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I was born and educated in Scotland and studied biochemistry and bass guitar in a rock band at St. Andrews University, isolated immune proteins from cattle blood by electrophoresis at Edinburgh University, developed zero gravity cell separation techniques at the University of Arizona and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and investigated gastric pathophysiology at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Medical University in Charleston. I've been writing from an early age; my work is published almost exclusively in peer-reviewed primary biomedical science journals. Chess has also been ever-present, over-the-board back in the day, now more and more online. Backyard astronomy, scuba-diving, sailing, skiing and voracious reading have also been constant obsessions, joined most recently by Argentine Tango. I live by a tidal creek on a barrier island in the South Carolina delta, the cradle of the river and the sea.

Viral Tango

A viral pandemic is as good an excuse as any to explore the wild outdoors. Complying with federal guidelines, Max had spent weeks in lock-down, shunning all human contact, dutifully noting depletion of staples from his larder and fridge. His stash of disinfectant wipes, bleach and toilet paper was a mockery of its former self. He replenished essential supplies once a week, armed with silicone gloves and wipes, in carefully planned excursions to a nearby Food Lion in his failing SUV which had inconveniently developed transmission issues. When gun sales took off, he realized that human contact was more essential than toilet paper. At the time, he was winning against shut-ins like himself seeking refuge in online chess. But mental acuity in silico lacks the spontaneity of real life encounters. And so, one evening, having foiled another assault on his chess rating, he texted Dolores and ventured out to the Hotel Fakir, where as far as he knew the tango salon was still catering to those for whom the viral pandemic was an excuse to indulge in end-time excess.

No-one lingered in the cobbled alley leading to the black-laquered door of the Hotel Fakir and its transom etching of an admonitory cobra. Inside, Ignatio Quiroga presided over the salon, immaculate as always in a starched white shirt and black tie. He was wiping the bar’s zinc surface and polishing glasses. A discreet military decoration was  pinned to the lapel of his dinner jacket. His gladioli and clematis arrangement at the end of the bar was only a little wilted. A Di Sarli tango wafted aimlessly across the deserted parquet dance floor and the still reflections in the mirrored far wall of the salon. He looked up in surprise as Max settled onto a bar-stool.

“Good to see you, Max,” he said, “Malbec?”  He coughed into his elbow and wiped beads of sweat from his brow. His face as he turned to Max was waxen and skeletal. Stunned, Max thought about octogenarian susceptibility to viruses, and the probability that viral death trumped the existential respite afforded by Tango.

“A Corona, Ignatio, thank you,” he said. “By the way, have you thought about getting tested? I can get you tested. The Hotel Fakir needs you now more than ever.“

Ignatio fixed his rheumy eyes on Max. “A viral pandemic tests us, Max, not the other way around.” He suppressed a cough, and then another,  “Look around you. Where is everyone? Sheltering at home? Viruses don’t discriminate between those in love, those who aren’t, and those in the grip of Tango. We’ll all be infected eventually. We must enjoy life while we can.”

Max retrieved a disinfectant wipe from his pocket and discreetly wiped his beer glass. “You may be right, Ignatio. We can die now, or we can die later. I prefer later.” He looked around the empty tango salon and thought back to the days before DJs when a bandoneon, violin, and piano trio ruled the Hotel Fakir. The salon would be heady with ladies’ perfumes, tropical flowers, fine wine, and cigarillos. This potent mix would be fueled by dramas driven by desire, jealousy, unrequited love, and Tango.

For now, end-time excess was nowhere to be seen. Ignatio had withdrawn to the far end of the bar, tending his signature flowers. Max finished his Corona and was thinking about another when he felt cool fresh air wafting across the dance floor. He turned and saw Dolores pause at the door, smooth her silk satin dress and touch her hair. She came over to the bar, her heels tapping on the parquet, and signaled to Ignatio for her usual. The Di Sarli tango segued into Miguel Calo’s “El Vals Sonador”. Ignatio coughed again and again into his elbow. Max took her hand, virus be damned, and said, “Let’s dance.” Dolores set her purse on the bar next to her Manhattan, and stepped, together with Max, into the clear space that separates life from death.

About halfway through their first tanda, Dolores’s close embrace evoked Max’s first memory, of being swaddled in warm blankets in his pram, and gazing in rapt wonderment at apple blossoms and blue skies. Over by the bar, Ignatio had set a glass of Scotch before a new arrival, one of the city’s finest, who had carefully lowered his spacious backside onto a barstool and adjusted his belt-full of law enforcement paraphernalia that included a squawking walkie-talkie, a couple of ziplock cuffs, and a holstered black handgun. Ignatio was explaining, between coughs, that all relevant COVID-19 guidelines were in effect, and that he’d be happy to replenish the officer’s glass as needed.

“What about them?” the officer asked, gesturing at Dolores and Max as he swirled and downed his Scotch. His face was flushed, and he reached for a napkin decorated with the Hotel Fakir logo and wiped his brow. “I don’t see face-masks. I don’t see gloves. The caskets for these two are on their way.”

Ignatio was diplomatic, as always. “Officer, your concerns are well-founded. And I assure you, as we speak, that I’m fixing any and all irregularities going forward.” He paused as Max and Dolores passed by, animating the otherwise still mirrors of the tango salon. “They’re essential personnel, first responders at the Medical University. They have an hour or two off, then they’re back in the ER.” He set a bottle with a complex inviting label on the bar between them. “By the way, are you familiar with Sheildaig, an outstanding Finest Old single malt Scotch whisky from Islay?” The officer sighed, nodded, nudged his empty glass towards Ignatio, and said, “You read me like a book, Ignatio. I’ve always liked your tango salon. The way that everyone behaves. Not what you’d expect when people who’ve never met get close and intimate, know what I mean?”

Ignatio poured a measure of Sheldaig into the officer’s glass. “Shakespeare once said, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’”. He passed his wipe across the zinc surface of the bar. “We deal here in dreams, Officer, dreams locked in our unconscious. Tango merely picks the lock.”

At that moment, while he was still contemplatively swirling his Sheldaig, the officer’s radio erupted in a series of unintelligible squawks that stiffened his spine and caused him to swallow his Sheldaig pronto. “Gotta go,” he said, hitching his belt, “Looks like we got us a riot on Meeting Street.” He hiccupped, belched once or twice, and paused momentarily as Max and Dolores swept unconcernedly past him, eyes closed, rapt in the Tango moment spun by Di Sarli’s violin and bandoneon. He swung open the black-laquered door of the Hotel Fakir and fumbled with his belt-full of riot-control gear as distant concussions and the percussive beats of a helicopter and its sweeping searchlight invaded the Hotel Fakir. Ignatio listened attentively to the growing ruckus beyond the cobbled alley, and then resumed his reflective polishing of wine glasses, pausing now and again to study the small collection of photographs next to his tropical flowers.

Dolores walked over and caught the faraway look in his eye. “Tell me a story, Ignatio”, she said, “I’m not dancing.” He adjusted a sepia photograph showing a young man and a woman in a silk dress and high heels in a close tango embrace.

“Long ago I led a garrison defending a remote archipelago against foreign aggression,” he said, absent-mindedly touching the gold military pin on his lapel. “My adjutant was political, the bureaucracy’s eye on the battlefield.” He glanced at the photograph. “His wife Graciela and I were in love. I see her in you, Dolores.” Ignatio took her hand in his. She smiled, but his tired lined face was impassive. “Things didn’t end well. I escaped a firing squad with the help of a brother officer named Ferreyra. He was shot instead.”

Dolores was used to Ignatio’s darker moods, and turned away to look for Max, unprepared for what came next. With an explosive crash the etched glass transom over the front door splintered into a thousand shards. Something smoking and ominous lay spinning out on the dance floor. She glimpsed a bottle, a rag, a tiny lick of flame. With an almighty silent detonation, the salon was suddenly an incandescent lake of fire, and for one suspended second, everything stopped. And then panic set in as she and Max fled out to the patio, slapping at claws of fire that raked them as they ran. They cowered by the wrought iron railings beneath the fig trees. The Hotel Fakir, triumphantly ablaze in its final moments, defiant in the delayed drenching of fire hoses, slowly collapsed in monumental showers of sparks. Just then, Dolores realized that Ignatio was no longer with them. A spectral figure was silhouetted against the fiery tableau, heading back into the flames.

The fire that consumed the Hotel Fakir made the front page of the Charleston Evening Post. For those whose days were lived in fear, the blaze confirmed that citizen vigilantes, preferably armed in accordance with the Second Amendment, should defend the city against infiltration from all points north of Calhoun Street. Tango was of course the pre-eminent raison d’etre of the Hotel Fakir, and Tango’s shameless connection between men and women who would otherwise be strangers no doubt fueled, together with the Molotov cocktail, the enthusiasm with which the Post reported the spectacular demise of the Hotel Fakir.

The die-hard Hotel Fakir regulars mourned above all the enigmatic Ignatio Quiroga, who could easily have escaped the catastrophe, but instead sought to save some prints, the Aquitania among them, and a handful of photographs of tango intimates, family, Hotel Fakir habitués, and written testimonials that adorned the bar next to his extravagant daily displays of tropical flowers. Ignatio Quiroga died aged 90, a soldier and tanguero whose checkered career included command of the 7th Infantry in the Falkland Islands campaign. As a boy in Buenos Aires, accompanying his mother to milongas where she worked as a dancer, he had learned the feminine role in Tango because young men needed compliant followers to hone their skills as tangueros. This knowledge animated the masterful tangos that he performed occasionally in the Hotel Fakir, but more often found expression in laconic and perceptive remarks as he concocted his heady drinks behind the bar.

The next morning, firemen probing the smouldering ruin of the Hotel Fakir found the remains of Ignatio Quiroga behind the blistered black-lacquered door, surrounded by fused globules of shattered etched glass from the transom. A right hand, which had somehow escaped incineration, grasped a framed sepia photograph of Graciela, her eyes closed, her hands cradling Ignatio in an intimate tango embrace. In the background, a blurred but recognizable Osvaldo Pugliese was leading his orchestra in a performance of what could only have been “Manos Adoradas”.

Conjunction Tango

Jupiter and Saturn’s great conjunction having come and gone, Brexit sounder than ever, Washington shaking off smothering Laocoonian coils, vaccines saying “Hello”, and Christmas front and center, I found myself thinking yet again about Tango. I shot off a text to Maria, she of the roof-top milongas of summers past. She replied she’d sold her house, along with the fabled candle-lit dance floor that offered long distance views across Low Country sea-marshes and Tango tandas that steered us into soulful connection. Searches of local Tango websites turned up moribund viral surrender. I decided to check out the Hotel Fakir’s Tango salon, down by the waterfront, where Covid precautions were always studiously observed, and where, even if people didn’t show up, I could count on Ignatio keeping me on the straight and narrow where Tango was concerned.

Avoiding the cerebral demons populating the cobbled patio of the Hotel Fakir, and having carefully closed the black-laquered door behind me, I was astonished to see Dolores sitting at the bar, nursing a double Scotch and chatting desultorily with Ignatio. The last time I’d seen her, she was leaving town, destined for an adjunct teaching slot at the University of California and getting married, an event vividly memorialized on Facebook. I slid onto a barstool next to her, asked Ignatio for my favorite Malbec, and murmured, “Good to see you, Dolores.” The face she turned to me was as beautiful as ever. A certain sadness in her eyes roused long dormant pain in mine. Ignatio retreated to the far end of the bar and fussed with his DJ laptop.  I took her hand and long moments passed as we sat quietly, glancing at each other now and again. Behind us, the deserted Tango salon came to life with “El Vals Sonador”.

“I can’t,” said Dolores, as I placed my palm on the small cool of her back, where the silk of her dress slid easily beneath my fingers. “Max,” she said, “Too much has happened. We can’t go back.” But she, like me, both of us orphaned by lost love and a viral pandemic, could not resist Tango’s insidious invitation to fold ourselves into each others’ arms. And so Dolores and I, uniquely estranged and damaged by commonplace missteps in the dance of life, found for a few moments at least a measure of peace.  We danced in close embrace, reflected in the mirrored wall of the salon, past the desolate bistro tables and the framed Cunard Line posters, and we listened carefully for faint echoes of the Tango orchestra on RMS Aquitania’s ballroom deck as she set out for New York on a bygone Christmas Day. Not too much to ask for, and just enough for a tiny flame of love to flicker fitfully between us.

Cabeceo Cowboy

I get it. Norms must be followed. Structure underlies function. Or is it the other way round? No matter. Here’s the thing. Catch her eye, or let hers catch yours, and you’re good to go. Catching is key. Cast your line across the darkened expanse of polished parquet, baited with all you’ve got. Which boils down to a commanding presence, equal parts upright posture, a clean shave, a confident demeanor, and totally at one with the intricate tango song flowing from the DJ’s shaded nook. Oh, you don’t measure up? No nibbles from the far side? Averted eyes? Preoccupation with a half-empty glass of Prosecco, or a chafing strap on that new dance shoe? I get it. Been there, done that. And now the cabeceo cowboy takes over. 

You stand, hitch up your pants, and stroll around the perimeter of the busy dance floor, casual as you please, approving with a smile faultlessly-executed enrosques, barridas and molinetes. You come to the first far-side bistro table, where three women, two of a certain age, and one half that, are deep in conversation. You pause, bow mock formally, and extend a hand over the flickering electric candle that adorns their table. They glance up, inspect you briefly, and then carry on as before. Oh, well… At the next table, on which lie a lady’s purse and a cast-off silk scarf, someone is slouched over a smartphone, his thumbs dancing obsessively over its obsidian surface. You suppress an involuntary sigh of disgust, and move on. But, be still my heart, what’s this? Here’s a beautiful woman, hitherto obscured by a potted palm. She’s all alone, one hand idly fingering an errant curl behind her ear, the other smoothing the silken surface of her dress  where it clings to her thigh

You pause, take stock, and catch her eye. She bestows upon you a long cool look that starts at your hairline, receding it’s true but testifying to maturity if not hard-earned wisdom, surveys the barely-noticeable bags under your eyes, the paper-thin wattles of your throat, your paunch held at bay by your belt buckle, and your thin shanks, draped in loose pants but nevertheless itching to dance. You short-circuit her possibly unfavorable review by offering her your hand, a smile, and a sidelong glance at the dance-floor. She closes her eyes momentarily, and when they re-open she’s no longer looking at you, but instead studying the shaded nook where the DJ is fussing with his laptop. Your heart stills. You’re about to move on when she turns to you, bats her eyelashes, indicates the empty seat beside her, and murmurs, “I’m not crazy about this song. Let’s see what’s up next.”

You sit down, shoot your cuffs, and venture an ad hoc critique of “Regreso al Amor”. She puts an index finger to the perfect crimson arc of her lips. Cabeceo is treading unfamiliar ground, but this cowboy is able and willing to go with the flow…     

Footloose Tango

I’m immunized now. Both doses of a fancy vaccine, tested first in scurrying rodents, then given experimentally to humans, and finally subjected to robust statistical analysis, are now infiltrating my cells, busily erecting barriers to viral onslaught. I hope. We’ll see. Along the way, invariably masked and gloved, I’ve languished in Tango limbo, my female contacts limited to disinterested supermarket check-out girls. I no longer encounter intriguing women at milongas, who back in the day used to offer intoxicating alternatives to everyday life. I’ve suffered, it goes without saying, as we all have. But I never realized how essential those encounters were to my imaginative life, the life that fuels my Tango stories. Fully immunized, yes, but notwithstanding daily bird-watching, online chess and cryptic crosswords, I’m still deprived of the magical sensual stimulus that is Tango. Understandably, when writing, my mind is often as blank as my laptop screen with its mocking cursor.

And so, I responded eagerly when Maria texted me late one night about an editorial she’d come across in a medical journal addressing the public health issue of gun violence. Guns and Tango have very little in common, but Maria, a surgeon who daily deals with gunshot injuries, intentional and otherwise, and an accomplished tanguera to boot, is my lodestar for local Tango engagement. I replied by asking if she’d been immunized, and when she would host another of her much-anticipated milongas. Long moments passed, during which I buffed my Tango shoes, if only for old time’s sake, listened to Argentine Tango Radio Budapest, and wondered what next. At length, Maria replied: “Wishful thinking, Max. It’ll be another year at least for those of us who’re careful. But here’s something to cheer you up.”

I clicked on her YouTube video.  A hooded lout, crouched in full camo gear and armed with an AR-15, was spraying high velocity bullets from twenty yards into a fat scarecrow wearing a suit and sporting a dangling red neck-tie and a flamboyant blonde hair-piece. Bits of straw flew and the manikin jerked as if demented. The soundtrack inevitably played the dulcinate strains of “Assassination Tango”. No vaccine, however fancy or clever, could withstand that particular onslaught. Good to know. The video faded, and segued into Oswaldo Zotti’s seductive first class in the immortal “This is the Way to Dance Tango” series. I recalled in that moment my first faltering steps on the yellow brick road that leads to Tango. I realized that all may be right with the world after all. Just a matter of time, vaccines, masks, and patience. And perhaps, hard to imagine I know, one day we’ll dance again, footloose and fancy-free.

My Tanguera, My Dog, and Me

Sootie is a mute observer of my black dog as I leave home and cross the lawn. I duck under an orb spider’s golden web, and step out onto the dock. The sky at dusk is overcast, and bulrushes sway in a stiff breeze out of the north. An incoming tide bears grassy flotsam and iridescent organic swirls. Off to the east, far away across the marsh, a thoughtless suburbanite stabs the night with a thousand watt security light. My black dog edges closer. I turn my back on the intrusion, sink onto the bench at the pier-head, and see drifting clouds give way to stratospheric flashes of jets heading west. I think of the leisurely stroll of milongueros and the electric recognition of souls sensing communion half-way through the first tanda.

I reach for my phone and fire up Di Sarli’s “El Once”. My black dog backs off. I imagine that even Sootie, still as night at the edge of the marsh, stirs and yearns to be free. As I do. Two years and counting have atrophied neural circuits whose sole function is to transform physical contact into rhythmic synchrony, induce graceful transcendence of the everyday, and carry me off on a musical wave in a protective embrace. No wonder Sootie stirs. Instead, two years and counting have conjured up an unwanted but faithful black dog that trots at my heel, rejects all frivolity, and insists on dire interpretation of life as we know it. But the black dog retreats before the seductive weft and weave of Tango emerging from my phone that casts its spell over the wide horizon before me.

And so, I get to my feet and await Sootie’s arrival. She comes to me and we face each other for a moment or two, close and still, save for the near imperceptible sway of our bodies as we anticipate the next musical phrase. And then, with a quiet introductory flourish, I take a long slow step into her space, and another, and another, while Sootie enticingly retreats and accommodates me, gathering me into her embrace. We dance as if the pandemic, and not our nestling, is just a dream. At last the song concludes, and I reprise my initial flourish as a coda to Di Sarli’s final note. Sootie and I prolong our embrace for a few seconds more, before an admonitory growl from my black dog intrudes. Sootie disappears, a wisp dissolving into the night. I make my way back along the dock, hangdog at my heel. The wind picks up and the first drops of rain follow me home.