Sailor, call me

These three friends lived for one month together in Buenos Aires, in a beautiful, safe and friendly neighbourhood called Palermo SoHo. One day, it had to happen, they all bought leather jackets, and each night they went out, they wore them together, and they called this 'suiting up.' They looked damn good. It gave them a sense of rightness, which lead to confidence. One of them was me. I looked good. I had always wanted a jacket like this. It fit incredibly, perfect.

One night I had been drinking Fernet, an aperitif made of bitter herbs, and was getting especially excited to go out, when came a horrible tearing sound as I walked out my bedroom. I was scared to look, for I knew the sound. And I was right. A terrible gash had been laid, by the long, slender door handle; it rips in me to see it, in my soul. This perfect jacket, ruined.

Three nights of rain follow. This is imbalance, the three of us need all to be suited for such things, the ratios and gears of our confidence wobble inconsistently.

Bear with me, I'll get back to this.

***

I can't concentrate. I have told you all about Peter, my friend from Machu Pichu, the sailor, who is 70. I have received an invitation to sail with him the Baltic Sea, starting two weeks from now. I meet him near Helsinki.

I will see St. Petersburg, I will see Copenhagen, and I will live on the sea, and I shall see it all, the Baltic. There's Poland, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Russia .

I am unsure of what my decision is. I am edging on becoming a sailor writer (Melville, Thompson, Lowry, Hemingway, etc.)

Call me, sailor. What do I do?

***

I am looking for jobs and moneys. And there's been no calls. I will stay here and rot me for more months, beautifully, like crushed grapes, rotting and enchanting perhaps, but rotting still, and sedimenting, . . . if I stay and write or rather not write, but continue to speak of it, because after all what is there to write you about? This jacket story? How does it end, does it matter?

***

Earlier, the night before, I had been praying to one of the captivating, sad eyed Maries at the great Cathedral at the Plaza de Mayo. There are several tall smooth and imposingly powerful columns outside, the church is indistinguishable from a great stone bank perhaps, aside from it's sheerness. And there are homeless families sleeping on foam and newsprint.

I am inside praying, feeling sort of out of place, as I so usually do. But it is a habit I have picked up on this trip. I am not baptized, nor Catholic, or whichever, but this activity has so far been sincere. (I am not entirely sure if I 'do believe' nor if that matters.)

I walk along inside and marvel, somewhat, at the huge ceilings and arcs, and some of the icons. I pick a Mary, a beautiful, braze-eye, sad-eye, judging eyed, Mary. I believe our Lady of La Paz, although I must return to know for sure.

There's this horrible confession and this awful feeling of unjustly speaking to her. I dip fingers in the holy water as I leave, a curt bow to Jesus, and rub my fingers for sometime, a few seconds, over my heart. I leave and outside I consider giving one family, a man and his daughter sleeping on foam mattress amid ruin, a 5-peso note I had in my wallet. I realize, however, that I had left this note for the Mozzo at the cafe earlier, so I walk by averting my eyes, and hop down to the subway tunnel.

***

Oh the ruined heart. My poor jacket. It is so incredibly difficult to explain and to make you care. It would take a Dickensian yarn of poverty and pride to even approach the meaning of this jacket,

and as I've said before, this is just a blog - so please let us just accept for now the eminence of everything.

I come to the store, and the salesman and store owner who I was expecting to see, the man who sold me this great pride, was absent. However, the incredibly beautiful ( I mean this) and brilliantly happy Uruguayan, salesgirl, who I also met earlier, was there, alone.

"Hello. Do you remember me?" I ask, in Spanish, gravely.

"Yes," she pauses for some seconds, and her eyes awake as with great discovery. "Yes , of course! You are the architect!"

I smile, and half-nod. But I quickly switch to a graven face, great seriousness is brewing, and I explain that there's sad, sad news. I slowly remove the sorely torn leather garment from the carton shopping bag, and she gasps at the sight of the wound.

"Borracho!" she says. "You must have been drinking."

"Look, I was not, no way. Perhaps we had just one drink. But... listen, as we were preparing to leave I brush against the, umm" I gesture towards the door handle of the store, since I don't know how to say it. I explain what happened, and tell her how upset I am.

She is speaking quickly, with such enthusiasm that it is beautiful, the way her lips and eyes spark, but I cannot understand. She has so much energy, and breath, and joy it seems, as she rushes about, leaving me to go to the storage room. I am not sure yet, what is, but she is looking for another jacket. She comes back to the main boutique, bouncing, swinging her tall hips in jovial, rhythm to the loud electro music playing, and then, as if with a great joy of discovery - not as if, but with - she finds the same coat on the rack.

It is a size bigger, but I try it on, and it looks fine. It looks good. "Si me gusta," she says, and I agree, yes it is the same.

"You sure it looks fine?" And yes, it does. She brushes my back, removing some dust. She smiles greatly, but her look now switches from joy to graveness. A light but serious tone.

"Now, quick, put this away in the bag," her dark eyebrows strict, "and get out of here, my boss returns any second."

"Seguro - are you sure?" Yes yes yes, smiling, rushing. She takes the torn jacket, climbs the step ladder to the rack, and hangs it on the rack, replacing where the new coat had been -

"Nobody will ever know, never." She says. She is gorgeous.

I put the coat away into my shopping bag, and, quickly I grab her close, we kiss, I thank her, and I leave the store.

I walk nearly five blocks in the wrong direction, uncaring, unthinkig, unbelieving. I look up to the sky, and I explode into laughter, alone, as I have never once done in my life. Unbelievably happy to be alive, to have this life, this strangeness. This incredible doubt of chaos.

I buy a bottle of champagne and a jar of olives and me and my roommates, we celebrate. Tonight we suit up.

***