I was trying to figure out the allure of raggaetone when a street light cut out and I couldn´t even see my hands, anything, and I got scared when I heard yelling off in the distance. I was in a bad neighbourhood at night. The street felt like it was in a vice, and it wasn´t really a street, just dirt and potholes and stench. One light down the street jolted on for a second and I saw a band of kids chasing after a street animal. Just smudged and smeared shadows really, violent shapes, giggling. Most of them had their arms cocked back while another one reached down to pick up a rock. They were tucked behind the corner when I heard the stoning of that poor beast and it´s cry silenced to an echo that bounced around with one well placed thump. Then the light cut out again and there was nothing. Just ink outlined by the moon. Everything eliminated. So I jogged out of the slum for a busy street and got there okay.
And so I went on thinking about reggaeton. An ex of mine, one that I kinda got engaged to and last April went to Vegas to marry but didn´t---actually we basically spent nights falling off opposite sides of that hotel bed---was a hired dancer for the biggest raggaeton band in the world right now, Calle 13. I have a hunch she´s banging their lead singer even though he´s marred to Mrs Puerto Rico. But I could be wrong.
As my Spanish has come along I can actually disipher 45% of the lyrics of this stuff. And the general theme seems to be this...
A guy is trying to get a girl by confessing that he´d like to give it to her DURO. Meaning HARD.
And she replies, ¨But can you give it to me REALLY duro?
He says, sure he can. You like it duro?
Then SHE says, I have a boyfriend. But he doesn´t give it to me duro. Are you sure you can ALWAYS give it to me duro?
Then chorus kicks in and 500 crazy Puerto Ricans scream DURO DURO DURO.
The ex was a Puerto Rican herself and she danced for these fellas in PR and NYC and LA and I was just tossing it around in my brain for the helluvit just to get the taste out of my mouth and sound out of my ears of that poor dog.
It´s such a drive-in experience over here at night. It´s a city you need to arrive at night rather than the day. It blossoms at night. Most cities I´ve been to are reaching for that fun-park bullshit, ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds. But here it´s always a drive-in. Cause you can get caught at a drive-in. And there´s an expectation that really important stuff could be going on in your car while some sedative movie is up on the screen. Which is fucking cool. And sneaky. Even tho, like in a dream, everybody´s in on your scam.
So the stars were all clanged that night, the sky line of Havana rooftops was a wet painting, I got to the big strip near the Habana Libre hotel and the movie marquee had people lined up for an American feature and plenty of people were holding hands and across the street massive snakes of communist lineups for communist-affordable icecream were set up in the park at Coppelia´s icecream stands. Warm, palmy air you can kiss blowing girls hair into their guy´s faces. Buses roar by. Hitchhikers lean into old car´s windows and grin. Itchy hobos collecting bottles, smoking butts.
You look up the skirt of this city and somehow don´t feel that guilty. Maybe cause like any girl that´s worth a damn, the more time you spend and the more you find out about this one the less you know. It´s easy to find the kyptonite to most city´s or people´s bullshit. Under bruisey skys and wash lines full of whole family´s clothes it´s not as easy here. Trap door and trampolines everywhere you look, with the right kind of eyes. And little girls chasing around trying to find every last one like an easter egg hunt. And the harder I look the more tight the whipping post I get tied to. Cause if I have a little girl and she opts for videogames over this kid´s serenade of a life---eeek, that´s a rotten expectation. Every night feels like an Indian Summer back home. Smuggled, stolen season just given away to everybody. Why not? And some guy´s stroking his girl´s hair in the soft light and I can´t see their expressions and I´m glad I can´t. Another hobo starts fishing in his pockets for a lighter, finds it---scar face t-shirt on another kid... right.
I could get married to a girl over here for busfare.
A friend of mine says it´s a jail. But isn´t jail where people are supposed to make promises to themselves to have to the right to live when they get out? Rehabilitation or something?
Ah... I give up. Chop Suey. No arguments. Go to fucking Miami. Get a big car, house, listen to fucking Calle 13 even if my ex is banging him.
Nobody looks like movie extras here. I think I know why. It´s already real. Even though nobody makes any sense. Ali said there are no jokes, the truth is always the best joke.
And then there are these guys where every step is over a plank insteada what´s really there. At the end of the world there´s always a tourist and a whore fucking in a cheap hotel room. But here the whore´s mom made the bed and had coffee ready for after.
It doesn´t feel like a place imagined so much as created off a double-dare. And I don´t have one fucking photo to show anybody, not even my kids. No snapshots. I wonder if they´ll have any sympathy for me and my wagging tail reasons. I doubt it.
This place isn´t even a poem. Just a rumor. A big lie that can´t be stretched. Walking around like Orpheus trying his best not to turn around cause he´ll lose that prize if he does.
My strange friend who really gave me the key to this place wanted to be in the ground, soil, earth here. Now he is. Where some people live without seeming pinned to their lives. Kids throw up dust in the afternoons with a soccer ball rolling around between them. And laugh and laugh.
The pretty thing about sandcastles is when all that work gets washed away. And the more work put in the better it feels to see something bigger take it and flatten it. Nothing personal. Unless you let it be personal. Scratch and sniff the meaning of that fucker, sand castles of all stripes, and I´m no closer now than I was the first time I built one with my dad at 4 and didn´t get why he smiled the whole time the tide ripped open and melted those beautiful baroque towers of his he spent so much time and energy creating. It was just kinda sweet beyond words.
A shame about that dog, tho.
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