coyote ugly

Hot bodies. Mean girls. Raunchy moves. And lots of alcohol.

A guy’s fantasy. And mine too. Oh don’t get the wrong idea; it just that girls are always curious on what the big deal is 🙂  and of course, the forbidden factor is a major thrill. When Smits and I went on this late night interlude, we were like these naughty teenage girls slipping away for a late night drive with a totally inappropriate boyfriend – you know the kind who has long hair and whom Mamma takes a look at, and freaks. (I know my mother would freak at any boyfriend of mine!) Being twenty five and jaded and strait laced:-d, an escapade to a raunchy bar makes you feel….well, playing 18 somethings:-). totally eeky, if you know what I mean. This was my third trip to the US, and well meaning friends have always been taking me to all the nice decent locales, while I have been silently screaming for a seedy bar:-)

We played the part well. Smits was dressed like a bomb – a slinky top and green mascara. I was trying to dress like a bomb, but you know excitement does strange things. My eyeliner was all over the place, and in an effort to undo the damage, Smits had to make it real thick. Suffice to say, I looked a cross between a Kathakali dancer and an Australian junkie. As we stepped out of the hotel room, and walked over to the taxi, I couldn’t but help remember the song “Cant fight the moonlight” in the movie Coyote Ugly. Well, there was nothing romantic about our expedition – no candlelight, no soft numbers and definitely no Adam Garcia. Hmmm, there was moonlight – I think (or was it the garish lights of the lamp posts) and there was Smits – well, she doesnt have Adam Garcia’s naughty smile, but if you are rating charm and sex appeal – she could give him a run for his money:-d.

Coyote Ugly -looked pretty normal from outside. The bright lights outside looked no different from any others in the other bars in downtown Atlanta. We stepped out of the taxi and stepped on to the side walk. There was this one man who said something to us. I have this major problem understanding the Afro-American accent (if something like that exists). Most of the time, in response, I just smile. The logic is that if the question is really important, they would repeat the question. If not, they think that I have a beautiful smile or that I am an imbecile. It works. Well, this time I smiled again. You know Smits is used to the Bangalore culture (cover charges in pubs); so she flicks her hair, calmly tells him that we will be paying for our drinks inside the bar, and sways into the bar in her skinny jeans. I smile at the guy again, smile again when he gives us a weird look and then trip my way towards Smits. Turning back, I see the man having a totally confused look on his face. I shrugged my shoulders and attributed it to his shock on seeing fully clothed girls.

I finally was here!!! I think there were a few minutes of silence between Smits and me where we paid obeisance at the altar (ahem, at the bar). Slowly the surroundings grew on us and I turned around me to see Smits grinning at me. It was no surprise when I realized that I had a goofy grin on my face. The place wasn’t  too crowded – there were some people seated at the tables, but there was a larger group of guys around the bar. I peered through the smoky lights trying to get a glimpse of the famed Coyotes. I was not disappointed. The first girl I saw had short spiky hair, a lovely tanned complexion, lots of jewellery, and a big tattoo on her back – A short sleeveless denim jacket, denim cutoffs, some kind of weird leather pants and high boots completed the outfit. We inched towards the bar and soon saw the rest of the girls. It is kind of weird to try writing about them. Oh they were gorgeous but what was more striking was to see the energy they were generating. The bar was surrounded by guys and each of them seem to get their order in time. None of the girls seemed to be the least bit hassled – their hands were quick, their feet strong and well, mouths …foul. The number of invectives that came out was amazing. The music stopped and we watched as the short-haired girl reached for the microphone. What followed was a raunchy speech which started with, ended with and was punctuated with the F word. Looking back, I can’t help but smile – Smits and me would have looked so out of place there. We were leaning against a post swaying to the music while the rest of the others were screaming and hollering for the girls. As the night wore on, more people started coming in and the party started getting wilder.

Some girls walked in; we saw the same guy who had stopped us, talking to them. Our mouths fell open as we watched them show their IDs. Both of us burst out laughing when we realized our big gaffe. Now the girls were on the bar counter, three at a time – and boy do they dance well. The tapping of boots on the hard wooden counter, the music and the hollering does rush the blood to your temples. By now, everybody was on the floor and they were screams and hysteria all around. The music got louder, the girls got fouler and meaner, and the drool got thicker. As every song ended, the girls would get on to the microphone and curse the guys around. Soon the cursing changed to the weirdest of acts – none of which I particularly enjoyed. As Smits and me watched wide eyed, the girls got wild and the temperatures soared.

Soon I realized why we were girls. In spite of all the interesting happenings, our interest had waned and we were looking out for alcohol and good looking guys. I wonder how both of these generate the same reaction within me – heading excitement and lust in the beginning, painful regret and bloody eyes afterwards. Well, there was lots of alcohol but it was being served at the bar and both Smits and me were real scared of the girls. Smits kept telling me that she was sure that one of the girls would slap us:-) As for good looking guys, the only guy who hit on us was an old sleazy weirdo. And at that point, we decided we would act like lesbians:-)

Soon the coyotes invited (invited is the wrong word) the girls from the audience to jump up to the bar counter. I was surprised to see quite a few of them jump on – their boyfriends helping them on. If I thought the coyotes got raunchy, these girls gave them good competition. One of the coyotes noticed our dark skin and shouted out for us to come up on to counter. I froze and I could Smits see back away slowly. We laughed and inched away. Perhaps we were over dressed or the coyote took pity on us, because she didnt persist. As the crowd’s attention shifted, we turned towards each other and said “I wanna go up there!!”. :-). I think for the whole of that song, we just kept egging each other on. As the hot moves continued, I turned back for a second to scan the crowd for any good looking face, when I heard Smits exclaim. She had a glazed look in her made up eyes and her jaws were dropping. I think she was in shock because she kept exclaiming “that girl just lifted her top”. Any ideas of going up on to the bar, quickly faded. Smits had yet not recovered from the shock and I thought she really needed some alcohol to steel her nerves. What followed was a really pathetic show by the Bangalore girls. We did different routes through the crowd, but chickened out just as we reached the counter. Well you couldn’t blame us. Every time we came close – something totally weird would happen.

It had been quite a while in the place. Without the sustenance of alcohol, it was getting pretty difficult to keep up the tempo. And by this time, I had given up all hope of getting beer. The girls were still up dancing when we decided to call it quits. Smits took one last round of photographs – as she focused at one girl, she smiled at us and posed. It was the first genuinely nice smile we had seen that whole evening. Suddenly I remembered the reason why I had liked the movie Coyote Ugly so much. It was because it was a story about following dreams, about nice people caught up in weird circumstances, about smart girls living life on their own terms – a humane and extremely optimistic look at lives we consider to be in the dumps. As we walked, I wondered about the stories of these coyotes – was there a Violet in there? My reflections didn’t last too long, as I heard the next coyote scream a string of curses. We looked back one final time, smiled and walked into the night. I knew that I wouldn’t be coming back, and I was sure that I didn’t want to either -it was great fun, but just for one evening. For that evening, maybe I didn’t fight the moonlight.:-).