What Would Celandrina Do?

Thomas was dating an Argentinian woman, Celandrina, whose English wasn’t very good. He didn’t mind, because it was great for his rusty Spanish. They were in line at the liquor store to buy a bottle of rosé for a picnic, and he was trying to tell her about the jazz festival that was hap-pening next weekend in the park. In the middle of his explanation, the lady behind them in line said, “This is America. Speak English.”

Thomas went speechless. Celandrina rolled her eyes and smiled. “I’m from Argentina.”

The lady — middle-aged, in an oversized tee shirt with a football team logo —smiled right back. “Well, you’re in America now, so you need to speak English.”

“Listen, lady,” Thomas started, but Celandrina stayed him with a hand on his arm. They’d arrived at the register now, and she pointed at the 12-pack of Budweiser the lady was carrying. “La cerveza también,” she told the cashier, who shrugged and charged them for both the rosé and the beer. The woman watched, expressionless. 

“Que tengas un buen dia,” Celandrina said with a big smile as she led Thomas to the door. The lady remained at the register with her beer, seemingly not understanding what had just happened. 

Thomas couldn’t let it go. “I’m so sorry about all the hateful people in this country,” he said as they zipped their bottle into his backpack and unlocked their bikes. “It’s embarrassing.” As they were rolling away, he spied the lady with her Budweiser walking across the parking lot to a pick-up truck and climbing inside. He memorized the license plate number. 

“I like to kill them with kindness,” Celandrina said. 

He shrugged. “The killing part sounds good.”

That night he went on the department of motor vehicles website. By going through the steps to pay an imaginary parking ticket, he arrived at a screen that displayed the mailing address associated with the license plate number he’d spied. Celandrina had already gone to bed with a rosé headache, but he was wide awake. 

He rode his bike the three miles to the lady’s house, arriving just after midnight. It was a bungalow on a quiet street, lined with trees. The light of a television flickered blue beyond the front room curtains. He leaned on his bike on the sidewalk out front. His mind was a loop of cinematic revenge scenarios: hurling molotov cocktails through that front window, crashing a stolen vehicle into the front porch, dumping a giant sack of live ants down the chimney, flinging dozens of rotten eggs at the aluminum siding, blasting death metal all night long from giant speakers. Thomas found himself grinning despite his anger. It felt good to fantasize about it, knowing that he was right here and was limited only by his imagination. 

What would Celandrina do? he wondered. Probably dance. He stepped away from his bike and turned in a circle on the ball of his foot. He extended his arms and turned again, then froze, rewound his movements, and threw in some jerky robot moves. He couldn’t stop smiling.

In the shadows of the bungalow’s porch, a lighter snicked and a cigarette glowed to life. Then the sound of a beer can being cracked open. “What in God’s name are you doing out there?” came the lady’s voice out of the dark.

It startled him, but he didn’t relent. He was feeling inspired, connecting one set of moves to another in a kind of flow. “This is America,” he said, halfway breathless. “I’m dancing.”

“Get the hell away from my house.”

Spin, twist, kick, freeze, bend, twirl. “It’s a public sidewalk.”

“I’m calling the cops.”

When the cops arrived, he gave them his ID and went on dancing. The cops watched him for a while, smirking, then told him not to set foot on her lawn or impede the sidewalk, and they left. In the morning, he texted Celandrina with the address and she arrived on her bike. She watched him with a huge smile on her face.

“You’ve been dancing all night?”

He had the exhausted smile of a performer at the standing ovation of a virtuoso production. “Your turn,” he said, and tagged her.

So Celandrina started dancing, while Thomas took a break. He started a live video and streamed it on social media. Within an hour, half a dozen people arrived and started dancing on the sidewalk. There was no music, no leader, just free-form movement. They stayed just beyond the property line of the lady’s front yard. 

She stood on her porch and cursed at them from time to time. More people arrived throughout the day, until the dance party swelled so much it blocked the street. 

“Get out of my neighborhood!” she yelled from her porch.

“It’s our neighborhood too,” Thomas called back. 

The cops returned and blocked off both ends of the street; someone had arranged a permit for them at City Hall. Some of the neighbors joined in, and invited people to dance on their lawns. All that day, all through the night, all the next day, too — hundreds of people dancing, each in their own way, without music, almost entirely in silence except for the occasional whoops and laughter of spontaneous celebration. News crews arrived with spotlights. Helicopters hovered. Tents were set up on neighboring streets with cots and chow for rest and recuperation. Children crazy-danced, old people boogied with walkers, dogs staggered around on hind legs. Even one of the cops started doing a pop-and-lock routine. 

The lady came across her lawn, wide-eyed and frazzled. She stood there, fists on her hips, glaring at Thomas and Celandrina. “This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen! You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Thomas shrugged in mid-moonwalk. “Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s bad.” He extended a hand from his spot on the sidewalk. “Dance with me, you’ll feel so much better!”

The crowd all around cheered. Cheers rippled away in waves in every direction. There were many thousands of people by now. The cheering receded for miles, like low thunder. Some said the entire city was dancing, everywhere. 

The lady looked at Thomas’s hand, extending over her property line. A little twitch in her eye made it look like she was considering it — then she spat and walked back to her porch with a disgusted wave. She perched in the shade, lit a cigarette and cracked open another beer. 

Celandrina watched her with a pitying look. “Being miserable looks like hard work.”

“This is hard work too,” he said, panting as he did slow-motion splits. “But we’re the ones having fun.”

She gave a low whistle as he successfully rose from the splits. “Que piola! Killer move, baby.”

Thomas grinned. It seemed like her English was really improving.