A Millimeter From Hell

Finding places in Buenos Aires that serve decaf is not especially easy. Even in the nicer parts of the city, there are only a handful of spots that sell it…   And asking makes me feel weird. Most baristas will reflexively produce a sort of fazed squint, as if you had asked for a cup of motor oil. 

But drinking regular coffee makes me feel even weirder, so I’m sitting in a Starbucks roughly halfway between Plaza del Congreso and Lima Station. They always have decaf, and the wi-fi is better than the Cafe Martinez and Havanna shops that seem to be preferred by the locals. I’m told that this leaning has a lot to do with the quality of the alfajores. Whatever. I don’t care. The mermaid on my cup is smiling at me, and she would be even if I really were drinking motor oil.

I know it’s soulless and mundane, but there’s something nice about the familiarity. 

Through the window, I’m looking at a sea of demonstrators who are marching toward Plaza de Mayo, waving flags and banging drums. People are wearing t-shirts and hats to show their affiliation with one of the twenty-odd wings of Peronism. Members of Patria Grande Front wear blue and white, as do those of the Partido de la Victoria and the governing Partido Justicialista. Interspersed throughout the crowd are the scarlet-clad comrades of the Partido Comunista — not to be confused with the Partido Comunista Congreso Extraordinario or the Partido Comunista Revolucionario. Representatives of the feminist Somos party are in pink, naturally. The variety seems absurd. I imagine there are very few politicians, academics, or journalists — to say nothing of laymen — who appreciate the intrafactional differences with any degree of specificity.

There are hundreds of thousands of people out there…  That’s what I told my editor anyway. 

It feels like there are a million. I know there aren’t, but there may as well be. The entire downtown core is packed shoulder-to-shoulder.

Some people are setting off firecrackers, which I’m sure really pisses off all of the cops.

There was an assassination attempt on Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner last night; that’s why everyone is out in the streets. People are marching ‘in solidarity’, whatever that means. “Todos con Cristina” has been painted on everything from sternums to street signs – sometimes written neutrally as, “Todxs con Cristina”. Apparently the “x” has made its way to the developing world.  

Fernández de Kirchner is currently on trial for funnelling public infrastructure contracts to political allies throughout her presidency (2007-2015). *Allegedly*, she was running a massive grift to enrich corporate pals in Patagonia. I haven’t dug too deeply into the specifics, but it seems like there are too many Panamanian bank accounts involved for the whole thing to be a misunderstanding. 

The populace is divided by the question of her guilt — evenly, as far as I can tell. Half of Argentines think she’s the biggest criminal in the country; the other half think she’s a saint. But everyone thinks about her…    very often. 

A group of exceedingly zealous Kirchnerists had been camped out in front of her home for the past few weeks, there to offer screams of support for the fiercely patriotic Argentine heroine they believe to be the target of a baseless, politically motivated prosecution by neo-liberal slimeballs. Whenever she leaves or arrives home, they go bananas, like a gaggle of shrieking tweens stationed outside a boy band’s hotel lobby. 

Fernando André Sabag Montiel was in the crowd last night, but he was not there to cheer or fawn. As the vice-president was making her way through the crowd, he pointed a 0.380 calibre Bersa pistol in her face and appeared to pull the trigger. 

For whatever reason, no bullet came out. A lot of people are saying the gun jammed.

He was promptly arrested. She’s fine.

Everyone has been going crazy since.

Predictably, there are those who believe the whole thing was a false flag. They think the attempt was set up to further the cause of Kirchnerism. And given the wave of support she’s enjoyed since last night, that doesn’t strike me as an exceptionally outlandish theory. The gun ‘jammed’?  Really?  I guess that would make sense if we were living in the 18th century and he had used a flintlock…   or even if we were living in the 19th century and he had used a deringer. I remember reading that the conspirator who intended to kill Secretary of State William Seward on the night of the Lincoln assassination experienced a jam and ended up having to use the weapon’s butt as a bludgeon. That’s eminently believable.

But a semiautomatic pistol…. In 2022?    Is this a movie?

                                                                                                 Yeah… idk… 

If it really was just a fluke jam – just a providential stroke of cosmic randomness – it’s simultaneously one of the most minuscule and consequential flukes of all time. Did the spring get snagged on the magazine catch? Were the slide and frame slightly misaligned? By how much? A millimeter? Less? 

I can’t think of an instance where the arrangement of fewer molecules has been as critical in dictating future events. Her death wouldn’t have merely upset the apple cart; it would have been a road-wrecking landmine.

It’s hard to imagine a situation where Fernández de Kirchner is assassinated and widespread violence does not ensue. 

Granted, there hasn’t been much in the way of civic brutality since democracy was re-established in 1983. For the entirety of most Argentines’ lifetimes, things have been peaceful. Relatively speaking, Argentina is a stable society with institutions that are — in some very basic sense — respected and interacted with as legitimate. It would take something dramatic for that to change.

But tensions are incredibly high. People are mad, and those who are the maddest have the least to lose.

CFK’s assassination could have been the trigger; it could have been the casus belli that plunged the country into chaos. 

Maybe there would have been violent protests in the streets. Maybe the Kirchnerists would have fatally clashed with the opposition-led municipal police. Maybe there would have been retaliatory assassinations. Maybe someone would have taken out Macri, the previous President. And then maybe someone would have taken out President Fernández in response. Maybe the government would have declared martial law. Maybe they would have implemented a curfew and cut communications. 

Maybe her death would have been the first domino in the return of repressive, single-party rule. Maybe it would have ushered in the horrors that I’ve heard bits about, in lowered voices, from those who lived through the dictatorship.

Maybe everything would have fallen apart…   if only the world’s arrangement was ever so slightly different last night.

You don’t need to be uniquely clairvoyant or familiar with Argentine political history to envisage a worst-case scenario.

Then again, there are probably countless scenarios in one’s personal life where the difference between normality and nightmare is separated by a millimeter. What if a slightly deeper-than-expected crack in the sidewalk caused me to trip and fall into the path of an oncoming bus? What if the frayed wires of my apartment’s electric grid were only a hair away from razing the entire building? What if the quarter-turn of a wrench was the only difference between my arrival at the gate and my gruesome disfigurement in a fiery wreck?

Why does anything happen the way it does?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was the country really a millimeter from hell last night? Am I a millimeter from hell in some impossibly, unknowingly tangled way right now?

The stochastic nature of the world can really fuck with your head. Every aspect of life is so data-driven and actuarialized that it’s easy to be lulled into believing there are people who understand the future, and who are capable of controlling it. BUT THEN BOOM: BLACK SWAN!!!!

OR MANY BLACK SWANS!!!!!!!        A BIG FLOCK OF BLACK SWANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If the gun went off, I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here writing this.

Maybe I’d be dead. Or maybe I’d be somewhere else, writing something more interesting.

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