I arrived in Buenos Aires the first day of August. Watched the sunrise from the air after looking for the Southern Cross in the dark night air. It was a long but cosy flight. My seat mate, a small Argentine boy that had been in New York City for the first time with his mother, cousins and an aunt. He reminded me of the innocence of beginings, childhood, open eyes, unmarred soul, clean and clear-hearted openness. Things I hope if not to recover then not lose the memory or idea of.

My bags were naturally the last to enter the conveyors. I was sure that I would again have to fight the Gods of luggage and go into town uncertain of their destiny...but it was just another opportunity to exercise patience. Customs was a breeze. They ask you in the customs form to declare your cell phone, which I brought along as an address book. You must enter the serial number to ensure you are not trafficking in cell phones. Bizarre.

Stepping out into the crisp cool of morning I thought of how that northerly sun would scald my friends back home. It was 105 in Washington D.C. and a cool 48 at EZE. The city is a 30 minute cab ride at a flat rate of 50 pesos (17 USD) - a noisy horn blaring affair with the ugly outer monoliths of prison-like towers housing the suburban poor. Argentine flags slapped over balconies, in spite of World Cup defeat, steadfast national pride alongside dirty laundry, faded white paint.

Entering into the city it is not yet 10:00 am. The crowds swarm everywhere. This is certainly the capital. Crawling with cars and taxis, people marching along toward their daily duties. I think how we are all, human beings, so similar, two-legged légionnaires, always doomed to forward motion, ants connecting to each other, antennae feverishly trying to detect the subtle shifts of reality in our paths. Still, I think, we are no more important or conscious than the miraculous ants and bees and other socially organized order of life forms.

The cabbie is proud of his city, he invites me to concur on his feeling that it is beautiful, I concur and lie. He asks why I am here. Fatigued, I find it dirty, polluted, trash on the curbs, grey. Tired buildings that show wear. I am being unfair, I tell myself, don't judge its facade. There will be treasures behind these rain-faded walls. I lie again. Tourism. A long held dream. The long held dream is a fact. Maybe I can finally open my literary vena cava. Bleed the mind through my fingertips with the holocaust of thoughts, imagery, ideas. Give form to this desired ink of creation. FInd the way to unfurl my flag of hope. Awaken and live again.

We arrive at the hotel. I am embarrassed by the bulk of my baggage. A porter alights from the lobby and begins to drag the corpse of dead weight up the little steps, squeezing it through the aperture of the front door like a bloated still born baby through a tiny woman's vagina. It pops through. I give them the proverbial credit card and my passport. Another guy from the U.S. - his expression quietly takes me in. Warm smiles. There is a nice dark young girl behind the front desk. Warms up when I speak Spanish. They are surprised. Ask how I came to be American, what country is my Spanish from. Cuba. They smile even broader.

Did you hear about Fidel? Yes I say, the criminal and murderer of freedom in my homeland? The guy who imprisoned poets and journalists and made Cuba into a Soviet prison? Why yes, I've known about him for years. Smiles pucker tart and tight to a point of no return. This is not what they hoped to hear, not what they believe in their romantic idea of the tyrant dictator obviously. How absurd that people whould harbor romantic ideas about socialist justice at the hands of this devout torturer, jailer of poets and journalists, persecutor of people's freedom of religion, thought. How can anyone stand by the idea of a 47 year dictatorship. Viva La Revolución! My ass...all those people are compelled by a police state to utter adoration or be hunted down, marginalized and jailed if one stands or speaks out against th government. Is he dead?!

No, they inform me, Castro underwent emergency surgery this morning. Oh well, hold the confetti in check...the day will come. Shame he didn't get to taste some of his own dire medicine of dank, inhuman jails, psychological and physical torture. Sure would have like to see him hung in the public square a la Musollini...

Good, I think, another dictator on the brink of expiration. If only our own little team of lying totalitarian fascists in Washington also experienced sudden hemorrahage. Fidel's caused enough sorrow, enough heartache. Maybe Bush can make his final legacy á la Reagan? Mr. Castro bring down this gulf! Now THAT would make Cuban Americans in Miami devout to the party forever. Don't they see that? But the world is a powder keg, CUba is small frys compared to the horrors in the Middle East, Iraq, bombs bombs bombs...the eternal stupidity and madness of men.

The U.S. obviously has other plans and troubles beside extending their 'Operation Iraqi Freedom" to my little tortured island. More like "Operation Who Gives A Shit About Your Banana Republic - Find Me Some Oil And We'll Export A Little "Freedom" Your Way Too!"

But hey...forget that. I in Buenos Aires and the police state ended here awhile ago. People were free to elect the thieves that followed and actually had a hand in choosing who would rob them of their security, trust, ideals and hopes for a decent life.

We squeeze back into an even tighter twat of space, a turn of the century elevator, the kind I love with little iron gates, cranky and noisy and lovely. I barely fit in with the porter and the thing whirs and pulleys us upward. I am on the 3rd floor in a tiny room with a tiny bathroom and just enough room for a bed. The porter behaves as if I've just checked into the Ritz in Paris. All professionalism and pomp. Demonstrates the t.v., the light dimmer. I cut off his polished performance with a 5 peso note. He smiles and almost curtsies as he backs out the door.

I push the bags to a corner and fall on the bed as dead as their contents. I sleep an hour off and then head out. The closest iconic spot is the Recoleta Cemetary where Eva Duarte, Eva Perón, Evita, Santa Evita... is buried. It is a walled cemetery. Grandiose. Marbled mausoleums full of the country's fallen heroes, presidents, whores, thieves, martyred bourgeoisie. It doesn't take much to find her. A black marbled affair. Faded flowers dying on the gates to the mausoleum. Melted candles. Plaques paid for by adoring organizations. A small group of gawkers stare at it as if she might rise from the dead and begin waving her arms and shouting for justice. Gotta love day 1.