A Dance With Aladdin and a Bus Ride With Death

by Alda Lima (Brazil)

Making a local connection USA

I don’t remember why a group of four Brazilians went to Houston, Texas, for a quilt festival, especially when two of them didn’t even work with anything quilt-related. Still, I remember it seemed logical to go to Austin on a break from the event. That was as far as logic went for those two days. After hopping off a Greyhound in a godforsaken bus station, completely lost (it was the early 2010s and smartphones weren’t what they are now), we entered a nearby mall to figure out how to get to the hotel. This being Texas, a friendly guy promptly offered us a ride — my finger discreetly hovering over the disposable flip phones’ call button the entire time, ready to ring 911. That night we’d visit the legendary Broken Spoke, “Last of the True Texas Dancehalls and Damn Sure Proud of It!” according to owner James M. White. After visiting the place’s museum — yes, a museum with photos of every notorious person who has ever set foot in there, from George Bush to Dolly Parton to Queen Elizabeth’s entourage — we sat around the dance floor and timidly observed a blonde lady who was just everything four Brazilians would expect a Texan woman to be. She was giving dance lessons before the band started playing so people could go from table to table, asking others to dance. After a few Lone Stars, I was feeling more adventurous and accepted a couple of invitations, including a cowboy’s (all in black, cowboy hat and boots, didn’t speak a single word but held me uncomfortably close), and a skilled dancer who revealed he worked dressed-up as Aladdin in Disney World. More Lone Stars later and I’m square dancing away my final moments with Aladdin who, upon leaving the bar, turns and takes off his shirt to let the sudden, pouring rain wash down his torso, making his final take more Backstreet Boy’s “Downpour” than “A Whole New World.” As we watched the scene from the bar’s porch, our new friend, an aged, quiet, old-school Texan whose heavy drawl made his words a mystery to this day, shook his head and mumbled in disapproval. Next morning, after dreams of flying on a carpet over Congress Avenue Bridge along with its 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats, off I went to discover what “Keep Austin Weird” was about. It was October 31st and, while waiting for the bus, Death herself sat next to me in all of her black-clad glory — though strangely not as intimidating as the black-clad silent cowboy. She was rummaging in her JanSport backpack for her ticket — or list of people to take that day, I’m not sure. That was a preview of the day I’d experience the quintessential American Halloween. It started with an interactive screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in the Alamo Drafthouse. After 100 minutes of dancing, yelling, and throwing objects at Tim Curry, we left the theater. Although by now I’d been convinced Austin was indeed a little weird, I hadn’t seen anything yet. Streets were filled with Dorothys, Totos, the omnipresent Where’s Waldo, and half-naked girls. And then I set eyes on my first childhood love: David Bowie in his Labyrinth’s Jareth-the-Goblin-King splendor. I asked for a picture — hoping to tackle two fantasies in one day, Aladdin and Bowie! — and upon confessing boldly, ‘Jareth was my first love,’ the illusion was crushed, for the Goblin King replied, ‘Mine too.’ Not letting that dampen my spirits, it was time to find more weird and why not amid a group of male nuns dancing wildly on a rooftop? I was in a college town and home to one of the world’s most notorious Halloweens, after all. I can’t remember how the night ended, and if you ask me about Austin’s best places to eat or best cowboy boots store, I can’t say for sure. But we all left the next morning missing those strange two days already, and, in a college football match the following weekend at Houston’s old Reliant Stadium between Houston and Austin, we sat with the visitors. Logic is overrated. Keep it weird.