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Buenos Aires
 Photo: Marcelo Wain
Buenos Aires
 Photo: Silvia Boratti

Buenos Aires, Argentina: From the Other Side of the Tracks (cont.)

I am shocked when he suddenly begins screaming and gesturing wildly; but I am even more shocked when I discover that he is directing his rant at the man in the Orlando Magic hat, who, without my realizing it, is now sitting only a few feet to my left. A clap of thunder echoes through the station, and once again the man has the refrigerator on his back and is moving towards the endless shanties made of cardboard and tin that run alongside the tracks beyond the station.

Before long he has returned soaked in sweat or perhaps rain, and now he is carrying a wooden crate full of beer bottles over his head. Magic, still just to my left, yells something to the effect of “bitch” at him, which causes him to turn quickly, lose his balance, and drop two of the bottles. They shatter, startling some stray dogs that shoot like bottle-rockets away from the noise but then quickly return, tails between their legs, to lap up the spilled liquid. The man glares back, but nothing more comes of the cross-platform conflict.

As I sit waiting for the train, vendors periodically saunter by selling miscellaneous goods. One man carries a box full of AA batteries to and fro, whistling all the while. He has clipped a large pink Energizer bunny out of a magazine and pasted it to the front of his box. A crudely drawn dialogue bubble emanates from the bunny’s mouth and announces to all those who can read, “You need these.”

The next vendor is more business savvy and gives a demonstration of his product. He places his lips around a long, slender piece of plastic and blows gently. Suddenly the platform is filled with the “gobble-gobble-gobble” sound of a turkey. Since I am the only one who seems to even remotely acknowledge this noise, he quickly approaches me. He blows his kazoo twice more for my benefit and then proudly announces, “Buy one, get one free.”

The final salesman I encounter is wearing a relatively new looking Boca Juniors soccer jersey and is actually selling something appropriate. I know them as Freezer Pops or Otter Pops, but they have an altogether different name here, which I can’t make out, no matter how many times the man yells it.

I strongly consider buying one since I’m still sweltering in the heat, even though I have untucked and unbuttoned my shirt and taken my tie off completely. But as soon as I reach into my pocket to fish out some coins, I see an odd sight. A woman in front of me is buying a green colored one for her son, but the one he hands her is obviously not frozen. Curious, I stand up and look into his box and find that none of them are. The man is just selling long plastic tubes filled with luke-warm, colored sugar water. I can’t help but   wonder if his freezer was stolen by the portly, foul-mouthed man from across the tracks.

I don’t have long to ponder this point though because an alarm begins ringing and the platform bursts into a flurry of activity. In the distance against the darkening sky, an oncoming train’s single headlight glows brightly.

The clock now reads 5:21. Within thirty seconds the number of people on the platform quadruples, and an almost palpable nervous tension fills the air. All around me people are asking one another, “Is this it?”  “Is this one stopping?”  “Do you think this is the one?” For the life of me I can’t understand what is going on. There is an enormous timetable directly behind us that lists which trains stop when, yet people all around me are desperately questioning and guessing whether or not this train will stop.

A little old woman with a cane who can’t see over the crowd grabs my arm without looking at me and asks, “Is the train slowing down?”. I consider telling her that this is the express and that the local won’t be arriving for about another ten minutes, but for some reason I don’t. Instead I just answer, “I don’t know.” My uncertainty seems to satisfy her. She squeezes my arm a little tighter and says, “Well, let’s hope so.”

Out of my peripheral vision I notice activity on the tracks, and I look out to discover that a slew of children of all ages have jumped down onto them and are playing some sort of game. The object appears to be to run back and forth between the two platforms as many times as possible as the train speeds towards the station.  Between the shrill alarm announcing the oncoming train, the woman clenching my arm, and this band of ragged children playing a death-defying human version of Frogger, I am suddenly feeling as anxious as everyone around me looks.

The train moves closer, blasts its horn several times, and suddenly the moment of truth arrives. The last of the children is safely back up on the platform, yet I still find myself on pins and needles along with everyone else, desperately wondering if it will stop.

But it doesn’t. And when the crowd realizes it is the express train, all hell breaks loose. The once docile group of platform pigeons turns into an enraged mob that treats the train as though it were some sort of primitive beast attacking their village.

People shout and curse at it. The old woman raises her cane as if to strike the train cars speeding past her. A toddler, sporting a tattered Snoopy t-shirt and a chocolate ice cream stained face, shakes a tiny fist at the caboose and unleashes his own verbal assault. Further down the tracks, a few dangerous looking teenagers throw half-full beer bottles at the train’s windows.

And then the melee ends just as suddenly as it began. The alarm stops, the crowd disperses, and the tail of the train disappears around the bend. The clock reads 5:23.

Eighteen minutes later it’s deja vu all over again, except this time I know the train will stop—quite late, but as scheduled.  I try to find the elderly arm-grabber so that I can tell her that this train is slowing down, but she is nowhere to seen. I assume that she has pushed her way to the front of the platform by now.

The train is already in motion again by the time it’s my turn to leap onto it; and as it gains speed, I do my best to find a safe place to stand amongst the sea of passengers.

Two stops on the train and a twenty minute bus ride later, I am walking down Avenida Callao past stores like Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Lacoste. In cafe windows, I see people wearing designer clothes sipping their early evening espressos.

I make one final turn and begin my walk down Guido. I know that I am almost home when I see a woman in high heels who is smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone while walking her white Poodle, which is dressed in a Burberry dog sweater despite the heat. They are regulars on my street.

I usually don’t arrive home before dark; so I take a moment to watch a final street scene playing out in the dying light. Elegant looking elderly couples stroll arm in arm down the sidewalks under drooping Jacaranda trees. A gentle breeze blows bright purple flowers off these trees and down the street. Suntanned, sunglassed men slyly drive their Mercedes Benzes up and down the avenue, flirting with any woman their bellowed pick-up lines can reach. And above it all, hanging on the side of a posh hotel is a billboard featuring a gorgeous model wearing clothing by a French designer I have never even heard of.

Tired and still moist, I reach the door of my apartment building and ring the buzzer. It is promptly answered, and at last I am entering the pleasant air conditioning of Apartment 10K. My girlfriend is lounging on the bed, reading A Moveable Feast, which I have been recommending to her for months. She asks me how my day was, but I just shrug. Then she asks me if anything interesting happened today.

“Well, of course,” I answer. “It’s Argentina.”

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