Brass Monkey

San Antonio's local Jack FM station used to be cool when they were an eighties station. The small Arizona town we lived in before we moved to San Antonio didn't have an eighties station. We heard music on Jack FM I hadn't heard since it was newly released in the eighties. On weekend nights the station sometimes broadcast their show live from Brass Monkey, a dance club on North Saint Mary's Street.

My wife swims laps with me. She rides our tandem bike with me. She hikes with me. She does the river walk with me. When the weather is nice she exercises outdoors with me.

But when the weather's too cold to swim or bike I jog for cardio. And my wife refuses to jog with me.

She just won't do it. If I beg and plead I can get her to go maybe six steps, then she says "This sucks" and walks.

Jogging just isn't her thing. She'll walk the river walk in the cold but that doesn't really get our hearts pumping hard enough to count as a  cardio workout.

One cold weekend I invited her to come dancing at Brass Monkey.

This was a momentous step for us. Neither of us drink. Neither of us had ever been to a club before. We weren't sure what to expect. My wife is more introverted than I, and probably more introverted than average. We were both a little nervous but her more than me. She wasn't sold on the idea, but when I offered to jog in the cold with her as an alternative way to get our weekly cardio done she relented. I'm a cold hearted bastard like that sometimes.

That was five or six years ago. We've been most weekends since, usually with Julie but sometimes with some of the other kids, too, and a few times even with my parents when they were visiting San Antonio. We took a year off during the pandemic but as soon as we got vaccinated we went back to dance with our masks on.

Once my eyesight started going we'd dance holding hands to keep me from bumping into people. Once the photophobia got painful enough I started dancing in dark glasses. Despite these rather obvious signs I still believed nobody at the club knew I was blind, but when I walked in with my white cane for the first time it didn't seem to surprise anyone.

We hit the floor and start dancing right when the doors open. Everybody else seems to need a few drinks to get the courage to dance so we have the whole floor to ourselves for the first half hour. We aren't there to drink or to socialize, we're there to burn calories. The rest of the bar watches us dance, not quite ready to join the fun. We joke Brass Monkey should put us on the payroll since we're the entertainment for the first half hour each night we're there.

The bartender pulls out two chilled bottled waters for us as soon as he sees us walking towards him. The DJs know our favorite songs. I've given a $5 bill in an envelope with the name of a song written on the outside to the DJs enough that when we walk in they always put one or two of our favorites next in the rotation. They've added an obscure song or two to their rotation the week after we requested them. We're treated right there.

Brass Monkey is our club. It feels like home.

I'm moving to Virginia next month. My wife and youngest son are joining me early next year. If I made a list of all the reasons to move to Virginia and all the reasons to stay in San Antonio the list would be lopsided. Cost of living, proximity to grocery stores, hiking trails, waterfalls, traffic congestion, cleaner air, nicer neighborhood, better weather - Virginia wins in every categories.

But San Antonio has Brass Monkey.

Sure, we can find another dance club, but I just can't imagine any other feeling as welcoming or as accepting as Brass Monkey.

It's home.

We've tried a few other dance clubs closer to where we live but Brass Monkey is home.

The last time we'll be there is Friday, October 7th, a few days before the move. That also happens to be my birthday. If you want to say goodbye before the move please meet us there. Doors open at 9:00 and we're on the floor from 9:00 'til 10:00.