– she’s only 19, you know… but she rips your guts out like a grown woman.   She did start at 11, though, full on – every day, every spot in the city.  Still don’t get how her folks would let her out that late at night.   You can actually tell she’s been doing it a while.  Her feet are completely ruined, she has to soak them in salt water every night just to be able to wear them high heels again the next evening…

 ‘Cause she’s a tiny thing – maybe 5 feet tops, feather-weight, half of which is pure attitude, plus a pierced nose and a metal bar through her spine.  The kid is a punk.  She’s got that look in her eye like she fears NO-THING. 

-The girl earns her living the hard way:  every day with the tourists, like you and me.  Can you imagine?  Same motion, for hours and hours, and you gotta smile and pretend to like it…  And then, at night, she skips to the streets to enjoy it like it’s meant to be.  

 She got these two partners:  one is a huge fellow, face of a wild animal, a perfect companion for a prison break.   Hands like shovels – when I saw him lay’em on her bare shoulders for the first time, I felt like driving a sharp knife through his side.  And the other one… must be from another planet:  a young kid, something weird about his eyes.  A pierced nose,  moves like he’s made of oil. 

And you know what kills me?..  Every night she gives it to them like it’s her last time.  You can’t take your eyes off of it – from start to finish.   She puts her hands on them as if it’s a piano, looks up for a long second, and takes off  – and you can’t help but elevate with her.  Funny, she doesn’t really mind all those people with cameras shooting all around, it’s like they don’t even exist.  Probably got used to it over the years.  Or maybe none of us matter when that fire in her belly takes over. 

-We had a chat once in the bar (she ordered me a Fernet on the rocks, and for herself – a Pepsi…), and said her dream was to become a “professional”, like those, at the official place… Listen, I’ve been there.  You pay $150 just to get through the door.  Yeah, those chicks are gorgeous – designer dresses and they all look… smooth.  Well-detailed, high-end broads.  But there is no truth in any of that.  You look at them and nothing moves, anywhere.  Not like with her – she’s for real.  The way you and I can’t even be anymore.  The way she still can – and God bless her, for as long as it lasts.

 

From the author:  Cecilia is now 21.  She continues to make money giving private tango lessons to the tourists and dancing on the streets of Buenos Aires, most often at the port neighborhood of La Boca, where Argentine tango was born as an overly sexual and highly scandalized dance of the lowest classes with nothing to lose – poor immigrants from all over the world, sailors and street whores.  Eventurally, the dance was implanted in Europe by rich Argentines where it became all the craze at the upper-class salons.  Cecilia is a journalism student at the University of Buenos Aires, she plans to work in advertising and hopes to travel to every country in the world. 

Today, you can enjoy the official version of the Argentine tango at the well-established National Tango Theatre.  Or you can watch it as it was meant to be – on the streets of Buenos Aires, delivered by Cecilia R. and her friends.