Every Step You Take

by Jock Soto

I never thought twice about the fact that my father would not be coming with us to New York for the audition—not just because we couldn’t afford another plane ticket, but also because my father had always taken a neutral, backseat position when it came to my pursuit of dance. (I had been aware for some time that it embarrassed him slightly to have a “sissy” ballet son.) He was happy to let my mother handle all the logistics of my ballet career, in part because he had projects of his own he was trying to launch in the world of art and entertainment. Pop had always been intrigued by the entertainment industry (I think he secretly longed for his own talk show, a Merv Griffin kind of thing) and several years earlier he had decided to try his hand as a part-time talent agent for Native American performers. At about the same time that I was offered an audition at the SAB, Kiko was emerging as one of the rising stars in my father’s rather small stable of talents. Kiko had auditioned for and landed some good parts as an actor, and everyone was excited about his prospects. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to me that my mother would shepherd me in my dance pursuits, while my father accompanied Kiko in his acting efforts. It was a divide-and-conquer division of duty that suited me, especially given the tense relationship between my father and me.

  I WILL NEVER forget that first visit to New York City. It was overwhelming and at the same time exhilarating. I was stunned by the tall buildings and millions of people rushing everywhere, the thousands of cars jamming the streets, the labyrinthine underground world of the subways. I had grown up in the wide-open desert, where we rode horses through miles of emptiness and listened to the lonely coyote opera at night. I lived in an empty, dry frying pan of hot sand, where rattlesnakes liked to cool themselves in the puddles of oil that leaked from our car onto the driveway. I had never experienced anything like the crazy, bustling energy that electrified the streets of New York—but the instant I encountered it I loved it.

  The School of American Ballet was located in the Juilliard School building at that time, and I remember as we walked through Juilliard, following the signs for SAB, I felt like Alice in Wonderland. The doors looked so tall. Everything looked so fancy and grand and official. When we reached the school itself I was stunned by the glimpses I caught of huge studios with polished floors and real pianos. My school in Phoenix was in a strip mall and had one small studio with an old record player in the corner.

  When we found the office for the school, two Russian ladies, as angular and exotic as rare birds, greeted us. One was Natasha Gleboff, the director of the school, and the other was a teacher at the school, Mme Tumkovsky. Together they took me into one of the studios and began the auditioning procedure. Mme Tumkovsky grabbed my foot and talked in Russian to Natasha—probably saying, “He’s got bad feet”—while Natasha wrote down notes. I was somewhat terrified, but I just let them go about their business. Tumkovsky took my leg and checked my extension—more notes. She put me through a very short barre session, and then it was to the center. I believe it was when she asked me to do pirouettes that I won them over—I could do multiple turns. When the audition was over they offered me a full scholarship and a place in the intermediate boys’ class, starting the very next day if I wanted. I was in shock.

  After the audition, while my mother was in the office, filling out some forms, I looked around my new school with hungry eyes. I noticed a very tall white-haired man lurking in the hallways—he looked important. His arms were crossed behind his back and he was a little hunched over, with his chin sticking forward in a somewhat menacing way. I was convinced this must be Balanchine. When my mother came out, this man approached us and pointed his finger at me and said, “Good audition.” Then he asked if we would like to see a class. We said yes, and he took us into a studio where we sat and watched. That was going to be me, I kept thinking as I stared. I would be dancing alongside these other boys. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered that the tall white-haired man was not Balanchine. He was Lincoln Kirstein, the man who first brought Mr. B to America to start a ballet school, and then later to start the New York City Ballet—the company that would become my surrogate home and would for thirty years remain the platform for the pursuit of my all-consuming dream.

  EVERYTHING HAPPENED SO quickly. The SAB offered me a full scholarship, my parents accepted the offer, and the following fall my mother and I moved to New York. One, two, three, just like that. In retrospect it is stunning to me how promptly and completely my parents rearranged their lives to support my passion for ballet. There were no dormitory facilities at SAB at the time, so students had to find their own housing. As it happened, my father’s cousin “Aunt G” lived in the Bronx, and Mom and I moved in with her practically overnight. This all seemed to me to be the obvious course of action back then, but as I think about it now I realize that it was really a remarkable response on my mother’s part. She made a snap decision to separate herself from my father and Kiko, both of whom were going to stay out west. When I pause now and put together pieces of our family history that I never bothered to examine before, I can’t help wondering if my mother’s impulsive decision to move to New York City could have had anything to do with the appearance of a little boy named Charles the previous Christmas. Perhaps my mother and father needed some breathing space, some time to figure things out. Whether or not this was the case, something was working in my favor. I had been presented with an extraordinary opportunity, and my mother and father had made decisions—decisions that involved sacrifices—to ensure that I could grab that opportunity. I was one lucky little Navajo-Puerto-Rican-gay-would-be-ballet-dancer.

  I was twelve years old when my mother and I moved to New York in the fall of 1977, and I immediately fell in love with every aspect of the city. I was in heaven—I never wanted to leave. But as luck would have it, my first thrilling taste of life as a student at the SAB was to be sadly short-lived. My poor mother had scrambled to move us into Aunt G’s one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx and to enroll me in the sixth grade at a local parochial school, and every afternoon we made the hideous subway commute to Lincoln Center for my ballet classes. But after only two months I developed such severe growing pains behind both knees that I had to stop dancing and withdraw from the school.

  My memories surrounding this disastrous development in my life are strange and sparse. I remember the electric thrill of living in New York and studying at Balanchine’s school, and the thudding boredom of my sixth-grade classroom and schoolwork. I remember the amused outrage I suffered every time I went grocery shopping with Aunt G, because of the way she would grab a big old bag of chips off the shelf and eat them as we wandered the aisles, crumpling and tossing the empty bag aside without ever paying for the chips. And that’s about it. I simmered along in my earlyadolescent stew of excitement and boredom and humiliation—and then as suddenly as it had begun, my New York adventure was over.

  At about the same time that Mom and I had moved to New York to pursue my ballet dreams, my father and Kiko had moved to Los Angeles to pursue Kiko’s acting opportunities. (I know my mother and father sound like such stage parents, but they really were not.) When I had to withdraw from the SAB, Mom and I left New York and headed west to join Pop and Kiko in California. My father had a job managing an apartment building in the Van Nuys section of the San Fernando Valley, and we lived in an apartment on the first floor of the building.

  When Mom and I got out there, Kiko’s acting career really seemed to be taking off—he had landed the lead in a film called Three Warriors that was being made by Saul Zaentz, the producer who had won an Oscar for Best Picture for One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Acting under his real first name of McKee and the stage surname of Redwing (Mom’s Native American nickname), Kiko played a Sioux Indian boy named Michael, whose father died when he was very young, and who left the reservation with his mother to go live in the big city. I had to laugh recently when I read a description of this film and Kiko’s role as “a troublesome teenager who has a problem shaping his identity and denies his Native Americ
an heritage”—how life imitates art! But when my fourteen-year-old big brother was in production for his exciting film debut, I was unaware of any irony about anything—I simply worshipped my handsome, popular, and talented older brother and wanted more than ever to be just like him.

  Every Friday night I would walk with Kiko to the local Macy’s mall, where we would hook up with his many friends and would-be girlfriends and all go ice-skating. Kiko and I were both growing like weeds at that time, and Mom used to extend the hems of our bell-bottom jeans by periodically sewing on a band of new material—which meant that the flare of our pants got wider and wider and (because she would use corduroy or denim or whatever cloth was available) more and more colorful. I was not much of an ice-skater, and I shudder to think of the sight I must have presented flying around the rink in my gaudy elephant pants. I liked to get myself going incredibly fast—especially when the Led Zeppelin song “Rock and Roll” came on—but the only method I had mastered for stopping was to crash full speed into the wall.

  My parents enrolled me for the second half of my sixth-grade year at the neighborhood middle school, and I did my best to make friends there and hang out the way I imagined my fabulous brother would have—but I just was not a natural at normal teenage social games. I remember there was a fat girl about my age who lived on the second floor of our apartment building, and I knew she was famous for having hot-and-heavy make-out sessions with many of the guys in my class—so one day when I ran into her outside our building I worked up my nerve and decided to see if I could get something going for myself. I offered her a ride on my bike, and when she accepted we went tooling around together on a short tour of the neighborhood. When the ride was over, just after she had dismounted from my Schwinn with a heavy thump, this girl turned to me and in a very businesslike manner planted her lips on mine—and then shoved her fat tongue right into my mouth. I was both amazed and thrilled, not so much by any physical or emotional stirrings the kiss produced inside me, but by the sheer unpredictability of life. Give a girl a ride on your bike—and get tongued. Who could have guessed this was how it worked? I felt I was making progress.

  Mercifully, by the end of sixth grade my growing pains had disappeared and I was able to reapply my energies to a front where I was more likely to have some success: my ballet training. To return to SAB would have required scheduling another audition in New York, and I knew we didn’t have the money for plane tickets. Also, we were semisettled in California by then, and Kiko was busy auditioning for acting roles there. Returning to SAB seemed impossible, so I didn’t really let myself think about it. Instead my parents researched the local options, and I began taking classes at the Westside School of Ballet in Santa Monica, an institution run by former NYCB ballerina Yvonne Mounsey and former Royal Ballet of England ballerina Rosemary Valaire. This kicked off another intense commuting schedule, back and forth on the seemingly endless journey through L.A.’s horrendous traffic, once again with my long-suffering father as my chauffeur. At Westside I made friends with a fellow dancer named Lisa Goldin, a cute little girl who lived in a huge house in Beverly Hills with a Jacuzzi in the backyard. Lisa became my first and last faux girlfriend. I remember sitting in her Jacuzzi, giggling and singing along with Patti Smith’s “Because the Night,” and attempting some pretty unsuccessful little kissing sessions—I had no idea what I was doing, but I kept trying, waiting for something to happen.

  After several months of classes at Westside in Santa Monica, Lisa and I both started taking classes at the Los Angeles Dance Center, the affiliate school of the Los Angeles Ballet, with the famous Russian ballet teacher Irina Kosmovska. One of my classmates at my new school (where Mme Kosmovska put us through the longest combinations I believe I have ever suffered in my life) was a startlingly beautiful and talented ballerina named Darci Kistler, who was one year older than me; another was a big-jumping, dark-haired firecracker named Teresa Reyes. By the fall of my seventh-grade year, Darci had been offered a full scholarship to attend Balanchine’s School of America Ballet—my old, if fleeting, alma mater—and moved to New York. I didn’t talk about this much with anyone, but I still hoped I would one day return to New York and to my former school, and watching Darci head off on her adventure helped me focus on this as a goal. When the NYCB dancer Susan Hendl, whom Mr. B sent out to scout for talent, came through Los Angeles that winter, I auditioned for the SAB summer program. To my delight I was accepted and offered a full scholarship.

  This time when I headed east, my parents—perhaps assuming, or maybe hoping, I would be back at the end of the summer—stayed home. As it happened, Lisa Goldin and Teresa Reyes and I had all been accepted for that summer session in 1979, and Lisa and her mother were kind enough to invite me to share an apartment on West Sixty-sixth Street that they had sublet from a NYCB dancer who was in Saratoga Springs for the summer. (Lisa and I by this time had settled into an awkward relationship in which I tried to be a good pretend boyfriend by being a good girlfriend instead.) I was excited to be back in New York and back at the SAB, and as I began to apply myself more seriously in classes, my attitude toward ballet matured from one of happy industry to one of passion and obsession. I threw myself into my dancing as I never had before. It was an exciting time as I explored a twin love—for ballet and for New York. When the summer session was almost over I was told to report to Natasha Gleboff’s office, and when she told me the school was once again offering me a full scholarship as a full-time student for the upcoming winter course, I was thrilled. I had made it back to New York and back to SAB, and this time I was going to make sure that I stayed.

  Ballet-School Banquet in a Bag

  LITTLE DID I know, on that day long ago when I was first invited to become a full-time student at SAB, just how long I would be staying. And little did I suspect that some thirty years later I myself would be auditioning young dancers and offering them scholarships to the school. Teaching is always a learning experience for me, and not too long after my mother passed away I had an exciting new challenge when Peter Martins decided to include a little piece I had choreographed for my intermediate-level boys’ class in the SAB’s annual end-of-year Workshop Performances. The kids worked like demons, and I was amazed at how good they were. Afterward I decided to thank them with a surprise graduation dinner. In the last week of school I posted a sign declaring a mandatory meeting in the teachers’ lounge on Friday.

  The night before the surprise feast, I cooked four dishes in bulk—Thai beef with cellophane noodles, couscous salad, tomato-and-mozzarella salad, and Mom’s famous Paradise Valley potato salad. I packaged the food in gallon-size freezer bags, and made a megaload of brownies and bagged them too. The next morning I packed all of the freezer bags along with platters and serving utensils into a large rolling suitcase and took my banquet-in-a-bag with me on the subway to work. When the students showed up for the alleged meeting I surprised them with their feast. They were a little shy at first, but they quickly found their dancers’ appetites, and the meal was a roaring success.

  Paradise Valley Potato Salad

  ______

  SERVES 8

  This recipe for Mom’s potato salad serves about eight, but it is easy to triple or quadruple the ingredients for a crowd. It is rich and creamy—and always a hit. Making it ahead of time and refrigerating it for a few hours—or even overnight—makes it even better. I have experimented with adding curry, cumin, ketchup, paprika, and even jalapeños. You can use sour cream instead of mayonnaise and Dijon mustard instead of classic yellow mustard. In fact, anything is possible—I sometimes serve this in the middle of winter with hot dogs!

  8 large red potatoes

  8 large eggs

  1 medium red onion, chopped

  4 stalks of celery, chopped

  1 orange bell pepper, chopped

  6 spears of dill pickles, diced

  1½ cups mayonnaise

  5 squirts (or about 4 tablespoons) yellow mustard

  3 tablespoons pickle juice

>   Salt and pepper

  Wash your potatoes and cut them in fours, placing them in a stockpot of cold water as you work. Bring the water to a boil over high heat, and then reduce the heat to gently boil the potatoes until they are just tender—about 20 minutes. You should test them with a fork, not a knife, because as Mom would say, “You should never stab your food.”

  While your potatoes are cooking, place the eggs in a large pot of cold water, bring to boil, and then cover and turn the heat off. After 10 minutes (best to set a timer or you will forget) drain the eggs, rinse them under cold water, and set aside.

  Place the onion, celery, bell pepper, and pickles in a large bowl and mix in your mayonnaise, mustard, and pickle juice. Peel and cut your eggs—I cut them in fours because I like them chunky—and add them to the bowl. When your potatoes are drained and cooled, add them and stir the whole mixture gently. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours, so that all the flavors marry, and add salt and pepper again to taste before serving.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ______

  The Accidental Adult

  I was a veteran before I was a teenager.

  —MICHAEL JACKSON

  In the first year after Mom died, I often had to call my father to apologize for fighting, even though I didn’t realize we had been fighting until Kiko called to enlighten me. This was the way things were, on and off, for months. Pop was so rattled and lost. One alleged argument started when we were talking on the phone, and out of the blue, Pop burst into tears and shouted, “Why do you dislike me so much? Why have you always hated me?” And then he hung up.

  All I had done to provoke this was to tell Pop that I loved him and that I would send him some more money for his bills. Luis and I had been trying to pick up more and more of his expenses, paying his credit cards and other monthly debts. It was sad, because I could track his lonely wanderings around the country by the credit-card charges—a six-dollar dinner at Souper Salad in Santa Fe, a four-dollar meal at McDonald’s in Gallup, New Mexico, a tank of gas in Chinle, Arizona. This last charge, in fact, was how I discovered at one point that Pop had driven back to the reservation to visit Mom’s sisters and have a session with my uncle Joe, our medicine man. Evidently they all asked him to come live with them, and let them take care of him—which strikes me as highly ironic given that for so many years everyone in Mom’s family disapproved so strongly of my non-Navajo father. The idea of my father living on the reservation was preposterous—there is nothing there but a gas station, a Burger King and a McDonald’s (can’t have one without the other), and a grocery store called Bashas. You can get two channels on the TV. Sure enough, when Pop went there, he didn’t last a week. He told me it was too hot, there was nothing to do, and there was nothing on the television, so he got bored and he left. That’s my dad.