive to all this, in a real way, I don’t know, but that’s the four-year-old who entered her house where the lambada played daily. Some innocent regard on all this.
From a basic standpoint, when I told this story to someone, as I tried to over the years, and the audience was an obstacle in my case, they got affected, when the story simply possessed the ingredients that tugged on the heartstrings, by nature of the parallels— that song was the heartbeat of these years, my first song and dance, at four years old. But that didn’t bode well for me, personally. I couldn’t help what it was with a bow in my hair…
I tried to tell people even emotionally—don’t you see?—this story was all about the lambada to me. It held so much meaning given why I was there, but it did not register, it did not click, because the subject matter is so unreal to people, and I didn’t make sense, always, for a long long time when I spoke about it because it had not registered, it had not clicked, because of how the story developed and concluded. I couldn’t just talk about sex with people, either, come on. People aren’t necessarily even aware of how the subject of sex basically functions inside one’s head. It’s designed to be a private matter, though friends discuss it, but not like this.
I used to say that “she gave me away to someone else, because she lied about my father being a child molester…” that’s how I used to begin telling someone about it, which doesn’t make sense as a sentence. But with that debut in mind, if you can imagine it as a listener, the talk about the lambada in a formless story would sound confusing. If you’re listening, the theme here is sex.
Turning up the dial of her stereo in her car, she could have been listening to Kaoma’s “Lambada” on the way to my house that day, though it was probably Julio Iglesias, as a playlist was a journey, but it was the lambada regardless of the song. Her chin getting into “Agua Dulce,” aye aye aye aye, the introduction of that song speaks to what’s coming.
Her friend had asked her, as she was going to be in the neighborhood that day, if she might pick up his tax return on her way home. Tipping up the volume once more, windows down, this woman did not drive, she danced — danced through life, through every moment, behind the wheel. It was moving. That’s the real opening of the story: the lambada. Her. She was hot-blooded, not warm-blooded, a proud lover of sex and people being sexy. This was the name of the game to Angelica Leibowitz to a comical degree. She cracked sex jokes to the point that her kids, but really Louise and José with rackets and soccer balls, as this story was the goddamn Sound of Music (about Nazis) snapped at her because she acted too sexy sometimes. Any and every song, as she only listened to love song. This is another layer to this story— these years were scored exclusively to love songs…
“And you know what that means…”
“MOM!”
“Seriously!”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. Just how each of her kids had their own way of navigating around her heat— literally. There was never a moment this woman wasn’t dancing sexy. She was a song and dance that you didn’t want to miss. No one would. She danced and sang and chased after stupid drivers on the streets of LA to flip them off like a pissed off bird. “Fuck you!” She had a mouth, she knew how to use it — out the window of her car. This was an active, dynamic woman, who birthed sports stars, the real Nina from The Forbidden Dance.
We watched The Forbidden Dance, of course we did. That film was made in the wake of the success of Kaoma’s “Lambada.” One of two films, which speaks to its wild success as a world hit. In her king sized bed, she fast-forwarded it to the sexy parts, unabashedly. I laughed at her. She didn’t give a shit —as she cursed—about anything but sex, practically. I laughed, I did. As a little girl, you see, who knew what sex was, who was at her house because we believed I was being molested, at least, her overtly sexual, not sensual, added another layer to this experience, as I didn’t see anything wrong with sex, that’s what I didn’t understand by what I was picking up on. She didn’t think anything was wrong with it, that was for certain, coming to take her seat beside me on her bed. It was relieving, I didn’t really… have the cognition to want to “do it,” I just didn’t understand why “this” ruined my innocence. Again, it’s the pure-impure conundrum.
If you remember that film, though, it’s dedicated to the rainforest, first of all, a pretty funny final note to it all. A jungle princess from the Brazilian Amazon must travel to the USA to save her kingdom from evil real estate developers. And it didn’t matter, you see. It didn’t matter if catastrophe stood at this woman’s gates— she’s dancing, sexy, regardless. That’s Angelica Leibowitz. She’s dancing sexy regardless of what is happening— even through this, this sex scandal.
It was one of these divine moments, even recalling the spin of the dance, when the life feels cosmic, comic, made of stars. The dominoes fell in a direction that’s even artful. She’s going to take a child home — to her sex-loving home bumping with family lambada parties — where our understanding of what sex is, what it means, will deepen — as we go through a sex scandal involving a four-year old.
She was coming for me, you see… she always said that to me with her finger pointing straight at me, “I’m coming for you…” She turned her whole body—not just her head— to confront the blind-spot behind her on La Cienega to switch lanes. Her bird head searched. She was a dancer, not by trade but by breathing—and there was no way she could have seen this coming. Honking, cursing, getting sexy and excited about an opening, she had a world, simply. She was driving through a universe in her own world, that’s a frame, she had a focus. She knew abuse happened out there, but she never thought it could enter her world. Making a right onto my street, the song blasted out her windows. I chose Agua Dulce, because of the intro, her red Cadillac coming for me.
The degree to which this story sounded “unreal” to the people I tried to speak to about it practically spawned a fairytale to be born. People said that I looked like I stepped out of a fairytale. So did Dr. J. Meaning unreal, ethereal. It sounded a little like a modern fairytale about a subject, especially today, that might benefit from some real depth, about it.
It was a known story.
From my perspective investigating it, she knew it existed, it was even easy to believe. This is what I mean. It was possible. To me, as an eight-year-old with some batshit crazy mother who might have come from abuse, I was flabbergasted since the age of four, and now I was on the brink of nine. A man could rape a four-year-old, so this was more common than I would think, so she confirmed that. This could have happened to Dr. J. I already had to conclude at four, four years old, that my mother might have been raped younger than my age… just given how she acted around me. And, at the same time, as I was operating under the understanding that it was lie, someone could lie about it. But wasn’t it already a lie?
That’s what I’m holding above my mushroom cut, my feet dangling off the chair, as they did not touch the ground. I first received confirmation, from this situation, that it was a true story, simply. And what is “true,” what we believe can happen, can’t happen, what in fact happens—I begin to dance in my chair, it’s inside of me—will propel my investigation forward with the woman who danced through it all. A dance that was born from oppression, this was about liberation.
*
“And you never met her before?” I asked in hushed tones in the shade. Player one bounced the ball, prepared for the serve. Now, my mind switches locations. Now, we popped out like a couple of moons off the frosted table in the scorching sun, courtside, so she could sunbathe. I can hardly get through the first couple of sentences sometimes without the scene cutting to another spot. We discussed this situation for years, and I made sure, ensured I heard what she said, as she said it. The idea that the mind plays tricks on you, that was too much for me, especially since I really went through this, and people would try to ERASE me from step one, onwards. She wasn’t going to change her story, one day, not happening. I don’t know how she could, quite frankly, but she wasn’t going to do that to me. The players exercised footwork across the court in soft focus, in a battle, yes, even a dance, of sorts. Their squeaking sneakers. This became my trauma response, I suppose, what I came to focus on, emotionally: the dance, the skill, the players.
“She never met me didn’t know me at all,” she swiped the air with her hand.
A ball sliced across the court.
“No clue,” she hit that clue, “who I was.”
Luckily, she was so bombastic and memorable.
(to be continued)