Primordial: An Abstraction

42

I get back from the wine store or the gym or gym class or somewhere or someplace and I catch my roommates doing the Macarena.

I’ve suspected this for a long time.

When I’m gone, they line-dance. I don’t think they do much else.

They try to keep it to themselves because they think I’ll shame and ridicule and symbolically castrate them.

When I interrupt them doing the Macarena, I can tell they’re mad, because they really like that one, but anxiety trumps enjoyment, and they break out of formation and pretend to be inspecting the walls, and inspecting the ceiling, and inspecting their fingernails, and thumbing through textbooks that would otherwise remain permanently shut.

I say, “Were you just doing the Macarena?”

Their faces bunch in surprise and confusion. “Macarena?” says one of them, as if I’m speaking Spanish.

“Don’t lie to me. I saw you doing the Macarena.”

“What’s the Macarena?” says another one.

Eyeballing him, I slowly pace across the room to the Victrola sitting atop the minifridge.

The title of the record has been crossed out with a thick black marker.

I adjust the fleur-de-lis, wind up the machine, maneuver the swing tube, and lower the needle onto the vinyl.

There’s some static.

There’s the music.

Then, finally, there’s the chorus:

Dale a tu cuerpo alegria, Macarena.

Que tu cuerpo es pa’ darle alegria y cosa buena.

Dale a tu cuerpo alegria, Macarena.

Heeeeey Macarena. (Aaaaaiy!)

I give the needle a flick and the music squelches off. I watch the record turn for awhile, then look over my shoulder and stink-eye the rabble. “That sounds like the fuckin’ Macarena to me.”

They all deny it.

Each of them has a different excuse as to why they weren’t doing the Macarena.

One was studying.

One was playing a video game.

One was ordering a pizza.

One was daydreaming.

One recycles another one’s excuse.

Another one recycles another one’s excuse.

Etc.

I pretend to believe them before applying a chokehold of circular logic that broadsides their excuses and reveals their absurdity. This takes hours. I attend to each roommate in turn. By the time I’m finished with them, not only do they admit to line-dancing, they commence line-dancing, limbs swimming and synching like a cell of eels in an aquarium.