SI, YO TE QUIERO...

Racing back to the house to shower and shave, I tear back down the marble staircase, slipping and almost breaking my neck, but successfully grab the first cab to Constitución train station. It’s now dusk and I leave the camera and sunglasses back at home. Tonight is obligation, not work. I’m excited that I actually came through with the photo for Samy’s mom and the smaller framed photo of Samy’s younger sister on the bus on the way home from the cemetery. The train is ridiculously packed with commuters returning from the Capital back out to the provinces, hereafter referred to as the barrios, or back home – the ghetto.

It’s actually quite challenging being at least a foot taller than everyone else, especially when it comes to public transportation. Not a day passes without me severely banging my head on something. And on the local buses, its more like being inside a pinball machine than anything, banging my head back and forth between the metal handrails trying not to fall while not stepping on or banging into my fellow passengers. The other day on the way to the Manu Chau concert in a bus that was at least fifty years old, tiny and packed, an elderly woman looked up at me from her single-aisle seat and asked me to stop molesting her. Immediately irritated, I simply told her that I wasn’t doing anything and couldn’t she see how jam packed the bus was?

The train arrives in La Nues, four stations out from Constitución pretty quickly. Walking towards the exit I’m nearly killed by another train that snuck up on me from behind, not even hesitating to slow down, barreling through the station at more than 60 mph. A group of drunken teenagers all-at-the-same time grab me as I tried to skirt past the throngs of people and dangerously walk the line on the edge of the platform hanging dangerously over the tracks, and pull me to safety. It’s the same with the buses in the capital… for short people there’s no problem walking down the sidewalks as the side mirrors of the bus fly by overhead. But for tall gringos, OJO – CAUTION! I can’t even count how many times I’ve felt the mirror swoosh by just inches from my head… and I’m extra careful foreigner. It’s like the hole I stepped in the other day walking back from the Recoleta cemetery with Tommy, a friend of mine who is from BA, went to NYC for a stint and now lives and works here as a fashion photographer . We had just done some test shots for a new model he was working with in the cemetery and I was viewing images on the back of the camera while walking down the street in my filp flops – not advised. As I suddenly felt myself falling, Tommy grabbed the back of my shirt and surely prevented the breaking of my leg.

Outside the station in La Nues I look for a payphone that works. Samy begged me to call her from the station before I take the bus to the party to make sure I understood the directions clearly and to let her what time I board the bus. The first two public phones both eat my coins and then, across the open entrance to the station I see the 283, the bus that’ll take me to the birthday party and drop the phone, sprinting across the traffic, barely making it to the bus before he takes off. Now I’m short one coin… and the next bus won’t come for like another twenty minutes. “Don’t worry about it,” he shrugs allowing me to board and telling me that he’ll advise me when we get there, in about ten minutes. It’s like the other day in the restaurant down the street from our house, across the park sitting in the no smoking section. I knew it was the no smoking section, an extreme rarity here in BA, but ask the waiter if I can smoke none-the-less. “No, smoking is prohibited here… but go ahead, “ he says and quickly comes back with an ashtray - special Gringo treatment.

The party was fun, for ten year olds. I chatted with Samy’s father… among other things about her heritage. Pointing to his forearm while shouting in my face, “she has the blood of the Indians.” Whao… Afterwards Samy politely asks me if I’d like to go back to her house to drink some mate. That’s the very last thing I want, to spend more time with a woman that I’m in love with but that doesn’t want to be with me. But I agree once again, cursing my stupidity under my breath. Late into the morning after drinking mate at her friend Bete’s house we return back to Samy’s place… it’s like 4:30AM. Finally we are alone and I somehow feel content… like the connection is still there getting stronger all the while. I ask if I can see some of her drawings and this is when everything changes. She begins to tell me that tango is just a small part of her life – for right now. But her real love is drawing. She tells me I can take the two best drawings, ten years old at least. “These don’t represent the way I draw now… these we’re student drawings, from a long time ago.”

It’s now 6:30AM its light outside. Once again I’m completely exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. We walk across the dirt street to the bus stop and I try once again and for the very last time to explain to her that I came back to BA for her and can’t continue forward like this… like a love-sick puppy dog. Three buses passes us by and I refuse to board, trying to illustrate that I want to know where we stand. “Gregorio, por favor… get on the bus. I’ll call you!” she pleads. The ride back into the city is blurry and surreal… the train is once again packed and its 7AM on a Saturday morning and the sun is burning my eyes. I over sleep and its now too late to get back to Constitucion where I was supposed to meet up with Danny and clan to go to a BBQ out in Quilmes, where the national Argentine beer comes from. I’m still completely exhausted from all of this, having slept for only about three hours and think its probably for the best given my current mental state that I don’t go out to the BBQ. Suddenly the telephone rings… “Hola mi amor,” says a soft and sexy voice, slowly and succinctly. At first I think it must be a wrong number, but realize its her! Yes? She’s finished a morning shift with the tourists and tells me that she very much wants to come over to see me but thinks its better if she goes back home and gets some rest. But she proposes that we meet up around 8PM tonight, do the tango lesson that she blew off last week, get a bite to eat and then meet up with Luis because she has a rock and roll dance contest tonight. “How does that sound,” she softly asks? OK. “And there’s one more thing I want to say to you… si, yo te quiero.” Literally – yes, I want you but figuratively, “yes, I love you.” TBC….