V. Expensive Lessons

Things learned thus far:

• 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.

Concerning the last two, let's just say that I've already lost The Game (see post I), and it happened right in the comfort of my own "home." I say home with some bitterness because Ivo's home will cease to be mine in a matter of days, and I will move in with a new family several miles away, along the beach and closer to the city proper. This decision was not altogether mine, but born out of necessity after approximately 150 reais went missing out of the closet in my room one day. Upon this discovery, I attempted to explain in shitty Portuguese to Ivo and Andre that I wondered if Claudia, the maid, hadn't rearranged it and put it somewhere else, as she was so fond of doing with my personal effects. I quickly abandoned this and switched to broken English (of which Andre understands a little) when I realized how delicate of a thought I was attempting to convey: there is a fine line between accusing someone and asking if they have seen money lying around.

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?

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...

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.

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

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. 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.