martes, 23 de marzo de 2010

(Singing) The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, the wheels on the bus go round and round, all the live long day.

I woke up singing that song yesterday. There is no explanation for why the repetitive children’s jingle was looping through my consciousness as I roused from a deep sleep induced by excessive consumption of ice cream the night before. In recent months I have found it increasingly hard to ignore the ice cream stores as I stroll past them; the Argentines make an exquisitely creamy ice cream, heavy on the tongue but smooth as it folds in layers down your throat. I am tempted by practically all of the flavors, but find that my favorite combination is the black forest – chocolate ice cream with cherries and chocolate chips; the banana split- a delightful combination of real banana and vanilla ice cream; and the dulce de leche- a butter scotch like ice cream that is considered the crown jewel of South American treats. This combination could bring any creature to his knees. The smooth and creamy flavors are practically the only respite I have these days, flying me out and away from the trepidation and uncertainty of life on a magical milky carpet.

We have moved again. This apartment is nice, you know, something in the suburbs with a balcony and a view of greenery that promises higher salaries and fewer mutts. In fact, there is a doggy breeder visible from my fifth story balcony. From morning until night I can watch the French poodles at breakfast and tea as they enjoy the fountain that pitter-patters in the center of their English garden. Yes indeed, here in the open streets of Vicente Lopez, as the neighborhood is called, I can wander as a free dog should. I don’t mind having to speed poo so as to avoid the commentary of old Captain One-Tooth who sits on her patio at Vergara and O’Higgins, and I no longer find it rude when finely combed Bichon Frises glide past me without so much as stopping to notice me. I’m sure they have their reasons for having to skirt around so quickly. After all it is hard to keep up around here. One day you are proud that you have a new shiny red leash and the next you find out that the Shepherds have an eco-friendly biodegradable human extension cord.

The neighborhood is alive with friendly little children and it has a real local feel to it. Just yesterday the grocer ran to grab photos of his Pomeranian master to show to Trevor. At the video store, the owner is an expert on East Indian calisthenics and has offered to give classes as a part of her monthly discount package. The exercise routine must relieve her from feeling stress about the fact that she owns a business founded on thousands of bootleg copies of Hollywood films. The pace in town is slow enough so that I can send Trevor into the store all by himself while I wait outside and smell what the Rottweilers had to eat last night. They usually go for steak, but sometimes they eat milanesas to mix it up.

Trevor has been playing lots of soccer in the city so he often takes the train in and leaves me be so that I can siesta and contemplate the fact that I only have 10 years of life left. Of course the public transportation is fantastic out here in Vicente Lopez. There is a train just one block from the house and about seven different bus lines pass nearby and fan out to anywhere you would want to go in the city. The 60 and the 15 head towards Palermo where we used to live and where the canine and human nightlife goes down. The 30 goes down the coast of the River Platte and through the center. The 161 stops right in front of the house and is the color red, my favorite. And of course, as I already mentioned there is Trevor’s favorite, the train.

The trains were built by the British a century ago and go the wrong way on the track. When Trevor explained to me that in the United States the trains run the other direction on the track I thought he was using some sort of euphemism to explain the inevitable separation of parent country and present superpower as one becomes more conservative in the face of growing skepticism of modern capitalism and the other attempts to confront a financial crisis by revisiting depression era democratic socialism. Of course, in Argentina all tracks lead to the port, so it doesn’t matter which side the train runs on, the cargo will inevitably end up being sent to China where it will be consumed by a people ambiguous to modern democracy, whose magnetic light rail system is eons ahead of anything that Britain or the United States could dream of building. But knowing Trevor I think this logical and yet cutting irony completely escaped him; he just hates having to sprint to the other side of the tracks when he realizes that he is headed in the wrong direction.

We are living in a near utopia, but of course sometimes even the most perfect seeming of places has a kink or two that needs working out. One of these kinks revealed itself quite abruptly last night, and has left Trevor in a post traumatic “I love everything about life” phase that has me ready to uncurl my tail in exasperation. As he tells the story he was returning from a night out with friends, unaccompanied by Tami who has escaped his claw like grasp and taken a work trip as far away as possible to the southern tip of the country. He explains that he chose to take the 15 bus because it travels the second half of the journey back to Vicente Lopez on the highway, making it a much faster option than the other buses which go along the city avenues and stop quite regularly to pick up singing teenagers just out from the clubs. It was on this highway stretch that “it” happened. As he describes, the bondi (bus) was traveling along just fine gaining speed on the homestretch when all of the sudden the right rear wheel, just under where Trevor was sitting, dislodged itself from the axle. The passengers watched as the enormous wheel danced past the bondi and out into the left lane of the highway.

While most women and children remained calm I can only imagine that Trevor was whimpering like a little baby as the bondi spun around in circles in the right lane of the Panamericana (the highway that stretches from North to South across the Americas). As the sparks flew and the scraping metal raked his ears Trevor explained to me that he imagined that the last thing he would see was the back of an old, fat, bondilero (bus driver). But the bondi came to a stop and the bondilero opened its doors so that Trevor could burst out onto the highway and kiss its tar-covered lanes with a passion that no bondilero had ever seen before. Apparently unconcerned that the wheel was no longer attached to the bondi and was in fact splayed out in the middle of the highway, the bondilero left the engine running while the passengers waited for another bondi to come along. Trevor walked home, as the incident conveniently unfolded a quarter of a mile from his stop. He thought of a poem on his way back and begged that I put it in here for everyone to see (I apologize in advance).

Oh bondilero.
If you were in Mexico you would wear a sombrero.
If you were in San Francisco you would drive along Divisadero.
Oh Bondilero.
If you were Jamaican you would read my tarot.
If you had wings you would be a sparrow.
Oh Bondilero.
The Egyptians call you pharaoh
The afterlife you do harrow
Oh bondilero
Please tighten the bolts that attach the wheel to the axle next time
Seriously, what the fuck?

Yes, but Trevor will surely get over this minor glitch in the utopia and we will return to living the life. Oh, who am I kidding? I spend my days one social hour after the next watching arrogant poodle cockamamies whimper and whine like the Kardashian sisters at an Oklahoma gun show. The people in this neighborhood wouldn’t know variety if it hit them in their refined European faces. Earth to Argentines; Milanesas are fucking steaks that are ironed and sprinkled with breadcrumbs on top. Am I the only one who notices these things? If I see another old lady with a smirk on her face I’m going to eat through her plastic surgery like I did the living room wall in the new apartment. And yes, I have a wall eating addiction. At least when I bite the dust I will have had one or two studs in me. That’s more than I can say for most of these dames around here.

You can call me ungrateful; a Puerto Rican street dog who complains when she is flown to the Paris of Latin America to live her life out in parks and on balconies with a view. But then again, you don’t have an insolent and confused Spanish speaking Oklahoman liberal calling you Sugar Butt from dawn until dusk. This guy makes up unintelligible songs that follow to the melody of the American National Anthem and then forces me to hold my paw to my heart when some weed smoking asshole named Bode Miller wins a downhill skiing event. I’m sorry if I don’t follow mindless sports and adhere to the feverish nationalism that characterizes young and reckless countries like the United States and Argentina.

I am one and a half years old and I have lived in more apartments than Tiger Woods has had lovers. One day I’m rolling around with a nice Jack Russell named Borges and the next I’m supposed to be bathing with a band of banditos in a three ring circus water fountain that looks like the Bellagio after WWIV. Do the wheels fall of busses in Paris? When it rains in Paris, do the police get out inflatable boats to usher humans across major avenues in hopes that they do not get swept away by the surging rivers? I’d like to see the Arc D'Triumph with little French marines floating beneath it. Of course we wouldn’t want the French marines to come out and try to accomplish something, they might break a nail and call America for emergency rescue.

If human intransigence were not so omnipresent maybe they would see the solution to their problem. Exchange the poorly attached bondi wheels for floaties and flood the streets. And for god’s sake, quit dressing me up in a fucking hat that says princess on it. I’ll be your princess when you wear a leash around your overgrown neck after listening to a manchild sing about how you shit in the street to the tune of the doe ray me song from Sound of Music. Oh, and by the way, IM A MUT, not a frou frou poodle from the suburbs! The wheels on this bus stopped going round when you named me after a Puerto Rican frog that chirps like a battery drained pull string doll.

Note from Trevor: I have just read over Coqui’s blog entry and I apologize for her sour attitude. My little Sugar Butt does not represent my feelings or attitudes about politics or life in general.