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!

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

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.