The Independencia

Went to bed at 04:30 and woke up for no reason at all around 09:00. My eyes opened to the pretty vulva facing me. The one on the wall, reader, the one on the wall. So that’s where I was. Apart from the scratchy sheets and the aggressive pillow, it had been a good night.

I had ventured out around 23.00. Couldn’t get over the excitement of living within the reward, in the area that had been my El Dorado in the past, to be reached only after a sweaty, hard won bus journey. As I headed for Plaza Dorrego, how it warmed my heart to see my old, familiar friends, the 10, the 24, the 29, trundle past. I had expected to find a milonga in the plaza, but must have got the wrong day because a different world appeared to have landed there, the land of outdoor restaurants. So I sauntered back, past the Aladdin’s caves of the antique shops on Defensa, past the café where last year, Milwaukee Lauren and I were inducted by an elderly Argentino, into the special treat known as “the Jump of the Tiger.”

‘Ladies, do you know about the jump of the tiger? No? In Argentina, we love it. No one should die without experiencing this thing… The man stands on top of a wardrobe and the lady lies waiting on the bed and he jumps on top of her to begin… No, it is not funny. It is wonderful! Wonderful! Let me explain again…’

Bless him. We didn’t like to say, but only a man of unusually restricted growth could ever fit on top of our wardrobes. So small in fact, in order to have any effect at all, he’d need to dive straight in, lock, stock and itsy, bitsy barrel.

No Plaza Dorrego then, but there would be a milonga at the Independencia, situated just four blocks away from my flat. I would go there.

The Independencia is a hall on the first floor of an old building. It is a medium-sized, informal venue with tables scattered all around the dance floor. Apparently, it was started by Che Guevara’s family, of which the current dueña is a direct descendant. I walked into my first milonga at about 12:30 am and experienced a quiet despair. No one was dancing. There were a handful of couples dotted around the room and at four of the tables sat women, by themselves, smiling wanly into their mineral water.

At a table nearby, sat an ectomorph filming his head off. He wasn’t there to dance. He was just doing,“Egbert woz ere.” A Lenin-like character walked in and took a seat at the table next to mine. I glanced in his direction from time to time, with the faintest hint of exhasparation, to see him scribbling away for what seemed like hours, while us long-suffering women sat alone at our tables, clearly waiting for our cabeceo. After an hour of forever, an Indio gentleman recognised me from a previous assault on the Independencia and danced with me. Meanwhile, Lenin got up and asked a woman to dance and when I sat back down, he held a hand out towards me. Then he and I carried on dancing till 04:00.

When we started dancing I assumed he was one of those germanic Argentinos. We conversed in Spanish and I apologised for being less agile than usual, because out of practice, having fallen off my sledge in the early February snow and damaged a knee as well as having “callos” on both feet. He had trouble receiving me, then revealed he was in fact Jeff, a New Yorker. He loved his milonga . For the uninitiated, that’s a type of dance derived from tango. I love milonga too, so much so, I’m going to have it danced at my funeral. But it’s not my forte, so it was a great opportunity for practice. I mentioned I wanted to learn to lead and he let me lead him. All enthusiasm and no talent, I was, but that’s why I’m here. We’re going to Tango Queer together, next Tuesday and he’s going to introduce me to lots of gay women and I shall get a whole lot of leading in. Wa-hey!

When the salsa music came on, we did that as well. I showed him a move that turns me on and what do you know, he had to stand. If you’ll pardon the expression. We did a lot of laughing. We had a lot of fun. We did a lot of talking, too. Now, that’s not tango, but who cares? Actually, I do. What is tango? Now that’s a question that fascinates me.

‘How important do you think high heels are?’ I asked him.

‘I can tell you two or three places in Buenos Aires, where its commonplace to find women dancing in flat shoes. Having said that, all those things that women do? Eye-liner, mascara, stockings, high heels… They work.’

It was Jeff who told me about the Independencia’s history. Then we drifted into Argentina’s dark and dirty secrets and the miracles of technology and the sinister uses to which they are put by intelligence agencies. We talked about the antique shops of San Telmo, where Nazi memorabilia is sold. He told me about a very neat cane he found, which converted into a shot gun.

‘You wanted it, didn’t you?

‘You bet.’

‘Why do you think weapons are sexy?’

He thought about that for a moment.

‘They are sexy because they are about power.’

‘And power is sexy because it derives from the genetic imperative to survive,’ I concluded.

As I drifted off to sleep, I thought some more about the allure of tango. Is it just another expression of the genetic drive, an artistic take on insurance?