And I to clasp her waist wandered all the earth, with wars and mountains, with sands and thorns. – Pablo Neruda
Providence, Rhode Island greeted Alexis with grayness on a rain-soaked Tuesday in fall. He arrived via Peter Pan bus from New York, and disembarked at Kennedy Plaza. He had waited twenty years for this and was unsure of where it would lead him. He was there to find Flor, plain and simple. The girl he had met in the Dominican Republic years before continued to haunt him more than two decades later. Despite his considerable success as a bachata recording artist, despite his modest wealth and globe-trotting, he would never forget her.
* * *
Bachata was born in the brothels, they say. It’s bluesy melancholy and country twang suited the setting just right. The poignant lyrics about unrequited love and ruined relationships was the perfect soundtrack to the heartache and overall loneliness encountered at the bar. Without fail, the morose melodies would drive the all-male clientele to consume more alcohol, before ultimately pairing up with one of the establishment’s working girls. This is how bachata, as a musical form, was born.
Up until the 1960’s, merengue had been the Dominican Republic’s dominant music. Much of this had to do with the brutal dictator, Rafael Trujillo, who ruled there from 1930 to 1961. Merengue had been his favorite sound to sway his hips to and he would go on to declare it the nation’s official dance. Many of those early “hits” were merely propaganda machines, exalting the leaders fabled greatness. This music form was upbeat and fast paced, resembling something like swing.
Bachata, on the other hand, sported a slower rhythm. Dancing was still encouraged, but these moves were more sultry, intentional, and brimming with sensuality. Its association with brothels meant that it was the music of the low-brow. It was labeled as backwards, campesino nonsense and considered to be taboo by many. In the 1980s, however, a mass exodus of Dominican immigrants to the United States would see the genre emerge once again and reinvent itself as a mainstream contender merengue. Alexis would take full advantage of this colossal crossover.
Back in D.R., in the rural town of San Cristobal, his grandfather would take him to the rooster fights when he was still a small boy. The shouting of the spectators and the visceral violence on full display was overwhelming in an intoxicating way. The images of the blood-soaked creatures, simply trying to survive, would stay with him well into adulthood. Following these primal rituals was always a stop at the cafeteria diner for lunch, then a brief detour into the local brothel where his grandfather would disappear into an upstairs room for a half hour, leaving Alexis at the bar in the care of an older woman painted in exaggerated makeup who fed him candies.
After a couple of years, and some adolescence maturing, Alexis came to realize what the establishment represented. It didn’t change the way he viewed his grandfather. His grandmother had passed away some years before and he was an otherwise honest, gentle and hard-working old man. Alexis would also come to realize that the woman at the bar, who would watch him, was the madame and general overseer of the entire operation. It was here, at the age of nine, while seated across from her as he ate a lemon drop that Alexis first heard bachata.
He was entranced by the sound instantaneously. It lured him in; spoke to him despite the lyrics not always making sense to his young ears. He could glean the emotion that was intended by the artist, as if it were fruit waiting to be plucked. He could sense what they were feeling, and what they were trying to convey in the woeful wails and tearful tones. He wanted to emulate that sensation; he wanted to bottle it and duplicate it, to make others feel the way he was made to feel.
With that, he’d trained himself to mimic; he’d learned the lyrics by heart after many afternoons in which he was briefly abandoned by his grandfather. By the age of twelve, he was belting out ballads, much to the amusement of the guys and girls gathered while they exchanged money for services. He sang in sync to the popular bachatas of the time, even overshadowing the crooners careening out of the brothel’s beat-up speakers. He developed into a doppelganger of the mega-stars dominating the era: Luis Vargas, Anthony Santos, Luis Segura.
Amid the musk of cheap cologne and high-end perfume, he realized something that his budding craft lacked: a true muse. He had yet to experience the true range of emotions necessary to create those vivid vignettes that made songs feel like they ran true to life. By his early twenties, the 1980s had crept in and a quiet exodus of his peers began emigrating to the United States. The tall tales of abundant employment were difficult to ignore, a beckoning siren song for many of his neighbors.
Alexis, on the other hand, stayed local in order to develop his art, to hone it into something resembling expertise. It was never about fame, or wealth, or validation. The elusive muse that his art form demanded would ultimately manifest itself in Flor Santana. They were around the same age and had grown up in the same zona of San Cristobal. She lived in a secluded farmhouse with her grandmother, mainly keeping to themselves and mostly shunned by a suspicious populace. The local campesinos were largely Catholic; anything beyond that was viewed as taboo. It was common knowledge that Flor’s had a history of dabbling in Santeria.
What that meant exactly, Alexis only had an ambiguous inkling. Sure, he’d heard the more embellished stories about animal sacrifices and spirit possession. It all made for gory gossip. But it didn’t change the fact that he was enthralled every time that she walked down the street for the most mundane of tasks. Perhaps it was her stately stature and statuesque elegance, standing at just under six feet, well over many Dominican men. And somehow, her huddled humility had managed to make her seem smaller.
Her aura, however, felt larger than anything life could concoct as far as Alexis was concerned. He would go on to see her as something beyond ethereal, as everything that the male ego craved for confirmation. She was kind; he had covertly surveyed her caring for a wounded pigeon one early morning before the world had even awoken. He watched her while concealed in the shadows, observing her unpredictable patterns and manic moods from the safety of his bedroom window. Her absurdly curly, jet-black hair poured down in successive waves beyond anything he had ever seen. Her almond-shaped brown eyes bore into everything they laid claim to, with a lackadaisical gaze that screamed disinterest while absorbing all within sight.
She was an anomaly amongst ambivalent souls. She would wander the streets, apparently oblivious to the cat calls of the blatantly senior men. She seemed immune to it all, yet somehow omniscient. It was as if she dissected everything and everyone with a single glance. Nothing seemed beyond her and all appeared within her grasp if her hungry eyes craved it. Alexis would fall for her hard and fast, and this would be Flor’s first love as well.