In most of the cars here and in Brazil, and possibly most of South America, there is always a fire extinguisher. Many times a rather large one. All I can figure out is that there is a large propane tank in the back of the taxis, which I suppose could be considered flammable, and likely at some point in the past, a child and un perro pequeño were trapped in a burning wreckage outside of some politician’s house screaming for a fire extinguisher. That politician then became rich with some legislation and a friend in the fire extinguisher industry.
My friend Ken introduced me to some guys called Ryan and Rob who are at the end of their South American tour, and John Finch and I joined up with them for a night. For me these sort of travellers are dangerous since they have no regard for money, and it becomes easy for me to also disregard my money as we go out and purchase large alcoholic drinks at large, thumping nightclubs with large outrageous covers. (50 pesos is large to a wandering non-working individual.) We all go to a place called Asia de Cuba, which is a fancy club on the river in Puerto Madero. Thank you John for negotiating my entry even though I had shorts on. By the way, being the only one wearing shorts at a club where you’re not supposed to be wearing shorts and immediately going up into the VIP table section is a method to turn some heads and initiate some real game. We stay for roughly an hour and then decide to go to another dance club, but find out that place is closed at 3am for some reason on this day. So our new friends, thanks to Ken, say “we got a club”. They take us to downtown tourist town in Recoleta. We leave the taxi and you are bombarded with guys trying to get you into their strip club with enticing drink offers. We were not interested, as we intended on buying bottles. First one we go to, filled with very good-looking girls that instantly surround me while other guys find out that bottles cost $600 US. I am dragged away and we go to another one. This place has no girls in it. Next place is good enough and we stay. New friend Rob is straight to the back corner, intending on some late-night action with whatever money he has. Luke is at the bar explaining to three girls that their hair smells nice, although using the wrong word for “smell”, which is apparently funny. At the same time, these girls all want me to buy them a drink, but it costs 120 pesos. Fuck that. So I tell this girl that I will happily house her for a week, buy her breakfast, lunch and dinner, and take her to the zoo, but I will not pay for her drinks. Apparently I was pissing her off since this is her livelihood. I am happy to report that we eventually left around sunup and I did not spend any money at these clubs. No idea what happened to new friends Rob and Ryan.
John and I are returning in a cab to my place first. The cab driver stops at some point and says that he cannot go any further since he pressed the button on the meter. We don’t care and tell him to keep going to my place as I did not want to walk the 12 blocks home. Cab driver refuses. John and the cab driver start arguing and we basically try to point out to this guy that he is a cab driver, his job is to drive us — why won’t he drive us? We get out and start to walk away and refuse to pay this guy the 12 pesos if he is not going to do his job. And then John says…
“¡Qué pelotudo!”
This guy gets out of his taxi and starts running at us with his fire extinguisher in hand and a look of pure evil in his eyes. John and I decide to run. Taxi guy gets back into his car and burns out in reverse to catch up to us. There are no other cars out and this guy could do whatever he wanted. In a moment of desperation, we decide to split up and I run the opposite way. But it didn’t work. Either way we end up at the same place we first got out, panting and breathing, with the taxista right there, obviously a little perturbed that we didn’t want to pay him. So John starts talking to him again, and we are discussing how we could “really” run away, but realise our options are futile unless we split up — and then one of us could risk serious fire extinguisher injury. So we paid him…
Although we lost the battle, I did manage to steal his car’s antenna while John was talking to him. I pray to all the gods that I do not jump in a cab with this guy any time in the near future and I always check to make sure they have an antenna. Good for me there are at least 10,000 taxis in this city. Hopefully he doesn’t read this post.