La llegada

June 25th 2007 Day 1, Buenos Aires:
NY to BA -

They crowded around the machine like 5 surgeons examining the infected gallbladder of an etherized patient.

“Now put your pin in,” said a man with a dubious airport employee identification tag hanging from his blue and gold plastic vest like a stray piece of spaghetti.

“I won’t look,” he demurred, as he remained riveted to the screen of the cajero automatico. The Chilean tourist in her late 20’s who was trying to take out money did as he said, while her fellow backpacker and the two travelers waiting in line behind her all intently looked on.

“Transaction denied, no remaining funds,” flashed across the Banco de la Nacion machine, which if it had a joystick instead of a touch pad, might have resembled an 80’s arcade version of a Pac-Man console.

“Try again,” said the vested employee, as the machine spat back the card and left it hanging in the entry slit like the tongue on a breathless dog.

Alarmed by the communal nature of this implicitly private activity, I approached a nearby police officer and asked if there was another machine that might have money in it. “Es que somos muy pobres,” he said, echoing the title of a short story by the Mexican writer, Juan Rulfo. He pointed an aimless finger towards another ATM machine hidden in a corner...