Crises of Varying Proportions

There’s a street off that main Avenida Santa Fe, Junín. Walk down a block or so and there will be a sad old galería to the left – windows mostly shuttered, echoes on the marble floor. It doesn’t seem to faze Gonzalo the cobbler. (The English word is outdated, too quaint. Spanish zapatero is better – the shoe-man.) Cross the threshold of the rent-a-space and it is his territory. Oxfords, dress shoes, heels, and boots litter the floor and perch precariously on the shelves around him, witnesses and testaments of his trade. Gonzalo sits crouched on a stool in the center. Skinny, graying, his leathery skin matching the consistency of the loafer in his hands. He keeps one eye on the shoe and the other on the grainy television propped on a side table. Argentina vs. Uruguay, fútbol.

Gonzalo glances at me warily as I walk in, a tall yanqui, not a regular. It doesn’t take him long to understand why I’m here – I’m standing lopsided with the sole of my boot halfway off. I have hobbled and flapped up miles (kilometers?) of cobblestone streets, or it seems like it. I look ridiculous. You’ll need that fixed, he says, leave it with me.

My plane leaves tonight and all my bags are in storage at the bus station, I explain. It’s a crisis situation.

Stay here, then. It’ll be an hour or so.

I take a seat on a stool he pulls out for me, gingerly removing the shoeshine and leather cleaner and bottles that I, a novice, am at a loss to identify. He keeps working on the loafer. Our silence yanks the announcer’s voice out of the background, tinny but confident. Uruguay scores and Gonzalo swears under his breath. Dismissing the game as unworthy of his further attention, he turns away from the screen and toward me.

You’re not from here, are you. It’s a statement not a question, an inevitable response when I try to roll my r’s. No I’m not, Philadelphia. Gonzalo has a cousin in Chicago. Diego Mansilla, do I know him? No? It’s a big country. Still, you never know. He left in the 90s when the government pegged the peso to the dollar. Changed everything. Cheaper to go to Disney World than to visit relatives down south. The world shrank, you could leave, travel anywhere but he stayed there. Because of a woman, of course, an American. They have three yanqui kids now. Have I met them? No, couldn’t after 2001…

Examining the shoe one last time, Gonzalo sets it on the floor and motions to my boot. I pull it off and hand it to him, sole flapping wanly. I don’t blame him for the disparaging look he gives it. Apparently quality Argentine leather ranges in quality, who knew. Gonzalo grabs an unlabeled brownish bottle from his drawer and begins to coat the boots with its suspicious-smelling contents. Don’t worry, he says, noticing me eye the operation. I know what I’m doing.

Anyway, he continues, couldn’t after 2001. The puta madre government left us with nothing. All these stores were sacked – he gestures to the empty galería stalls around him. Mine too, who knows what they wanted with other people’s shoes but it was the time.
I know something about this, Argentina’s most recent crisis. The government froze its citizens’ bank accounts and people were frantic. They started by sacking supermarkets, but eventually it was a free-for-all. Riots ruled the streets, teenagers carted plasma TVs out of electronics stores, giddy in desperation. Five presidents in a week but Argentines bounced back, they always seem to. Maybe it’s why people seem to live in the present so well here – if the government has the power to nullify all your savings, it’s pointless to plan too far ahead.

Gonzalo keeps talking, telling me about recovering from the crisis, putting his shop back together. He hardly ever looks up at me, concentrating on the repair. I’m listening but wonder whether he cares if I am. He doesn’t seem eager to elicit any response from me, although I’d rather just hear his stories. Maybe that’s all he needs.

As he moves on to shining the boot a customer walks in, the first since I’ve been here. She’s an elderly lady, impeccably dressed, each step she takes small and precise. I’ve seen the type in the Buenos Aires streets. I assume she lives in Recoleta, the old-money barrio, where the embassies are. Gonzalo’s shop straddles Recoleta and Abasto, gritty and colorful and working-class, its borders merging uneasily with the former and only arbitrarily defined if defined at all. The woman ignores me, the half-barefoot teenager on the stool irrelevant to her. The loafers are for her, for her husband rather. She picks them up and inspects them carefully. They’ll measure up, Gonzalo isn’t worried. She makes small talk with the zapatero. What about that fútbol game, my husband wants to kill the whole lot of them. Yes, yes, what a nightmare. The team’s in crisis mode without Messi.

Meanwhile Gonzalo is finished with my boot. He hands it back to me and I pull it on. I can make it to the airport in time, I’m sure. He continues to talk with the elderly lady as I hand him fifty pesos. A deal. I pause on my way out, unsure whether to interrupt, give our conversation some sort of closure. Maybe I should but I’ve missed the moment, so I just smile, mouth thank you, and close the door gently as I leave.

Gonzalo glances at me warily as I walk in, a tall yanqui, not a regular. It doesn’t take him long to understand why I’m here – I’m standing lopsided with the sole of my boot halfway off. I have hobbled and flapped up miles (kilometers?) of cobblestone streets, or it seems like it. I look ridiculous. You’ll need that fixed, he says, leave it with me.

My plane leaves tonight and all my bags are in storage at the bus station, I explain. It’s a crisis situation.

Stay here, then. It’ll be an hour or so.

I take a seat on a stool he pulls out for me, gingerly removing the shoeshine and leather cleaner and bottles that I, a novice, am at a loss to identify. He keeps working on the loafer. Our silence yanks the announcer’s voice out of the background, tinny but confident. Uruguay scores and Gonzalo swears under his breath. Dismissing the game as unworthy of his further attention, he turns away from the screen and toward me.

You’re not from here, are you. It’s a statement not a question, an inevitable response if I have to roll my r’s. No I’m not, Philadelphia. Gonzalo has a cousin in Chicago. Diego Mansilla, do I know him? No? It’s a big country. Still, you never know. He left in the 90s when the government pegged the peso to the dollar. Changed everything. Cheaper to go to Disney World than to visit relatives down south. The world shrank, you could leave, travel anywhere but he stayed there. Because of a woman, of course, an American. They have three yanqui kids now. Have I met them? No, couldn’t after 2001…

Examining the shoe one last time, Gonzalo sets it on the floor and motions to my boot. I pull it off and hand it to him, sole flapping wanly. I don’t blame him for the disparaging look he gives it. Apparently quality Argentine leather ranges in quality, who knew. Gonzalo grabs an unlabeled brownish bottle from his drawer and begins to coat the boots with its suspicious-smelling contents. Don’t worry, he says, noticing me eye the operation. I know what I’m doing.

Anyway, he continues, couldn’t after 2001. The puta madre government left us with nothing. All these stores were sacked – he gestures to the empty galería stalls around him. Mine too, who knows what they wanted with other people’s shoes but it was the time.

I know something about this, Argentina’s most recent crisis. The government froze its citizens’ bank accounts and people were frantic. They started by sacking supermarkets, but eventually it was a free-for-all. Riots ruled the streets, teenagers carted plasma TVs out of electronics stores, giddy in desperation. Five presidents in a week but Argentines bounced back, they always seem to. Maybe it’s why people seem to live in the present so well here – if the government has the power to nullify all your savings, it’s pointless to plan too far ahead.

Gonzalo keeps talking, telling me about recovering from the crisis, putting his shop back together. He hardly ever looks up at me, concentrating on the repair. I’m listening but wonder whether he cares if I am. He doesn’t seem eager to elicit any response from me, although I’d rather just hear his stories. Maybe that’s all he needs.

As he moves on to shining the boot a customer walks in, the first since I’ve been here. She’s an elderly lady, impeccably dressed, each step she takes small and precise. I’ve seen the type in the Buenos Aires streets. I assume she lives in Recoleta, the old-money barrio, where the embassies are. Gonzalo’s shop straddles Recoleta and Abasto, gritty and colorful and working-class, its borders merging uneasily with the former and only arbitrarily defined if defined at all. The woman ignores me, the half-barefoot teenager on the stool irrelevant to her. The loafers are for her, for her husband rather. She picks them up and inspects them carefully. They’ll measure up, Gonzalo isn’t worried. She makes small talk with the zapatero. What about that fútbol game, my husband wants to kill the whole lot of them. Yes, yes, what a nightmare. The team’s in crisis mode without Messi.

Meanwhile Gonzalo is finished with my boot. He hands it back to me and I pull it on. I can make it to the airport in time, I’m sure. He continues to talk with the elderly lady as I hand him fifty pesos. A deal. I pause on my way out, unsure whether to interrupt, give our conversation some sort of closure. Maybe I should but I’ve missed the moment, so I just smile, mouth thank you, and close the door gently as I leave.