El sabado, por la noche
"¡Ey jefe!¿Que busca ?"
"Chicas. Linditas, jovencitas, bien criadas, bien baratas..."
"¡Mire!..."
"Ustedes que buscan ?"
"¡Dinero!"
"A, si ? Mas facil para mi."
"¿Le parece ?"
"Si. El dinero no anda buscando en vos."
A hole opens in an indistinct wall. Dozens of young people are sucked like by a vacuum, suddenly disappearing in the darkness beyond. Mostly girlies, sexy as that goes here (short and curvy), dressed sexily as that's understood here (deep cleavage and tightly fitted pants or, more rarely, dresses). Within a minute everyone's in : three chicas jump out from the cab waiting by the curb, five or six more who really seemed to have been waiting in a bus line, the group idling by the chicken counter ten paces up the street, a whole pile-up. The opening in the indistinct wall closes behind the last, leaving no trace. Nothing there. Just an indistinct wall ; the cockroaches patrolling the sidewalk and a greasy paper bag falling off the curb.
"¿Que le parece de San Jose ?"
"La ciudad ha caido mucho. Antes, tenia mucho mas putas, mucho mas lindas."
"Asi es. Por la falta de los hombres."
"Cree ?"
"Que si. Antes, si uno tenia novia, hermanita, prima linda que si lo poneva a trabajar."
"Pero ellas tenian ganas de encularse tambien."
"Hoy esperan todo del App."
"Y si nada viene ?"
"Todavia esperan."
A parking lot, smack drab downtown, bereft of parked cars as all parking lots in the Doomesdays, has tables lined up against one of the walls, the white plastic things ubiquitous since the Chinese started shipping them out. A few dozen young people are seated about, doing what rather looks like a middle class cumpleanos, or perhaps majorat. I forget what the Romanians called that thing at the end of highschool, but you get the general idea : they're there gathered at the hop. The music's loud, the local fizz knock-offs enthroned. A pasty kid of the wrong complexion, outside by the misparked SUV, oblique in front of one of the closed metal gates, inquires repeatedly whether 'tis a "private party". So it is, in the obvious sense that no party's ever public, what the hell.
"Le molesta si humo ?"
"Hume, hume."
A pretty mulatto that months ago, picked off the street in an entirely different part of town, had had the unmitigated audacity to demand her dates be set in advance, because "she has a schedule", is now sitting dejectedly on the rundown steps before a "familial hotel", in the company of an old whore. A transvestite's manning the corner further down ; opposite two girlies in Casino cocksucker geddupi are blowing kisses.
Back then she was jogging, she had ideas and pretensions of careerwomanhood ; now she's out for a buck, sorta-kinda. I recognize her, as much as my limited cognition's capable of recognizing the African race ; she definitely recognizes me, because after a moment's momentary hope she decides I must've recognized her, and breaks down. The natural inclinations of girlihood don't work any better today than ever ; yet apparently they're still as natural today as they ever were. Absent competent older women to pass on to the naive fillies the (obviously counterintuitive) clues... well...
I really don't think it's the dudes fault. I think the older women are letting the younger women down something fierce.
———- Golden high heels, tight cocktail dresses, hair done a certain way, you know the spiel. If you were somebody back sometime, at least, you know the spiel. [↩]
