HONOLULU STORIES

The Worst Tap Dancer in Honolulu by Timothy Dyke   |   The Joy of Aging by Stephanie Han
Belonging by Deborah Harada    |   Live a Little by Thomas Ianucci   |   Pet Mama by Sujatha Raman

I am the worst tap dancer in Honolulu, and I am about to explore some epiphanies. Should I start with the image of the hole in my sock? Should I start by telling you I’m asexual? Each possibility points in the direction of absence if you view things a certain way. I don’t view things that way, though. Maybe I should start with a memory from childhood. I was 12 years old, standing on a soccer field with my hand on my hip. I am sure I listed leftward like an overwhelmed sapling, not at all prepared to kick a ball or run in any kind of assertive direction. I played sports because my parents told me to play sports. It’s what middle-class white boys did in suburban California in 1975.

My brother yelled from the sideline. “You’re standing like a girl!” He was trying to be helpful. I dropped my arm, shifted, and stood up straight. Even then, I knew I would never be straight. As I coerced my body into some more convincing expression of masculinity, I worried that everyone else perceived my shameful secret. And now, maybe I’ll talk about that asexuality identification. I was raised to think everything existed on a binary. Everything was either/or. Normal or abnormal. Star Trek or Star Wars. Gay or straight.

As all humans do, I crave intimacy. I feel intimate when I read in silence with someone on a couch. I feel intimate when I chop garlic and make marinara sauce with my friend, Heather. I feel intimate with Michael when he lets me push his wheelchair, then picks the Barbara Stanwyck movie. I have never embraced the definition of intimacy that requires me to be crawled upon by naked folks. I experience intimacy as reciprocated empathy, complete trust. Where does that put me on any binary?

The absence that was the hole in my left sock became the presence of possibility.

I like watching sports, but I have never been a good athlete. Fields, courts, trails and rinks have only been sources of insecurity for me. I felt discomfort and confusion when I was forced to shower with other boys in the middle of the day during seventh grade P.E. I associate athletics with anxiety, at best. At worst, I associate athletics with shame. I never have gotten along too well with the physical part of myself. Gyms trigger locker room panic. Mostly, I have lived above my shoulders, brain cells disconnected from muscles and bones. And then last fall on sort of a whim, I signed up for the open adult tap dancing class at Hawai‘i Ballet Theatre.

I’d been told the dance teacher was the best in town, and I was curious about her classes. I think it’s beneficial to learn from good teachers, no matter what the subject. I paid online and showed up on the first Saturday at noon without tap shoes. The absence that was the hole in my left sock became the presence of possibility. I told you I would eventually get back to the hole in my sock. I told you I would eventually get to some epiphanies.

Everyone else at open adult tap is zippy and syncopated. I’m a half-step behind on the second twirl. My feet count out the rhythm to the first part of a Stevie Wonder song. They’ve never done anything like this before, but it doesn’t matter. It’s taken me until the age of 62, but for the first time in my life, I feel unselfconscious as I move my body through a crowded space. I think I might start weeping.

Stevie sings from a speaker: Signed, sealed, delivered. I’m yours. Clomping and stumbling in a bad pair of socks, I see myself in the mirrors that surround me. ​​I forget my insecurities, the awkwardness. Now, I’m just an old asexual dude stomping twice with my right heel, then shifting to my left toe. I have no idea what I look like to other folks right now. It doesn’t matter. I’m not standing like a girl. I’m not standing like a boy. I’m the worst tap dancer in Honolulu. I’m myself in my own body for the first time in my life.

Timothy Dyke is a writer and teacher who published a memoir called Backbends with High Frequency Press in 2025. Since 1992, he has taught English to high school students at Punahou School.