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
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