Madres Gone Wild

I'd heard about last year's dance where a fight broke out and the police were called. And the year before that two women did a striptease on a table top. They stripped down to nothing. I don't know if anything like that happened this year because I left before midnight but I heard some revelers did not make it home till four in the morning so there was lots of time - and lots of cerveza - for some drama.

In the morning there were very few women on the street or in the shops. Dads walked the kids to school. Bosses manned the cash registers.

The town was quiet. Even the dogs complied.
Shhhhhh.
Mommy has a hangover. Oh, and grandma too.

The Kino Mother's Day dance. I'd never been inside the dance hall, a big square cement building with a Tecate logo on the outside wall. I walked in and was caught off guard. There was no roof. A sure sign of how little it rains here. It was glorious dancing under the stars and the light of that crescent moon.

It was early - a little after nine - so it was pretty easy to find my friend. We grabbed a couple cervezas and hit the dance floor. At first it seemed odd that the women moved in a huge circle around the dance floor but as their numbers grew, I could see the logic in this. Not only were the women caught up in a wave of dancing bodies but everyone was dancing with everyone. No two women paired off.

There had to be two hundred or more women there. Where had they come from? They lived here, in this town? Some looked so citified. Had they come over from Calle Doce or even Hermosillo? I was assured they were all Kino beauties. Hair was newly colored, nails newly done, make-up perfect. The grandmas (abuelas) were just as beautiful, just as coiffed and tearing up the dance floor along with their daughters and even granddaughters. Impromptu dance contests broke out. Then I saw tequila bottles being pulled from purses and decided maybe it was time to go. I'd done pretty good at almost three hours of non-stop movement so decided not to push my luck - or my heart or my knees.

The street outside the hall was packed with men, leaning against cars, waiting. Waiting for their women to come home.

I woke in the middle of the night. The air smelled of sex.