strip to your underwear if you're not in black tie. get obscene
if you want, but never casual. you feel an urge? touch its pain,
wrap yourself around it. don't put on airs. what you seem must be
what you are, and what you are is a mess, honey, but that's okay,
as long as you wear it inside. look sharp. don't slouch. see
anyone slouching here? stay poised, taut, hard. listen to your
nerves. it's zero hour. anxiety approaches, wave after wave, with
every squeeze of the bandoneon. already twisted by the
contraposto of uprightness and savagery, the tango turns the
screw even tighter with its dissonance and truncated phrasing. no
relief. no quarter. at zero hour only passion can save you. time
is flowing backward and forward into the vortex. from the rooms
come a warm air and a choked melody of syncopated gasps.
something throbs. a vein, under your skin. it's inside you now,
this bordello virus, this pleasure that tastes so much of anger
and grief. when you find pools of pure sweet light, bathe in
their waters, balm for your lacerations, for the whiplash scars
the bandoneon is leaving on your soul. if this were the old
milonga of the slums, or one of those popular songs about painted
faces or purloined love, you could let distance sketch a smile on
your lips. cheap irony. you won't get away that easy. this music
is for you. it always had you in mind, your habits, your
twitches, the tiny bloodvessels bursting inside you when you hide
what you feel. so walk in the parlor, bring your friend or come
alone. come hear the master as he unravels the wind inside the
box, as he presses the growling tiger that threatens to embrace
him, then shapes the beast into a purring kitten. and tiger
again. and kitten. it's all a game. you're going to play it, too.
you're going to dance with the tiger. don't worry, your life is
in danger. remember your instructions. listen up. and suffer,
motherfucker. this is the tango.
"how you figure i oughta respond to that?" buddy said, after reading enriques' answer to cletis, trixie and billybob. "it doesn't beg a response," cletis said, "just leave it lay." billybob snapped a photo of a roadside sign that said EUREKA. "that sums it up," said trixie, still trying to dislodge a sliver from under her fingernail. buddy mazappa laid back his head. the band was sounding good. all they needed now was for one of them to learn how to play the bandoneon ...