The Tube

A gaucho village beckoned. 

It offered silence from the chaos of a city that never sleeps, of honking car horns, dump trucks pounding pot holes, and the buzz of incessant activity. 

A gust of wind picked up as I descended from the public bus. It dusted the old cars with dirt parked nearby as well as a group of middle-aged women carrying plastic grocery bags. I observed their sun-beat skin and preoccupied looks with curiosity.  

I moved through the village streets with melancholy as if I had been there before in my dreams. To this quiet place of horses, farmland, and simplicity.  

I arrived at a park and found shade under a maple tree. I wondered about the last rain when I rested my backpack on grass colored brown. There I contemplated the quietude of this far off place. 

There was a creek and it flowed through the park forming different pools for swimming or dipping. A small waterfall pounded slippery rocks down the hill from me. 

I could see one of the swimming holes straight ahead about twenty yards away. 

Two women sat on colorful blankets. One had a picnic basket and the other a grocery bag. The grocery bag stayed put despite occasional gusts of wind thanks to the contents within it. Their children played with soccer balls and dolls. The chatty mothers paused only to scold or instruct.  

A young couple of flowering adolescence embraced on the barren ground to my right. They were lost in each other's eyes and teeming with unfulfilled desire. A bottle of soda baked in the penetrating sun beside them. 

A homeless man wore only brown pants held up by his pointy hips and loose belt. He gazed into a trash bin in search of something special and muttered words without meaning to anyone but him.  

I sipped my water and devoured a handful of crackers and waited. 

A group of young boys with their girlfriends entered my view. The shirtless boys showcased chiseled abs, biceps, and strong calf muscles wearing bathing suits. The girls wore bikinis and casual open-toed sandals that caressed their ankles. They giggled as the boys dove into the water with vigorous energy. They began a game of tag in an effortless flow that both used water and land as accomplice for escape and attack. 

The boys prodded the girls to join them but they shook their heads and flirted with their eyes. The boys moved like fish in heart and spirit. I took in the sound of their splashes, the shrieks of their playfulness, and the wonder of their youth with great admiration. 

And then I noticed it. Before they did. Our reason for being on this today.  

On the edge of an avenue made of cobblestones rolled toward us an object whose dimensions and out of place imagery reminded me of another dream.  

An inflated tube four times the size of anything normal barreled along guided by two men. One of them had a thick build with a sagging belly. He walked without expression next to his skinny sidekick with a mischievous grin. If the tube could speak, I imagined that it may have warned us of its arrival.    

Where the road met the grass, the thick, black monstrosity was freed by the expressionless man. It glided and wobbled along its path and dropped into the swimming hole below. 

The boy fish turned in awe as the girls jeered with anticipation. They looked up at the sagging belly now on the edge. He nodded with approval before letting out a vociferous "Vamos."

The boys, already out of the water, bombed the floating tire from above like missiles. They were deflected off of it into the water again and again.  

Soon the boys climbed the tube and perched themselves on the sides rocking back and forth and splashing water. Next they paddled in the same direction to create a dizzying spin. As their speed increased, one of them spread his wings and pencil dove into the wavy brown water. The others followed in similar fashion as if choreographed by spirit alone. 

The anointed leader of the group with curly blond hair attempted to stand up on the tube as his friends steadied the beast. Soon they stood up together in triumphant unison only to be surprised by the man with the sagging belly who dive-bombed them in fitful shrieks of absolute pleasure. 

And then I jumped. I jumped without concern for the world I left behind into a sea of strangers clinging to a gigantic tube rocking in disturbed water.  

Suspended in mid-air, I noticed the big smiles, pumping fists (not pictured) and joyous laughter of the group awaiting me. I ricocheted off the dubious tube creating a cataclysmic eruption that left us all under water. When I came up for air moments later, I noticed the floating instrument vertical in the air giving me a fleeting glimpse through its doughnut hole to the other side.  

Pure joy. 

Pure joy with high flying jumps, balancing acts, and struggles to stay afloat before falling sideways and upside down. There were adventures of all kinds and silliness to be known only by a group of carefree souls having an unexpectedly marvelous afternoon. 

An hour passed. It could have been two. 

I pleaded for a day without end. 

When I left the village, my heart filled with gratitude for the gift of an extraordinary tube, a group of strangers turned into lifelong friends, and a pair of torn shorts unprepared for swimming but as a memento of an unforgettable day.