Head off the edge – Buenos Aires #2, Argentina
23 Sep
What jumping out of a plane didn’t achieve for me, jumping out of a moving car in Buenos Aires has … checked back into reality: maybe I’ll stay a while.
It started as a quiet beer on Saturday night with Murray (a Scotsman I’d met in Bolivia 3 months ago) but into the evening someone notified us that it was officially the first day of Spring and hence a huge party would consume the city all night.
He was right: 4 am and people pumping in the street, even homeless folks wasted in happy huddles. From the pub I progressed to The Big One – not talking penis size but BsAs biggest discotheque to see the UK DJ collective: The Ministry of Sound. Crowds from teenagers to transsexuals, business looks to punk. An din this 3 storied-cathedral I E-ed my way across the morning til the finish at 10 am to then taxi across BA to an after-hours (BA has numerous after hours clubs, open 10 am – 10 pm).
Drunk beer on a comfortable couch upon a sunny rooftop glasshouse of the club that Sunday, amid stark-eyed smiley clubbers and everyone, it seemed, was snorting coke or smoking grass or drinking; or all three.
I met an English-speaking Argentine of Syrian decent – we talked of my experiences there in ‘89 – and his friend, a big guy – looked Samoan - from somewhere I forget in the Pacific. They were loaded with stuff, which they shared, and I returned their generosity by buying them rounds of beer.
Over the hours, tons of people joined our sofa area, including a – seemingly, small time – mafia boss, and a pock-marked, dark shades, sinister hit man-looking guy. (Both guys looked like shady movie roles). And over the hours many men and woman came over and paid their respects, check-kissing this boss, and introductions to them for me, them dudes asking which woman I wanted, I declined and was happy to just get wasted, for the moment. But substance offers were accepted across the afternoon.
I happily offered to keep buying beers, big bottles shared out among a growing crowd around me. Strange mix of middle-age cool dudes, old surfers, oldish sluts, young skins and techno teens. People came and went as did the hours because next I remember being in an underground club located in an old mansion. Must have gotten there with the two shady types but don’t remember how … got talking with a range of people including this nice chick who wanted me to return home with her and her boyfriend for a threesome. I agreed.
We left the club together but so did those two shady guys but now also with a large skinhead.
So there we were waiting in the deserted street for a taxi. Six of us. I asked what was going on and they said maybe something to the effect of sharing the taxi home, dunno exactly.
After about 10 minutes we got a taxi but the driver was only willing to take 5 passengers. Two taxis would have been the obvious solution. But no, it left empty, and I don’t know what was said but the boyfriend, coerced, I suspect, left for the club and I got very suspicious and now, somewhat bored and concerned with these thuggish characters. I’d decided (around 1.30 am) it had been time to leave back in the club when I gave the boss money to buy beer and he didn’t return (equal to about $US 20) the change; when challenged he said that he’d returned it.
Now a police car passed and I flagged it down, and the chick followed me across to the car, and speaking in English she asked what the fuck I was doing. (Most Argentinians don’t trust the cops here, who had been linked to various kidnappings and other crimes in BA since the economic crisis hit last December.) I said it was to protect her; I didn’t trust the potential of a rape. Her reasoning convinced me to back away from the cops, that she didn’t seem worried. The cops took off and the guys now looked at me. What you do that for, the boss asked. I apologized, by dismissing it, “Sometimes I get crazy …”; “cops often give you a ride in NZ”.
So another taxi came and we all got in. I made sure that I was beside the door, with the chick to my right. Not sure if I had said that I want to get out or stop or what.
But my intuition set off the final alarm bell so I opened the door as we drove down a deserted main street, around 2 am. The chick grabbed the door, the bald bouncer also, and locked to the lock. “What you doing; are you crazy? I thought you were intelligent …” she said.
Can’t remember answer or how soon before I next reacted but I think seconds as we turned – hence slowed, into another deserted main street. My light said: GO. Everything so fast. I whacked the big guys arms away from the lock, somehow opened the door and leaped from the moving car to land running and wobbling but somehow still upright.
How’s it possible – upright. Stood stunned, wow, what happened, staring at the taxi stopped about 40m ahead with its red rear lights staring back at me … then it drove off … I don’t know how I landed unscathed or how I got the nerve but just reacted – there was no thought beyond OUT NOW. I remember saying as I exited: “Bye Bye. Fuck you!”
Less than 24 hours later and I’m still trying to recall the exact patterns of thoughts and movements but they are lost to the speed of things. It wasn’t a dream. Be easy to explain if it was … But seems like it. Rushing with crazy, confused adrenaline I couldn’t believe what had happened as I sat in another cab heading into the downtown for some comfort in a club girl.
I was so fuckin’ hyped; shocked; disbelieving. What with no sleep for 40 hours, taken Es, and an ongoing menu of dope, drink and coke, no food, you could say that I had an active imagination; but then amid the haze came that gut clarity that said, Danger, GO.
It ended with whiskey and a lovely, dark-haired Peruvian woman, 23. She was wonderful fun, and very beautiful. We shared loud, simultaneous orgasms across Monday morning.
Now, Tuesday: woken from a deep sleep and have changed down a gear or two as I wonder which direction is next … after weeks in BsAs am bored by the clubs, cocaine, and sex-for-money chicks … need a new hit – for a few weeks, anyway.
This latest misadventure has encouraged me to Hit the Road – time for some fresh air, time to travel again, maybe a back-to-nature trip; cos cities can make people crazy …
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