Tears of a thug

A couple of weeks ago, as I waited for a Racing Club a game to start, I stood next to two large men. I was bored and they were conspicuous, so I stared. One of them had short, neat hair and a standard build. He would have been completely unremarkable had he not been juxtaposed with his companion, whose incredibly crooked teeth, long ratty hair, and apparently-permanent snarl were truly a foil for normalcy. One of his eyes was higher and significantly larger than the other. He hunched, arms hanging forward and lower back bent. I felt terrible about it, but I couldn’t help thinking of him as a cave man.

On my other side, was a skinny, fragile-looking kid who would have been a perfect Buddy Holly look alike if it weren’t for his Racing-themed getup: a two-foot-tall Uncle Sam-style hat, a pair of very large parachute pans, a multi-colored wind-breaker, and an enormous flag; all streaked with teal, sky blue, and white and littered with the teams nick-names and slogans. This kid, I thought, would be great to talk to. He was obviously a fanatic but also looked dorky enough that I couldn’t imagine him being mean, much less dangerous. I needed an ice breaker, something unthreatening, but hard not to ignore. I waited briefly for inspiration and then, afraid to miss the opportunity, asked spontaneity to produce the rhetorical gem I needed: “Cold, huh?”

I think he looked at me. There was a slight head turn in my direction and a perceptible shift of the eyes. Rather than answering my question, however, Buddy Holly yelled something I didn’t understand to someone I couldn’t see (because he was employing the age-old hincha tactic of looking over the journalist, tourist, or other stranger’s shoulder and pretending to have a sudden need to go somewhere behind them very quickly). He was gone.

When I looked back from the fleeing Buddy Holly, the large men were fighting. The unremarkable guy had gripped a knotty fistful of the cave man’s hair, employing the other fist in a devoted effort to straighten his companion’s teeth. “You’ll regret this!” he was yelling. As much as he looked like someone who regularly slew woolly mammoths, the poor cave man made hardly any effort to defend himself. Blow after blow landed uninhibited and un-returned. The only response he managed was to twist his head back and forth, distributing the unremarkable man’s punches all around his face. The crowd let them go; everyone’s first reaction was to back out of harm’s way. After an eternal ten seconds, other fans finally stepped in. Friends of both men pulled them apart, asking them to calm down by name. As always, the angrier of the two fighters, in this case Mr. Unremarkable, broke free a couple of times, landing three more blows to his Paleolithic victim before his friends restrained him more securely. Four or five of them escorted him to another part of the terrace. The caveman leaned on the guard rail at the top of the bleachers and wept.

He literally cried. Friends came and comforted him and he motioned them away. He buried his face in his forearms, staining his sleeves with sweat, blood, and tears. His face, due to his adept neck-swiveling, was bruised and swollen evenly throughout, growing redder and larger by the minute. He looked completely dejected and I felt genuinely sorry for him. I tried to ask if he was alright but he turned away, burying his face still deeper in his arms. I turned to the man next to me, a strong-looking guy wearing a baseball cap, and asked why the men had been fighting. “Neighborhood banners,” he answered motioning to the flags piled and rolled up behind us. Apparently, the scraggly hincha had made the mistake of hanging his neighborhood’s banner in the spot the unremarkable guy had picked out for his neighborhood banner. Even as he was pulled away, Mr. Unremarkable had continued to shout “you’ll regret this” to the cave man. Apparently, the poor bastard didn’t regret it already, at least not enough. I wondered exactly how much regret was required to avenge such an offence to barrio honor.

After a few minutes, the defeated Neanderthal regained his composure and followed a friend farther down into the bleachers to watch the game. I felt bad for him but I certainly wasn’t surprised by the fight itself. This was not the first fight I had seen at a stadium, nor would it be the last. Nor did the reason, some combination of honor, machismo, and neighborhood pride, surprise me. What did get to me was just how pitiful the loser had been. It was a one-sided fight. But most of the fights I have seen are one-sided unless they get broken up right away. Usually, however, the loser postures at least as much as the winner, after the fight. After all, he is the one in danger of losing face. In this case, the poor cave man had given up altogether. He let his opponent beat on him and then he let himself appear entirely pathetic in defeat. He made no excuses and it was his conqueror, not he, who pledged more violence in the future.

I toyed with the idea that the man was actually disabled. It would explain how little he spoke and perhaps also his disinterest in whether or not he appeared weak. Maybe it was all just too much for his mind to handle. But that seems to easy and too condescending. Perhaps he’s just honest, preferring to look sad as long as he was sad. That would be refreshingly un-macho. In any case, I liked the man much more after seeing him cry. Such a human response, such naked vulnerability filled me with warmth, whether it was pity for a victim or gratitude for a man honest enough to show un-manly emotions at a soccer game. Maybe, just maybe, these people feel, I remember thinking. I’ll try to remember that.

Nobody gives me balls

“Nobody gives me balls.” This is the literal translation of a somewhat vulgar Argentine expression that means “no one pays attention to me.” And it about sums up my last two weeks. I spent my afternoons chasing barra-bosses around Buenos Aires only to be ignored or rudely rejected by all of them. This has become more common than I like to admit. I have been stood up for scheduled interviews three times now by the same person. He is a neighbor, a friend of friends, and whenever I see him he makes lots of promises. “We’ll talk, then I’ll introduce you to all the people I knew when I was in the barra. I was high up, I can get you to the important people.” And that, in local slang, is called chamuyo. Chamuyo is a rough combination of talking trash, making promises, and bragging that is basically designed to make the speaker look really good. As a man, you do it to make women want you and men want to be you. As a man from Buenos Aires you do it instinctively and incessantly.

Chamuyo, for me, means that no one ever says “no” to when I ask for help with my study. They never say no. Regardless of how impossible it may be for someone to help me, or how little intention they have of actually trying, they always make promises. One Friday, I corralled a barra after the Murga rehearsal to follow up on his promises. He has always said the right thing. He has promised to give me an interview and to get me interviews with his bosses. Still, he never seems very happy to talk to me. He has what I think is a very nasty habit of looking over my head when I try to get his attention. I wish he wouldn’t flaunt his height so. And I wish he would give me balls. This time, like always, I had to catch him alone, after the rehearsal and basically block his path before he would even lower his eyes to my level:

“Hey, Yankee, are you travelling with us tomorrow?” Well this was good. I had given up on actually going to Mar del Plata for Boca vs. San Lorenzo, hoping instead that he would use the game to talk to his fellow barras about me. Now was he inviting me to go with them?! Riding in the bus with the barra is the kind of thing Dutch tourists pay hundreds of Euros to do. And they have escorts (guards) and certainly don’t get to ask many questions.

“Can I go, really?” I was embarrassed by my own jumpiness but I couldn’t really help it. “I don’t want to take anyone’s place but I’d love to ride with you all if I can!”

“I see,” he replied blandly, starting to look reluctant.

“I mean, it would be really awesome if I could come along!” At this point, I was beyond excited. A yippy dog comes to mind. It was like I was trying to produce enough enthusiasm for the two of us, enough to drown out his reluctance before he could act on it.

“Come tomorrow, and we’ll see.” Now I was worried.

“Great! Where do you leave from?!” I said, manufacturing yet more excitement as my fear of being let down grew.

“You know, around.” He was no longer looking at me, his eyes, instead, focused over my shoulder, flicking back and forth among the others leaving the park. He had the disturbing look of someone searching for an excuse to run off without saying goodbye. I half expected him to jog over to a stranger and start asking him, incessantly, about “you know, the thing that we talked about,” just so he wouldn’t have to see my over-excited, pleading, Yanki mug anymore.

“Could I have your number, then, so I can find you all tomorrow?” I asked, my excitement lingering even as my hope slipped away.

“The thing is, I don’t have a phone…with me, I mean…I don’t have a phone with me. Why don’t you get Pablo’s number?” He motioned to a young drummer who I knew was not a member of the barra and would probably not be travelling.

“So he will be able to get in touch with you for me tomorrow?” now I was basically sure it wasn’t going to be my weekend to travel with the thugs. I asked Pablo, anyway, and he reeled of a few excuses. He told me to call a couple of other people, though it wasn’t clear exactly why. Finally, he told me that it would be too dangerous to go to the game because the barra was in the midst of an internal power struggle. I knew this. I had been to a game two days after unidentified assailants had assaulted the mother of the barra’s current leader. Most in-fighting takes place outside the stadium and during the week. I have yet to witness any life-threatening violence within one team’s bleachers. But I got the point. Pablo and the tall barra did not want me to go to Mar del Plata. Or maybe they didn’t mind if I went. But they certainly didn’t want to have anything to do with my going.

I thought I would try one last attempt with the tall guy. At the very least, he might agree to talk to his comrades for me and float the idea of my talking to them. Hope springs eternal. As I approached a second time he pulled out a cell phone (which he did not have on him) and turned his back, talking. His girlfriend, who had now joined him, stood by his side with her arms crossed, scowling. I thought I must have looked very stupid, trying to address a man’s back as he tried just as hard to make me go away. Again, I began to see myself as a yippy dog; this time a yippy dog begging desperately for a biscuit from someone he thinks is his owner but who is, decidedly, not, and who, decidedly, does not have any biscuits nor any intention of giving anything to a yippy dog. I said hi to the scowling girlfriend, apparently hoping she might think that was what I had walked over to do. She, however, had not walked over to be said hi to by me. She ignored just as fully as her boyfriend, but she did so without a fake cell phone conversation. She just scowled and stared. I admired her commitment.

When the tall barra got tired of pretending to be on a phone call, I thought I would at least be able to save face by saying goodbye. Mamma raised me to be polite, after all. If I was too polite for tall barra’s customs, well he would just have to deal with that. And he did. Before he even closed his phone, he was flagged down a passing car. I hope, for my ego’s sake, that he knew the driver and did not resort to begging a stranger for rescue. He and his girlfriend got in, very quickly, and the car pulled away. I decided not to make the extra, pathetic-enough-for-Hollywood gesture of yipping a goodbye to the car as it sped off.

I had tried patience. I went to the Murga and for almost two months before I even asked anyone there a question about the barra. Then I tried being bothersome (I suppose if it had worked I would have called it “persistent”). That didn’t work either. It seems the barra is very protective of its balls. In fact, by any objective measure, I left the park Friday night with fewer balls than I had shown up with.

All lewd metaphors and Argentine slang aside, I did not feel very good about myself. I got on the bus ready to go home and write a self-pitying blog post. Distracted, composing weepy one-liners in my head, I got off at the wrong stop. And this too seemed like a great, deliberate injustice done to me by the cosmos. I would have done well to remember the many times that fortune has favored me. But I don’t remember the good days on the bad days. And even if I did, I would no doubt conclude that they had been well-deserved, earned in blood and sweat. Fortune, I would declare, could not have played any role in my good days because “fortune hates me.” Nor do I remember, on the bad days, that they don’t happen to me any more often than they happen to anyone else. “Why does this always happen to me?” I asked as I started to walk towards home.

Two blocks from the bus stop I passed two beggars, people whose trade, if it can be called that, is bothering people. Nearly all of their human interaction consists of pleading and being ignored. When one of them approached me, I almost turned my back, thinking “you got the wrong day to ask me for a favor, buddy.” Then things started to slide back into perspective. I almost cursed myself out loud. I gave the bearded, tired-looking man the coins in my pocket. Another block on, I ran into a friend from the neighborhood. “Zack, how are you man?” he asked. “You look tired, are things OK?”

We chatted for a few minutes, agreed to meet for dinner the next week, and parted. I was legitimately disappointed when the conversation ended, so nice was the contrast it made with the night’s other experiences. I wanted to talk to more people who wanted to talk to me. I went to a local pizzeria, whose owner is a friend of mine and where I have become a regular. The employees never fail to cheer me up. We talked, I helped wash dishes and close up for the night. It was nice to do something productive. I left happy again, cured of my self pity, but with much less motivation to write. I no longer needed to shout from a virtual mountain top. A few minutes with friends had done wonders. They can’t help me with my study, but they don’t promise to either. And, most of all, they always give me balls.

Murga

Murga is a kind of music and dance. I could try to impress with my extensive knowledge of its roots (a combination of Spanish and West African styles) and its meaning (originally a form of artistic protest used by slaves to mock and/or escape from their miserable reality). But the fact is that I don’t know very much about Murga. All that I know comes from one less-than-professional-looking website I found and hurriedly skimmed. I could also take the lack of Murga information on the internet as a mark of its authenticity. “After all, a true folk tradition is not even written down, much less broadcast across the globe,” I might say, congratulating myself for penetrating an insular, pure world protected from the corruptions of information culture and its ravenous consumers of exoticism. But that would be B.S. The fact is, I didn’t search very hard. Besides, this is a blog about soccer hooligans. So instead of starting a very Macalester-esque debate about authenticity and cultural consumption and imperialism, I think I will just right about the Murga that Bruno and Adrian brought me to in La Boca. There is the talented band leader and the boys with huge drumsticks and the tattooed, fat, drumming men and the effeminate, thin, dancing men. There are plenty of characters. I am not sure whether or not they are aware of the historical and political meaning of Murga but they dance and play it every Wednesday and Friday outside the Bombonera.

On Friday, November 28th Adrian, an ex barrabrava and long-time Boca resident, invited me to an “ensayo de Murga.” I had no idea what “Murga” meant and was only almost sure that “ensayo” meant “rehearsal,” but Adrian assured me that current members of the barra would be there. Actually, it was in response to an offer of volunteer labor that Adrian suggested I come see the Murgueros. He told me that one of the reasons he left the barra was to spend more time on his and Club Atletico Boca Juniors’ social work. Looking for a way to intertwine volunteer work with my research, I told him I would be happy to help out with any of the club’s programs. Instead, I got invited to the Murga. Murga is certainly un-paid, but it would be a stretch to call it work and, in any case, my contribution to it cannot be in anyway construed as a “service.” If it escapes the realm of a “disservice” it is only because I provide comic relief. In any case, there were, supposedly, barras there.

So I met Adrian, his friend Bruno, and their families at another friend’s mechanic shop in the Boca. We then drove the four blocks to the other sides of the stadium to a long park that parallels a nearby avenue. The distance was short, but my companions were not big walkers and, besides, “why have a car if you’re going to walk.” We parked next to a van being emptied of enormous drums and we escorted laden percussionists to a concrete patio in the middle of the park.

Then we waited. It seems like the ensayo is destined to start later every week. Everyone greets and catches up while they wait for the key characters to arrive. The first week, we started about 10 minutes after the official 8 pm rehearsal time. Each subsequent week, the band leader, or half the drummers, or the head dancer came about 5 minutes later than the week before. Matias, the head male dancer now usually arrived last. The band has drawn the line and generally starts playing, dancer-less, at 8:45 pm. Before this, however, while their parents catch up with each other and the week’s neighborhood gossip, the little kids warm up the instruments. Small boys try to strap on enormous drums and ultimately resign themselves to beating them as they sit on the ground, using both hands to swing drum mallets as big as their arms. The young girls divide into tom-boy types, who join in abusing the drums, and girlier girls, who hang on to their mothers’ legs while they gossip. Eventually, the band leader blows his whistle, the drummers congregate, and the music starts with another sharp tweet. The band consists of the same basic drums played in U.S. marching bands. The majority of the 10-12 drummers plays bombos, large drums beaten on both sides while hung vertically in front of the chest. These also carry a symbol, attached to the top, that is played on the off-beats. There is also usually one tall drum that stands on the ground, its horizontal surface beaten with two large mallets. Finally, there are one or two small drums, hung with their playing surface horizontal at waste level and rapped with normal-sized drum sticks. The band leader plays one of these, while also keeping a separate rhythm and giving directions with his whistle.

The band leader always wears a baseball cap and bright yellow Boca Juniors shorts. He is able to stomp one rhythm, drum another, and whistle a third. He is an impressive musician and he leads his drummers with the same firmness with which I have seen him direct fellow barras in pre-game preparations at the Bombonera. His band, however, sticks out for less-flattering qualities.

All of the men who play drums in the Murga are large, wear Boca Juniors shorts, have (many) Boca Juniors tattoos, and talk a lot about Boca Juniors, pausing only occasionally to mention beer and asses; women’s asses. The men who dance, on the other hand, are effeminate and thin (I am not sure whether their fitness qualifies them to dance or disqualifies them from drumming due to their lack of a beer belly on which to rest the instrument). My first ensayo, I stayed on the sidelines and observed. I talked to the wives whose turn was up to watch everyone’s kids while the others danced. I talked to the men who were too cool (or too fat, or both) to dance. They asked about the U.S: “do they like dark-haired women there?” “what kind of work is there for Argentines?” “Do you have anything like Murga?” “How do you say ‘hijo de puta’ in English?” I did my best to satisfy their curiosity, though the sheer volume of crude expressions they wanted translated into English was a bit daunting. They were forgiving, however, and generally very welcoming. They hoped the Yanki would dance. Eventually, I promised I would the next week.

Now dancing is never easy for me. I am bad at it and bad for it, in almost every sense. I am not flexible, I don’t have rhythm, I am aware of these faults, and I am too proud and self-conscious to often do things that I will never be good at. So it took a little self-encouragement to get me out the door for my second ensayo. On the bus on the way, I started to feel nervous. For all that they seemed nice and welcoming, my new friends Adrian, Bruno, and other guys from the neighborhood, all had terrible reputations, if not as individuals then as members of a not-so-well-regarded social movement from a rough neighborhood. I couldn’t quite bring myself to trust them, at least not yet. So here I was, arriving at night in a neighborhood I didn’t really know, to do something I didn’t really want to do, with people I didn’t really trust. I wanted to get off, cross the street, and take the bus back in the other direction. But I didn’t. I stayed on the bus, I got off at Aristóbulo del Valle street, and I walked to the park.

Once there, I began to do what I always do when I am expected to dance: convince myself that I have something more important to do. Absent any actually obligations and lacking even a large number of friends to catch up with, I pretended that I had important thinking to do. I pretended that I, alone, was charged with worrying about something crucial, something that dancing people wouldn’t understand and couldn’t do as long as they were busy dancing and making merry. “One day, when I’m important and successful,” I imagined, “they will look back and understand why I didn’t dance. In fact, they will be very glad that I stood at the sidelines thinking important thoughts and preparing myself for the important work I would be doing in a few years.” But, of course, I wasn’t actually thinking important thoughts. I was thinking about the important thoughts they might think that I would be thinking. And about how, no matter how silly I felt at the side of the patio, alone, I really was doing the only right thing to do, given the gravity of the circumstances.

Of course, I wasn’t alone. I was with the wives watching children (an actual, important responsibility) and the men who couldn’t or wouldn’t dance but, rather than pretending to have compelling reasons, stood in small groups and talked about Boca Juniors and women’s asses. As always happens, I gradually began to feel bored and very stupid, and it became easier to convince me to dance. Eventually two of the unrelentingly welcoming women of the Murga pushed me out to the middle of the patio and introduced me to Matias, the leader of the male dancers.

Effeminate as they may be, the bailadores still separate themselves from the bailadoras. The women dance in lines and circles, with coordinated steps. The men, at least so far, dance individually and much less-formally. One of the non-dancers told me that the secret is to “move your arms and legs as much as you possibly can, but to the rhythm.” Matias informed me that there were, in-fact, steps to follow but that the most important thing to do was to keep my arms as high as possible in the air, and shake them continuously. “You see, when you do this for Carnaval, we give you a suit with lots of ribbons on the sleeves and it looks good if you shake them.” He kept using the word “you.” I assumed (and prayed) that the “you” he was using was the impersonal “you” and that he did not expect me to dance in carnaval. I am still not sure, and am a bit afraid to ask.

I did my best to imitate Matias’ steps. They didn’t go very well. Thankfully, though, there was enough truth to the non-dancer’s words that I could get away with just walking in place and shaking my shoulders (usually) to the beat. No one laughed (much) and I almost enjoyed myself.

I came back a week later, a bit less apprehensive. I was now relatively certain that the women and the effeminate men didn’t mind having me there. The fat men, both drummers and non-drummers, were harder to read and at least a few seemed annoyed that another foreign “journalist” had arrived to write about their soccer-watching habits. No matter what I do, I am always a “journalist.” The closest I have come to communicating my actual role is to convince a few people that I am student. A “journalism student,” of course.

Barras hate journalists because journalists tell people what barras do. To be fair, I do believe that they exaggerate. They predict violence at almost all rivalry matches, even though the majority are peaceful. They run complete and deep coverage of fights but almost never mention the songs, the parties, or the occasional social work that the barras organize. Many barras are nevertheless perfectly willing to treat a journalist well if it will get their name in the paper or, better yet, their picture on T.V. But ask them about violence at the stadium and the journalist inevitably comes high up on the blame list, though he usually trails the police. A fight is never the fault of the barra himself. Each side of every soccer fight in South American history was defending itself, just ask it. Neither side started it; “it started.” “It started” because the police hit the hooligans first, or because the papers wrote so much about the violence that it became “inevitable.”

So my status as a “journalist” makes me a bit nervous. It makes it hard for me to approach the fat men. I don’t think I am in any danger but I do think they will lie to me, withhold things from me and, worst, be bothered by me. I really do not want to bother anyone. Given that this is a very individual project that really only benefits me, it is hard to justify its bothering anyone else. I think if my friends from La Boca knew just now how much I would hate to be a bother, they would admit that I am not a journalist.

Still, even if I cannot claim any in-the-service-of-others “need” to talk to the hooligans, I really want talk to the hooligans. I am full of questions. Why do they sing and swear the way they do? What made them fans of their club? Did Dad teach them, or did they choose and why? And, what, exactly, is it that makes these men with families and good jobs, murgueros who love their neighbors, go out every Sunday ready to beat and maim? I know their children. I see them kiss their wives. They invite me to play soccer and eat asado with them Friday nights. They are, if vulgar and not always nice, still hospitable in their way and, in my personal experience, not bad people. But they are also, in the eyes of many Argentine outsiders “the worst this country has to offer,” “basically a mafia,” “drug dealers,” “the dark side of the nation.”

My curiosity, my appetite for the adrenaline-filled, fascinating, and, yes, exotic experiences I have with the barras keeps me going to the stadiums and the bars and even the Murga rehearsals. Sometimes it even gets me to bother them. My timidity is great, but my curiosity is great as well. For the time being, it is at least great enough to keep me dancing, Wednesdays and Fridays, in a rough neighborhood, with “dangerous” people, and without even a hint of talent.