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        There are many forms of clocks in this city, and none of them tell the same time.  First and foremost there is the sun, the original clock and the clock by which all others are set.  Its face is elusive in the labyrinth of tunnels, corridors, dark rooms, and alley ways, and yet its gears extend infinitely, exerting influence on the gears of all other clocks.  Days are marked not only by the movement of the sun but by the inflation of the peso, the sporadic placement of national holidays, the bombastic protests on Calle de Mayo, the building and collapsing of Sunday market stalls, and the arrival and departure of foreigners. One can find an hour hand in the great pointed shadow of the obelisk, the hourly cigarette breaks which are never a full hour apart, or in the movement of the crowds, filling the subway tunnels to capacity and dispersing again, as regular and predictable as tides on the coast.   Minute hands are more common and even harder to synchronize: a half-eaten pear turning brown in a plastic bag, the abuelas walking in circles around the Plaza, the mate water which stays hot too long then cools down too fast, the “Proximo Tren” sign which reads “3 min” now and will say the same things three minutes later, the thirty three and a third spins of a vinyl record playing something by Andre Kostlenatz, the digital numbers on the face of a stolen iPhone, the bubbles rising and depleting in a gaseosa. 

        “The buses are on strike today,” Miguel says to me, a way of explaining why the tubes are so crowded this morning.  The phrase strikes me as funny, “the buses are on strike,” as if the buses themselves collectively decided not to operate today.  In any case the crowds pose a problem, because my new routine involves doing a hand-stand on a briefcase between stations on the H-line.  The H-line is the newest line, and by virtue of this fact it is the only line on which I can accomplish my little stunt, which requires minimal bumps and vibrations on the part of the train.  I’ve memorized every twist and turn the trains make on this line and every seemingly random jolt to the floor, eventually concluding that my stunt can only be safely accomplished between the Once and Corrientes stops and between the Venezuela and Humberto stops.  The H-line is also, thankfully, the most comfortable line both for commuters and panhandlers, because in it the trains are frequent, well air-conditioned, and moderately spacious.  It is this spaciousness which permits me to do my stunt, which requires at least a half a meter on all sides to ensure that I can gather everyone’s attention and, perhaps more importantly, not be bumped into while I’m upside down and balancing with one hand on the wooden case which is only 20 centimeters wide. 
        The stunt is not just a stunt but also a theatrical performance, and not just a theatrical performance but also an elaborate sales pitch, and any good salesman knows that a sales pitch is really just an argument in disguise, a verbal tug-of-war between the salesman and the prospective consumer.  You might dispute my assertion by saying that any sales pitch requires an object that’s being sold, that I am not a true salesman because I do not offer the passengers anything they can bring home with them and use later.  I would counter that I do, indeed, offer them something they can bring home with them, and it is the same thing they were buying from me when, as a boy, I sold them the stolen books of stickers which they would hand back to me and never keep.  I sell them lifted spirits, moral superiority, that elusive but wonderful warm feeling in your heart when you help out another human being.  The sales pitch, just as it did when I was a boy, revolves around convincing the consumer that I am deserving of help, and thus that the consumer will receive the coveted fuzzy feeling when they give me their money.   My father knew all too well that lone adults garner no sympathy in their normal state.  If you aren’t a one-legged veteran then you are immediately chalked up as a drug addict, and few consumers receive the warm feeling from helping a drug addict get his fix. My father used me because people tend to believe that children are more deserving of handouts.  I now use theater, stunts, and comedy to the same effect.  Others play guitar over backing tracks, break dance, or sing acapella in order to convince the consumer that they are worthy of a handout.   I, on the other hand, become a one man circus.  
        Today’s crowds pose a problem, however.  I won’t be able to move around on the train at all, much less do my stunt.  The only way to make money on a day like this is to pickpocket, which is easy when all of the people are crammed against each other, unable to even move their arms enough to check and see why their pants pocket suddenly seems somewhat lighter than it did a minute ago.  Pickpocketing is not my favorite activity, though, primarily because I’m not especially good at it, but also because it is dangerous and because one has to then go through the trouble of selling the stolen goods.  Today it sounds slightly more appealing than usual, because I’ve just started seeing a girl that doesn’t know that I’m a beggar, and I would like to be able to get her a present that will make me seem wealthy.  Ideally an iPhone.  
        I moved into a hostel two weeks ago because it got too cold to rough sleep and the cops forced me out of my usual spot, which was under the highway just before it spits out at the south side of Puerto Madero.  The hostel is on Calle Pichincha and it’s called La Casa Pichincha.  There are four people in every room.  I share a room with two Australian rugby players and a Norwegian named Fredrick.  I didn’t know that the hostel would be full of foreigners, and in fact I am the only one who speaks fluent Spanish aside from the two house keepers and the manager.  Most of the people there are Australians doing some sort of community service in the city, although there are also two Canadians on vacation, as well as several university students from Norway and Sweden.  On the third floor there is a kitchen, a large dining room, and an outdoor patio.  People go up there not only to eat but to relax, drink, and converse.  
        On my first night in the house I sat at one of the tables with several of the girls.  One of them said that she recognized me from somewhere and asked me where I’m from.  Rather than tell them all that I’m a homeless beggar from Buenos Aires I told them in broken English that I’m a traveler from Peru.  The same girl then said, “I’ve always wanted to go there to see Machu Pichu… Have you been there?”  And I said, “Oh yes it is a beautiful city,” not even knowing that the place she was referring to is the ruins of some indigenous tribe that lived on a mountain.  Fortunately I was able to blame the mistake on my bad English, and they went on believing that I’m from Peru.  I made up a name of a town that I’m from, and when they couldn’t find it on their iPhones I just said that it was very, very small, and it probably would not show up on an internet search.  
        The girl that I’m seeing is the same one who asked me about Machu Pichu.  Her name is Lillian.  She has dark hair and tanner skin than the other Norwegians.  One night all the foreigners went out to a club, and she stayed behind in the hostel because she had a final exam the following afternoon.  I also stayed behind that night because the 250 pesos a day for the room was stretching me thin and I cannot afford to go to clubs anyway.  I told the foreigners that I simply did not like to drink and or go to crowded places.  
        Staying behind gave me an opportunity to talk to Lillian. She was drinking wine and eating the leftovers of her dinner, veggie burgers, which she was kind of enough to share with me.  She was doing most of the talking, practicing her Spanish, and she explained in her broken Spanish that she was upset because the week before I arrived someone had stolen her phone on the Subte.  I comforted her by telling her that I didn’t own a phone and never had.  She said that was “amazing” and that it takes a “special type of person” to choose to go off the grid like that and avoid technology.  She told me about Norway, but her Spanish was too limited for me to understand.  Then she tried to tell me in English, which she is fluent in, but I could only understand every few words.  Eventually, after several glasses of wine, she started talking to me strictly in Norwegian, forgetting that I only know Spanish, and I smiled and nodded along even though it seemed that she had stopped using real words altogether. 
        At some point she kissed me, I kissed back, and when the nighttime cleaning lady came through we left the dining hall and went to Lillian’s bed.  I will spare you the details of that night, but I will at least say that it was a good night, and I was eager to repeat it.  It has been a challenge to find privacy in a place with so many people, but we have made good use of the showers and of the linen closet.  
        We have only been on one date, and to my horror it was to a nice restaurant which serves parilla.  I ordered nothing but a café con leche, which she found strange, and she ordered a platter of steak and chicken which cost more than 400 pesos.  I had less than 1000 pesos to my name, and only 500 on me.  By some miracle, she said that it was Norwegian custom for girls to pay for their own food on a date, and I only had to pay for my coffee.  I decided then that I wanted to get her a present, to make up for my inability to take her out on dates, or even accompany her on them, with any regularity.
        And so now, as I’m sitting here on this steel bench next to Miguel who’s making bracelets out of yarn, I’m thinking this bus strike crowding the Subte has given me the perfect opportunity to get her that present.  The sign says "Proximo Tren: 2 min," and the station  platform is almost entirely full.  When the train arrives I will squeeze onto it with these people and by the end of the ride I will at least have something, but hopefully a phone.

**TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW**

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