and Words
Walk in the rain
Tryin′ to wash away the pain
You went away
I made you cry so many days
Where do broken hearts go to?
How can broken hearts find their way back home?
When nobody cares about you
And you’re feeling blue
Come back and stay, don′t keep me waiting (oh, baby)
Come back and stay, don’t say goodbye
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
On a late weekend night in the 1980s, I arrived at a party. This Friday started early; I shuffled, half-awake, from Pearson Hall to class in a lecture hall. Classes mercifully ended by mid-afternoon, after which I went back to my dorm room to pack and change. Next, I loaded both clothes and books into the trunk of my classic 1966 Mustang and drove to work, which was about an hour away. Wearing the trademark long-sleeved, white-buttoned shirt and black pants, I walked into the restaurant where I’d spend the next few hours waiting on tables.
My shift ended at 9 pm, so I ran home and showered. After getting primped and ready, I drive to the party. I often go with my sisters, who are part of the same group of peeps. Enterprising young Asians hire a DJ and rent a space for the night, like the Fort Lauderdale or Coral Gables Woman’s Club. Add a collection of 2-liter bottles of soft drinks and a cover charge. They’ll turn a modest profit.
Finally, we arrive; it’s close to 11 pm. The real night begins. During the day, I lead a different life as a dedicated engineering student; it’s my version of Bruce Wayne. At night and in that setting, I turn into a creature of the night and shed the geek baggage. I dare say that I embodied Batman.
I’ll rewind a few years. Bullies preyed on me in middle school because I was Chinese. Yes, the biggest clue was the agreement to “jump on the Chinaman.” I navigated high school considerably more easily; at the very least, I didn’t have to worry about my physical safety. I developed friends in high school; some with whom I still keep in touch. Those treasured friends accepted me for who I was; the big problem was that I had yet to develop into who I’d be.
About 2000 students attended my high school while I conducted my studies in the 1980s. My sisters and I spoke Cantonese and grew up in that community, but no one else in my high school did. Furthermore, I was the only boy in my family. Here’s the truth, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I knew no one else like me; I felt incredibly alone. I had no one with whom to consult; I needed to find Atlantis without a map.
While I excelled academically in high school, I sleepwalked through a great portion of it. I coasted across the finish line and had no idea that I needed to find myself.
I navigated high school with a forced apathy about my Chinese roots. I didn’t necessarily try to extricate myself from it, but similarly didn’t feel compelled to embrace it. I certainly didn’t celebrate it.
Then I graduated from high school. However, that summer before I started at the University of Miami was transformational. After years of feeling alone, I found my kin. Those parties weren’t simply social gatherings; they were a cultural refuge. I may attend a party and not be the token Chinese guy. For once, I was like everyone else. I didn’t need the map to Atlantis; I found Atlantis.
Truthfully, we found each other. All the young Chinese Americans along the southeast coast of Florida had the same fairy godmother, and she created one common ball for us all. If you looked carefully, you could see traces of former (and other) lives with each of us. While I arrived at the party to spend time and congregate with other young Chinese Americans (and dance our asses off), you can see the ghostly image of the computer geek.
After all, Batman still is Bruce Wayne. For many of those young women, I could see the traces of Diana Prince in their Wonder Woman. We allowed each other the grace to be both our superhero selves and our alter egos.
Those gatherings rotated between teen nights at local clubs in Miami Beach, sponsored Chinese American dance parties, and even a local movie theater that played Cantonese movies from Hong Kong on weekend midnight showings. These young people became the lifeline to a community that I once shunned, but now celebrated, and I imagine that I similarly became their lifeline. Much like emperor penguins in the Antarctic, we huddled to survive now that we knew that we existed.
The clubs played mostly dance music of Latin influence, which is the norm in Miami. Those dance parties played subtly different music, which we called New Wave music with heavy European influence. One such tune by Bad Boys Blue, called ‘Come Back and Stay’, beckoned us towards the rented dance floors and portable disco balls. We danced, not the raw energy dance that compels us to exhaustion, but the dance that is subtle, emotional, and expressive. Our dancing to this music always gave me the feeling of navigating a misty dream by the light of the moon.
Those precious minutes and unchoreographed steps on makeshift dance floors represented a borrowed sliver of untainted bliss, which we hoped wouldn’t end. Though as the familiar music played, we sadly anticipated its end. Those moments are now nothing but a distant, decades-old memory.
Decades later, as I lie in bed or drive in the car, this song comes on; my heart hears the first few notes before they register in my ears. My pulse quickens, and I can’t help but smile. It immediately takes me back to those dances in the wee hours of Florida nights. Those words set to the moderate beat beckon me to go back to those moments:
Come back and stay, don′t keep me waiting
Come back and stay, don’t say goodbye
Don’t let my love die
Come back and stay and try again
For an instant, I contemplate whether I’d return if I could. May I break the laws of space and time and find myself in that moment? Do dead friends come back for one more magical dance?
The rational engineer in me reasons that I’ve done too much growing and learning to return to that distant dance floor. Though I can only wonder if an adult Peter Pan would return to Neverland. For better or worse, I’ll never know. It remains but a simple, wistful memory.