Dancing In the Dark

I remember well the times we would hide out and listen, my cousin and I, to the screaming girls out in the street.

How ridiculous, our 7-year-old minds thought, to be fighting at 2 a.m. after you just had “the greatest time of your lives.”

That’s what people went down there for, right? In Belmar, NJ, you have it all: the beach, Jersey’s finest eats, and the most packed Shore bars. But somewhere on 10th Ave, between Ocean and Main Avenues, trouble would ensue. How ridiculous.

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Flash forward 14 years and we could finally go to those spots where everyone was having “the greatest times of their lives.” We decided to go, my cousin and I, so we could see how the nights began, instead of catching only the closing scenes.

Flash forward 5 hours, 4 encounters with sleezy guys, and too many drinks to count, we find ourselves on the corner of 10th Ave and D Street, between Ocean and Main Ave, giving the people of 10th quite a show.

“You are such a selfish bitch,” I scream. My eyes go to the nearest house. Are there eager 7-year-olds in that house? Was I adding new words to their vocabularies?

“I just wanted to dance to one more song,” she shouts back at me.

I felt something. Anger? Yes, but I felt something else, too. Rain.

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I think I was 4-years-old...young enough that the memory is completely fuzzy, almost dreamlike. I’m sprinting down the sidewalk, headed towards D Street from Ocean Avenue. When the first few drops came, we knew it was time to make the 4 block trek home. This wouldn’t be a drizzle, it would be a full-blown late-August-at-the-beach rain storm.

Why hadn’t we left earlier? I could tell the rain was coming, based on how the leaves on the trees across the street from the beach were blowing. The leaves always turned upwards when it was about to rain. My dad taught me that. Maybe I begged mom to stop at the 10th Avenue Freezout for ice cream before heading home, or maybe we were just after some drama. How ridiculous.

10th Ave was completely desolate. Of course it was. Who would be out during a torrential downpour? I do my best to keep up with my aunt, but my stubby toddler legs could only move so fast. She clutched my hand with one hand, pushing my stroller with the other. Across the street, my mom and cousin are our spitting image. We’re all doing our best not to slip on the slick, uneven sidewalk. I always hated those sidewalks. How was such a well-traveled path so poorly taken care of?

Finally, after 4 long blocks, we’re home. And we’re soaked. Instead of heading inside, we danced. We danced in the rain. We danced in the street. We danced as my grandma shook her head from the dry front porch. How ridiculous.

As we dance, I smell the rain for the first time. It smells fresh, in the most natural way. I tell my cousin to smell it, and she smells the beautiful scent of the rain for the first time, too.

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I look at my cousin. She had felt it, too. The rain started coming down in buckets, so we run. When we get back to the house, I stop. I smell the rain. It smells fresh, in the most natural way. I look at her. We’re both soaked. Standing in the light of the street lamp, sopping wet, she looks just like she did that day.

I hear music coming from inside the house. It’s “Dancing In the Dark” by Bruce Springstein – grandma’s favorite. Our moms play it when they miss her extra.

I look at her and ask, “Still want one more dance?” We start to dance in the rain. In the street. At 2 a.m. How ridiculous.