9.16.11

Sight
The train from Spegazzini is cold in the morning air. We are headed towards Tristán Suárez and then on to Ezeiza; the blue metal seats unforgiving and unsympathetic to desperate pleas of warmth - my body heat just seems to bounce off them. Its like trying to warm up an ice rink with a hockey puck. The seats are relatively empty so far; we'll fill up as we get close to the city though.

El tren bumps and lurches along, always content, the old horse; harmless, but still powerful. Oblivious to its passengers, whether few or many; they have painted her and sold her, but still she canters on, her placid eyes are dull, but luminescent in the early mist.

Around me there are routines, automatic gazes wait for 11am at least, some for noon, some forever. I am reminded now of the Hotel California: some dance to remember and some dance to forget. But I realize now as I am reminded now that these two settings and their inhabitants have absolutely nothing in common: "forever" doesn't even rhyme with "remember". Maybe the people at the hotel are waiting for something, maybe they're trying to escape. Either way, the people on the train are trying to sleep. Nada que ver.

Maybe a couple dances the tango at the hotel?

Many are holding bags or boxes to take beyond Ezeiza, into the city, into shops and ques and homes (hopefully). The hope has since faded though; meshed into the confidence of time. A man walks through the compartments selling sweets and shouting an instantly familiar phrase: "quatro por un peso!" I wonder now if he is still there, walking back and forth along those distant corridors, shouting in his tired way.

What I wouldn't give now for quatro de sus alfajores. And por only un peso? He's probably raised his prices a bit since then though, un peso no te llevás como antes. At least, that's what I imagine he would say; I also imagine him rubbing his right index finger under his nose, across his mustache as he says it, in a forlorn look of business. But maybe then he would make a dirty joke, at least something with some character - something to show that he's still alive, that some element of humanity still simmers inside him, breaking occasionally through the cement mask of peso; through a lifetime on the train.

I look to my left and see one last line of houses along a dirt road. And past that, something beautiful - a place of solitude. It is, to me, a symbol of culture, of casual brotherhood, of pureness, of passion. It is like a dream, a memory, a piece of poetry that bridges generations. It is the essence of struggle, of enjoyment and of life; it is la cancha.

Here I sit and gaze upon it, wishing I could somehow take it with me. I watch until the trees obscure it, holding it in my mind for just a few more moments. Then I turn back to the train, my head against the window, and try to settle a little deeper into my jacket. I close my eyes and wait for Tristán Suárez.