Appalachian Trail
This Labor Day weekend I broke an 8 year tradition and went nowhere near the party in Black Rock City. I rode the Metro North up the Hudson to live for a week in the woods.
The Metro North railroad operates an Appalachian Trail stop – one of only two places on the 2,200 mile trail with direct rail access. Several weeks of planning overlooked that the station isn’t serviced on weekdays, so I disembarked at Pawling, 6 long miles of country roads from the trail.
After a few miles, I scored a ride from a minivan driven by a retired hiker that was excited to help and anxious to hear my stories of the trail. Of course I didn’t have much to say, so she filled the air with variations on how much I was “just going to love the trail”. A tiny 6 year in the back interrupted periodically to shout directions and roll her eyes when her driver second-guessed her. After five or so minutes of this we rolled up to a post on the side of the road with a 2×6″ white blaze – characteristic marker of the AT.
I thanked the team for their help and the van rolled away. The trail plunged quickly down from the roadway into dark woods.
I was immediately struck by how dramatically the forest changed every quarter-mile. I emerged from thinly wooded hills of brush to shoulder-high grassy meadows, which became damp, buzzing marsh only to transition to tall old oaks with 60 feet canopies so dense nothing grows beneath but little brown flies. Almost everywhere I heard acorns falling through the strata above, their accelerating fall making thwack, thwack, thwack sounds on lower leaves before exploding with a CRACK on a rock below.
As I only hiked a half day, I hardly thought to look for the first shelter. But then there it was, 20 feet off the trail, a simple wood structure in the middle of the forest.
At the picnic table, an older man admired his Blackberry through bifocals while a solar cell charged his battery. He called himself “Master Chief”.
Down a hill I found a hand-pump that produced delicious water attached to all kinds of warnings about living creatures with little tails and agendas. I pulled up a couple liters through my new Katadyn filter and drank cautiously.
Dinner was miso soup with reconstituted green beans, corn, a few varieties of seaweed, stringy japanese mushrooms, and rice vermicelli. It was deeply satisfying. I decided that if asked I would call myself Miso.
The light died and I stretched out on a large rock. I played a game with my collar to minimize exposure to the elements as the mosquitoes played their own game making the best of the skin still exposed. I had realized a few miles back that I had forgotten Deet. There are worse things than forgetting Deet. Socks, for instance.
I heard a yelp from the trail and a tall, bearded thing lumbered into camp, throwing his pack down at the perimeter and moaning “SORRY I’m just so happy to be here right now”.
“Deep Dish” was a thru-hiker. He started in Maine at the trail head in mid-July and had – when I met him – covered nearly 800 miles. His matted black beard carried days of sweat. He was shirtless, having shrugged off the inconvenience of modesty several states ago. He wondered aloud if he should make cheesy instant mashed potatoes or garlic instant mashed potatoes and immediately set about making both.
Thru-hikers covering 20-25 miles a day burn as much as 7000 calories daily. Committing yourself to that much consumption and energy production for a 4-6 month stretch is an odd life choice. I completely enjoyed Deep Dish’s monologues. He borrowed a spoonful of peanut butter at one point, stirring it into his cocoa, explaining that the result was like a peanutbutter cup. He muttered with an odd intensity that revealed something of his 6-week deprivation “I really like peanut butter cups”.
In the morning I pulled my bear bag down from the tree I’d hoisted it into the previous evening and made a pan of terrible coffee. I was covered in mosquito bites. But a breakfast of granola bars is delicious in the achy stupor that follows a night of sleeping in the woods. I hit the trail.
I heard it said a couple times that the AT is much harder than the Pacific Crest Trail for elevation changes and surface quality. The NY/NJ trail maps provide a really helpful elevation change histogram along the bottom border, which shows the elevation change every 1/10 mile. But elevation changes are so frequent on this part of the trail that it was difficult to keep my position straight. Trail angle often changed dramatically several times within 1/10 mile, escaping the resolution of the map graphic. So cresting a hill was always a goal appreciated in retrospect, and arriving at scenic vistas was always a surprise.
On night two, after a 10 mile stretch, I found RPH, a shelter originally named to memorialize a man whose name is so complicated that everyone prefers the acronym, RPH – which is a memorial fail, I think.
RPH was the most sophisticated of the three-walled enclosures I rested at. It contained a cement floor and bunk beds accommodating 8 or more and a writing desk strewn with discarded trail gifts: half-spent lip balm, lotion, chaffing cream, writing implements, damp writing pads filled with trail messages. I considered the bottle of mosquito repellent. Had I remembered my own repellent, I would be showering in it now, but I was reluctant to help myself to another’s bottle – even one so clearly gifted. A bottle of Deet in the woods is like a drinking fountain in the desert and I had to assume someone was more thirsty. The areas of my skin not covered in mosquitoes had diminished to nearly nothing on the first night, which I imagined formed a mosquito bite armor against further bites. In retrospect this was stupid; Mosquitoes have no qualms creating bites on top of bites.
Around the back of the shelter, a water pump rose out of a cement slab. I pulled a gallon of brown (rusty?) water out of the ground, passed it through my filter, and drank carefully.
Late in the night I awoke to a smell. It was familiar. It bore a strong association with rural highway drives back in Oregon when suddenly the car would fill with the acrid gas of a departed skunk. Fucking hell, I thought. Some damn skunk got run over. But then the smell intensified. And then the familiar smell was augmented with something else – some special, ripe quality that I’d never smelled before. Experience taught me to expect a dead skunk, but a living skunk, I realized with horror, was also possible. I shook the walls of my tent frantically and then paused to listen, hoping to hear little scampering paws receding in the brush. I didn’t hear a sound. The smell lingered for hours and I remained flat on my back staring at the stars through mosquito netting, a permanent grimace on my face as I pulled the awful odor into my lungs, my eyes nearly watering to the sharp gas. Somehow I fell asleep.
In the morning I pulled myself upright and drearily inspected the perimeter. Though the skunk smell had diminished inside the tent, there was a distinct ripeness about the far foot. Had I been gassed? The source of the smell was difficult to pinpoint because it seemed to hang on everything. I would pack and check for the smell at the next shelter.
A mile down the trail I determined that either the skunk was following close behind or the smell was indeed emanating from the tent bag strapped to my pack. I realized I would probably hike the rest of the trail with the smell on me. It wasn’t all bad, though. Putrid, but familiar. Like gasoline. I knew that the gas was a defense mechanism, but I started to wonder if there was a pheromone quality to the gas – and might that mean little rapist Pepé Le Pew’s were eyeing me from the brush?
I arrived at the highest elevation of the trip that day and stood on the rock bald summit turning slowly, taking in the vista.
After rounding Canopus Lake I could choose either to continue southeast to Dennytown Road Shelter or walk a mile off the trail to the Canopus Lake campsite. Dennytown Road was four more miles (I had already walked 7), so camping at Canopus Lake should have been my choice, but, loathe to waste miles off the AT, I continued on. I had at least four more miles in me. The human body is an amazing thing, I thought. It will rise to whatever I give it.
Some unnoticed distance later I crossed a road that, glancing at my map, should be Sunken Mine Road. I crossed it confidently, interpreting that I had two miles to cover before rest at Dennytown Road Campsite, I didn’t look for street signs and I didn’t look closer at the peculiar building and field just off to the right. I pressed forward, anxious to maintain pace and wary of getting caught out in the woods after dark.
A few miles later (6 miles? 8 miles?) I still hadn’t found Dennytown Road, nor any road for that matter. The wood continued on forever, climbing, falling. I regretted not speaking beyond pleasantries with the sole hiker I’d passed on the trail. He would have been able to confirm that Dennytown Road was ahead of me. It was becoming clear that it was not.
At last, soaked with sweat and rationing my last half-cup of water, I emerged onto a road. Here, if not a campsite, was at least civilization. I walked a little way up the trail across the road and, finding no sign of a campsite, dropped my pack and investigated further down the road. Nothing. My heart sank. I was without water and almost certainly not where I wanted to be. I looked with despair at the dark, fetid trickle of road run-off bubbling 20 feet off the highway in the brush. Deciding I had no other option, I retrieved my filter and bottle and tore down through the bramble to the sad little creek. A couple frogs started at my approach, leaping into the dark pools. Water skippers glided over the water. I dipped my filter and drew up a liter of the stuff, dropping in two iodine tablets. I returned to the side of the road, imagining the microbial death occurring in my water bottle and counting the minutes before I could quench my desperate thirst.
A truck approached and I waved with map in hand, indicating “one” with my index finger, which I hoped would communicate that I had one question, that I was not looking for a ride, and that I was a stable, financially secure tech professional on holiday, with no agenda to abuse or annoy. The driver slowed a little but rolled on, waving in an awkward way that I’m sure was intended to communicate some constellation of things along the lines of his being a decent human being but having no time or emotional energy to assist a stranger along his commute. I watched after him, my index finger still raised. It’s a very lonely thing to be thirsty on the side of the road with dusk approaching. Another truck approached and this time I opened my map a little to create the best caricature of a lost person I could manage and alternated between pointing to the map and holding up my “one question” index finger, as if that worked before. The truck slowed and a young man looked at me sideways through the open window. “Thank you so much for stopping. Is this Dennytown Road?” Of course it was not. I had passed Dennytown Road several miles back. Hiked right past it. I thanked the man profusely – as if having the worst confirmed was a solace – and enjoyed for a moment the irony that I had walked so swiftly past my destination because I was so intent on arriving at it.
I wasn’t sure what to do, but I didn’t want to give my aching legs the feeling I was winding down, so I continued south on the trail while I pondered the degree to which I was fucked. The next camp was about seven miles out. To return to Dennytown would be farther.
I came upon another fetid creek and dropped my pack. I could camp here, I thought. My body ached. My glutes screamed with every uphill step and my balance was clearly compromised. I sat on a rock and stared at my sweat-soaked feet. It occurred to me that it would be foolish to press on – that I would be pushing the limit of physical capacity, that I would find myself in a deeper part of the woods with dusk fallen, fumbling through the erection of my tent on uneven ground.
But how thrilling to come out the other side – like Deep Dish, collapsing into camp, body destroyed and happy.
I pulled off my shoes and pulled on dry socks, filled my reserve water bottle with frog water, forced myself to swallow a couple of handfulls of trailmix (my appetite was worryingly absent) and started climbing.
My map told me I had nearly six miles to cover – with elevation changes so severe they were almost comical. As if the trail had been custom tailored to accentuate my predicament. I would descend 200 feet, to climb 400, to lose 300, climbing again 300 feet, falling 150, rising 200, and the final two miles promised a relatively steady descent.
My legs went into automatic, dragging a little over the acorns and rocks to find each next footing. When a fallen tree blocked the path, I had to pause for a moment to gather my breath and the energy to pull myself over it.
Within an hour I lost all sense of my position on the map. Ascents and descents came without any adherence to my mental model of the trail. I stumbled forward, head low, every step driving nails into my feet. I crested a hill, momentarily above the canopy, and found the western sky glowed orange with the setting sun. I admired it for a drunken moment before grasping the significance. Dusk would fall soon.
I awarded myself a momentary seat on a rock and lowered myself awkwardly down onto it, nearly sliding down the other side. Righting myself, I pitched the other way and found the ground with my hand. I couldn’t find “up”. I slithered out of my pack and went horizontal on the rock ground, breathing in gasps and blinking through sweat at the shock of orange sky retreating west. I gave myself 90 luxurious seconds. I’m okay, I thought. I have everything I need. I’ll make it to the next shelter or I won’t, and morning will come either way.
Some time later I was descending fairly regularly and estimated I was on the final stretch. The world was darkening around me and I was on the final half of my reserve frog water. A mother and her fawn stood frozen in the path before me, staring at my reeking, sweat-dripping form. I resentfully halted to return their stare. I should enjoy this unique moment, I thought. The mother concluded her visual scan and leaped into the brush. The fawn remained. Follow your mother, I thought. And aloud: “Go on baby.” The fawn sprang away and I was overcome for a moment.
Unmeasured miles of plodding later and with barely enough light to read by, I encountered a sign welcoming me to Graymoor Monastery. Hikers were instructed to follow an irregular path of blue blazes to the Ballpark shelter. I passed an alabaster Jesus overseeing a field of headstones, arriving finally onto an open field with a lone structure at one end. I shuffled the remaining steps, cursing the friars for building the shelter at the far end of the field, and collapsed into the earth.
The trees encircling the field were filled with some odd kind of bird that’s extremely loud and really awful to listen to, but I listened for hours with sincere interest.
I awoke the next morning in my skunk tent and tested my legs. My body was wrecked. Two large blisters had sprouted on my toes and there was a worrying pain in my upper thighs. I calculated I had hiked 23 miles the day before. I was disappointed it was not 27.
I told myself the old lie about the human body being amazing and capable of rising to any challenge, and set out again.
A long day’s hike later, at the end of a very steep descent, I emerged onto an expressway. It was now nearing the weekend and cars were flying up and down the Hudson.
I don’t think many visitors to Bear Mountain see much of Bear Mountain. Hessian Lake curves around its south eastern base like a limp macaroni noodle – of which the bank opposite the mountain is covered sheet to sheet with vacationing families. They drive miles up the interstate to park in crowded lots, from which they hike a half mile to find a square of manicured lawn – the paddle-boat lake before them and barbecue smoke and Latin hip hop pressing in on either side. A stand sells burgers and city-priced beer and at least a couple “Dippin’ Dots” carts push on with their odd experiment.
If the trail is lonely, coming off of it into this is something profound. I can think of few spectacles that so perfectly exemplify the anti-spiritual trajectory of our aspirations. Given free time and essentially limitless resources and miles of unspoiled wilderness, we drive to the edge of that wilderness, blacken factory raised beef on tired, iron grills; drown the crickets in machined loops; look for peace at the bottom of bitter plastic cups.
I got a room.
Rejuvenated by the healing powers of onion rings and Seinfeld, I woke the next day in only moderate pain. My body was a rusty hinge; My back insisted on being moved slowly – if at all – through its range of motion and the tendons at the tops of my thighs felt like they were aching to snap. The blisters on my toes were like extra toes. I decided to leave my pack in my room and investigate the odd little zoo by the bridge.
Built in 1926 to provide a concentrated demonstration of local flora and fauna, the Trailside Museum and Zoo was so named because the Appalachian Trail routes directly through it. Hikers that arrive at Bear Mountain during the zoo’s opening hours find their dirt trail suddenly turned to concrete, and the untamed wilderness on all sides replaced with steel cages confining exotic New York wildlife. (I didn’t originally arrive during the zoo’s open hours, so my own experience was less delightful; I spent a half hour trying to interpret the confusing cluster of trail blazes at the nondescript zoo entrance before finding a route around the damn thing.) The zoo packs a lot of exotic animals in a very small area and all cages are narrow and very shallow, affording the broken beasts within no shelter from the daily onslaught of vacationing New Yorkers. “Hey, turtle! Baby look at the turtle!” “I see the turtle, baby.” “Hey, turtle! Come play with us! Hey, turtle!”. In very little time I saw foxes, coyotes, bears, beavers, snakes, turtles, fish, owls, hawks, and a bald eagle. The informational signage was comically outdated and bleached nearly unreadable by the sun. In many places modern signage had been affixed to cages describing injuries sustained by the individuals in the wild, justifying their confinement in the park. The dark irony of a bald eagle in a 10×10 steel cage was likely known and regretted by the modern caretakers.
I watched a porcupine pace the rear of a his cage for a while, his nose scanning the ground where the bars touched the earth. Several families came and went and each of them shouted some lighthearted theory about his behavior. “He’s hungry!” “Must be dinnertime!” They moved on quickly. The layout of the place didn’t favor contemplation. Visitors to Bear Mountain don’t stay long and a sad little zoo can’t demand much of that time. A single cage in the center of that zoo demands even less, so focusing for even 5 minutes on a porcupine losing his mind in the unnatural confinement and sensory onslaught of the zoo is beyond most people’s patience. I might have stayed for 3 minutes.
Besides the name, there was little about the zoo devoted to the Appalachian Trail. In a dark stone structure at one end I did find a number of ancient photographs showing the original trailblazing efforts of the young individuals that built the first shelters and lookout towers. It’s heartening to imagine who these weirdos were that voluntarily climbed into the forest to forge a path – decades before the first REI commercials laid the emotional groundwork.
The next day I decided my legs were reasonably recovered and in any case I was desperate to get back into the woods away from the hot-dog paddle-boat nightmare. I filled my bottles with foul city water, mounted my pack, and marched around the lake to where the trail rose sharply up the mountain.
This section of the trail, being right in the armpit of the Bear Mountain weekend recreation area was overrun by day hikers. Many of them carried little more than a water bottle and camera. I sweated buckets under the weight of my pack, but delighted in climbing past them. I’m a sucker for a little self-righteousness.
I arrived at the bare summit to find half of the boozy paddle-boaters from below standing around in small clusters staring at the vista, experimenting with the “panorama mode” on their cameras. Of course a parking lot had found it’s way to the summit too and it gleamed with the slowly jostling traffic of hundreds of cars and freshly chromed motorcycles. I absorbed the view for all of five seconds and rejoined the trail to descend down the opposite side.
Now climbing through Harriman State Park, the views were regular and breathtaking.
The final few hours of my night were frantic. I put too much faith in my Appalachian Trail map to correctly pinpoint the off-trail shelter. I followed the wrong trail for a couple miles – ascending and descending several hundred feet needlessly – before doubling back and chasing down two speedy day hikers to ask if they’d seen a shelter. “Is it like a lean-to sort of thing? Right back there.” I followed the correct-incorrect trail for a hundred paces and was immediately confronted with the rock structure. It was clearly built by non-professionals from local rocks, with scant mortar joining them and rough, rotting planks forming the roof and floor. Two fireplaces were formed in the interior walls on either side. The open wall looked south over the rolling miles of park and the Hudson winding away through the haze toward the horizon. It was the greatest view I’d seen all week.
I enjoyed it for 20 minutes before realizing that dusk, my old friend, was approaching and I was at least 500 feet above a source of water. I might have had a cup of water remaining. I examined my map and decided my best bet was a thin snaking blue line a mile and a half farther down the trail. It was a steep climb down and would be hell on the return, but I had no alternative. I hid my pack in the brush and moved quickly south. Descending below the tree line, the approaching dusk was deepened by the thickening canopy above me. I scrambled over roots and rocks, nearly running downhill. I wasn’t so much spooked by the darkening wood as I was anxious to find myself at peace, back on the cliff, sipping hard earned water and watching my sunset. Within half an hour the ground leveled a little and the air became damp. In a little meadow of ferns I found a trickle of water coming down off the mountain. I pulled up two liters, dropped in my iodine, and – wasting no time – shot back up the trail. The climb was grueling and I probably earned a half-liter extra thirst from the effort, but I made camp just as dusk was setting in and the sky was choosing it’s colors.
I quickly staked my tent in a rough area a little ways off the shelter and hoisted my bear bag rope into a tree. When I finally returned to the shelter to cook a soup by the waning light, a tall figure was there, pacing next to the structure looking down the Hudson. “Howdy!” I offered, relieved to have someone to talk to.
“They don’t tell you about this in the books. The view. When they built this one, they really did it right. They had something in mind.” And I completely agreed.
I never got his name and it didn’t matter. He was some kind of architect, about 45, and he murmured in an odd, directionless way that I guessed was largely trail-induced. He had started in Maine and was thru-hiking at a rate of about 20 miles a day. He had a girlfriend that received email updates every time he turned on his “Spot” device, a little orange thing that he placed on a rock that blinked as it uploaded his coordinates via satellite to a mapping website. “So she feels like she’s here with me or something.”
We talked about the trail and the West coast and the obvious but oddly forgettable fact that nature will kill you if you let it – a subject recently at the forefront of my mind.
A fireworks show burst over a small town on the Hudson fifteen miles south of our cliff. The explosions were tiny pops of color barely visible over the winding black line of the river. At several points it seemed like the the finale had begun, but we guessed wrong and the show continued.
In the morning I woke as my camp-mate was packing and I took my time making coffee. I realized he was stalling a little and guessed that he was wondering if I would join him on the trail. I admitted with embarrassment that I was headed back to civilization that day. I felt myself lose all credibility instantly but he wished me well and walked off, murmuring about trying to make it to Jersey that night.
I descended the mountain via an alternate set of trails, emerging after a few hours onto the manicured lawn skirting Hessian Lake. The weekenders had departed, leaving a war zone of pizza stained paper plates and beer cans in their wake. I rounded the Trailside Zoo and retreated back over the mile long Bear Mountain Bridge. The nearest Metro North Rail station was 6.4 miles north on a winding country highway. Although I had enough juice in my cellphone to ring a cab, I decided to walk it. It seemed like cheating to sit in someone’s back seat.
I dodged cars on the highway for three long, sun-baked hours. No one offered a ride.
I found the platform, bought my ticket from the machine, and pulled on a clean shirt, hoping to mask some of the death odor emanating off of me. In an hour the train arrived and shot swiftly back down the Hudson, running alongside the highway I’d just hiked, reversing a half day’s effort in a few minutes.
todavia
Two months later and displaced. Un-displaced (replaced?) to Brooklyn. Bike retrieved from storage and reassembled, boxes of insufficiently labeled possessions carried in small loads from the locker to my temporary home. Still piecing things together slowly. Taking my time. I have no deadlines. I’m in between.
The title of this blog was just some phrasebook line that bounced around in my head long after reading it because I liked to imagine where on Earth it would be used appropriately. Of course there was also the simple symbolic undertone of the ill fitting pants, which I’ve had plenty of time recently to dwell on. Probably too much time. But I’m not going to go there now. It will have to suffice to say that the blog title remains, and I’m thinking of making it blink.
Uncategorized: apartment cultural divide excuses moving stress transport trust
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next apartment
I suppose before continuing I should say something about the new apartment. It’s been some time since I’ve written, and the last thing I wrote regarded leaving First Apartment, so for the sake of narrative let’s put the character in an establishing shot.
What can I say about Next Apartment? It was supposed to be a move in the right direction – the right direction being Palermo Viejo. Palermo is the largest barrio in the city, characterized by shops and parks and the sort of culture attracted to those things. The north-looking realestate businesses here had the genius to call one area of Palermo “SOHO” and another “Hollywood”. Palermo SOHO, like it’s namesake in New York, has an unusual frequency of boutiques and women in uncomfortable shoes. Palermo Hollywood, I understand, is where most of the film/television/entertainment business happens. Both “neighborhoods” benefit from exponential rising rent due to the emotional effect their names have on expats-to-be. Palermo Viejo is a different name entirely – I don’t think the same realestate interests were involved – describing a cluster of blocks in Palermo SOHO (if we’re really going to allow the term) with lots of bars, clubs, and the rowdy 5am shrieking culture attracted to those things. Having laid it out like that I’m embarrassed to say my goal was Palermo Viejo, but my thinking at the time was that I should be right there ‘in the thick of it’. If I’m going to do Spanish class for 3 hours and work for 8+ hours daily, that leaves little time to commute between home and Wherever It Is the People Are. So why not live Where the People Are even if it costs a bit more?
It took me some time to find a new place. I had about an hour every day at 11pm to do the search – in between swallowing my dinner and hitting the lights. That’s not enough time. The real estate market in BsAs in late February isn’t easy. A lot of people from the other hemisphere are still here or newly arriving. I arrived with a lot of expectations about what things would cost and it turns out a lot of the information – though offered with the best intentions – was out of date. Rents have doubled in three years and agents have gotten smart. They know what a New Yorker is used to paying. An apartment’s value here has much more to do with who’s asking than any “going rate”. I’m certain some of my neighbors pay 1/10th what I pay. The expat tax has not apparently decreased in the economic “slowdown”. Where does a laid-off New York banker go if not to BsAs? 1600 for an amazing loft in the best neighborhood of Buenos Aires AND the weather’s great? Throw in a wine tour and he’ll pay twice that. So when I spent my 11pms looking for a new apartment, those were the guys I was contending with. I probably held out a little too long for that perfect apartment with the gated balcony and the full kitchen and respectable selection of English language novels because I found myself three days from my move-out date without a new contract. I want to be the kind of person that enjoys that moment – that says to himself “I don’t know where I’m going to wake up three days from now and that’s awesome” – but I kind of freaked out. It may be that I’m getting older. It may be that I feel a massive obligation to my museum to maintain some semblance of a normal, regular schedule – and that obligation makes me unreasonably anxious. Anyway I freaked out and signed myself into the first apartment in my price range that had Internet and that was within walking distance to Palermo Viejo.
It’s a 30 minute walk. It’s small, a studio, with a queen bed filling one half of the room and one of those crappy dining room tables that has one side bolted into the wall (to save on legs and/or prevent theft?). It has the sorts of pots and pans that you buy if you’ve never cooked before. Sad black steel sauce pans that conduct heat so unevenly the hot zone is exactly the size and shape of the burner beneath it. These pans hate food. The french press – which I assume is what they had in mind when they listed “Coffee Maker!” – is broken. Right in half. Two chairs are deceptively incapable of supporting weight. I could go on. The best part was the Internet connection, which I was assured existed and worked perfectly. When I arrived to sign the contract I learned that the previous tenant had stolen the modem. “There is no Internet?” “There is Internet, you can see [holds up the cable]. There is just needs a modem.”
This is one of those One Hand Clapping things isn’t it? How fast is an Internet connection that doesn’t have a modem? The connection exists, arguably. It’s just not actualized…
Because I had no other options I signed the contract – adding a note for all to see that I considered the thing unfulfilled until an Internet connection was installed. I was very clear with my landlord how important it was that the new modem be installed immediately. He assured me it would be done Monday.
On Tuesday I stopped in to find that my Internet connection was still.. conceptual. I reached my landlord, who complained that it was impossible to receive the technician on Monday because I’m the only one with a key to the apartment. Como se dice ‘paucity of foresight’? I met with him to make a spare and in between ridiculous stilted smalltalk I reiterated the supreme importance of establishing an Internet connection. I was now in such a state that when I told him I could be fired from my job for the eminent lapse in connectivity I nearly believed myself.
He rescheduled for Wednesday. On Wednesday by coincidence I had to check out of my old apartment. I worked all day from the old apartment, foreboding enduring troubles. At the last available moment I packed up my computer and took a cab North to the new apartment. I stepped in with my things and looked immediately to the shelf where I hoped to see a little black box with blinking green lights. Where the modem should have been a note was left explaining that the technician had come but that it was “fundamental” that my computer be in the apartment at the time of the setup to configure the modem. In a stroke that indicated he believed he had completed his obligation to me he left an 800 number I should call to reschedule. Suddenly his cellphone refused my calls.
I did try his 800 number – not that it should have been my responsibility to assist the installation of a service I was already paying for – and the Fibertel agent that answered couldn’t help me when I didn’t speak sufficient Spanish. He also didn’t know what to do with me when I asked him if I was fucked.
I spent the next two days getting to know the agency people really well by telephone. Daniel seemed nice enough but didn’t seem to share much with his evening replacement, Gwen, because I had to repeat myself any time I called to remind them that they were all going to die.
I don’t care about the gym. I don’t care about the so called 24 hour security (which from what I can tell is really just a guy that mops the lobby twice weekly at odd hours and says “Buen Día”). I don’t care about the in-house laundry room nor the pool. I don’t really know what a parilla is much less why I should be glad there are a bunch of them on the roof. I need Internet.
The agency, in spite of many discussions about the nature of a “connection” and where certain lines of responsibility are drawn, could not help me. This was a matter between me and the landlord whose cellphone stopped working shortly after I paid. Eventually I learned from the nice couple down the block (that somehow run a business selling 50 centavo phone calls and gum) that my landlord’s cellphone likely just needed credit. He had let his prepaid phone run out of minutes and hadn’t added any more. For two days. Which, in the convoluted Argentine telecom system, means one needs to buy a special card whose sole purpose is to place calls to prepaid cellphones that don’t have credit. Yeah. That card exists. It costs about 30 cents a minute and I would have paid ten bucks because hearing the surprise in that asshole’s voice when he realized I had vaulted over his no-credit prepaid scam was priceless. “Hola… Paul…. Que tal?”
He rescheduled for the following Tuesday.
I skipped class Tuesday to receive the Fibertel man. Like 98 percent of Argentina he didn’t speak a word of English, but we got by on what Spanish I knew and mary mother of christ I got my Internet.
I started writing this thinking I’d say something about how nice it is to have a balcony – a private space outside where you can close your eyes in the sun – but it kind of descended into another needlessly detailed account of the folly of expecting things to work in this country.
The balcony is nice.
old digs
Farewell to old digs. Yesterday I closed the door on my first BsAs apartment. My landlady inspected the place and returned my deposit. I wondered if I’d feel some small bit of regret about leaving the place. I tend to get a little emotional when I leave a place that I’ve spent some time in. This apartment was after all the first place I felt a degree of safety in BsAs. It received me on the first day. I stood for a long time in the shower washing away the shoe polish and sweat, thinking about the tall, wide bathroom window that could be reached from the roof with a rope. I never exactly got a full night sleep in First Apt, but the space was quiet and the windows did verifiably lock, which is all you need when you’re tired enough.
I’ll miss the San Telmo market. Once you get your fruit vocab down you can almost pass as a local.
Uncategorized: banks cultural divide excuses learning spanish signage
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nontranslatable
One great thing about being in a country that doesn’t speak your language is no one expects you to say anything. It can be a luxury. Bear with me.
Standing in line at the bank the other day the woman in front of me turned to share some observation she had just had about our teller. Whatever she said was probably clever and on point and I should have chuckled and responded in kind if I had any idea what it was. But rather than ask her to repeat herself five times while I flipped through my dictionary I had to apologize ‘Perdon no hablo Espanol’. On one hand it’s a shame. I miss out on the rawer interactions. I don’t get to share in the passive aggressive whispers of the city’s working constituency. On the other hand I have an eject button for every situation. How often have you wished you could say “I’m sorry I don’t speak English” rather than fake a half-interested noncommital laugh?
In class today the profesora asked us to discuss a time and place in the past (think ancient Greece, Paris in the ’20s..) and compare it to today. To watch me speak it probably looked like I was struggling with preterite imperfect conjugations. Internally I was struggling to come up with some concrete comparison I could actually stand behind. En esa epoca habia mas libertad de vida.. but was there really much more freedom? What do I know? Weren’t women excluded from government? Wasn’t there a severe class system? Actually I don’t know. What concrete comparison can I make without owning up to a sad, superficial understanding of this very very dead civilization? (The textbook helped me out with a cartoon of the Quintessential Greek: impossibly curly beard, orating freely in very comfortable clothing, a jug of wine levitating in the background. “Habia mas libertad que hoy. Eran mas inteligentes.”)
Sometimes I miss the point.
I watched them take down this sign the other day. They changed "SKILLS INGLES" to "SKILLS ENGLISH". Kept the jazz icon. I would love to have listened in on that meeting.
agua con gas
Weekend vegan pancake hobbyists in South America take note: The key to fluffy pancakes may well be agua con gas. This works so well in both corn and white flour varieties that I may be gaining weight for the first time since I was 16. Thanks Nena and Sandy.
Effing delicious
tunes for a place
Tommy lent me the contents of his ipod, which replaces a lot of what I lost on the first day. (DMCA enthusiasts note: This blog is a work of fiction.) The regained tracks are great, but the gained tracks that I never had in the first place have been especially valuable. A lot of my old Brooklyn 2008 music doesn’t work here. There was a time and place for modern psychedelic whiskey drone rock*. The time isn’t now, at least not in Buenos Aires. Just doesn’t fit. Kind of like my electric beard trimmer. You can try to fit it in that Australian style 220 but it’s either not going to fit or the room’s about to smell like burning plastic.
But know what music does work really well here? Will Oldham’s entire career. (speaking of beards?) Also Billy Holiday. For some reason.
In any case, big thanks to Tommy for the lend. The whiskey psych drone will wait till another time and city.
* yeah i made that up
Had a very nice visit with DeEtte and Tommy as they passed through my first-by-third-world city on their way to Patagonia. We walked all over. Ventured south into La Boca, a one-block oasis of photo ops surrounded on all sides by opportunities to be relieved of your camera.
Ate non-spectacular food at similar prices (however props to the 8 dollar bottle of wine that was not only delicious but also had some alcohol in it). We had much to talk about – this city’s principal export may be stories. When conversation thinned we sank into a park in a nice area of Palermo. Deep spongy grass. A boy on a huge bike riding with no hands like it’s a new thing. Kids kicking a ball around, all Perdon Perdon when it flies off course into our circle. I have no problem with stray soccer balls kids. You’re doing great.
pájaro de cuenta
Alright so here’s how it went down.
In the last days in Brooklyn, the details of putting my worldly possessions in boxes and exiting my life consumed me. I didn’t read much and I didn’t read my Lonely Planet guide to Argentina – except to confirm my stubborn assumptions about San Telmo, the neighborhood I had already wired money to move into. I didn’t read the ‘Getting There’ section until I was on the plane. Because any travel to, from, or around BsAs is complicated, I read the section twice. My big take-away was one major point that I’ve seen echoed on blogs and other guide books: Be very careful about the cabs. Specifically, be careful not to be given fake bills as change. Also be careful not to be driven for a loop on a scenic route designed to raise the fare. Also be careful not to be driven out into a rural area, robbed of your cash, possessions, and passport – and left on the side of the road. It’s amazing these guides coexist with a thriving taxi industry in this city.
I planned to take a shuttle. It was unclear where it would take me. Lonely Planet thoroughly convinced me of the practicality and safety of the shuttle service, but I was left unsatisfied with specifics. I absorbed that I would – or could – be taken downtown, but I was unclear where downtown was nor how to ask for it nor really whether or not I wanted to go downtown. I mused optimistically that the shuttle desk would be staffed by courteous, immensely helpful English speakers that would facilitate an efficient, effortless transfer and recommend a good vegan restaurant besides. I drifted off into less extravagant dreams.
After a few hours of plane sleep and a coffee that was way too small,we touched down at EZE and filed out into Arrivals area. A mob of strangers eyed each of us as we entered the lobby. Dozens of handwritten signs were held up with local and foreign surnames. I briefly regretted not arranging to have my name among them. Now beyond the safety of Immigration and Baggage, I assumed what I hoped was the countenance of a person that knows what he’s doing. Yet my backpack towered over me – larger than me and better than half as heavy – and I pushed a second suitcase in front of me. Atop this was the black carry-on that contained my laptop, mac mini, guidebooks, music drive, and 900 dollars cash – exactly what I needed for rent. Looking back I realize I could not have looked less like I knew what I was doing if I had worn cowboy boots and a Planet Hollywood t-shirt.
There were no obvious ATMs. Of course none of the visual clues I rely upon to find ATMs were likely there. (In particular, they’re not marked “ATM”.) And I didn’t want to spend too much time looking or pull out my phrase book and risk outing myself as a tourist (because lots of Porteños heft around overstuffed REI hiking backpacks). I regretfully resigned to finding cash after I hit town.
I approached the Sierra Leon shuttle desk and was greeted in Spanish. I told him “centro” hoping this was a reasonable response to whatever he had said to me. I don’t know why I didn’t just say “San Telmo”. It’s a frequent problem here that I try to converse entirely in Spanish when I have no idea what’s going on. Is it really better that the counter guy think I know what I’m doing than that I wind up two miles from my apartment? Anyway I said “centro” with confidence, as if that was a reasonable thing to say (it wasn’t) and he stared at me a beat – just in case I was about to start acting like a normal person. When I didn’t he ran me a ticket to Retiro.
The ride was pleasant enough. I sat next to a man from Spain. He looked at me quizzically when I said “me escusa”. I learned later that that’s not Spanish.
We flew down the highway passing neighborhoods of ramshackle brick homes and shanties. Dark, leaning buildings built on top of buildings – none taller than 3 stories. Plywood roofs. Stray dogs. I began preparing a joke for my new expat friends that these buildings are not built to code. Probably not many licensed contractors involved. Delivery will be key. Ah the privilege.
We arrived at Retiro and nothing was familiar. There was no patient, bilingual Porteño waiting to greet me and call me a car. I walked briskly from one end of the station to the other as if I knew what I was doing, glancing up at the signs on the walls through the corners of my eyes, hoping one of them would tell me how to get where I needed to be. I realized quickly that my pacing was drawing attention and swiftly walked out the nearest exit.
The street was wide and empty. Unmarked buildings towered over me. An intersection came together at 5 points, no street signs.. I walked purposefully back inside.
This time a uniformed shuttle worker approached and offered something in Spanish. I dropped the well executed facade and apologized “Habla Ingles?”. The man did not. I laid all the cards out on the table by revealing my Lonely Planet map. “Necesito ir a San Telmo.” I expressed that, being from New York, traveling by subway would satisfy a now swelling hunger for the familiar. He was uninterested in the psychology of the choice but told me where I could find a subway and cash machine. He seemed genuinely pleased to have helped me and I made a mental note to return to this “Retiro” with a bottle of good Scotch for this man whose kindness was so at odds with the cruel destitution I’d seen in the ramshackle shanties that were definitely not to code.
I crossed wide avenues, shaking my head at offers from cabs. I located the Subte entrance and descended. I pulled 300 pesos (85 bucks) from a machine under a sign that did not say “ATM” and purchased 20 viajes, squeezed my things through the turnstile, and stepped onto the last car of a very old train. Rings hanging from leather straps. I dismounted my backpack and wiped several sleeves of sweat from my face. My head throbbed with dehydration and want of coffee but I watched out the windows and scanned the ads as if bored – as if completely at home.
Several stations later we pulled into Independencia and I ascended the stairs to the street. I took a shameful glance at my guide book and memorized the calles I would pass if I was walking in the correct direction, quickly returned the book to my bag. Just another paper-white Porteño with a hundred pounds of luggage. I set off.
My backpack bobbed over me, towered a head above. I pushed my suitcase in front, with my black carry-on resting on top. The sidewalks were irregularly finished and broken. Large holes were frequent. Like the area had been pummeled with mortars. As if I have any idea what that looks like.
Crossing the second intersection I had to slow briefly to pull my bag onto the handicap-unfriendly curb. I became aware suddenly of two people walking leisurely behind me. Their speed carried them briefly at level with me and they slowed, chatting about something. I powered on and they dropped behind me.
I wasn’t concerned. My shirt was soaked with sweat, my head was ringing, and I knew where I was going. Five lanes of traffic baked beside me; strange European cars; unfamiliar music.
Something dark flew past my left shoulder. I became aware again of the couple behind me and without looking back I concluded that one of them had flicked cigarette ash on me. I did not want a confrontation. Also I couldn’t confirm the ashing was malicious. I kept on, pushing my suitcase, wheels not designed for these mortar-damaged streets.
Something landed in my hair. I bushed at it with a free hand and found it was wet and black like oil. The couple behind me began to pass. The man glanced at me and smiled. “Hola.” He said something complicated in Spanish and the woman reiterated, pointing at me and at then at her own back. I glanced for the first time over my left shoulder and found that I was splattered with the same black oil that I had found in my hair. We all stopped on the sidewalk now and the couple was concerned. “Que es?” I asked in a manner that exuded confidence with this, my second language. I knew what I was doing. I knew how a reasonable person reacted to black oil found on one’s clothing. I mimicked a bird flapping its wings with my hands. “Es de un pájaro?” I was on fire. The woman held out some napkins – the sort of napkins freely available from fast rood restaurants. She wetted one and demonstrated the manner in which I should I approach “limpiar”ing the presumed bird shit from my shirt. She demonstrated removing my pack, insisting in a language that was not English that a reasonable person would remove his backpack and attend to the bird shit now. Naturally I was inclined to keep on and deal with the birdshit later. If I’m anything I’m a soak-then-pad-dry kind of guy. I’m not of the scrub-with-water-and-paper-napkins school. But this couple’s smiling insistence that I attend to the issue sooner than later was the encouragement I required and I was soon scrubbing the oil from my shirt with the nearly endless supply of napkins that this woman seemed to have in her bag. Like the Mary Poppins of fast food napkins. The man meanwhile walked about 20 feet down the street – in the same direction of traffic – and examined the trees I had walked beneath. I watched after him and looked up too. Pinche pájaros. Not two hours in town and they’re shitting on me from trees. I wondered if I was giving off some foreign smell that the birds reacted negatively to – like a cat I once lived with that pissed on my suitcase anytime I returned from a long trip.
I continued scrubbing the oil from my shirt and hair. This was about as effective as one should expect any effort to remove oil from cotton using only water and napkins should be. A couple of times I made movements to remount my backpack and continue, but the woman was insistent. She seemed embarrassed for me and it occurred to me to worry that showing up at my new apartment with bird shit on my things and hair would be a poor start indeed, so I endured further “limpiar”ing.
I became aware of a cab, which had pulled up to the curb beside the woman.
The man, who was maybe 20 feet down, suddenly called out, pointing to the tourist-hating birds. I looked hard, saw nothing. His finger drifted to the buildings behind the trees, which joined with a lingering suspicion at the back of my mind that the bird shit might not be “de pájaros” at all but in fact some prank pulled by humans in the boarded buildings above. Was I overly cynical to entertain the possibility that someone could be so mean as to squirt oil on a passing pedestrian from above? I scanned the windows, determined to stare their occupants to justice. I saw nothing. When I looked down to the man he was climbing quickly into a cab.
Well, that’s strange behavior.
I turned about face to find the woman not where I left her. I was suddenly alone on the sidewalk clutching a bottle of water and a wad of napkins. Being a careful traveler I took quick inventory of my things. Backpack. Suitcase. The top of my suitcase gleamed brilliant, clean maroon where my carry-on had sat.
There’s a special sound made when all of the blood in your body suddenly accelerates to twice it’s normal velocity. It’s the sudden throb of pressure against your ears as a gallon of blood suddenly fires through your veins on a course to ready your muscles for fight or flight. Boom.
HEY! I wondered briefly what the Spanish translation of HEY should be. Oye? I had no idea. HEY! I sprinted to the cab, which was slow to reach speed. Somehow in the space between the theft and the sprinting I had already concluded that it would be futile to pursue, but I felt the obligation to do so anyway. What am I going to do if I catch up to them? I had to confront the absence of obvious answers to this question because I did catch up to them. The cab was rolling along at 15, 20, 25. The man was having trouble pulling the door all the way closed. I considered pulling the door open by the handle but the cab was already beating me and I reasoned I wouldn’t have leverage. Also, what then? So I did what has always come natural to me when the blood pounds in my ears. I banged on the window with my fist as hard as I could. I could feel the window flex with each impact, which raised another question: What will I do if I break the window? I mean what other goal can I have here if it’s not to break this window?
The cab did not stop. It accelerated leisurely, as if there was not a blood-red tourist, screaming in a foreign language, trying to break his hand on the rear window.
At some point it picked up enough speed that I slowed and closed my eyes to go somewhere else. I became aware now – as if that did me any good before – that I was completely alone on the side of the road with one bag safely separated from me in a cab bound for brick shanties and my only other possessions sitting alone half a block away. I turned and returned to the sidewalk. When I spotted my (remaining) bags and confirmed that they were not also being loaded into cabs, I indulged the loudest “FUCK” I hope Buenos Aires has ever heard. It was a magnificent fuck. Every Porteño in 10 blocks had an English lesson that day.
I found that i was still clutching the woman’s water bottle and napkins. Oregonians are physically unable to litter. The irony was too much and I indulged another “FUCK” and a few variations on that idea, throwing (with a little shame) the water bottle and napkins into the street.
Bienvenido a Buenos Aires.
Necessarily, things improved considerably thereafter – as they can only do when they’re so low. I was approached immediately by five or six foreigners that heard my story (a sputtering synopsis of what you just read) and helped me to a police station. My head was ringing, shirt drenched, hair a mess of black oil (shoe polish maybe?) and sweat. After hours of pretending to bear a confidence I did not, my face now perfectly reflected my interior. A sharp, clenched scowl with eyes anxious to stare into every passing pedestrian. What more can you take? Fucking country. Try it! Let’s fight with fingernails and teeth like god damned animals. I’m genuinely curious what will happen.
But the blood subsided and I gave my statement to the police. At times I would recall one more essential item I had forgotten was in the bag and the pounding anger would return. My guide. My maps. My phrase book. What are they going to do with a phrase book? My landlord’s telephone number. The RSA keyfob that lets me work remotely for the museum… Oh my god all the passwords..
Of course I’m not getting the bag back. There will be no crack team of detectives brushing the water bottle for prints and hair fragments. I didn’t even have a license plate number. I’m not in the habit of noting plate numbers and I didn’t start when I arrived in BsAs. In the Moment one doesn’t always do what’s sensible. I had a plan and it started with breaking my hand on some glass.
I still wake up and it takes a moment to realize where I am. And when I remember I still immediately think about Day One. And I kick myself, continue to kick myself mentally – sharp, full-force, steel-toe jabs – until I forget. There were too many moments of dim awareness. It was too obvious. Too many opportunities to reverse it.
Of course it could have been much much worse. The first solace I allowed was the realization that this was not an act of aggression. These people were smart and they got lucky that I was not. (In my defense I was also hot, tired, under-caffeinated, and generally disoriented. Add to that a heavy dose of white guilt that inclines me to assume the best of anyone a few shades darker than me, and you’ve got a willing victim.) But they were not aggressive. They suggested I look one way, and when I did they took my bag. I could have stopped them by noticing.
It will have to suffice for now to say that things are more or less sorted. My museum sent me a computer and a new RSA fob. I spent a week recalling all of the passwords I had saved in text files on that computer – had to contact many clients and suggest they change their passwords (definitely one of the most embarrassing aspects of this). I bought a new guide book, which I found says roughly the same thing about the danger of cabs. I don’t imagine I’ll quickly replace the music that was collected on the harddrive. I didn’t keep backups – one of the least stupid of several stupid mistakes. The loss of the 900 for rent of my apartment was a serious blow. My landlord was very understanding and allowed me to pay the following week. After a couple weeks I allowed myself to go out after dark. In a couple more I might even take a cab.
The other day I ran a load of laundry and examined the “pájaro” stains for the first time and I gotta say I think scrubbing that shit with napkins made it worse.
club soda
I probably over-apply the concept, but I’m a big fan of thinking about the world as newly “flat”. If the world was still round – which is to say dimensional, with consequential physical barriers – I wouldn’t be able to make my living developing systems for a museum five thousand miles away. More importantly I would miss out on immediately relevant vegan pancake advice from my aunts Nena and Sandy.
Crazy? Or brilliant? Saturday morning will tell.
