TUESDAY, JULY 20
8:23 PM from a hostel in Pisac, Peru
We have moved on from the touristic nexus of Cuzco for a path off the beaten trail, so to speak. Once again, Kevin, Miguel and I have separated from the rest, this time in hopes of procuring some ayahuasca...
In the thin heat of mid day, the market vendors in Peru shake water bottles filled with odd-colored liquids at me. They recognize my curiosity at once, simply another contribution to the Peruvian tourism market. This place is the Amsterdam of South America... Cuzco, you will take my money and leave me blind and trembling. Food, drugs, clothes, superfluous physical luxuries made abundant to attract my countrymen. My countrymen, but not me.
"MASAGES, MASAGES!! SEÑOR, QUIERES UN MASAGEM? PORQUE NO??"
Tomorrow, we will scour this city for what we need. Sugar, salt, meat, sex, tobacco, marijuana, masturbation... these are the things we are abstaining from. We will not be distracted from our objective. We will not be deterred.
---
WEDNESDAY, JULY 21
Right around 1:00 PM
A Google search.
"Ayahuasca+eating vegetarian."
That's how we learned the name Diego Palmas.
That's why we bought a bus ticket for Pisac, Peru.
"The whole city knows the name of Melissa Wasi," said the website concerning the location of Diego Palmas. "Just ask anyone." An inquiry with the proprietors of our hostel confirmed this. They pointed down the street, through the choking dust clouds, and said, "Keep going that way." When the road ran out, we asked a resting pigfarmer if he knew the location of Diego Palmas. He pointed down a dirt path, through a field littered with pigs and chickens, and said, "That way." When the path ran out, we came to a colony of buildings resting on the bank of a river. When we asked a gardener tending to some plants about the location of Diego Palmas, he took us in between some buildings, and up a hidden road until we arrived at a clearing with a sizable wooden house and a small temple built beside it. He pointed to the house, through a group of children running around an approximate playground, and said, "That way--"
We ran the doorbell and a rather beautiful Peruvian girl opened the door. We asked her in Spanish if this was the house of Diego Palmas, and she responded eloquently: "What?" After learning that English was an easier alternative, we handed her a paper with two names that I had written on it and asked if she knew where to find either of those people. She took the paper and laughed: "I am these people, she said, pointing to one of the names.
"Come in, Diego is waiting for you." This is how we met Diego Palmas...
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
XV. Language Burial
I´m told that good writing comes from being out of your element. The problem is, I´m not sure that I recognize where or what that is anymore, nor if it recognizes me. The sight of a human being eating and sleeping in refuse, of sexuality being violently and publicly treated as commerce, and of the general desolation that arises from the reification of a touristic culture; some how these things have become mundane to me. Like a strip mine, I see Brazil being ravished deeply by the images it chooses to espouse of itself, until every potentially profitable resource has been extracted and sold.
If I could just find a moment to unload my head, perhaps I could myself extract sense out of this confusion of images that has been accumulated over four and a half months of living, traveling and exploring this strange, strange land. Yet, some how, it seems that no length of time would be sufficient to understand a thing like Lapa.
The day began with a staggering loss...
Miguel and I are trying to cross an avenue in Rio de Janeiro, but napalm airstrikes are detonating all around us, and we cannot see where or by whom. We´re trying to compose ourselves, to find our way to the oversized public telescreen in Coppacabana beach to meet our friends, but Brazilians are storming the avenues in bus-loads. A van scrapes around the corner, nearly taking out Miguel´s foot, with it´s passengers screaming in wild ecstasy. Over the sound of more bomb detonations, I can just barely make out their cry: ¨Fuck the Orange, Fuck the Orange!¨
Eventually, we manage to frogger our way through traffic, and as we reach the other side Miguel has a poignant observation: ¨This must be what a military coup is like.¨
This is the Cupo do Mundo in Brazil, and it´s ubiquitous humm follows us everywhere like a cloud of angry insects. The cities have erected superstructures for public viewing purposes, the ladies are done up in gold and green nail polish, and the street vendors are confident and lucrative in the business of selling loud, garish things to children and tourists. Me, I´m catching the game glimpse by glimpse, connecting frames and fragments between public televisions in restaurants and cafes and bars as we make our way to the front lines of this war. Suddenly, Robinho is on a breakaway, and the city erupts in triumph before the ball has even left his foot: 1-0, Brazil.
But soon, something goes wrong. Brazil`s initial burst of energy slowly evaporates when Melo makes an own-goal. Slowly, the arid confidence of the cheers dies down, until it becomes apparent that we are watching more than just a game. When the Dutch score on another cross, I look around and realize there are no more bombs or noisemakers or drunken hollering--just the hushed whispers of friends and family reeling in eachother´s confidence. As the remaining time slowly disappears, so does the fantastic dream of Rio de Janeiro, and, for a moment, I feel like people are people again, grounded in a common defeat.
As we make our slow, trudging exit with the rest of the crowd, passing toys, soccer balls and flags abandoned in the sand, we begin to formulate our plan for the night.
Disappointed though not deeply affected, we were mainly concerned that this loss would have a dampening effect on our ability to have a proper Friday night in Rio de Janeiro. This could not have been further from the truth...
As we are filing into our restaurant, which was purported by one Stephanie Kasten to have the ´best sandwich in the world,´ we chance into one of her Brazilian friends who joins us for dinner. Augusto, as I learn he is called, seems very high and can´t seem to understand my Portuguese, but he gives interesting responses in broken English and has an excellent taste in beer, so I take a liking to him. I ask him if he is sad because of the futebol game earlier, and he responds in a slow, blunt tone of voice, "Fuck futebol." We continue interrogating him on the subject until our sandwiches arrive. Incidentally, they turn out to be the world´s best.
Satisfied from a fine amount of food and drink in Laranjeiras, we are rounding the curvature of a dead, deserted avenue, and slowly descending upon the arches of Lapa. The sound of the procession begins to reach us; the confused inscrutable roar of bad commerce. The party has begun.
STREET
As soon as we step into the street, I can feel them watching. My extraneous and exclamatory perception vehicle, the one that can detect the direction of another person´s stare, is inflamed. We travel to the far side of the concession stands to find Stephanie´s preferred caiprinha vendor, and thus begin the night with a rather delectable caipifruta com abacaxi e creme. ¨Forte, muito forte,¨ I tell the fabricante behind the bar, and watch with the intensity of a hungry dog as my cup is filled with bad cachaca. Though I am right in front of him, I get the sensation of being at a great distance.
Naturally, one empty plastic cup turns to another and another, and excess consumes us. Under the lamps of a very crowded street, we lose ourselves in a procession of tourists, thieves, and beggars. A one-armed man with an acutely curved spine politely interrupts our conversation to ask if our beer cans are empty. I receive a bump from behind, and turn to find a Brazilian girl staring up at me with a deformed mold covering the plastic surgery on her nose, the smell of the paroxyde in her hair almost tangible even from this distance. She stares at me like a frightened animal and slowly back away from me into the crowd. In the back of a broken-down horse carriage, a blanketed form shakes and convulses with the need for sleep. And I feel the pull of their stares from everywhere. Walls of them, waiting for the alcohol to get the best of us so they can move in. And it´s not a long wait.
BENCH
Several hours pass of standing, drinking, conversing and watching. We finally find a moment, the four of us, to seperate from the others and find a respite from these exhausting activities to enjoy one of nature´s wonders; a bench. It´s not long before a middle-aged Brazilian woman takes interest in us: she is wearing a mini skirt and is carrying a drink in both hands. I watch her eyeing Kevin and Stephanie for several minutes before she asks us if we have a camera, because we look picturesque sitting on our bench together. We answer in the negatory and spend the next several minutes chatting her up. She asks what we are doing on Saturday night, and we tell her we are exiting Rio that afternoon. She doesn´t seem to understand, and persists in telling us that there will be a great party there on Saturday, and that we should all go. "Sabado, sabado," she keeps repeating. "Sabado, sabado." I can´t tell if she´s crazy, but she seems quite nice. Eventually, we move on, and she follows. As we are walking somewhere else, she offers us a cigarette, one of Stephanie´s friends makes the mistake of accepting, and then the pact is sealed; she is with us for the rest of the night.
As my friends leave to procure a bathroom and more drinks, I find myself confined to our bench, feeling quite alone except for our new friend, who has never blinked nor stopped talking at me for some amount of time. She is trying to guess my nationality, but I am watching the crippled, bent form of a drunk brasileiro wearing a pink graphic shirt that reads ¨Honor and Solitude¨ alternate between wrestling with his friends and leaning on them for support. She is trying to communicate something to me, but I am counting every confused, glassy-eyed white girl being led to the wayside by leering brasileiros. Communication... there is no communication here. I feel like I could pick any of these squirming forms out of the crowd and run the same script about culture, Brazil, futebol, drugs, women, life, death... and ultimately nothing would be communicated.
¨Voce e italiano!¨ the woman points a knowing finger at me, her eyes fixed like big, mechanical moons.
From our bench, I´m watching a guy purchasing drinks across the way. He bears an impeccable resemblance to a friend of mine from back home; his clothes, his hair, his face... As the woman with two drinks steadies herself against a pole, now enjoining me to teach her English, I´m thinking about how long it´s been since I´ve spoken to my friend, and how our relationship has atrophied in that time. I feel like I could go right up to this guy and say, ¨You know, man, you look like my friend Jesse from back home. He´s an actor, man. In Hollywood, he´s the real thing.¨ And maybe he would say something like ¨Hollywood? Let me tell you a thing about Hollywood...¨ And thus our nights would be conjoined as we followed a common thread together, leading us from this crossroad to a dozen others, which in turn lead to a dozen more. A labrinyth, wherein we find a new reality fabricated with each person, each conversation, each decision which we choose to realize.
¨Ensina-me sua lingua!¨ the woman with two drinks chimes like an old clock, breaking my daydreaming. I watch her squirm against her pole, struggling for balance, and I let slip a laugh. She cocks her head and looks at me expectantly, like a confused puppy who understands that a good thing has happened but cannot comprehend why or how.
Soon, Miguel returns looking extremely weirded out, his eyes even wider than usual: ¨That guy over there just tried to grab my junk!¨ he exclaims. I follow the point of his finger and see a Brazilian guy leaning unconsciously against a metal pole, balancing his weight on his forehead. His friends surround him and laugh, pointing in our direction.
¨Was he successful? Nevermind. What are we going to do?¨
¨I don´t know,¨ he responds as we both watch the American girls we came with get caught between a pack of roving brasileiros, each of them working to pull their prey towards a direction just a little less crowded. ¨But we can´t stay here.¨
¨Voce fala portugues?¨ chirps the clock with two drinks.
¨Agreed,¨ I say after some time, wishing more than anything for a little privacy and a lot of marijuana. Fortunately, Augusto shows up at that moment and offers us both:
¨Do you want... to see the Escadas da Lapa?¨ he mutters at us, just barely audible over the surrounding clamor. Miguel and I look at each other for only a moment before agreement is reached.
¨Sabado, sabado!¨ the clock chirps, and follows closely in tow.
STAIRS
From atop the ornamented stairs of Lapa, we peer at a safe distance at but a small window of the great picture below us. At this elevation, with these people, I feel myself returning to normality. As I savor in opening my lungs to delicious smoke, we sit and listen to a very drunk Stephanie attempt to relate to us what it´s like to teach English to Brazilian adolescents in a favela in Rio de Janeiro.
¨I can´t believe how they act sometimes. They don´t respect anything. They´re like...¨ she hesitates.
¨Animals?¨ I exhale, watching formless figures squirm at the foot of the stairs. A silence passes as we consider this conjecture and pass around the only thing that is keeping us in comfort. Finally, it is Miguel´s voice who offers a positive break to this tension:
¨Well, you´re teaching English in a favela, and I´m pretty sure you´re doing an amazing thing.¨
This I can agree to, and as I revel in another hit I offer a nod and my limited advice:
¨As long as they learn, that´s the only thing that matters. If they´re not entertained, then fuck ´em.¨
Soon, the joint dies, and we are pulled back into the pit below. As we descend, I can feel myself becoming further and further alienated with each step. As if in affirmation, a group of ragged Brazilians breaks off from the side of the stairs and begins to follow us, shouting something to Augusto I can´t quite catch. He turns and fires back with an incensed response, ¨Robinho faltou!¨
This creates a mass of heated confusion, and it soon becomes clear that we may be getting robbed over a soccer argument. This ends when we reach the foot of the stairs and lose ourselves anew in a sea of sickly yellow street light. The woman with two drinks, who, in this time, has procured two more drinks, recognizes us out of the crowd and rejoins us with a sigh of relief: ¨Voces vao no sabado! Sabado!¨ Drunk, confused, and now rather stoned, we falter at the bottom of the stairs with no plan or course of action. We are in the center stage of a brightly lit intersection, surrounded by sharks. Every so often somebody shoulders past me, accompanied by several fingers dipping into my pockets. They´re moving in now.
It is then that Grace, another of Stephanie´s American friends, appears, looking oddly illuminated in the unrealistic yellow bath of street lamps. The circles under her eyes are dark and wet with tears, but she is choked with laughter. Several minutes pass before we figure out what happened.
¨This guy,¨ she sputters, her eyes maniacal. ¨He tried to grab my purse... but I punched him! I punched him right in the face!¨ her giggling erupts into convulsions, and she grabs her sides, drawing even more attention from the shifting figures repositioning themselves around us.
Realizing that something needs to be done, I grab Miguel and pull him aside. Leaning against a graffiti´d wall, our faces half-concealed by shadows, perhaps we´ll seem a little more dangerous.
¨Listen man--¨ I´m cut off as the woman follows us to the wall, staring eagerly at both of us as though she were included in our desperation. I stare at her blankly and continue.
¨Listen. We need to do something... we´ve gotta get out of here. I can´t take this.¨ I can feel more hands and fingers squirming in my pockets. My extra-tight and extra-outlandish pants allow me to feel the movement of every finger fishing for coins, bills, passports, whatever. It is then that I realize the money in my pocket is already gone, though everything else I have in there remains. I´m starting to lose it.
¨Fala, fala!¨ chirps the woman. ¨Speak, speak!¨ But I can´t speak. Not English, not Portuguese. I cannot speak any language. There is no communication here. There are only a handful of people in this crowd with whom I can communicate, and the alcohol is quickly robbing us of that ability...
I´m burying my language deep within this procession of starvation, where any communication is made impossible by the internal embargos of culture. We happily lead ourselves along the horsetracks by these reigns, which are at once fabricating and fabricated by our own sensibilities as products of a global market. There is starvation all around me, existing both in the wretched characters who make their livelihood off the refuse of this wasteland, and in those who preserve the existence of such refuse with their leverage over a weaker culture.
This, I realize as a group of drunk brasileiros publicly humilitates two passing transvetites, this is Brazil. Not candomblé. Not capoeira. This is the Brazil that the world pays to see.
Recognizing my loss of words, Miguel is quick to act. ¨Let´s talk to Stephanie,¨ he concludes, and takes me and the woman with two drinks to find a course of action with the help of the one who brought us here.
¨Stephanie, I think we´re gonna leave. We´re not getting any more comfortable out here, and it´s not getting any less shady.¨
Stephanie, her eyes fluttering and struggling not to roll back in her head, fails to understand.
¨So let´s go to a club!¨ she says, and disappears into the crowd, immediately getting swarmed by friendly brasileiros trying to guide her somewhere else. We´ve hardly even heard her, nor has Kevin hardly even perceived the hordes of men with their hands on her, before we´re at the entrance to a club underneath the arches of Lapa. I´m shrugging at Miguel and handing my money to a girl of perhaps eight years old sitting behind a table. ¨This is fine,¨ he is saying to me as we are ushered through the entrance. ¨We just need to play by different rules here.¨ It is then that I remember that, since the beginning, this has all been a game, and every game has rules...
...and then I´m enveloped in sound. ¨Bye!¨ the woman squeaks from the edge of the door, and fades away almost as quickly as she came.
CLUB
Soon, the language of dance replaces inferior verbal communication, and I feel restored. I take out the last thing from my pocket--a cheap, plastic ring that flashes a colorful strobe light, and allow myself to be lost in it´s glow. I can still feel the wall of watchers all along the perimeter of the dance floor, but with my pockets empty, I feel free. I feel like performing for them. A brasileiro dances up behind me, and Miguel watches and narrates every one of his moves as he feigns and lunges for my back pocket, as though I were stupid enough to keep a wallet there. I turn and laugh in his face and his embarrassment is evident even in the poor lighting of the club. I gesture for him to dance with me, but he shies away, vanquished. I feel victorious, without the need for violence or anger. Perhaps these people just need to eat, I am thinking. Perhaps they simply need the means to survive like I do. I realize that I am having a good time when the rest of the group decides that now is the time to take flight.
EXIT
As we finally reach the decision to retreat from this war, I am weaving with my friends through the figures in the crowd and receiving only scattered, fragmented images of faces. A scowl, a seductive smile, a glassy stare. We blow through a gaggle of prostitutes, and they begin to coo, ¨gringo, gringo!¨ There is a tug at my shirt and I turn to find a girl, maybe nine years old, wearing a halter top and staring at me seductively from the knee of a very seasoned prostitute. I do my utmost to block the image from my mind as we all jump into the getaway vehicle and escape the streets of Lapa.
And as we round the streets, becoming further away by the second, I can look up and see Christ the Redeemer, His face illuminated upwards by sickly green lights, His wide embrace encompassing everything below. And thus we pass under his auspices to watch the sun rise anew on the shores of Brazil, for perhaps the last time before we set sights for other dark corners of the world...
If I could just find a moment to unload my head, perhaps I could myself extract sense out of this confusion of images that has been accumulated over four and a half months of living, traveling and exploring this strange, strange land. Yet, some how, it seems that no length of time would be sufficient to understand a thing like Lapa.
The day began with a staggering loss...
Miguel and I are trying to cross an avenue in Rio de Janeiro, but napalm airstrikes are detonating all around us, and we cannot see where or by whom. We´re trying to compose ourselves, to find our way to the oversized public telescreen in Coppacabana beach to meet our friends, but Brazilians are storming the avenues in bus-loads. A van scrapes around the corner, nearly taking out Miguel´s foot, with it´s passengers screaming in wild ecstasy. Over the sound of more bomb detonations, I can just barely make out their cry: ¨Fuck the Orange, Fuck the Orange!¨
Eventually, we manage to frogger our way through traffic, and as we reach the other side Miguel has a poignant observation: ¨This must be what a military coup is like.¨
This is the Cupo do Mundo in Brazil, and it´s ubiquitous humm follows us everywhere like a cloud of angry insects. The cities have erected superstructures for public viewing purposes, the ladies are done up in gold and green nail polish, and the street vendors are confident and lucrative in the business of selling loud, garish things to children and tourists. Me, I´m catching the game glimpse by glimpse, connecting frames and fragments between public televisions in restaurants and cafes and bars as we make our way to the front lines of this war. Suddenly, Robinho is on a breakaway, and the city erupts in triumph before the ball has even left his foot: 1-0, Brazil.
But soon, something goes wrong. Brazil`s initial burst of energy slowly evaporates when Melo makes an own-goal. Slowly, the arid confidence of the cheers dies down, until it becomes apparent that we are watching more than just a game. When the Dutch score on another cross, I look around and realize there are no more bombs or noisemakers or drunken hollering--just the hushed whispers of friends and family reeling in eachother´s confidence. As the remaining time slowly disappears, so does the fantastic dream of Rio de Janeiro, and, for a moment, I feel like people are people again, grounded in a common defeat.
As we make our slow, trudging exit with the rest of the crowd, passing toys, soccer balls and flags abandoned in the sand, we begin to formulate our plan for the night.
Disappointed though not deeply affected, we were mainly concerned that this loss would have a dampening effect on our ability to have a proper Friday night in Rio de Janeiro. This could not have been further from the truth...
As we are filing into our restaurant, which was purported by one Stephanie Kasten to have the ´best sandwich in the world,´ we chance into one of her Brazilian friends who joins us for dinner. Augusto, as I learn he is called, seems very high and can´t seem to understand my Portuguese, but he gives interesting responses in broken English and has an excellent taste in beer, so I take a liking to him. I ask him if he is sad because of the futebol game earlier, and he responds in a slow, blunt tone of voice, "Fuck futebol." We continue interrogating him on the subject until our sandwiches arrive. Incidentally, they turn out to be the world´s best.
Satisfied from a fine amount of food and drink in Laranjeiras, we are rounding the curvature of a dead, deserted avenue, and slowly descending upon the arches of Lapa. The sound of the procession begins to reach us; the confused inscrutable roar of bad commerce. The party has begun.
STREET
As soon as we step into the street, I can feel them watching. My extraneous and exclamatory perception vehicle, the one that can detect the direction of another person´s stare, is inflamed. We travel to the far side of the concession stands to find Stephanie´s preferred caiprinha vendor, and thus begin the night with a rather delectable caipifruta com abacaxi e creme. ¨Forte, muito forte,¨ I tell the fabricante behind the bar, and watch with the intensity of a hungry dog as my cup is filled with bad cachaca. Though I am right in front of him, I get the sensation of being at a great distance.
Naturally, one empty plastic cup turns to another and another, and excess consumes us. Under the lamps of a very crowded street, we lose ourselves in a procession of tourists, thieves, and beggars. A one-armed man with an acutely curved spine politely interrupts our conversation to ask if our beer cans are empty. I receive a bump from behind, and turn to find a Brazilian girl staring up at me with a deformed mold covering the plastic surgery on her nose, the smell of the paroxyde in her hair almost tangible even from this distance. She stares at me like a frightened animal and slowly back away from me into the crowd. In the back of a broken-down horse carriage, a blanketed form shakes and convulses with the need for sleep. And I feel the pull of their stares from everywhere. Walls of them, waiting for the alcohol to get the best of us so they can move in. And it´s not a long wait.
BENCH
Several hours pass of standing, drinking, conversing and watching. We finally find a moment, the four of us, to seperate from the others and find a respite from these exhausting activities to enjoy one of nature´s wonders; a bench. It´s not long before a middle-aged Brazilian woman takes interest in us: she is wearing a mini skirt and is carrying a drink in both hands. I watch her eyeing Kevin and Stephanie for several minutes before she asks us if we have a camera, because we look picturesque sitting on our bench together. We answer in the negatory and spend the next several minutes chatting her up. She asks what we are doing on Saturday night, and we tell her we are exiting Rio that afternoon. She doesn´t seem to understand, and persists in telling us that there will be a great party there on Saturday, and that we should all go. "Sabado, sabado," she keeps repeating. "Sabado, sabado." I can´t tell if she´s crazy, but she seems quite nice. Eventually, we move on, and she follows. As we are walking somewhere else, she offers us a cigarette, one of Stephanie´s friends makes the mistake of accepting, and then the pact is sealed; she is with us for the rest of the night.
As my friends leave to procure a bathroom and more drinks, I find myself confined to our bench, feeling quite alone except for our new friend, who has never blinked nor stopped talking at me for some amount of time. She is trying to guess my nationality, but I am watching the crippled, bent form of a drunk brasileiro wearing a pink graphic shirt that reads ¨Honor and Solitude¨ alternate between wrestling with his friends and leaning on them for support. She is trying to communicate something to me, but I am counting every confused, glassy-eyed white girl being led to the wayside by leering brasileiros. Communication... there is no communication here. I feel like I could pick any of these squirming forms out of the crowd and run the same script about culture, Brazil, futebol, drugs, women, life, death... and ultimately nothing would be communicated.
¨Voce e italiano!¨ the woman points a knowing finger at me, her eyes fixed like big, mechanical moons.
From our bench, I´m watching a guy purchasing drinks across the way. He bears an impeccable resemblance to a friend of mine from back home; his clothes, his hair, his face... As the woman with two drinks steadies herself against a pole, now enjoining me to teach her English, I´m thinking about how long it´s been since I´ve spoken to my friend, and how our relationship has atrophied in that time. I feel like I could go right up to this guy and say, ¨You know, man, you look like my friend Jesse from back home. He´s an actor, man. In Hollywood, he´s the real thing.¨ And maybe he would say something like ¨Hollywood? Let me tell you a thing about Hollywood...¨ And thus our nights would be conjoined as we followed a common thread together, leading us from this crossroad to a dozen others, which in turn lead to a dozen more. A labrinyth, wherein we find a new reality fabricated with each person, each conversation, each decision which we choose to realize.
¨Ensina-me sua lingua!¨ the woman with two drinks chimes like an old clock, breaking my daydreaming. I watch her squirm against her pole, struggling for balance, and I let slip a laugh. She cocks her head and looks at me expectantly, like a confused puppy who understands that a good thing has happened but cannot comprehend why or how.
Soon, Miguel returns looking extremely weirded out, his eyes even wider than usual: ¨That guy over there just tried to grab my junk!¨ he exclaims. I follow the point of his finger and see a Brazilian guy leaning unconsciously against a metal pole, balancing his weight on his forehead. His friends surround him and laugh, pointing in our direction.
¨Was he successful? Nevermind. What are we going to do?¨
¨I don´t know,¨ he responds as we both watch the American girls we came with get caught between a pack of roving brasileiros, each of them working to pull their prey towards a direction just a little less crowded. ¨But we can´t stay here.¨
¨Voce fala portugues?¨ chirps the clock with two drinks.
¨Agreed,¨ I say after some time, wishing more than anything for a little privacy and a lot of marijuana. Fortunately, Augusto shows up at that moment and offers us both:
¨Do you want... to see the Escadas da Lapa?¨ he mutters at us, just barely audible over the surrounding clamor. Miguel and I look at each other for only a moment before agreement is reached.
¨Sabado, sabado!¨ the clock chirps, and follows closely in tow.
STAIRS
From atop the ornamented stairs of Lapa, we peer at a safe distance at but a small window of the great picture below us. At this elevation, with these people, I feel myself returning to normality. As I savor in opening my lungs to delicious smoke, we sit and listen to a very drunk Stephanie attempt to relate to us what it´s like to teach English to Brazilian adolescents in a favela in Rio de Janeiro.
¨I can´t believe how they act sometimes. They don´t respect anything. They´re like...¨ she hesitates.
¨Animals?¨ I exhale, watching formless figures squirm at the foot of the stairs. A silence passes as we consider this conjecture and pass around the only thing that is keeping us in comfort. Finally, it is Miguel´s voice who offers a positive break to this tension:
¨Well, you´re teaching English in a favela, and I´m pretty sure you´re doing an amazing thing.¨
This I can agree to, and as I revel in another hit I offer a nod and my limited advice:
¨As long as they learn, that´s the only thing that matters. If they´re not entertained, then fuck ´em.¨
Soon, the joint dies, and we are pulled back into the pit below. As we descend, I can feel myself becoming further and further alienated with each step. As if in affirmation, a group of ragged Brazilians breaks off from the side of the stairs and begins to follow us, shouting something to Augusto I can´t quite catch. He turns and fires back with an incensed response, ¨Robinho faltou!¨
This creates a mass of heated confusion, and it soon becomes clear that we may be getting robbed over a soccer argument. This ends when we reach the foot of the stairs and lose ourselves anew in a sea of sickly yellow street light. The woman with two drinks, who, in this time, has procured two more drinks, recognizes us out of the crowd and rejoins us with a sigh of relief: ¨Voces vao no sabado! Sabado!¨ Drunk, confused, and now rather stoned, we falter at the bottom of the stairs with no plan or course of action. We are in the center stage of a brightly lit intersection, surrounded by sharks. Every so often somebody shoulders past me, accompanied by several fingers dipping into my pockets. They´re moving in now.
It is then that Grace, another of Stephanie´s American friends, appears, looking oddly illuminated in the unrealistic yellow bath of street lamps. The circles under her eyes are dark and wet with tears, but she is choked with laughter. Several minutes pass before we figure out what happened.
¨This guy,¨ she sputters, her eyes maniacal. ¨He tried to grab my purse... but I punched him! I punched him right in the face!¨ her giggling erupts into convulsions, and she grabs her sides, drawing even more attention from the shifting figures repositioning themselves around us.
Realizing that something needs to be done, I grab Miguel and pull him aside. Leaning against a graffiti´d wall, our faces half-concealed by shadows, perhaps we´ll seem a little more dangerous.
¨Listen man--¨ I´m cut off as the woman follows us to the wall, staring eagerly at both of us as though she were included in our desperation. I stare at her blankly and continue.
¨Listen. We need to do something... we´ve gotta get out of here. I can´t take this.¨ I can feel more hands and fingers squirming in my pockets. My extra-tight and extra-outlandish pants allow me to feel the movement of every finger fishing for coins, bills, passports, whatever. It is then that I realize the money in my pocket is already gone, though everything else I have in there remains. I´m starting to lose it.
¨Fala, fala!¨ chirps the woman. ¨Speak, speak!¨ But I can´t speak. Not English, not Portuguese. I cannot speak any language. There is no communication here. There are only a handful of people in this crowd with whom I can communicate, and the alcohol is quickly robbing us of that ability...
I´m burying my language deep within this procession of starvation, where any communication is made impossible by the internal embargos of culture. We happily lead ourselves along the horsetracks by these reigns, which are at once fabricating and fabricated by our own sensibilities as products of a global market. There is starvation all around me, existing both in the wretched characters who make their livelihood off the refuse of this wasteland, and in those who preserve the existence of such refuse with their leverage over a weaker culture.
This, I realize as a group of drunk brasileiros publicly humilitates two passing transvetites, this is Brazil. Not candomblé. Not capoeira. This is the Brazil that the world pays to see.
Recognizing my loss of words, Miguel is quick to act. ¨Let´s talk to Stephanie,¨ he concludes, and takes me and the woman with two drinks to find a course of action with the help of the one who brought us here.
¨Stephanie, I think we´re gonna leave. We´re not getting any more comfortable out here, and it´s not getting any less shady.¨
Stephanie, her eyes fluttering and struggling not to roll back in her head, fails to understand.
¨So let´s go to a club!¨ she says, and disappears into the crowd, immediately getting swarmed by friendly brasileiros trying to guide her somewhere else. We´ve hardly even heard her, nor has Kevin hardly even perceived the hordes of men with their hands on her, before we´re at the entrance to a club underneath the arches of Lapa. I´m shrugging at Miguel and handing my money to a girl of perhaps eight years old sitting behind a table. ¨This is fine,¨ he is saying to me as we are ushered through the entrance. ¨We just need to play by different rules here.¨ It is then that I remember that, since the beginning, this has all been a game, and every game has rules...
...and then I´m enveloped in sound. ¨Bye!¨ the woman squeaks from the edge of the door, and fades away almost as quickly as she came.
CLUB
Soon, the language of dance replaces inferior verbal communication, and I feel restored. I take out the last thing from my pocket--a cheap, plastic ring that flashes a colorful strobe light, and allow myself to be lost in it´s glow. I can still feel the wall of watchers all along the perimeter of the dance floor, but with my pockets empty, I feel free. I feel like performing for them. A brasileiro dances up behind me, and Miguel watches and narrates every one of his moves as he feigns and lunges for my back pocket, as though I were stupid enough to keep a wallet there. I turn and laugh in his face and his embarrassment is evident even in the poor lighting of the club. I gesture for him to dance with me, but he shies away, vanquished. I feel victorious, without the need for violence or anger. Perhaps these people just need to eat, I am thinking. Perhaps they simply need the means to survive like I do. I realize that I am having a good time when the rest of the group decides that now is the time to take flight.
EXIT
As we finally reach the decision to retreat from this war, I am weaving with my friends through the figures in the crowd and receiving only scattered, fragmented images of faces. A scowl, a seductive smile, a glassy stare. We blow through a gaggle of prostitutes, and they begin to coo, ¨gringo, gringo!¨ There is a tug at my shirt and I turn to find a girl, maybe nine years old, wearing a halter top and staring at me seductively from the knee of a very seasoned prostitute. I do my utmost to block the image from my mind as we all jump into the getaway vehicle and escape the streets of Lapa.
And as we round the streets, becoming further away by the second, I can look up and see Christ the Redeemer, His face illuminated upwards by sickly green lights, His wide embrace encompassing everything below. And thus we pass under his auspices to watch the sun rise anew on the shores of Brazil, for perhaps the last time before we set sights for other dark corners of the world...
Saturday, June 12, 2010
XIV. Espada
Three parts gunpowder mixed with iron, one part clay, the espada in my hands begs me to pervert the peace of an otherwise tranquil night in Salvador, Bahia. My last night in Salvador, Bahia, to be exact.
She waits until I have both hands firmly placed before kissing the ignition with the end of a cigarette (she is an asthmatic). There is a brief moment of calm before suddenly I am grappling for leverage against a ten-foot sabre of sparks. Uncontrolled, the fire lashes out at her face almost too suddenly, but she is quick to evade. Amazed, we watch the espada grow to its full wingspan, and she steps back in awe. I wish I could do the same, but the bomb is in my hands, so I advance a few steps forward, kneel down close to the street, and do my best to recall something that was told to me by my pirotecniquista many months ago:
There's a girl that I want to impress, so I pull out a small firework from my back pocket and invite her to play with fire. She takes it from me and laughs; a soft, breathy movement of air. "In my town," she's telling me on a warm night in Rio Vermelho as she examines the toy, "Wars are fought with these."
We sit atop a cliff overlooking the receding darkness of the sea. She holds up the miniature espada, no bigger than a cigar, that I had impulsively purchased earlier that day on a journey to the interior of Bahia, in a town called Cachoeira. "But," she pauses to giggle at the size of the thing, "they are much bigger, you know?" Somewhat emasculated, I impetuously decide to light the pocket rocket right then and there. It sparks to life briefly for a few seconds before the flame goes flacid and dies.
Sometime after this, I have the chance to visit this town. Everywhere, the villagers of Cruz das Alvas wax down taut lengths of rope that stretch along the streets and hang from trees. On a warm Sunday morning, on the way back from the market, we take a slow walk and observe the meticulous production of artisan explosives. She takes a moment to chat with a group of Brazilian rocket scientists as I stand with my arms full of groceries and gawk at an apparatus of pulleys and levees suspended from a tree. Half a dozen of them are huddled in a patch of shade with glasses of beer as one toils away in the sun, applying more wax to a length of rope and pulling it tighter still. Behind them, stacked several feet high, are stockpiles of thick shoots of bamboo about one foot in length. Too fascinated by the entire procession before me, I am not quick enough to catch the conversation occurring between her and the shirtless scientists, but I ask her about it as we continue on our way.
"What are those ropes for?"
"They use those to, ah, you know... soco a pólvora?" She makes a gesture as if to punch me in the jaw.
"To pack the gunpowder... I see. And the bamboo?"
"Those are the shells."
"Of... what?"
"Of the espada."
Recalling the toy-like size of the thing I had purchased for one real weeks earlier, I am taken aback. Could these people really be mass-producing homemade fireworks the size of torpedos? The answer, quite literally, was written on the wall: everywhere in Cruz das Alvas, up and down the streets, the buildings are scarred with spastic singe marks; permanent shadows of fires long extinguished.
The people, too, bear these marks. As we spend the following afternoon "barbecuing" with the local natives, my companions and I are inundated with villagers who perhaps have never seen a non-Brazilian face, let alone five that can all communicate in Portuguese. While my friends happily conduct an auspiciously-priced drug deal in broad daylight up the street, I am following a handful of children who lead me to a few men waxing down rope and a whole lot of clucking women lying in the shade. The women waste no time in calling me over to "brinca," which is a Portuguese word to mean fawn over my accent, my appearance, and the fact that I'm from a different country. I sit happily engaged in conversation with them as they pet my hair and offer me peanuts and cachaça.
As I'm extracting more information about espadas from the women, I learn, among other things, that they are extremely dangerous. To prove this, one of the elder women points my attention to a terrible scar that runs across her throat to her collarbone. I cannot find the words in any language to respond, so I continue listening.
I learn that the reason why these ropes are being stretched down every street and between every tree is because the entire town is preparing for São João, a festival that occurs on June 24. I learn that for two months, Cruz das Alvas will prepare espada after espada, only to ignite them all on this one night. I also learn, between the slurred words of inebriated females and the proud, stout syllables of the fabricantes, how they are made.
Espadas de São Jorge, as they are formally known, begin with a shoot of bamboo that is boiled in water and placed in the sun for two days. After they have sufficiently dried, they are embedded with a conservative to ensure the qualities of the plant and to prevent the possibility of explosion (this is, of course, impossible to do with any certainty). From this point, the details of each product remain in the confidence of the manufacturer, but there are certain universal properties shared by all espadas.
For example, each espada is divided into three, four, or, in some cases, five or more parts, though it should be noted that the more parts means the more likely the explosion. The base partition is made of clay to support the other segments, which are composed of gunpowder mixed with iron to create a brilliant white flame with minimal amounts of smoke. Each of these sections is punched down between 40-50 times by the manufacturer and made as compact as possible with the help of a wooden churn. Finally, the newly-filled shoot of bamboo is wrapped in wax-coated rope until the coils are as tight and close together as possible. The tighter the wrap, the safer (or, more accurately, the less dangerous) the espada. To ignite, cover both ends with tinfoil, use a key to open a small hole in the side opposite the end with the clay foundation, add flame and watch as a ten-foot rocket-blade distends from the hilt of bamboo. In the highly probable event that you are not able to hold on to the bomb, summon your best bowling form and roll it down a flat, wide-open street uninhabited by people, cars or glass. Sounds simple enough, right?
Back in Salvador, on the narrow curvature of a residential street, under the eyes of countless windows and densely packed apartment buildings, in the company of a girl with a backpack full of explosives, I'm learning just how far I am from home. I brace myself for ignition and nearly singe her face as the bamboo hilt in my hands stutters, stutters, and then explodes into an espada, into a sword of Brazilian fire. But something goes wrong. As I try to step forward, the strap on my sandal snaps. The angle of my pitch causes the fucking thing to hit the slope of the street and ricochet off the ground, angling it upright like a renegade rocket destined for some other planet. The espada, now airborn, flies into an alley, where it shoots off a couple of walls and sails past the bedroom windows of the second, third, and fourth story residents.
It is about this time, with no air traffic controller nor a pilot to help navigate this particular airspace, that I conclude that something went wrong, and that we should take flight ourselves for fear of policia. As I turn to her, our gazes lock momentarily, and with her eyes lit up in the reflection of the nearby bomb spiraling out of control, she seems at once terrified and delighted, and I know that, some how, I've been inducted into the War.
But as we take flight and run, the espada sails up, up, up, without regard for gravity nor the slumbering residents of the neighborhood, until somewhere around the seventh story the fire finally dies; extinguishing, along with it, my time in Salvador da Bahia.
Soul and Onward to Other Lands!
She waits until I have both hands firmly placed before kissing the ignition with the end of a cigarette (she is an asthmatic). There is a brief moment of calm before suddenly I am grappling for leverage against a ten-foot sabre of sparks. Uncontrolled, the fire lashes out at her face almost too suddenly, but she is quick to evade. Amazed, we watch the espada grow to its full wingspan, and she steps back in awe. I wish I could do the same, but the bomb is in my hands, so I advance a few steps forward, kneel down close to the street, and do my best to recall something that was told to me by my pirotecniquista many months ago:
There's a girl that I want to impress, so I pull out a small firework from my back pocket and invite her to play with fire. She takes it from me and laughs; a soft, breathy movement of air. "In my town," she's telling me on a warm night in Rio Vermelho as she examines the toy, "Wars are fought with these."
We sit atop a cliff overlooking the receding darkness of the sea. She holds up the miniature espada, no bigger than a cigar, that I had impulsively purchased earlier that day on a journey to the interior of Bahia, in a town called Cachoeira. "But," she pauses to giggle at the size of the thing, "they are much bigger, you know?" Somewhat emasculated, I impetuously decide to light the pocket rocket right then and there. It sparks to life briefly for a few seconds before the flame goes flacid and dies.
Sometime after this, I have the chance to visit this town. Everywhere, the villagers of Cruz das Alvas wax down taut lengths of rope that stretch along the streets and hang from trees. On a warm Sunday morning, on the way back from the market, we take a slow walk and observe the meticulous production of artisan explosives. She takes a moment to chat with a group of Brazilian rocket scientists as I stand with my arms full of groceries and gawk at an apparatus of pulleys and levees suspended from a tree. Half a dozen of them are huddled in a patch of shade with glasses of beer as one toils away in the sun, applying more wax to a length of rope and pulling it tighter still. Behind them, stacked several feet high, are stockpiles of thick shoots of bamboo about one foot in length. Too fascinated by the entire procession before me, I am not quick enough to catch the conversation occurring between her and the shirtless scientists, but I ask her about it as we continue on our way.
"What are those ropes for?"
"They use those to, ah, you know... soco a pólvora?" She makes a gesture as if to punch me in the jaw.
"To pack the gunpowder... I see. And the bamboo?"
"Those are the shells."
"Of... what?"
"Of the espada."
Recalling the toy-like size of the thing I had purchased for one real weeks earlier, I am taken aback. Could these people really be mass-producing homemade fireworks the size of torpedos? The answer, quite literally, was written on the wall: everywhere in Cruz das Alvas, up and down the streets, the buildings are scarred with spastic singe marks; permanent shadows of fires long extinguished.
The people, too, bear these marks. As we spend the following afternoon "barbecuing" with the local natives, my companions and I are inundated with villagers who perhaps have never seen a non-Brazilian face, let alone five that can all communicate in Portuguese. While my friends happily conduct an auspiciously-priced drug deal in broad daylight up the street, I am following a handful of children who lead me to a few men waxing down rope and a whole lot of clucking women lying in the shade. The women waste no time in calling me over to "brinca," which is a Portuguese word to mean fawn over my accent, my appearance, and the fact that I'm from a different country. I sit happily engaged in conversation with them as they pet my hair and offer me peanuts and cachaça.
As I'm extracting more information about espadas from the women, I learn, among other things, that they are extremely dangerous. To prove this, one of the elder women points my attention to a terrible scar that runs across her throat to her collarbone. I cannot find the words in any language to respond, so I continue listening.
I learn that the reason why these ropes are being stretched down every street and between every tree is because the entire town is preparing for São João, a festival that occurs on June 24. I learn that for two months, Cruz das Alvas will prepare espada after espada, only to ignite them all on this one night. I also learn, between the slurred words of inebriated females and the proud, stout syllables of the fabricantes, how they are made.
Espadas de São Jorge, as they are formally known, begin with a shoot of bamboo that is boiled in water and placed in the sun for two days. After they have sufficiently dried, they are embedded with a conservative to ensure the qualities of the plant and to prevent the possibility of explosion (this is, of course, impossible to do with any certainty). From this point, the details of each product remain in the confidence of the manufacturer, but there are certain universal properties shared by all espadas.
For example, each espada is divided into three, four, or, in some cases, five or more parts, though it should be noted that the more parts means the more likely the explosion. The base partition is made of clay to support the other segments, which are composed of gunpowder mixed with iron to create a brilliant white flame with minimal amounts of smoke. Each of these sections is punched down between 40-50 times by the manufacturer and made as compact as possible with the help of a wooden churn. Finally, the newly-filled shoot of bamboo is wrapped in wax-coated rope until the coils are as tight and close together as possible. The tighter the wrap, the safer (or, more accurately, the less dangerous) the espada. To ignite, cover both ends with tinfoil, use a key to open a small hole in the side opposite the end with the clay foundation, add flame and watch as a ten-foot rocket-blade distends from the hilt of bamboo. In the highly probable event that you are not able to hold on to the bomb, summon your best bowling form and roll it down a flat, wide-open street uninhabited by people, cars or glass. Sounds simple enough, right?
Back in Salvador, on the narrow curvature of a residential street, under the eyes of countless windows and densely packed apartment buildings, in the company of a girl with a backpack full of explosives, I'm learning just how far I am from home. I brace myself for ignition and nearly singe her face as the bamboo hilt in my hands stutters, stutters, and then explodes into an espada, into a sword of Brazilian fire. But something goes wrong. As I try to step forward, the strap on my sandal snaps. The angle of my pitch causes the fucking thing to hit the slope of the street and ricochet off the ground, angling it upright like a renegade rocket destined for some other planet. The espada, now airborn, flies into an alley, where it shoots off a couple of walls and sails past the bedroom windows of the second, third, and fourth story residents.
It is about this time, with no air traffic controller nor a pilot to help navigate this particular airspace, that I conclude that something went wrong, and that we should take flight ourselves for fear of policia. As I turn to her, our gazes lock momentarily, and with her eyes lit up in the reflection of the nearby bomb spiraling out of control, she seems at once terrified and delighted, and I know that, some how, I've been inducted into the War.
But as we take flight and run, the espada sails up, up, up, without regard for gravity nor the slumbering residents of the neighborhood, until somewhere around the seventh story the fire finally dies; extinguishing, along with it, my time in Salvador da Bahia.
Soul and Onward to Other Lands!
Friday, June 11, 2010
XIII. World Cup
The proceedings of the World Cup are, for all intents and purposes, diplomatic:
For a brief moment, language barriers fall and all are embraced for the Ball. Follow the Ball. Your language, your face. The people peer and jeer the disgraced, but their faces are grave for the sake of the game. Every four years we revere the boundaries of race and nation; fuck France! In a hostel somewhere in Montevideo, we take a moment for a mental video and cheer for a country that will never make it. Perhaps some time, four years down the line, a new temporality will take over and trash our beliefs. But, with a distinct lack of snacks we become too drunk to account for the moment, so we forget the unimportant and sand down souls;
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLLL
For a brief moment, language barriers fall and all are embraced for the Ball. Follow the Ball. Your language, your face. The people peer and jeer the disgraced, but their faces are grave for the sake of the game. Every four years we revere the boundaries of race and nation; fuck France! In a hostel somewhere in Montevideo, we take a moment for a mental video and cheer for a country that will never make it. Perhaps some time, four years down the line, a new temporality will take over and trash our beliefs. But, with a distinct lack of snacks we become too drunk to account for the moment, so we forget the unimportant and sand down souls;
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLLL
Friday, June 4, 2010
XII. Câmera
The taxistas of Pelourinho drive deliberately and without regard for the obstacles in the road. Weaving urgently around each bend, they ride in silence through the dead streets, speaking only to curse those who slow their course. Their stride remains unbroken until, riding the brim of a curve like a wave, they find a police cruiser sitting solemnly around the bend. With the flick of the wrist, they crack their knuckles together and mutter an ancient incantation as they ease themselves back into the speed limit, into the confines of law.
From the backseat, the wind lashes at my face, and when my eyes go cold I know how tired I am. Tired of nights lost in a haze of wine-colored smoke. Tired of having only brief moments of clarity to hold on to. Here, in Pelourinho, the fun is stacked on you like a thirty-car pile-up, and the only way out is up. Here, in Pelourinho, the night sky is always stained the color of wine, and nobody knows why.
There's a girl with a backpack full of explosives who wants to show me something amazing. She takes out two rockets, one for each of us, places them inside her denim jacket, and starts walking. I think I'll follow her and watch this city burn. Poised on a corner of the lower city, staring down the length of a dead, deserted street with a bomb in my hand, I think I'll take a picture of this moment and store it somewhere safe, where the anti-memories can't touch it; where nobody can see.
From the backseat, the wind lashes at my face, and when my eyes go cold I know how tired I am. Tired of nights lost in a haze of wine-colored smoke. Tired of having only brief moments of clarity to hold on to. Here, in Pelourinho, the fun is stacked on you like a thirty-car pile-up, and the only way out is up. Here, in Pelourinho, the night sky is always stained the color of wine, and nobody knows why.
There's a girl with a backpack full of explosives who wants to show me something amazing. She takes out two rockets, one for each of us, places them inside her denim jacket, and starts walking. I think I'll follow her and watch this city burn. Poised on a corner of the lower city, staring down the length of a dead, deserted street with a bomb in my hand, I think I'll take a picture of this moment and store it somewhere safe, where the anti-memories can't touch it; where nobody can see.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
XI. Berkeley, CA Summer 2009
SUDDENLY
My heart is painted with targets while you
READYAIMFIRE
And we’re exploding postcards:
Two dumb kids with wayside grins
Spin down the street like tops and are stopped
Presently, at the street’s end, by the corner Blackman,
Who merely requests the best of clothed critters:
“Don’t ever change this”
I laugh, in fact, and say to the parish
“Thank you sir but don’t be so garish”
While silently, I hope the same.
Floored,
In the corner consignment store, as
You examine a dress and request (flippantly)
My opinion;
You look like your mother
Or my mother
Or the relative of one of us
Indentured in, and perhaps yet again,
Reliving that youth,
Uncouth through covenants of love:
Contracts signed and underlined
Dotted eyes internalized
Like circles within squares
And up the stairs to that Teahouse where
I’m suspending you in water at dawn
And a dozen naked strangers look on
Because we’re naked also
And all our prose and all our tact
Nor the clothes on our back
Could ever hope
To change
That fact
My heart is painted with targets while you
READYAIMFIRE
And we’re exploding postcards:
Two dumb kids with wayside grins
Spin down the street like tops and are stopped
Presently, at the street’s end, by the corner Blackman,
Who merely requests the best of clothed critters:
“Don’t ever change this”
I laugh, in fact, and say to the parish
“Thank you sir but don’t be so garish”
While silently, I hope the same.
Floored,
In the corner consignment store, as
You examine a dress and request (flippantly)
My opinion;
You look like your mother
Or my mother
Or the relative of one of us
Indentured in, and perhaps yet again,
Reliving that youth,
Uncouth through covenants of love:
Contracts signed and underlined
Dotted eyes internalized
Like circles within squares
And up the stairs to that Teahouse where
I’m suspending you in water at dawn
And a dozen naked strangers look on
Because we’re naked also
And all our prose and all our tact
Nor the clothes on our back
Could ever hope
To change
That fact
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
X. Jack Kelly, 5'10 175 lbs
Excerpt from the (mostly) unwritten saga of Coachella '09...
***
It’s about 12:30 in the afternoon and we are sitting in a parked car in Indian Wells, CA. The heat is overwhelming, but Tom and I hardly notice. We are watching a stocky, bearded figure in a light blue women’s shirt disappear into a tent across the parking lot. About six miles west of us, Coachella has already begun, and I begin to tense up. We sit in silence, waiting to find out if our plan has worked, or if we are turning right around and burning nine hours back home.
Eventually, the bearded blue guy emerges from the crowd of people and moves directly for us, staring rigidly ahead. Behind his aviator sunglasses and profuse facial hair, I am unable to tell if there is good news or bad. He climbs into the driver’s seat and, without a word, turns around to show us an envelope containing half a dozen wristbands and parking documents. The wristbands say “Main Stage” and “All Access” on them.
We are staying in the desert.
Soon, the scenery begins to change. Sand-colored liquor stores, consignment shops and motels begin to overlap and bleed on to one another, most of them missing signs and any discernible features. The ones that do have signs are named in honor of the desert. Sun Motel, Palm Liquor. Do people survive this place? We pass trailer parks, gated communities, and teams of migrant workers. Tom is saying something to Max about his wristband.
“It’s too tight.”
I stare at my wrist. I’m inclined to agree with him, but I’m not about to complain.
“What?” he says.
“My wristband,” says Tom. “It’s too tight.”
Max stares straight ahead at the road. I’m not sure if he heard.
“You mean I just came up with this whole scam, and drove you 9 hours into the desert to get you to Coachella,” he takes his eyes off the road to look at Tom, “and the only thing you can say is ‘my wristband is too tight’?”
“Maxy, it was a great plan, and I thank you profusely for it, but my wristband is still too tight.”
More desert names pass us by. Red Roof Inn, Mirage Motor Park. We pass a cracked trailer on the side of the road with an assortment of clothes and rags on display. A garage sale, I think. Max is still talking about something.
“…phishing, off-shore accounts, knowledge of email spoofing and code… probably no one in the whole damn country could do what I just did for you, and you are complaining about your wristband being tight? Do you know how much trouble I had to go through to make the ID alone?” The growl of Max’s voice raises an octave. Self-admiration aside, he actually does have a point. Tom is unimpressed.
“Not very much, I’m guessing. It looks like shit—couldn’t you have at least laminated it?”
Max begins to defend himself, explaining how he had less than 40 minutes between when his flight got in from New York City and when he had to pick me up from the Amtrak station in San Jose, during which time he had to pack his bags for the weekend and procure an impromptu fake ID (because he hadn’t known he would need to pick up the wristbands in person, and of course he would use a fake name).
The ID flies into the backseat and falls into my lap as they continue arguing. Tom is right—it has an awful pinkish hue and feels like printer paper. I slip the ID into my wallet and think about how we would definitely be on our way home right now if the officials had cared to even glance at it. But we aren’t, and I am thankful. Thankful for the heat, the desert buildings, the wristbands, the palm trees—I think I am in a permanent state of thankfulness.
As the desert scenery continues to repeat itself like one of those old cartoons, I’m listening from the backseat and picking up bits and pieces of the conversation. But I’m looking at my wrist, and my thoughts are not there. They are going some where else, and slowly transforming our surroundings as we go along with them. Our slow, languid crawl to Coachella is almost over.
TBC
***
It’s about 12:30 in the afternoon and we are sitting in a parked car in Indian Wells, CA. The heat is overwhelming, but Tom and I hardly notice. We are watching a stocky, bearded figure in a light blue women’s shirt disappear into a tent across the parking lot. About six miles west of us, Coachella has already begun, and I begin to tense up. We sit in silence, waiting to find out if our plan has worked, or if we are turning right around and burning nine hours back home.
Eventually, the bearded blue guy emerges from the crowd of people and moves directly for us, staring rigidly ahead. Behind his aviator sunglasses and profuse facial hair, I am unable to tell if there is good news or bad. He climbs into the driver’s seat and, without a word, turns around to show us an envelope containing half a dozen wristbands and parking documents. The wristbands say “Main Stage” and “All Access” on them.
We are staying in the desert.
Soon, the scenery begins to change. Sand-colored liquor stores, consignment shops and motels begin to overlap and bleed on to one another, most of them missing signs and any discernible features. The ones that do have signs are named in honor of the desert. Sun Motel, Palm Liquor. Do people survive this place? We pass trailer parks, gated communities, and teams of migrant workers. Tom is saying something to Max about his wristband.
“It’s too tight.”
I stare at my wrist. I’m inclined to agree with him, but I’m not about to complain.
“What?” he says.
“My wristband,” says Tom. “It’s too tight.”
Max stares straight ahead at the road. I’m not sure if he heard.
“You mean I just came up with this whole scam, and drove you 9 hours into the desert to get you to Coachella,” he takes his eyes off the road to look at Tom, “and the only thing you can say is ‘my wristband is too tight’?”
“Maxy, it was a great plan, and I thank you profusely for it, but my wristband is still too tight.”
More desert names pass us by. Red Roof Inn, Mirage Motor Park. We pass a cracked trailer on the side of the road with an assortment of clothes and rags on display. A garage sale, I think. Max is still talking about something.
“…phishing, off-shore accounts, knowledge of email spoofing and code… probably no one in the whole damn country could do what I just did for you, and you are complaining about your wristband being tight? Do you know how much trouble I had to go through to make the ID alone?” The growl of Max’s voice raises an octave. Self-admiration aside, he actually does have a point. Tom is unimpressed.
“Not very much, I’m guessing. It looks like shit—couldn’t you have at least laminated it?”
Max begins to defend himself, explaining how he had less than 40 minutes between when his flight got in from New York City and when he had to pick me up from the Amtrak station in San Jose, during which time he had to pack his bags for the weekend and procure an impromptu fake ID (because he hadn’t known he would need to pick up the wristbands in person, and of course he would use a fake name).
The ID flies into the backseat and falls into my lap as they continue arguing. Tom is right—it has an awful pinkish hue and feels like printer paper. I slip the ID into my wallet and think about how we would definitely be on our way home right now if the officials had cared to even glance at it. But we aren’t, and I am thankful. Thankful for the heat, the desert buildings, the wristbands, the palm trees—I think I am in a permanent state of thankfulness.
As the desert scenery continues to repeat itself like one of those old cartoons, I’m listening from the backseat and picking up bits and pieces of the conversation. But I’m looking at my wrist, and my thoughts are not there. They are going some where else, and slowly transforming our surroundings as we go along with them. Our slow, languid crawl to Coachella is almost over.
TBC
Monday, May 3, 2010
IX. Racial Democracy
...flashing sirens...visions of Brazilian federal prison flooding the worst parts of my imagination. If they open my backpack, it's all over. How did I get here...?
Monday night. I had just picked up in Porto da Barra and was on my way home through the back alleys of inner-Barra. The time was late enough to worry about and I moved with a particularly bad case of paranoia. Lots of talk lately at school about violence and theft. Rumors afloat of a kid studying at PUC in Rio who wound up in a coma after refusing to give up his Blackberry to some wretched Carioca with a gun and a rotted brain. For some reason, I convinced myself that a bus was not necessary and cursed myself even as I did so, knowing that the $R2,3 bus fair was far less costly than the tolls that lay concealed in the shadows ahead.
I had reached the penultimate street and was beginning to feel my confidence inflate when there appeared in my path something more feared than any petty criminal with gun or knife, more sobering than the threat of any lawless vandal:
Polícia Militar.
The cruiser blew past me, stopped at the other end of the street, and reversed straight back in my direction until it was halfway down the block. The ever-feared blue and red sirens flashed to life, and three cops stepped out of the car armed with assault rifles. They began yelling at a group vagrants sitting around on some steps, and as I approached from down the street, the entire company turned to look at me. I hesitated in an overtly awkward fashion and tried to cross the street. One cop with a face like a granite fucking wall immediately barked something at me that I didn't quite catch beyond the words "federal police" and "inspection." I turned and approached closer to him at a straight angle with the full front of my body in his direction to indicate that I was a foreigner and that I had nothing to hide. Only one of those things was true.
"Desculpe. Nao entendi. Que?"
He repeated the command in a strange dialect that I still didn't understand, but I didn't need to speak Portuguese to understand his finger pointed to the wall. His voice, militant and devoid of emotion, left absolutely no room for negotiation. I obliged.
I entered the checkpoint area and attempted communication with another officer. This one, younger but no less belligerent in demeanor, looked like he had been chipped out of a slab from Granite Face's complexion. I tried my luck anyway, if only to ensure that they understood I was a foreigner learning their language. As I began to feel the inner processes of my brain speed up in accordance with the clawing need for a way out, a singular memory flooded back to me.
I'm in a classroom. I am reading a book by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre called Casa-Grande & Senzala. Theory: Brazil has escaped the racism and racial discrimination of other slavery-based countries such as the United States. Reality: Brazil has achieved a level racism that subverts main channels of consciousness so that those in power can propagate the claim that all are represented equally, when the Negro population (over 50% of the country) is marginalized via media, lack of education, and, (most importantly in this situation), police brutality.
The solution, it occurred to me, was to make my ignorant, white American-ness as abundantly-fucking-clear as possible.
"Desculpe, eu estou aprendendo portugues. Por favor, voce pode fala mais devagar? É este o ponto de ônibus onde é?"
The words did not have the intended effect, nor, it seemed, any effect at all. Granite Face Jr. pointed one hand at the wall and continued to stare imperviously in my direction. I turned my back to him and placed my hands against the wall, and Granite Face Sr. began the inspection process.
I felt his eyes slowly climb the length of my body, pausing only to take note of the marijuana insignia bracelet on my ankle. I continued to maintain a relaxed-yet-confused demeanor as, silently, I cursed myself to the inner-most circle of Hell for my monumental stupidity. Fucking great, I may as well have tattooed a target on my forehead. A slow grin creased his lips.
"Documentos?"
My voice wavered:
"N...Nao tenho. Mas eu moro na rua ao lado, se eu posso..."
He cut me off and turned away, obviously not interested in anything beyond the fact I didn't have my passport. He motioned to the others to watch me as he resumed searching the vagrants, who watched in dumbfounded silence.
I stood for a moment in utter peril. Granite Face was simply not interested in anything I had to say, and Granite Face Jr. was clearly on a mission to impress his seniors. Clawing now for a solution as though I were lost at sea, I turned to the last possible flotsom that could save me from a dark, watery death: the third officer.
This one was some how different. The features on his face were softer and more humane, and the angle of his eyes indicated... maybe not sympathy, but definitely something in my favor. Certainly this man was my only chance.
"Vocé é nao de aqui, neh?"
"Nao senhor. Americano. Estou aprendeno portugues aqui."
"Documentos?"
"Desculpe, eu nao tenho aqui. Mas se eu posso ir ao minha casa, eu consegui mostrar voce."
He hesitated, glancing at the other officers.
"Voce mora aproximo aqui?"
"Sim, senhor. Na rua ao lado."
Another hesitation, another glance. A bead of sweat poised on a blade of hair in front of my eyes. Please, just don't ask for the backpack...
"Abre sua mochila."
***
Flashback:
August 27, 2009; I'm walking with two friends through a small glade in Golden Gate Park. Around us, day one of Outside Lands is in motion. We pick a spot that appears to be hidden enough to roll a joint. We are wrong.
Bald, fat, goatee. Typical security guard. The fat fuck is searching through my backpack. Unlucky, I think to myself. Unlucky black backpack. He opens the main compartment and immediately spies the small pocket attached to the inner seam:
"Oh, what's this?" Even his voice is fat. I'm still sitting cross-legged, hardly blinking even as he procures a grinder, about an eighth of medical grass, and a small package that ostensibly contains two teddy grahams wrapped in tin foil (he becomes enraged when I won't admit what they are). Like some schoolyard bully, he declares with an air of superiority that the findings are now his. I listen with wan interest to some empty threats and watch his fat ass waddle away. I am thinking: "Consider it a gift..."
***
Fade into: Nearly one year later. Same backpack, containing the same contraband in the same pocket. Only this time: three federal Brazilian police armed with assault rifles. Unzip the backpack with a steady hand, without fear or waver. Angle it away from the flickering streetlamps so the pocket will be hidden against the black interior. Hand it over and pray; it's out of your hands.
Granite Face plunges a hand into the main compartment, coming up with a fistful of marked up exams and a book by Gilberto Freyre. Our eyes scan the cover in unison:
Casa-Grande & Senzala
Satisfied, he drops the book and papers back into my bag, when suddenly the understudy makes a whistling sound. The friendly one and his superior officer turn their attention away from me as Granite Face Jr. comes over and holds his plunder up to the light: a pencil-thin pipe with the tiniest amount of marijuana packed into it. Together, all three make a conjoined whistling sound. The friendly one touches my shoulder and makes a dismissive gesture as if to say "get the fuck out of here," and as I turn to go, I lock eyes for one brief instant with the former owner of the pipe. The vagrant's eyes gleam from the shadows with the sad knowledge of what awaits him. But as I recall the bulging contents of the plastic bag I have just purchased, the desire to escape overrides all thought, and then I'm gone. As I dash around the corner, each breath of air a victorious and intoxicating new swill, it is all I can do not to break out into a one-man parade down the next street. It is then that I remember the sad look of the wretch I have just left behind, and a sobering wave overcomes me as I scurry up the stairs to my home; to safety.
My nine lives are running out.
Monday night. I had just picked up in Porto da Barra and was on my way home through the back alleys of inner-Barra. The time was late enough to worry about and I moved with a particularly bad case of paranoia. Lots of talk lately at school about violence and theft. Rumors afloat of a kid studying at PUC in Rio who wound up in a coma after refusing to give up his Blackberry to some wretched Carioca with a gun and a rotted brain. For some reason, I convinced myself that a bus was not necessary and cursed myself even as I did so, knowing that the $R2,3 bus fair was far less costly than the tolls that lay concealed in the shadows ahead.
I had reached the penultimate street and was beginning to feel my confidence inflate when there appeared in my path something more feared than any petty criminal with gun or knife, more sobering than the threat of any lawless vandal:
Polícia Militar.
The cruiser blew past me, stopped at the other end of the street, and reversed straight back in my direction until it was halfway down the block. The ever-feared blue and red sirens flashed to life, and three cops stepped out of the car armed with assault rifles. They began yelling at a group vagrants sitting around on some steps, and as I approached from down the street, the entire company turned to look at me. I hesitated in an overtly awkward fashion and tried to cross the street. One cop with a face like a granite fucking wall immediately barked something at me that I didn't quite catch beyond the words "federal police" and "inspection." I turned and approached closer to him at a straight angle with the full front of my body in his direction to indicate that I was a foreigner and that I had nothing to hide. Only one of those things was true.
"Desculpe. Nao entendi. Que?"
He repeated the command in a strange dialect that I still didn't understand, but I didn't need to speak Portuguese to understand his finger pointed to the wall. His voice, militant and devoid of emotion, left absolutely no room for negotiation. I obliged.
I entered the checkpoint area and attempted communication with another officer. This one, younger but no less belligerent in demeanor, looked like he had been chipped out of a slab from Granite Face's complexion. I tried my luck anyway, if only to ensure that they understood I was a foreigner learning their language. As I began to feel the inner processes of my brain speed up in accordance with the clawing need for a way out, a singular memory flooded back to me.
I'm in a classroom. I am reading a book by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre called Casa-Grande & Senzala. Theory: Brazil has escaped the racism and racial discrimination of other slavery-based countries such as the United States. Reality: Brazil has achieved a level racism that subverts main channels of consciousness so that those in power can propagate the claim that all are represented equally, when the Negro population (over 50% of the country) is marginalized via media, lack of education, and, (most importantly in this situation), police brutality.
The solution, it occurred to me, was to make my ignorant, white American-ness as abundantly-fucking-clear as possible.
"Desculpe, eu estou aprendendo portugues. Por favor, voce pode fala mais devagar? É este o ponto de ônibus onde é?"
The words did not have the intended effect, nor, it seemed, any effect at all. Granite Face Jr. pointed one hand at the wall and continued to stare imperviously in my direction. I turned my back to him and placed my hands against the wall, and Granite Face Sr. began the inspection process.
I felt his eyes slowly climb the length of my body, pausing only to take note of the marijuana insignia bracelet on my ankle. I continued to maintain a relaxed-yet-confused demeanor as, silently, I cursed myself to the inner-most circle of Hell for my monumental stupidity. Fucking great, I may as well have tattooed a target on my forehead. A slow grin creased his lips.
"Documentos?"
My voice wavered:
"N...Nao tenho. Mas eu moro na rua ao lado, se eu posso..."
He cut me off and turned away, obviously not interested in anything beyond the fact I didn't have my passport. He motioned to the others to watch me as he resumed searching the vagrants, who watched in dumbfounded silence.
I stood for a moment in utter peril. Granite Face was simply not interested in anything I had to say, and Granite Face Jr. was clearly on a mission to impress his seniors. Clawing now for a solution as though I were lost at sea, I turned to the last possible flotsom that could save me from a dark, watery death: the third officer.
This one was some how different. The features on his face were softer and more humane, and the angle of his eyes indicated... maybe not sympathy, but definitely something in my favor. Certainly this man was my only chance.
"Vocé é nao de aqui, neh?"
"Nao senhor. Americano. Estou aprendeno portugues aqui."
"Documentos?"
"Desculpe, eu nao tenho aqui. Mas se eu posso ir ao minha casa, eu consegui mostrar voce."
He hesitated, glancing at the other officers.
"Voce mora aproximo aqui?"
"Sim, senhor. Na rua ao lado."
Another hesitation, another glance. A bead of sweat poised on a blade of hair in front of my eyes. Please, just don't ask for the backpack...
"Abre sua mochila."
***
Flashback:
August 27, 2009; I'm walking with two friends through a small glade in Golden Gate Park. Around us, day one of Outside Lands is in motion. We pick a spot that appears to be hidden enough to roll a joint. We are wrong.
Bald, fat, goatee. Typical security guard. The fat fuck is searching through my backpack. Unlucky, I think to myself. Unlucky black backpack. He opens the main compartment and immediately spies the small pocket attached to the inner seam:
"Oh, what's this?" Even his voice is fat. I'm still sitting cross-legged, hardly blinking even as he procures a grinder, about an eighth of medical grass, and a small package that ostensibly contains two teddy grahams wrapped in tin foil (he becomes enraged when I won't admit what they are). Like some schoolyard bully, he declares with an air of superiority that the findings are now his. I listen with wan interest to some empty threats and watch his fat ass waddle away. I am thinking: "Consider it a gift..."
***
Fade into: Nearly one year later. Same backpack, containing the same contraband in the same pocket. Only this time: three federal Brazilian police armed with assault rifles. Unzip the backpack with a steady hand, without fear or waver. Angle it away from the flickering streetlamps so the pocket will be hidden against the black interior. Hand it over and pray; it's out of your hands.
Granite Face plunges a hand into the main compartment, coming up with a fistful of marked up exams and a book by Gilberto Freyre. Our eyes scan the cover in unison:
Casa-Grande & Senzala
Satisfied, he drops the book and papers back into my bag, when suddenly the understudy makes a whistling sound. The friendly one and his superior officer turn their attention away from me as Granite Face Jr. comes over and holds his plunder up to the light: a pencil-thin pipe with the tiniest amount of marijuana packed into it. Together, all three make a conjoined whistling sound. The friendly one touches my shoulder and makes a dismissive gesture as if to say "get the fuck out of here," and as I turn to go, I lock eyes for one brief instant with the former owner of the pipe. The vagrant's eyes gleam from the shadows with the sad knowledge of what awaits him. But as I recall the bulging contents of the plastic bag I have just purchased, the desire to escape overrides all thought, and then I'm gone. As I dash around the corner, each breath of air a victorious and intoxicating new swill, it is all I can do not to break out into a one-man parade down the next street. It is then that I remember the sad look of the wretch I have just left behind, and a sobering wave overcomes me as I scurry up the stairs to my home; to safety.
My nine lives are running out.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
VIII. Share Diseases
I searched all I had, but I found
nothing good or bad, and then I find you
waiting on all fours
and my sickness becomes yours
I searched all I had, but I found
nothing good or bad, I'm slowly screaming
meaning is all gone
'til our sickness becomes one, and then I find you
spreading to me
explain it to me
spread it for me
dancing just to keep off the flies
you know it's all we got
though you may be bigger in size
you will never be a god-
fearing man, praise what you may,
we keep on fearing the sound
no matter what they say to us
we are dangerous
they say to us that we are dangerous
share diseases
fuck the vaccine
share diseases
keep on dancing
share diseases
fuck the vaccine
share diseases
keep on dancing
share diseases
fuck the vaccine
share diseases
keep on dancing
share diseases
fuck the vaccine
share diseases
keep on dancing
share diseases
share diseases
share diseases
share diseases
--Build Target
nothing good or bad, and then I find you
waiting on all fours
and my sickness becomes yours
I searched all I had, but I found
nothing good or bad, I'm slowly screaming
meaning is all gone
'til our sickness becomes one, and then I find you
spreading to me
explain it to me
spread it for me
dancing just to keep off the flies
you know it's all we got
though you may be bigger in size
you will never be a god-
fearing man, praise what you may,
we keep on fearing the sound
no matter what they say to us
we are dangerous
they say to us that we are dangerous
share diseases
fuck the vaccine
share diseases
keep on dancing
share diseases
fuck the vaccine
share diseases
keep on dancing
share diseases
fuck the vaccine
share diseases
keep on dancing
share diseases
fuck the vaccine
share diseases
keep on dancing
share diseases
share diseases
share diseases
share diseases
--Build Target
Sunday, April 25, 2010
VII. Sexual Tourism
Primary Objective Number One,
Reports indicate,
Has incurred a string of successive failures
To which I attribute the scene before me:
That familiar American whiskey
In a strange Brazilian airport--
11AM.
Fucked (non-fortunately) and
Floored by fluorescent ceilings
As tremendous self pressure seals
Packages and sells
The fourth wall, enclosed.
When your inner actor emerges with
The Carioca dawn in one hand,
Will you use the other to redraft
The Producer's script,
Or become His right hand man
As He strokes It with the left?
Reports indicate,
Has incurred a string of successive failures
To which I attribute the scene before me:
That familiar American whiskey
In a strange Brazilian airport--
11AM.
Fucked (non-fortunately) and
Floored by fluorescent ceilings
As tremendous self pressure seals
Packages and sells
The fourth wall, enclosed.
When your inner actor emerges with
The Carioca dawn in one hand,
Will you use the other to redraft
The Producer's script,
Or become His right hand man
As He strokes It with the left?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
VI. Morro de Sao Paulo
At long last, Easter break afforded the students our first adventuring opportunity. While the neatly-trimmed and postured beauty of Morro de Sao Paulo is hardly a trek through the jungle, it certainly sounded more appetizing than accompanying the 20+ other American students on their trip to the beautiful-yet-boring colonial town of Lencois. Our trip did, however, appeal to my sense of adventure in that we had absolutely no plans or expectations beyond actually getting to our destination. The day before leaving, we decided on our anthem for the trip, which would be repeated many times to many confused people: "Não plano concreto."
Another show of good fortune contributed to our adventure: my friend Ikumi was making her way through Brasil on spring break and decided to join us. I had met Ikumi during the beginning of my third year at Davis, when a sudden influx of foreign exchange students expanded my social circle, and to my surprise, I found we were taking the same introductory Portuguese class. Ikumi immediately fascinated me; a Japanese girl who learned English in Indonesia, then traveled to America to learn Portuguese, and then decided to come to Brazil for... practice? I'm still not sure. But with the two of us, a lovely Austrian girl named Lillian, an Afghan fellow named Ali and an Israeli kid named Adam, we numbered five of the most conspicuous tourists on the island.
The cheapest route to Morro de Sao Paulo from Salvador consists of four legs: a boat departing from Pelourinho to Itaprica, a bus from Itaprica to Valenca, another bus from Valenca to a location I'm not sure of, and finally a boat from mystery spot to Morro proper.
After about six hours and twenty five reais' worth of PTS (Public Transportation Syndrome), you will be greeted by a scene of cinematic beauty. Many times during the weekend I was confronted with landscapes redolent of Pirates of the Caribbean, and rightly so: during the colonial period, Morro de Sao Paulo was a notoriously popular spot for pirates looking to profit from the many French and Dutch attacks on the island. An ancient cathedral oversees the main harbor where boats come in and out, and the thick jungle perimeter of the island is broken only infrequently by private beaches and villas. Dockworkers rush up and down the pier with wheelburrows, guides offer their services to take you to hidden locations, and everyone generally wants your attention.
One noise you will not hear, however, is that of a combustion engine; cars are strictly prohibited on the island. If you want to get around, you can pay someone to take you via boat or tractor, but otherwise you are confined to your feet, which rather suited me. During the rainy season, torrential storms wash through the village, and the "streets" begin to look more like muddy walkways. You will find most tourists turtle-walking their way through the sticky mud, trying to keep the sandals on their feet. We quickly abandoned our shoes and embraced the fact that our feet would not be clean or dry again for the rest of the weekend.
There are four main beaches, each with their own poussadas, bars and restaurants. Praia segundo is the most lively, frequently hosting live music and parties at night. It was there we met a tattoo-coated Israeli fellow named Leoch who invited us to a game of futebol and, after speaking with Adam and admiring my dermacidal decor, he loudly pronounced that he had a room for us for 20 reais a person. His poussada was hidden behind a line of restaurants about 100 meters from the water, where a colony of Brazilians, Israelis, Argentines, and other miscellaneous migrants were drinking, smoking, and conversing in voices not quite as loud as his.
It didn't take long for us to befriend a group of local brasileiros, who immediately inquired as to whether or not we liked "elle-esse-jeh" (LSD). I answered in the affirmative, and one of them took out a cell phone, removed the battery cover, and procured a tiny strip of tabs--for each of which he wanted 40 reais. I laughed and politely dismissed the notion. They protested, trying to convince me that it inherently costs more here because its imported, but none of us were interested in paying more than twice the Californian standard. They did not press the issue; the guy with the cellphone had already eaten at least a few and became distracted by a nearby cat. His friend gave us entry coupons for a beach party happening the next night and told us to come see him DJ, implying that maybe his tunes would change our minds about the tabs. We finished smoking a spliff and parted ways.
The rest of the day was spent in an island-induced stupor as the ocean's temporality slowly became our own. We napped, woke up, walked on the beach, napped again, etc. This continued into the night until we mingled our way into a party happening on the second beach and began alternating between drinking, dancing and huddling under vendor umbrellas during intermittent flash storms. During one such storm, I took a moment to purchase a caipirinha and note some details of the dancefloor. Some conclusions:
After downing the rest of the cup, I removed my anthropology hat, donned a sparkly headband with blue and gold stars that I received for my birthday and joined the procession. I happened into my "elle-esse-jeh" amigo again, who updated me about his adventures with the cat, and gradually the night became a satisfying blur. Unfortunately my headband was lost to sea at some point.
The next day was spent loitering around the island, checking into a new poussada, chatting with any local who made eye contact, and generally being indecisive about what to do. We decided to set out for another part of the island to find a certain beach that was reputed to have regenerating mud instead of sand. We took the ferry to another shore and began following a stretch of beach with fine grains of sand that felt like flour underfoot. The scene here was much more isolated and pastoral than we had previously encountered; children and dogs played in front of small huts, little anchored ships rocked gently in the water, and the few restaurants and bars we found hardly seemed interested in us or our business.
When we finally found the place, it was even nicer than rumor had let on. The mud was actually sand and water mixed with the protruding remnants of an exposed cliff, forming red, yellow and purple swirls in the cliff face that could be luxuriously applied to our skin. As we caked the mud on to ourselves, we lamented about not having purchased the acid, and then I remembered I had a joint with me. We took care of it and spent the remaining daylight applying layers of mud, washing them off, swimming, and then caking on more layers.
As the daylight began to fail, we stood on the shore watching a lightning storm rage in the distance. Soon the only light we could see by was the dying campfire and hanging oil lanterns of a nearby restaurant. The sound of the wind was interrupted only by the intermittent crash of wave on rock, and stars began to reveal themselves where they had previously been hidden behind the light of the village. All was tranquil.
That is, until we saw the ferry returning from Morro, and realized that it was the last one of the night. As we took off sprinting, another storm cloud cracked to life over our heads, and suddenly our romantic beach scene turned into a tumultuous dash through the rain. We made it in time and were fortunate enough to get a vessel with a good sound system and a captain with a competent choice of music. We spent the ride feeling our newly softened skin and nodding along to deep house.
When we returned, we found the night had just begun. We returned to the room and gathered supplies for the beach party. Lilian, Ikumi and I napped and were awoken presently by Ali and Adam coming through the door. I felt groggy and was about to resume sleeping when they told me something that snapped me to life: our feline-fascinated Brazilian had given them a free tab. We took care of whatever caipirinha remained and were about to leave when I realized that, with my sparkly headband lost at sea, I would have to resort to other means of frivolity. I was leafing through my wallet when I found the perfect thing: a garishly oversized American flag sticker. I found the safari hat I had purchased earlier in the day and placed the sticker perfectly over the Brazilian flag embroidered on the front. With that, we were ready to proceed to the meat market.
Except for the 10 reais it cost to get in, the party was not much different from the previous night's, with a couple of notable exceptions. There was a real dancefloor, a real lighting rig with real lasers, and a real shitty DJ. He went down the same list as his predecessor, invoking the same synchronized shows of sexuality. As I searched the grounds for my brasileiro, peripherally keeping track of the many tanned brobots approaching Ikumi, I noted somewhat sadly how attracted Brazilians are to displays of ostentation. Growing up in Santa Barbara, I was confronted with a similar cultural obsession and learned to adjust to it, but never to this degree. If you throw a rock in Brazil, chances are you will hit a dude with bronze, tattoo'd skin wearing a glittery, undersized t-shirt that loudly proclaims his "statement" of individuality. This guy will probably know capoeira, samba, or at least two other forms of dancing. Ironically, every Brazilian guy is trying to proclaim his individuality with gaudy clothes, muscles and tattoos, but I don't think there is a Portuguese conception of irony, so this isn't a problem for them. I slipped past several dozen more of these types, tipped my new hat at them, and continued my search.
Fortunately, this DJ didn't last long, and as the night progressed, so did the quality of the music. I even heard a Chemical Brothers track at one point. I was just beginning to cut some rug on the dance floor when I heard a familiar voice approaching: "Oi! Spongebob Squarepants!"
He slipped a tab into my mouth practically before I could even get a greeting out.
For the next several hours, I vascillated between dancing, conversing, and giggling in the corner. Our night continued to get better until suddenly it wasn't night anymore. I walked with Ikumi back to the room and realized with abrupt sadness that she had to leave Morro de Sao Paulo in a few hours to get back to Salvador for her afternoon flight back home. I also realized, just as suddenly, that I was beginning to peak. She decided to crash for a few hours before departing, and as she and Lilian slept, I lay alone, experiencing inner turmoil and weird thoughts. I was examining a tree outside the window when Ali stumbled through the door and saved me.
We adjourned back to the house of the DJ and his friends, all of whom were fried and happy to see me with a bag of the green savior (which, incidentally, is mostly brown in Brazil). We smoked, chatted, and giggled some more, but eventually they all passed out, and I was left alone again as Adam slept and Ali took to his journal.
I guess I must've slept for some time, because the next thing I knew Ikumi's alarm was waking us all. She packed her things, and the two of us stepped outside for a walk to the harbor in the gray morning rain. We proceeded in silence; perhaps it was some stage of the drugs, or the colorless morning light, but I was feeling sullen, and I got the sense that I wasn't alone. We reached the docks and she purchased her ticket, but before we parted ways, I declared that the only logical course of action was for me to visit her in Tokyo. I meant this, but the consolation it offered me was uncertain at best; I don't even have a plano concreto for traveling back to finish school, let alone to Japan.
Trudging back through the mud alone, I tried to think of something to sing. Because I no longer had a band to practice with, my desire to sing had long since remained unsatisfied. I settled on Minus the Bear's "White Mystery," and quietly hummed the lyrics as I made my way around more turtles with their sandals stuck in the mud.
In the end, Morro de Sao Paulo offered the loveliest experiences I've had in Brazil thus far, but the real beauty was uncovered only when that carefully postured image of Brazil was stripped away. The next night, as Ali and Adam caught up on sleep, Lilian and I were scouring for something to do, when suddenly the power to the entire island died. We found ourselves feeling our way through deserted streets, and I realized that, for the first time since we arrived, we couldn't hear music. We couldn't hear people bartering or shouting. We couldn't hear anything; just the rain as it washed away all previous traces of being.
Another show of good fortune contributed to our adventure: my friend Ikumi was making her way through Brasil on spring break and decided to join us. I had met Ikumi during the beginning of my third year at Davis, when a sudden influx of foreign exchange students expanded my social circle, and to my surprise, I found we were taking the same introductory Portuguese class. Ikumi immediately fascinated me; a Japanese girl who learned English in Indonesia, then traveled to America to learn Portuguese, and then decided to come to Brazil for... practice? I'm still not sure. But with the two of us, a lovely Austrian girl named Lillian, an Afghan fellow named Ali and an Israeli kid named Adam, we numbered five of the most conspicuous tourists on the island.
The cheapest route to Morro de Sao Paulo from Salvador consists of four legs: a boat departing from Pelourinho to Itaprica, a bus from Itaprica to Valenca, another bus from Valenca to a location I'm not sure of, and finally a boat from mystery spot to Morro proper.
After about six hours and twenty five reais' worth of PTS (Public Transportation Syndrome), you will be greeted by a scene of cinematic beauty. Many times during the weekend I was confronted with landscapes redolent of Pirates of the Caribbean, and rightly so: during the colonial period, Morro de Sao Paulo was a notoriously popular spot for pirates looking to profit from the many French and Dutch attacks on the island. An ancient cathedral oversees the main harbor where boats come in and out, and the thick jungle perimeter of the island is broken only infrequently by private beaches and villas. Dockworkers rush up and down the pier with wheelburrows, guides offer their services to take you to hidden locations, and everyone generally wants your attention.
One noise you will not hear, however, is that of a combustion engine; cars are strictly prohibited on the island. If you want to get around, you can pay someone to take you via boat or tractor, but otherwise you are confined to your feet, which rather suited me. During the rainy season, torrential storms wash through the village, and the "streets" begin to look more like muddy walkways. You will find most tourists turtle-walking their way through the sticky mud, trying to keep the sandals on their feet. We quickly abandoned our shoes and embraced the fact that our feet would not be clean or dry again for the rest of the weekend.
There are four main beaches, each with their own poussadas, bars and restaurants. Praia segundo is the most lively, frequently hosting live music and parties at night. It was there we met a tattoo-coated Israeli fellow named Leoch who invited us to a game of futebol and, after speaking with Adam and admiring my dermacidal decor, he loudly pronounced that he had a room for us for 20 reais a person. His poussada was hidden behind a line of restaurants about 100 meters from the water, where a colony of Brazilians, Israelis, Argentines, and other miscellaneous migrants were drinking, smoking, and conversing in voices not quite as loud as his.
It didn't take long for us to befriend a group of local brasileiros, who immediately inquired as to whether or not we liked "elle-esse-jeh" (LSD). I answered in the affirmative, and one of them took out a cell phone, removed the battery cover, and procured a tiny strip of tabs--for each of which he wanted 40 reais. I laughed and politely dismissed the notion. They protested, trying to convince me that it inherently costs more here because its imported, but none of us were interested in paying more than twice the Californian standard. They did not press the issue; the guy with the cellphone had already eaten at least a few and became distracted by a nearby cat. His friend gave us entry coupons for a beach party happening the next night and told us to come see him DJ, implying that maybe his tunes would change our minds about the tabs. We finished smoking a spliff and parted ways.
The rest of the day was spent in an island-induced stupor as the ocean's temporality slowly became our own. We napped, woke up, walked on the beach, napped again, etc. This continued into the night until we mingled our way into a party happening on the second beach and began alternating between drinking, dancing and huddling under vendor umbrellas during intermittent flash storms. During one such storm, I took a moment to purchase a caipirinha and note some details of the dancefloor. Some conclusions:
- Brazilians like coordinated dances, especially ones that incorporate lewd gestures
- If one brasileiro demonstrates enough enthusiasm and physical prowess to get others to line up behind him, he can become the leader of one such coordinated dance. This process usually begins with him goading his friends into imitating his moves.
- There seems to be one standardized list of songs that is acceptable for Brazilian DJs to play
- This list invariably includes Pitbull's "I Know You Want Me," a Portuguese version of Black Eyed Peas' "I've Gotta Feeling," and an unidentified song whose only lyrics are "Revelacion Boom Boom." These songs are usually played at least twice.
- Brazilian DJs also love to play songs with pre-recorded crowd noises, as well as overdubs of people yelling things like "Hey DJ! Bring it on!" etc. I'm guessing that Brazilian party-goers don't know the difference and get excited when they hear all the cheering.
- As the only Asian gal in sight, Ikumi was more popular with the brasileiros than a Texan prom queen
After downing the rest of the cup, I removed my anthropology hat, donned a sparkly headband with blue and gold stars that I received for my birthday and joined the procession. I happened into my "elle-esse-jeh" amigo again, who updated me about his adventures with the cat, and gradually the night became a satisfying blur. Unfortunately my headband was lost to sea at some point.
The next day was spent loitering around the island, checking into a new poussada, chatting with any local who made eye contact, and generally being indecisive about what to do. We decided to set out for another part of the island to find a certain beach that was reputed to have regenerating mud instead of sand. We took the ferry to another shore and began following a stretch of beach with fine grains of sand that felt like flour underfoot. The scene here was much more isolated and pastoral than we had previously encountered; children and dogs played in front of small huts, little anchored ships rocked gently in the water, and the few restaurants and bars we found hardly seemed interested in us or our business.
When we finally found the place, it was even nicer than rumor had let on. The mud was actually sand and water mixed with the protruding remnants of an exposed cliff, forming red, yellow and purple swirls in the cliff face that could be luxuriously applied to our skin. As we caked the mud on to ourselves, we lamented about not having purchased the acid, and then I remembered I had a joint with me. We took care of it and spent the remaining daylight applying layers of mud, washing them off, swimming, and then caking on more layers.
As the daylight began to fail, we stood on the shore watching a lightning storm rage in the distance. Soon the only light we could see by was the dying campfire and hanging oil lanterns of a nearby restaurant. The sound of the wind was interrupted only by the intermittent crash of wave on rock, and stars began to reveal themselves where they had previously been hidden behind the light of the village. All was tranquil.
That is, until we saw the ferry returning from Morro, and realized that it was the last one of the night. As we took off sprinting, another storm cloud cracked to life over our heads, and suddenly our romantic beach scene turned into a tumultuous dash through the rain. We made it in time and were fortunate enough to get a vessel with a good sound system and a captain with a competent choice of music. We spent the ride feeling our newly softened skin and nodding along to deep house.
When we returned, we found the night had just begun. We returned to the room and gathered supplies for the beach party. Lilian, Ikumi and I napped and were awoken presently by Ali and Adam coming through the door. I felt groggy and was about to resume sleeping when they told me something that snapped me to life: our feline-fascinated Brazilian had given them a free tab. We took care of whatever caipirinha remained and were about to leave when I realized that, with my sparkly headband lost at sea, I would have to resort to other means of frivolity. I was leafing through my wallet when I found the perfect thing: a garishly oversized American flag sticker. I found the safari hat I had purchased earlier in the day and placed the sticker perfectly over the Brazilian flag embroidered on the front. With that, we were ready to proceed to the meat market.
Except for the 10 reais it cost to get in, the party was not much different from the previous night's, with a couple of notable exceptions. There was a real dancefloor, a real lighting rig with real lasers, and a real shitty DJ. He went down the same list as his predecessor, invoking the same synchronized shows of sexuality. As I searched the grounds for my brasileiro, peripherally keeping track of the many tanned brobots approaching Ikumi, I noted somewhat sadly how attracted Brazilians are to displays of ostentation. Growing up in Santa Barbara, I was confronted with a similar cultural obsession and learned to adjust to it, but never to this degree. If you throw a rock in Brazil, chances are you will hit a dude with bronze, tattoo'd skin wearing a glittery, undersized t-shirt that loudly proclaims his "statement" of individuality. This guy will probably know capoeira, samba, or at least two other forms of dancing. Ironically, every Brazilian guy is trying to proclaim his individuality with gaudy clothes, muscles and tattoos, but I don't think there is a Portuguese conception of irony, so this isn't a problem for them. I slipped past several dozen more of these types, tipped my new hat at them, and continued my search.
Fortunately, this DJ didn't last long, and as the night progressed, so did the quality of the music. I even heard a Chemical Brothers track at one point. I was just beginning to cut some rug on the dance floor when I heard a familiar voice approaching: "Oi! Spongebob Squarepants!"
He slipped a tab into my mouth practically before I could even get a greeting out.
For the next several hours, I vascillated between dancing, conversing, and giggling in the corner. Our night continued to get better until suddenly it wasn't night anymore. I walked with Ikumi back to the room and realized with abrupt sadness that she had to leave Morro de Sao Paulo in a few hours to get back to Salvador for her afternoon flight back home. I also realized, just as suddenly, that I was beginning to peak. She decided to crash for a few hours before departing, and as she and Lilian slept, I lay alone, experiencing inner turmoil and weird thoughts. I was examining a tree outside the window when Ali stumbled through the door and saved me.
We adjourned back to the house of the DJ and his friends, all of whom were fried and happy to see me with a bag of the green savior (which, incidentally, is mostly brown in Brazil). We smoked, chatted, and giggled some more, but eventually they all passed out, and I was left alone again as Adam slept and Ali took to his journal.
I guess I must've slept for some time, because the next thing I knew Ikumi's alarm was waking us all. She packed her things, and the two of us stepped outside for a walk to the harbor in the gray morning rain. We proceeded in silence; perhaps it was some stage of the drugs, or the colorless morning light, but I was feeling sullen, and I got the sense that I wasn't alone. We reached the docks and she purchased her ticket, but before we parted ways, I declared that the only logical course of action was for me to visit her in Tokyo. I meant this, but the consolation it offered me was uncertain at best; I don't even have a plano concreto for traveling back to finish school, let alone to Japan.
Trudging back through the mud alone, I tried to think of something to sing. Because I no longer had a band to practice with, my desire to sing had long since remained unsatisfied. I settled on Minus the Bear's "White Mystery," and quietly hummed the lyrics as I made my way around more turtles with their sandals stuck in the mud.
In the end, Morro de Sao Paulo offered the loveliest experiences I've had in Brazil thus far, but the real beauty was uncovered only when that carefully postured image of Brazil was stripped away. The next night, as Ali and Adam caught up on sleep, Lilian and I were scouring for something to do, when suddenly the power to the entire island died. We found ourselves feeling our way through deserted streets, and I realized that, for the first time since we arrived, we couldn't hear music. We couldn't hear people bartering or shouting. We couldn't hear anything; just the rain as it washed away all previous traces of being.
Monday, March 15, 2010
V. Expensive Lessons
Things learned thus far:
Presently I learned that, in Brazil, this line does not exist.
Once I made sure they understood what I was asking, Ivo called Claudia and I left to continue my birthday-weekend celebration at Porto de Barra. When I returned home I learned that Claudia had immediately quit and threatened to sue Ivo for harrassment. Drunk, happy and still reeling from a romantic night on the beach watching Buena Vista Social Club, I could hardly comprehend the amount of bullshit that awaited me when I awoke in the morning to meet up with my friends and travel to the nearby paradisal island of Itaparica.
I awoke later than I had planned and frantically threw together a day-pack before going to sit down for a quick breakfast. Ivo and Andre sat side-by-side on one side of the table and gave me a solemn "bom dia." As I attempted to laugh off their grim demeanor and eat breakfast as quickly as possible, they began asking me very specific questions about the missing money, relaying everything through Andre's slow and unsmiling English.
Ivo: [inscrutable Portuguese]
Andre: "Ivo says he wants to know how much was in your closet."
Levi: "I believe it was one hundred and fifty reais."
Andre:
I spoke on the phone with Clara, director at ACBEU and liaison for the many problems of American students at the school, and was told to go ahead with my trip to Itaparica. But the case was far from closed. Ivo watched me as I spoke on the phone in crisp, direct English, understanding nothing but his own name. The only message I wanted to get across, and that I had failed to express in Portuguese, was that I had not accused anybody of anything, that the money was not important to me and, most importantly, that I merely wanted to avoid causing Ivo problems. She assured me this was already impossible. I cursed, hung up the phone and dashed off to meet my friends, who had already been waiting for the better part of an hour.
I spent the rest of the day wandering the isolated paradise, attempting to forget about cold-calculating Brazilians watching me, and succeeding only when we had traveled to the far side of the island, where hardly anyone was around. We smoked a joint standing waist-deep in the warm Atlantic waters; we undressed and wore the heat on our shoulders... my thoughts drifted off. But with every brasilheiro that we passed, I imagined him imagining me made out of a Matrix code of dollar signs.
For the length of our return via boat and then bus, I watched everyone watching us, forming ideas and strategies in my head that weren't necessary. I planned escape routes, expected the unexpected and reassured myself of nonexistent platitudes concerning Brazilians. These hallucinations, amplified by the heat and lack of food (I couldn't afford any since I had no reserves left and no time to find a bank), continued as I repeated my story over and over again. The next day at school, I received a note from Clara requesting my presence after class. I found her and Ivo waiting for me in her office. I sat down and they dropped a bomb on me: I had to move in with a new host family.
Walking home with Ivo, I felt like Michael Valentine Smith; the Martian protagonist of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. The only thoughts I could translate into his language were pathetically basic and childlike in nature; "I am sad. I don't like money." He at least seemed to understand my priorities.
My choices were between two families; one across the street from the school and one several miles away on the beach in an area known as Barra. Before I went to visit with them I walked with some friends to a nearby ATM to get money for the bus, which was necesasry to travel to Barra. I inserted one card into a machine, entered my PIN and the amount desired, and nothing. I tried again; nothing. I went to another machine, took out a different card and tried that one: no dice. I began to pour sweat, drawing strange looks from the two guards at the door armed with shotguns. An alarm at the bank began to sound, seemingly for no reason at all. I attempted to explain to an employee what had happened, she said she would turn the machine off but nothing more could be done. The alarm went off again. I mumbled under my breath about "this fucking country" and left; the paranoid delusions returned exponentially.
I was told that the Barra family had expressed interest in me, but I visited both. The first "family" was actually a quiet middle-aged woman living by herself in a small flat with an ocean view. Not bad. Her gossamer voice seemed to float away on the breeze coming through the window. I asked her how to find the next address and she told me to take the bus. Instead of telling her I couldn't afford it I thanked her and left, preparing myself for a long walk at a brisk pace with many wary over-the-shoulder glances.
It was dark when I found the place. No doorman; I pushed the button marked "6" and waited. Presently, one gravelley word came across: "Americano?" I responded with the affirmative and the door unlocked. At the top of the staircase waited a broadly built brasilheiro with a wide nose and friendly face. He immediately offered his hand and his name: "Caio." He called to his mother and she emerged from the bathroom to meet me.
Immediately I was reminded of my mother from os Estados Unidos: a tan, middle-aged woman with eager eyes and a slow, deliberate voice. She gave me a cursory tour of the flat, then we sat on her balcony, overlooking the beach and the Salvadorian statue of Cristo (it's hilariously dwarfed by it's famous Rio counterpart), and smoked cigarettes. We exchanged basic questions concerning age, likes, dislikes, weather, sports, jobs, etc. I seemed to entertain her, and she put me at ease with her patience and easily-understood words. She asked me when I was going to move in, and as I tried to form the sentence "I have not decided yet," I realized that I had decided. I wanted to be a part of this family.
Her son gave me a ride home back to Campo Grande, and as he smoked a cigarette and dodged motorcyclists, I began to feel my faith being restored in these people. Perhaps they weren't all cold-calculating machines, perhaps there were even some I could trust....
Caio stopped the car to let me out. I thrust out my hand and said two words in clear, perceptible Portuguese: "Irmão, obrigado."
And now, to pack my bags. My new family awaits...
- The correct response when accosted by a Brazilian tranny is "Eu nao quero AIDS."
- If you think Brazilian people are poor, you're wrong.
- There is an important difference between "suco" and "soco." Hint: one will get you punched in the face.
- This country is always hot. Always.
- The language they teach you in class rooms is not the language they speak on the streets.
- It is socially acceptable, if not encouraged, to walk through the McDonalds "drive through" window.
- If you fall in love with your Brazilian empregada and leave money in your closet, she will steal it, along with your heart.
- It is a serious legal and social problem to accuse, suggest, imply or otherwise infer that anybody of the working class stole anything from you. Doing so will almost invariably result in legal action.
Presently I learned that, in Brazil, this line does not exist.
Once I made sure they understood what I was asking, Ivo called Claudia and I left to continue my birthday-weekend celebration at Porto de Barra. When I returned home I learned that Claudia had immediately quit and threatened to sue Ivo for harrassment. Drunk, happy and still reeling from a romantic night on the beach watching Buena Vista Social Club, I could hardly comprehend the amount of bullshit that awaited me when I awoke in the morning to meet up with my friends and travel to the nearby paradisal island of Itaparica.
I awoke later than I had planned and frantically threw together a day-pack before going to sit down for a quick breakfast. Ivo and Andre sat side-by-side on one side of the table and gave me a solemn "bom dia." As I attempted to laugh off their grim demeanor and eat breakfast as quickly as possible, they began asking me very specific questions about the missing money, relaying everything through Andre's slow and unsmiling English.
Ivo: [inscrutable Portuguese]
Andre: "Ivo says he wants to know how much was in your closet."
Levi: "I believe it was one hundred and fifty reais."
Andre:
"Ele diz que havia cem e cinqüenta reais no armário"
Ivo: [inscrutable Portuguese]
Andre: "Ivo says you told him before it is one hundred. Which it is?"
Levi: "I don't remember exactly. It was at least one hundred, probably one hundred and fifty."
Andre: [blah blah, semi-understandable words]
Ivo: [meaningless syllables]
Andre: "Ivo says, what kind of bills it is in? When you put it in the closet? It was there for how long?"
Levi: "I think it was on this day, I think it was for this long, blah blah. All I know is that there was money there and now there isn't."
I began to grow increasingly frustrated with their questions, when Andre explained to me that they were merely asking me the same questions that the cops were going to ask me when we went to file the case at the police station that day, and certainly the same questions the lawyers were going to ask me. My jaw dropped; I learned that what had just transpired was an extremely serious offense in Salvador, a city historically renown for its status as a living monument to Afro-Brazilian slavery. Salvador contains the second biggest population of black people in the world--to accuse a member of the working class of stealing from you is not only outrageous to their families, it is an open invitation for countless numbers of civil rights lawyers to dip their ladles into the cesspool of political dollars being thrown at anyone who feels they've been taken advantage of by someone with lighter skin and unsavory family history. And what better target than the white, sunburned americano who can't speak a word of street-language to save his life?
Ivo: [inscrutable Portuguese]
Andre: "Ivo says you told him before it is one hundred. Which it is?"
Levi: "I don't remember exactly. It was at least one hundred, probably one hundred and fifty."
Andre: [blah blah, semi-understandable words]
Ivo: [meaningless syllables]
Andre: "Ivo says, what kind of bills it is in? When you put it in the closet? It was there for how long?"
Levi: "I think it was on this day, I think it was for this long, blah blah. All I know is that there was money there and now there isn't."
I began to grow increasingly frustrated with their questions, when Andre explained to me that they were merely asking me the same questions that the cops were going to ask me when we went to file the case at the police station that day, and certainly the same questions the lawyers were going to ask me. My jaw dropped; I learned that what had just transpired was an extremely serious offense in Salvador, a city historically renown for its status as a living monument to Afro-Brazilian slavery. Salvador contains the second biggest population of black people in the world--to accuse a member of the working class of stealing from you is not only outrageous to their families, it is an open invitation for countless numbers of civil rights lawyers to dip their ladles into the cesspool of political dollars being thrown at anyone who feels they've been taken advantage of by someone with lighter skin and unsavory family history. And what better target than the white, sunburned americano who can't speak a word of street-language to save his life?
I spoke on the phone with Clara, director at ACBEU and liaison for the many problems of American students at the school, and was told to go ahead with my trip to Itaparica. But the case was far from closed. Ivo watched me as I spoke on the phone in crisp, direct English, understanding nothing but his own name. The only message I wanted to get across, and that I had failed to express in Portuguese, was that I had not accused anybody of anything, that the money was not important to me and, most importantly, that I merely wanted to avoid causing Ivo problems. She assured me this was already impossible. I cursed, hung up the phone and dashed off to meet my friends, who had already been waiting for the better part of an hour.
I spent the rest of the day wandering the isolated paradise, attempting to forget about cold-calculating Brazilians watching me, and succeeding only when we had traveled to the far side of the island, where hardly anyone was around. We smoked a joint standing waist-deep in the warm Atlantic waters; we undressed and wore the heat on our shoulders... my thoughts drifted off. But with every brasilheiro that we passed, I imagined him imagining me made out of a Matrix code of dollar signs.
For the length of our return via boat and then bus, I watched everyone watching us, forming ideas and strategies in my head that weren't necessary. I planned escape routes, expected the unexpected and reassured myself of nonexistent platitudes concerning Brazilians. These hallucinations, amplified by the heat and lack of food (I couldn't afford any since I had no reserves left and no time to find a bank), continued as I repeated my story over and over again. The next day at school, I received a note from Clara requesting my presence after class. I found her and Ivo waiting for me in her office. I sat down and they dropped a bomb on me: I had to move in with a new host family.
Walking home with Ivo, I felt like Michael Valentine Smith; the Martian protagonist of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. The only thoughts I could translate into his language were pathetically basic and childlike in nature; "I am sad. I don't like money." He at least seemed to understand my priorities.
My choices were between two families; one across the street from the school and one several miles away on the beach in an area known as Barra. Before I went to visit with them I walked with some friends to a nearby ATM to get money for the bus, which was necesasry to travel to Barra. I inserted one card into a machine, entered my PIN and the amount desired, and nothing. I tried again; nothing. I went to another machine, took out a different card and tried that one: no dice. I began to pour sweat, drawing strange looks from the two guards at the door armed with shotguns. An alarm at the bank began to sound, seemingly for no reason at all. I attempted to explain to an employee what had happened, she said she would turn the machine off but nothing more could be done. The alarm went off again. I mumbled under my breath about "this fucking country" and left; the paranoid delusions returned exponentially.
I was told that the Barra family had expressed interest in me, but I visited both. The first "family" was actually a quiet middle-aged woman living by herself in a small flat with an ocean view. Not bad. Her gossamer voice seemed to float away on the breeze coming through the window. I asked her how to find the next address and she told me to take the bus. Instead of telling her I couldn't afford it I thanked her and left, preparing myself for a long walk at a brisk pace with many wary over-the-shoulder glances.
It was dark when I found the place. No doorman; I pushed the button marked "6" and waited. Presently, one gravelley word came across: "Americano?" I responded with the affirmative and the door unlocked. At the top of the staircase waited a broadly built brasilheiro with a wide nose and friendly face. He immediately offered his hand and his name: "Caio." He called to his mother and she emerged from the bathroom to meet me.
Immediately I was reminded of my mother from os Estados Unidos: a tan, middle-aged woman with eager eyes and a slow, deliberate voice. She gave me a cursory tour of the flat, then we sat on her balcony, overlooking the beach and the Salvadorian statue of Cristo (it's hilariously dwarfed by it's famous Rio counterpart), and smoked cigarettes. We exchanged basic questions concerning age, likes, dislikes, weather, sports, jobs, etc. I seemed to entertain her, and she put me at ease with her patience and easily-understood words. She asked me when I was going to move in, and as I tried to form the sentence "I have not decided yet," I realized that I had decided. I wanted to be a part of this family.
Her son gave me a ride home back to Campo Grande, and as he smoked a cigarette and dodged motorcyclists, I began to feel my faith being restored in these people. Perhaps they weren't all cold-calculating machines, perhaps there were even some I could trust....
Caio stopped the car to let me out. I thrust out my hand and said two words in clear, perceptible Portuguese: "Irmão, obrigado."
And now, to pack my bags. My new family awaits...
Monday, March 8, 2010
IV. Keep it Gold
It's 2AM and the streets outside my window are still. The winds and rain have died for now. The only light in the room is my computer; the sole lightbulb burnt out the other day. I haven't told Ivo or Andre because I don't know how to say it in Portuguese. I often fight waves of intimidation and paranoia living with two gay men, even though they have shown me nothing but paternal support and indulgence. I awoke from a nap today to the sound of Ivo performing karaoke in his living room, by himself. I haven't slept or written much on account of the new DJ set I've begun working on. It's still early in the project but it's safe to say that it is my best work yet. It manages to combine a lot of my original 501 stuff with material from bands I am close friends with, as well as my own band. Brazilian weed isn't very good, but I will say this: it gets the creative juices flowing.
The language is coming, slowly.
The language is coming, slowly.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
III. In Transit
Tourist, tourist, state your purpose
Carbine, carbine, everything's fine
On a river, river, take my picture
The Holy City fall tonight
She gonna crumble, crumble, like a wafer
Placed upon a tongue so lithe
Her figure, figure slowly withers
'Til that blood flow like wine
And oh, I am nothing
A window to nothing
I'm in transit goddamnit again
I'm in between the ends
I can see where I want to be
But never where I am
Now it's winter, winter in this picture
The tides come in to fall and rise
On a mountain, mountain, shine like porcelain
And spill your sermon under moonless sky
I'm your target, target, take my heart and
Fashion weapons from the young and lithe,
You got the money, money, ain't it funny
When you're halfway to nowhere what's left from right?
And oh, I am nothing
A window to nothing
I'm in transit goddamnit again
I'm in between the ends
I can see where I want to be
But never where I am.
(You come around here running your mouth,
The blood in my veins is flowing down south...
The blood in my brains is flowing down south...)
--Build Target
Carbine, carbine, everything's fine
On a river, river, take my picture
The Holy City fall tonight
She gonna crumble, crumble, like a wafer
Placed upon a tongue so lithe
Her figure, figure slowly withers
'Til that blood flow like wine
And oh, I am nothing
A window to nothing
I'm in transit goddamnit again
I'm in between the ends
I can see where I want to be
But never where I am
Now it's winter, winter in this picture
The tides come in to fall and rise
On a mountain, mountain, shine like porcelain
And spill your sermon under moonless sky
I'm your target, target, take my heart and
Fashion weapons from the young and lithe,
You got the money, money, ain't it funny
When you're halfway to nowhere what's left from right?
And oh, I am nothing
A window to nothing
I'm in transit goddamnit again
I'm in between the ends
I can see where I want to be
But never where I am.
(You come around here running your mouth,
The blood in my veins is flowing down south...
The blood in my brains is flowing down south...)
--Build Target
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
II. "Muito Pensiva"
Ivo delicately sidles through the streets of Salvador, Bahîa. As I follow closely in tow, I’m trying to deduce something about the way he walks. He furtively avoids the objects in his way as if memorizing the location of each one. We pass through a café and he lightly touches each chair that he squeezes by, not once looking back to make sure I’m behind him. Perhaps he already has them memorized. Despite being a forty seven-year-old wedding caterer, he carries himself like most Brazilians: light and leisurely. Unfortunately for me, the pace of his native language is anything but: vowels and consonants bounce off his tongue, undulating me in waves of beautiful yet unintelligible syllables. When he talks to me, I must repeat everything to myself, even the words that are familiar. Comido, food. Escuela, school. Nothing he says comes easy to me; I have to work at understanding everything. He calls me “muito pensiva.” At every meal, there is fresh fruit juice and conversation concerning just about anything. Language, beer, politics, Carnaval, weather, news, feng shui, Zodiac signs. His partner, Andre, is less talkative, more nervous, and rarely around. I gather he is less comfortable with their situation, despite having been with Ivo for seven years. I’m not sure how furtive the gay Brazilian community is, but Ivo and Andre’s hospitality clearly speaks for itself; I am their fifteenth guest “son.” From the way Ivo speaks about his other “sons,” I deduce that he earnestly considers them family. Maybe because his blood family is all gone, or maybe because he has no interest in reproducing. In any case, his hospitality certainly makes me feel silly for joking about the sanctity of my asshole when I found out I was going to have two host fathers.
I take note of the calming way Ivo’s arms swing with each stride as we walk down the halls of ACBEU, my new school. For a moment, I forget that I’m several days late to Salvador and that I’ve missed orientation as well as the first day of instruction. Then he knocks on a door, and suddenly there’s an enormous woman greeting us and squeezing me into her tits. She kisses my cheeks and practically squeals, “Levi!! Como vai, tudo bem? Como é sua tia?” Between the twenty two hours in transit and her genuine concern for the well-being of myself and my aunt, I feel like I’ve taken several blows to the temple. Her charisma almost makes me forget that I made up some bullshit excuse about my aunt being sick so that I could stay another night at home, party with my friends and play one last show with my band. (This ended up not making a difference in the end because some vindictive cunt of a neighbor called the cops on our party at 11:30, and the rest of the night was spent wandering in a drug-addled stupor to Denny’s and other places. The power of the American property owner, eh?) The best I can muster is a meek, “Muito prazer. Minha tia é tudo bem, obrigado.” Next to this lovely, booming woman, I must barely be audible.
She fills me in on the rest of what I missed, which isn’t much, and sends me on my way with a whole lot of instructions in Portuguese that I don’t understand, and a packet of information about capoeira. She adds at the end a parenthetical comment, directed to me but looking at Ivo, about how I seem “muito pensiva.” I flash a grin and play it off like I’m worried about my aunt or something, when really I’m beginning to realize that I’m going to have to work at understanding just about every word that comes my way for the next five months. But as I fall back in line behind Ivo on our way home, I begin to watch his movements, and soon it’s all gone except for the trees, and the people, and the hot Brazilian evening air.
I take note of the calming way Ivo’s arms swing with each stride as we walk down the halls of ACBEU, my new school. For a moment, I forget that I’m several days late to Salvador and that I’ve missed orientation as well as the first day of instruction. Then he knocks on a door, and suddenly there’s an enormous woman greeting us and squeezing me into her tits. She kisses my cheeks and practically squeals, “Levi!! Como vai, tudo bem? Como é sua tia?” Between the twenty two hours in transit and her genuine concern for the well-being of myself and my aunt, I feel like I’ve taken several blows to the temple. Her charisma almost makes me forget that I made up some bullshit excuse about my aunt being sick so that I could stay another night at home, party with my friends and play one last show with my band. (This ended up not making a difference in the end because some vindictive cunt of a neighbor called the cops on our party at 11:30, and the rest of the night was spent wandering in a drug-addled stupor to Denny’s and other places. The power of the American property owner, eh?) The best I can muster is a meek, “Muito prazer. Minha tia é tudo bem, obrigado.” Next to this lovely, booming woman, I must barely be audible.
She fills me in on the rest of what I missed, which isn’t much, and sends me on my way with a whole lot of instructions in Portuguese that I don’t understand, and a packet of information about capoeira. She adds at the end a parenthetical comment, directed to me but looking at Ivo, about how I seem “muito pensiva.” I flash a grin and play it off like I’m worried about my aunt or something, when really I’m beginning to realize that I’m going to have to work at understanding just about every word that comes my way for the next five months. But as I fall back in line behind Ivo on our way home, I begin to watch his movements, and soon it’s all gone except for the trees, and the people, and the hot Brazilian evening air.
I. The Game
“...it’s about twenty minutes north of Mt. Sac, fantastic sandwich shop. Can’t miss it, really.” Fiek is explaining something to Kevin, who slumps forward in the pews of the Amtrak station, looking like a couple of synapses have just snapped in his brain. I’m guessing last night hasn’t completely left him either. All four of us are still reeling, really. I glance at the train station clock, which has little birds instead of numbers. It’s about half past the blue jay, and the morning fog has begun to settle on the drowsy little town of Davis. Vaguely, I wonder what happened to the rest of my friends since the cops scattered the party at our house hours before. With my final hours in town, I vainly hoped that they would all stick with me, but rallying a bunch of drunk people on a Friday night requires either music or more alcohol, and I had neither. There are people I want to see again, but my phone is several hours dead, and I have no idea what became of them. All I know is that when the big hand hits the quail, I get on a train, and all of this—the people, the town, the drugs—is gone. The thought of it makes me feel like puking and I probably would if it weren’t for these three miscreants staying with me until the end. I guess I got my wish after all.
Suddenly, Kevin twitches to life. “I think my brain just powered down for a few minutes.” Fiek, who has been leafing through the latest edition of California Rail News, hardly notices, and continues discussing with himself the finer points of Indian casino blackjack, or something of the sort. Fiek is the kind of guy who can convince the bitchy looking girl at the coffee shop to give him a free cappuccino because she made a spelling error on the menu. When he’s not talking business on the phone, he’s convincing a girl in Tokyo to send him nude pics on the internet, and when he’s not doing any of that, he’s telling you about sandwich shops and Indian gambling and how to fix a Vespa muffler.
Eventually, the quail strikes, and this fucking beast of a train turns the curve and charges down the rails. I'm trying to convert into language how much I will miss these people, but in this state I can produce only mumbling, guttural sounds. “I will see you all again,” I say, mostly to myself. I want to believe it. I do believe it. I know at least that I will see Kevin again in a couple of months, except it won’t be in Davis, nor even North America. We’ll find each other, and ourselves, at all costs, in the bottom-most tip of South America. The game is simple: players book their flight into one end of America do Sul, and book their flight out at the other end. Players are declared winners when they arrive at the airport in Lima, Peru and successfully board their exiting flight without ever being robbed, cheated, stabbed, enslaved, or otherwise sexually exploited on their route across the continent. At all costs, one must avoid missing their flight. And I never miss a flight.
Well, almost never.
Suddenly, Kevin twitches to life. “I think my brain just powered down for a few minutes.” Fiek, who has been leafing through the latest edition of California Rail News, hardly notices, and continues discussing with himself the finer points of Indian casino blackjack, or something of the sort. Fiek is the kind of guy who can convince the bitchy looking girl at the coffee shop to give him a free cappuccino because she made a spelling error on the menu. When he’s not talking business on the phone, he’s convincing a girl in Tokyo to send him nude pics on the internet, and when he’s not doing any of that, he’s telling you about sandwich shops and Indian gambling and how to fix a Vespa muffler.
Eventually, the quail strikes, and this fucking beast of a train turns the curve and charges down the rails. I'm trying to convert into language how much I will miss these people, but in this state I can produce only mumbling, guttural sounds. “I will see you all again,” I say, mostly to myself. I want to believe it. I do believe it. I know at least that I will see Kevin again in a couple of months, except it won’t be in Davis, nor even North America. We’ll find each other, and ourselves, at all costs, in the bottom-most tip of South America. The game is simple: players book their flight into one end of America do Sul, and book their flight out at the other end. Players are declared winners when they arrive at the airport in Lima, Peru and successfully board their exiting flight without ever being robbed, cheated, stabbed, enslaved, or otherwise sexually exploited on their route across the continent. At all costs, one must avoid missing their flight. And I never miss a flight.
Well, almost never.
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