I reached a full sprint in my busi­ness suit and run­ning shoes, imag­in­ing a crank­shaft, sub­or­di­nate to the pis­tons and cylin­ders, spin­ning the fly­wheel. I kept my strides high and long, coast­ing over the in­ces­sant pa­rade of cob­ble­stones that un­doubt­edly ru­ined the es­cape of many of my pur­suants’ pre­vi­ous vic­tims. The three were fast, not used to los­ing the chase--though I doubt they were used to a chase at all. Most the other busi­ness­men of Puerto Madero would have handed their wal­let over within ten sec­onds. I bet a few had run, and the trio had quickly pinned their vic­tim down and used their knives to re­mind him not to run next time. They’d give him a kick, too. They’d see some blood be­fore tak­ing his iPhone and every last mon­eda.

This time I kept all my blood cir­cu­lat­ing in­side me, the red and pur­ple flood­ing in and out of my wrists, my tem­ples, my lungs, sup­ply­ing and de­plet­ing my com­po­nents. My tie flap­ping be­hind my shoul­ders as I roared past the heladería, the fruit stand, and the car­toneros push­ing their rusted-wheeled carts and clink­ing glass bot­tles. Their eyes lifted from the trash bins and fol­lowed me for the twen­ti­eth time, wide and dark and con­fused ever still.

The steel cranes and glass sky­scrap­ers were the back­drop to the free­way below my feet. Across the water the tow­ers rose row after row, their in­fi­nite rep­e­ti­tion in­ter­rupted only by the bridge’s fierce white point that emerged from the boule­vard’s trees. I took a sharp right, my torque con­verter spin­ning. My mug­gers whipped around the cor­ner, and I in­creased my lead from four to five me­ters. I length­ened my stride, let my heels hit the ground for the first time in a minute. I thought in rhythms gov­erned by my ex­hales. The trans­mis­sion churned phrases that kept me fo­cused, kept the fear out.

If I could just make it to la Puenta de la Mujer,

they’d stop chas­ing.

It’s too ex­posed;

they’d never fol­low.

They’d think I’d yell, and the po­lice

on the other end

would turn the table.

They’d radio the po­lice

on the other side,

am­bush them,

turn the preda­tor to prey.

But I’d never yell; that’d ruin the fun.

A stitch clutched deep in my torso while sweat flowed from my hair, a sign for my ra­di­a­tor to kick in. I kept my arms pump­ing, re­mind­ing my­self of the al­ter­na­tive evening: a lonely, spar­tan apart­ment, a bot­tle of fer­net, five em­panadas. I re­mem­ber those nights in my first month, tak­ing a break from Youtubes on how cars work to look out on the city from my apart­ment win­dow. The city lights were minia­ture stars, each with its own grav­i­ta­tional pull, suck­ing peo­ple and cars and mon­edas to­ward it, day after day, night after night.

Ten more strides, and I was on the bridge. I felt my­self down­shift, coast my way to park. My throat ex­panded with each breath; my spark plug di­aphragm ex­ploded my ex­hales into the muggy night and charged me across the bridge until I spun around to see the hunters fade into the black to pre­pare for an­other hun­gry night. This was what vic­tory felt like.

I checked my watch. They had chased after me for a full two min­utes be­fore giv­ing up. Most in their line of work hadn’t both­ered after thirty sec­onds. This was my longest chase since the first time I donned ten­nis shoes and stepped out into moon­light with five mon­edas, keys, and a de­ter­mi­na­tion to end the toxic bore­dom that col­lected in my apart­ment like ex­haust in a closed garage.

I bent over the  rail­ing, pant­ing, gaz­ing at the sky­scrap­ers and stars echo­ing in the rip­pled mir­ror below. Sweat fell from my brow and splat­tered like oil stains be­tween my feet. From my jacket pocket, I re­moved my weights, two Quilmes bot­tles. I set one on the ground and cracked open the other. I held my beer up with my sweaty and scarred right hand to toast this great Janus of a city, with its wealth and poverty, its mon­u­ments and ruins, its storms and fair winds, its vic­tims and end­less blocks of thieves.