La Boca in the winter on a weekday is a perfect place to see. In the daylight and empty streets. Not empty, I should say. It' no ghost town. It's just the day-to-day. The throngs of people aren't choking the cobblestone, the marketplaces are deserted save for a few salty painters, ground into the routine of life. An artisan life.
I should write everyday. I should routine like them, and when I see the focus in their furrowed brows, the deep lines in their weathered faces, I dream of looking myself that way in the distant future at their age if I'm not laying in the ground dead somewhere.
My trusty Nikon's in my right hand, the strap wrapped half a dozen times around my wrist, just to be sure. The spliff we smoked at the apartment before leaving is wearing off slowly.
It's an hour on the bus from Villa Urquiza to La Boca. But it was a good day. It wasn't raining, and the sun beat down in sharp contrast, along with his writing ability.
Dreamy on a crisp air, so the colors look rich.
Oh, bother. I can't write like that any more. I'm full. And uneven.
The way it's -
Looking out at the port, I couldn't even see the horizon. Not even close, just the other side of the derrick really. And some high rises behind that, and then I think the water. Right after the wetlands. "l could live here," I said. "I have this affinity with the ocean, see, it feels like home to me."
"Are you a rapper?"
"No... No, I'm not. Why do you ask?"
She looks at me like a sarcastic brooding Argentine, looks at me. "You're rhyming."
"Who me?" stumbling on the uneven cobble.
She nods.
"Hmm. I see..."
I think she's had it, she nods, and looks at me. "That's not the ocean. That's La Plata."
"I know," I say. "Not here, but you know, past those high rises. And maybe the wetlands. I could surf there right? Like if I'd actually brought my board and my wetsuit with me?"
She sighs. "I mean, maybe. But it's not the ocean. It's La Plata. That's why this is 'La Boca'. It's the mouth of the river." Pointing at her lips, spread open. "The mouth." Tracing them over once. "Uruguay is on the other side"
"Gotcha. Well, why are these all made of metal siding?"
"This was - " Shaking her head, "No, this still is kind of a ghetto. This were old sailors residences. The port mouth," looking at me. Lips spread open.
People were actually closing up shop for the day. At 3:00 in the afternoon, 15:00, closing up. We just got in at a ratchet little corner pastry chef while he was bringing the one plastic kid chair in from
outside by the door. She talks to him, thank god, and I zone out to their dialogue. Look around.
What's funny is that I'd been on the same street a few nights ago. With Andrea. It was raining. No, it was fucking pouring, and we were running. All the way from San Telmo, down Paseo Colón in the rain, taking cover under awnings, on one of those wide street building porches. We'd met friends. A singer and her brother at a corner gas station and then ran down a street and to cover in La Boca Juniors restaurant on... Suarez I believe? I got the milanese.
"He's going to give us some things to go. What do you want?"
"Dos empanadas. Por favor."
"Yes, what kind."
"Un pollo, un carne. Por favor. Gracias."
She looks at him and cracks a smile like-
"Hey."
"We'll eat outside," she says to me." We eat on what isn't quite a loading dock, and isn't quite a porch or a bridge or anything really more than a superfluous incline to plateau for 3 meters, then decline. We sat on the plateau with our feet dangling a foot off the ground, eating our empanadas. The walkway's broken concrete. The street's got holes in it through to the dirt. A stray dog runs by, slowly to survey us and the smell of our food, but he gets along.
It's was a good empanada. Or was it milanese?
