Buenos Aires, Calle Florida and Puerto Madero, ooAmericaS 2

More creative writing from Calle Florida in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Dec. 10 – 12

Rested not so much it could be any time of day

Sunset oranges hue-ing onto the nearby buildings

Blinking

Darks of night

We awake and fill up with cheese, delicious cheese, mozzarella

Lathered and soaking onto Slice, welcome to Guerrin’s

Italians

There’s only pizza here She says

Where is the meat, the beef, and how about that for prices

Ah but we are in the historical cultural arts center of the city, Avenida Corrientes

We mop the plate, and are ready to fall asleep again

Haze of days mixed with time travel, phantoms of dreams,

I can only surmise, the afternoon?

First days, squeaky voice of our landlady, a room breaded and soft

Blinds closed but for a foot, our smells slowly pervasive

Declining the room to be cleaned

Sprawled as it is in growing electric roots and cables and batteries

More pizza, She now is sick of it, the glossy oil which was Good

Now Gross

Barely set foot out, the same street, artsy folk attending the theater

A circus of closures and openings and encores,

Argentinian intelligentsia mustached and distinguished

Even more so than the grandchildren of their forefathers

Stayed and strayed in the Old World

Here new and old dance tango

Here the beggars dance tango

Here the misers don’t beg

(Except for the children of the street, a little girl carrying a littler yet infant, scragged and older than Life in the stolen flower of Youth)

But she doesn’t beg either

She’s just there, her eyes not even maddened

There is a torture in the continent, (says preconceived post-conceived impressions)

I see it in the Art

Blood-stained hands and thighs and genitals

There is pain and suffering, a romantic conception of beauty,

Remnants of nobility, more so than remnants: its last fortified retrenchment

A history and culture of sacrifice

We walk to Florida, where the flowers of Christmas lighten the hot, hot air

Summer in the Southern Hemisphere

Shopping Malls, heeled women

Compensated heels like walking on encyclopedias (She says)

Busty chested and brown eyed girls

And blond and blue-eyed and otherwise tanned or fair skinned

Closely watched by their compadres, rounded up

By the mozzarella

A restaurant, finally, after a few days of pizza

Ceviche, local owners from another ancestry (as opposed to the descendants of Gringos who pre-Dominate the capital)

A beer, cold, refreshing beer,

Hungry, stressed, fearing and loathing in the Paris of the South

This is no vacation

There is work to be done

After a few days, call it a rest,

Walking, venturing, under the grey skies, sizzling drizzle

Mourning, scared, from Plaza de Mayo (‘Macho’)

A Protest, for the indigenous populations of the country

Beaten up by our society, people there caring

Dispersed by the first signs of inclement weather

Scattered by the first hint of a struggle

Through other streets, diagonals, lugubre figures washing past us, silhouettes of the emptiness abounding

Suddenly

Cartoon characters sculptures, tango bars (empty still)

Is this La Boca?

Not even close

We push to a big avenue – Colon, here always, here for good

Reach Puerto Madero, a Catholic University, holidays but a few students type on their Windows laptops, chat over overpriced coffee meant to last for the day

A rent of sorts

To La Boca or not to dance

Not now, set to work and interviews, the world spherically viewed, Life of Pi

Buenos Aires welcoming now, the sun slowly gazes through the clouds

People chatty as always, comfortable as silly clams with the camera

Except for the youths, they’re in a hurry, to the cinema

A little bit worried too? Strange

Some punk kids hanging out, full of skateboards and elaborate haircuts, and

Smiles and laughter, the good stuff

The skies open and the world is on fire, the Puente de la Mujer a sun radial of Time

Our efforts and perseverance pays off, if only for this

For a few minutes the horizons are painted with nameless colors

Dock 3 saves the day

A long long walk detouring left and right past the front of Casa Rosa, lit at night, sleepily guarded by military with no vigilance

Grilled meat – Carne brasiero – a line of well-to-do Buenos Airites

Porteños, People of the Port, of the Good Winds

Yum-drum-hum, the coals hot and red and gold

Tired we are

A last, unsuccessful pass at Florida

The day has changed from yesterday (however obvious): people not as brightly lit

Stores closed and stalls deserted

Moods melancholic and un-here-like

Something with the constellations and moon and stars

For more from Calle Florida Buenos Aires and Argentina, view all the travel stories, videos, photos and writing from Argentina on Rolling Coconut’s travel section.

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