“Gimme four 8-balls. And the poppers, too. How much is that? Do you take checks? Nope. One hundred… sixty… two hundred and five… two hundred and seventeen… I’ve lost count. How much? Only three 8-balls for this much? What about the poppers? Well at least throw in the poppers, for fuck’s sake… It’s Carnival!”
I’m getting the hell out of this dive, man. I hate dens, I always think they’re gonna kill me. Here. No one’s coming. What the fuck have they cut this coke with? Ground glass. Fuck it. Where the hell am I? Rua Evaristo da Veiga. Evaristo da Veiga… Evaristo da Veiga… Where’s Evaristo da Veiga? What kind of sadist gives his son a name like that? The world is lost. Where’s the aqueduct? Where’s the fucking sea?
La la la la… Check out the hair on Zezé… Could he be?… Could he be?… A fairy! I love that song. Where’re the poppers? Weee-aaaw-weee-aaaw… What the fuck! I fell over but I’m still standing… I’m really off my face. I need to get a taxi and get back to Suzana… Is she there with… with… or not?… No, Suzana… Su… zzzz…
I’d been married to Norma for three years. She hadn’t been a virgin for three years. Norma wouldn’t give up her asshole, only went down on me out of obligation, and had lost that fear of spreading her legs that used to drive me wild in the beginning. I was trapped, I knew it, but still hadn’t decided what to do. I was in the garden at Ciro’s place, thinking about the puppy-dog eyes that Norma had made at me while holding Neto’s baby in her arms, when the crackpot appeared. She smiled like a little kid, lit a joint, and turned her face to the sun.
“Suzana.”
“Sílvio.”
“Sílvio starts with ‘S’ too,” she said.
“That’s true,” I replied.
She passed me the joint and I took it.
“Are you a good friend of Ribeiro’s?” she asked.
“Very,” I said. And we went quiet, looking straight ahead.
“What do you do?”
“I work at Banco do Brasil.”
“Wow.”
“Dad wanted me to stay at Itamaraty, but I couldn’t handle all the gayness.”
“Gayness?”
“The diplomatic service is full of fags.”
“I like fags,” she said.
“Me too,” I said, and we laughed together. “What about you?” I said, handing back the joint.
“What about me?”
“What do you do?”
She blew out smoke and replied, “I’m Ribeiro’s girlfriend.”
I’ve always looked down on Ribeiro. Ciro always came first, then Neto, Álvaro, and—way down at the bottom of the list—Ribeiro. Ciro was heroic, Neto was conservative, Álvaro was tragic, and Ribeiro was just plain stupid. A thick-skulled virgin layer. “What’s so good about virgins?” I’d ask him. He said it was a matter of preference, but the truth is that no woman with more than one neuron would have been able to withstand Ribeiro’s company. Why is this girl with him? I wondered.
Speak of the devil… Ribeiro came to ask her to put out the joint because Célia didn’t like it. I laughed; it was too ridiculous, the way his jaw dropped when he saw the two of us together. Suzana cracked up laughing too, handed me the roach, and left on his arm. Ribeiro stared over his shoulder as he walked away, an angry ape. Oooh, I’m so scared!
Eleven thirty at night and I was already in bed when the phone rang. Norma answered and said it was the bank. I thought it was weird. It was Suzana. She said Ribeiro was making her life hell because of me and that she had nowhere to go. I invented a wire transfer from Japan, a telex that was going to arrive at the office, and arranged, right there under Norma’s nose, for Suzana to meet me at the branch on Rua Primeiro de Março. Norma bought it and off I went. I sped through the tunnel toward Avenida Presidente Vargas.
Suzana was standing on the corner in front of Candelária Church in a miniskirt so short you could see the color of her panties. Green. I stopped next to her, she opened the door in a huff, flopped into the passenger seat, and gave me a French kiss that made me see stars. It took me by surprise. I looked her straight in the face, unable to think about anything else but giving it to her good, and headed for my bachelor pad in Glória. We groped each other in the car, in the elevator, and had sex at the door, eight hours after meeting in Ciro’s garden.
We went at it until she fell asleep, exhausted. By then it was pretty late. I put on my suit, shook her hard, and told her she had to go back to Ribeiro because I didn’t want any trouble. We started seeing each other regularly, Ribeiro got more and more jealous, Suzana became more and more Suzana, and I, more and more bored with married life.
That was when Norma got pregnant for the second time.
I blacked out. I’m face-down on the sidewalk. It stinks of piss. I think it’s me. No, it’s the gutter. No, it’s me and the gutter. I’m completely numb. Get up, Sílvio, move along. I’ve got to get a taxi. Son-of-a-bitch anxiety. It’s going to be a rough comedown. I’ve got some benzos at the pad. I’ve got to get back. Where’s a taxi? In the sky the morning star appears… Morning star means the party’s over. It’s getting light… the sky… indigo. I hate dawn. Fucking son-of-a-bitch anxiety. Where’s the ground glass? One more line, just to get home. Here come some little hoodlums, fuck it.
There are taxis in Cinelândia, there are taxis in Cinelândia, there are taxis in Cinelândia. In Cinelândia. Which way is Cinelândia? You have no mercy on me… La la la… Your eyes make me dizzy… I’m always dizzy. I’m always dizzy, I go into a trance when I’m high, I’ve always been like this. I started smoking when I was twelve, drinking at thirteen, and was popping pills by fifteen. I lost my virginity to a hooker, a cousin took me, my dick wasn’t even fully developed. I love sex. I had the Carlos Zéfiro collection of erotic comics and went to the red light district with my cousin Valdir on a regular basis. Me and Valdir gave each other a lot of hand jobs. The poor bastard died young, of tuberculosis, he was only eighteen.
I was a good student and Dad got it in his head that I should try for Itamaraty. In the prep course, I met some rich kids who really knew how to have fun. The wealthy are way more perverted than the poor. They’ve got no morals. Those kids had none. I was accepted into the group because of an anesthetist, introduced to me by Valdir, who supplied the prescription drugs. They brought the whiskey and each of us had to bring two girls to the parties.
One of them, Miranda, was underage. It was Fausto who brought her, saying she was his cousin. No one questioned how old the girl was or wasn’t—if she was there with Fausto, she was no angel. It was the first time I’d seen two guys give it to a girl at the same time. Fausto and Bernstein. It blew my mind. I was so turned on I still had a boner at the police station. Miranda’s parents had the police follow Fausto and we all wound up in the lock-up at the police station.
I was kicked out of Itamaraty. Dad was desperate and got me a test at the Banco do Brasil with a director he knew. They found a way to cover up the incident, I passed the test, and was set for the next fifty years of my life. All I had to do was show up, and the rest—pension, Christmas bonuses, other bonuses and holidays—would come on a silver platter with years of service. Far from the diplomatic aristocracy, life was much more boring. The female tellers wanted to get married, the female managers, start families, and the men only came when their team scored a goal. Best not shit where you eat, I thought.
Some folks are getting out of a taxi over there on the corner by the municipal theater. One more line. Crappy coke. Last hit before I get home. Weee-aaaw… weee-aaaw… Fuck! Fuck! Fu…
Norma was pretty, petite, and naive—a farmer’s daughter. They lived in Ribeirão Preto. She came to spend the holidays in Rio and my mother asked me to be her chaperone. I took her up to Sugarloaf Mountain, to the Christ statue, to the beach. I took her for ice cream, introduced her to my friends, and it was weeks before she gave me a kiss, lips only. I played the hopeless romantic, acting like I didn’t expect anything of her and that I was lovesick and depressed at the idea of her leaving. I was bored with the easy lays. They were vulgar, brassy, and most had been to bed with every guy I knew. Norma’s virginity became a fetish.
It was impossible, back then, to exist without fulfilling certain rituals. Marriage was the main one. I recognized Norma’s potential to be a geisha. She’d be so thankful to me for rescuing her from the boondocks that she’d put up with anything in order to save her marriage. Norma was my ticket to freedom.
My mother wept at the news.
When I lifted up her wedding gown after the reception, completely off my face, Norma was shaking like a leaf. I became a beast and took the poor woman like a pagan bull. Then I collapsed beside her and snored. During the night I heard her crying. It’s okay, I thought, I’ll worry about it tomorrow. When I sobered up, I treated her better and life went smoothly. My outings with my friends were sacrosanct. The uncertain work hours, too. I wasn’t born a saint. Dad died and left me a bit of money. I bought the pad in Glória, a suburb a few towns away—my refuge.
Norma went out a lot to take Inácio to the playground, the beach, the doctor. I’d arrive home in the morning, sleep until late and, just after dinner, I’d head out. We lived like that for two years without her noticing my absence. Women like Norma only have eyes for young children. Everything was just fine until Suzana came along.
Someone told Norma’s mother that I was having an affair with a hippie from Bauru and she told her daughter. Norma was nine months pregnant. With a mother like that… She went into labor and almost lost the baby. Vanda was born purple; it was a nightmare. When she got back from the hospital, Norma was a mess. Her mother moved in to help out. Whenever she saw me she’d look away in indignation. I stayed in that hellhole until I couldn’t take it anymore, then I sent Inácio to boarding school, hired a nursemaid to look after Vanda, bid the mother-in-law farewell, and headed for Glória.
Like the song: In Glória…
Suzana in the morning, Suzana in the afternoon, Suzana at night. With Suzana I made up for lost time. Valdir, the diplomats, the benders, it all came back full strength. And better, because I wasn’t a kid anymore. The day I moved, Suzana prepared a surprise. She invited over two girlfriends from Bahia who helped me put the mess in order. Then they took off their clothes and fondled each other on the sofa while I watched.
Suzana straddled me to bid me welcome. That woman was out of Ribeiro’s league. The only one up to the job was old Sílvio here.
Hot flashes, palpitations, shaking. Parkinson’s. I need my medicine. That poison they call medicine. People are milling around. “Back off, for fuck’s sake! No, I don’t know my name. Stop bugging me. I’m not going to tell you my name!” A son of a bitch dressed as a zebra wants to help me up. “Leave me alone, quadruped! I’m fine here.” Where? Where am I? Why is there a guy dressed as a zebra trying to help me up? A Colombine… a tranny… where the fuck am I? Why is it so cold? “Zebra! Hey, zebra! Someone! Call an ambulance and tell them to put me out with propofol. Only propofol will do it! The one Michael used to take! Jackson… Five…” They’re gone. Thank God, they’ve left me in peace.
My son dragged me off to hospital the day I showed up naked in the foyer, asking for a light. I wanted to light a cigarette. I didn’t do anything, just gave him my hand and let him lead me away. Parkinson’s does away with your initiative. I don’t know how Inácio can still feel anything for me, I did everything to make him hate me—I never did get it. At the clinic, they turned me inside out and gave me the verdict: from that point on, I’d have difficulty walking, talking, eating, thinking, sleeping, and fucking. Great. And you have to pay to hear shit like that. I was sorry I hadn’t gone to the hospital sooner. Some exams require anesthesia, the kind that you only get in the best specialized wards.
The treatment for Parkinson’s is far worse than Parkinson’s itself. And there’s no cure. The drugs give you a racing mind, cold sweats, and brutal panic attacks. The doctor stamps the prescription and sends you home hand in hand with the Incredible Hulk. They’re a sick bunch, doctors. Carbidopa 25 mg, levodopa 250 mg, benserazide hydrochloride 25 mg. Before the pharmacist can give you the bundle, you have to show them your social security number, driver’s license, electoral enrollment card, police clearance, photograph. It’s easier to buy a gun and kill yourself. And that’s not counting the antidepressants, antispasmodics, antacids, and the like. I got hooked on all of them. After a month, along came the hallucinations, exhausting deliriums about cars driving backwards, cuts in time, and blackouts. A whole new world. Ah, if only Valdir were here! Poor guy, he only got to try amphetamines and alcohol, he missed the best of the party.
“Get lost, drunk! Hound’s breath. Piss off, go! Take a hike! Where’s the zebra?” This year isn’t going to be… like the last… My god, the cops are breaking up the last Carnival blocs. What about you, Sílvio? You staying here? At least sit up, have some dignity. Giddiness, nosebleed, fucking shit coke. The ground’s wet. That’s better, head up. People don’t crowd around if you’re sitting. Boy, does Rio de Janeiro stink. It always has. “Piss off, mongrel, go pee on another lamppost, I was here first.”
I gave up everything for Suzana—my friends, my job, I lost money, everything. She and Ribeiro were always at each other’s throats. Suzana spent her days hiding out in Glória with me, making up excuses to give up the night. Whenever the gang asked if I was going to introduce the mystery woman, I’d change the subject and Ribeiro would just about lose it. Suzana wasn’t the sort to sit around waiting for anyone. She’d leave without telling me, say she was going to meet me and not show up, threaten to make up with Ribeiro; she’d even say she was expecting his child just to make me suffer. Suzana was one of my own.
When Ribeiro finally kicked her out, Suzana caught a cab straight to Glória. Brites came trailing after her. She was a plump blond from down south who arrived by bus with a stash of weed that she was going to sell in Rio. I told her she could stay if she gave me half in exchange for the rent. They had no other option, so they agreed. Ciro wanted to buy a third of what I had. We shared the bed, Suzana, Brites, and me. I told Ciro, Ribeiro, Álvaro, and Neto that I was involved with two gaúchas and that I was planning to move down south. Ribeiro shot me daggers from the other side of the table. He hadn’t seen Suzana in six months and it was obvious that one of the gaúchas was her.
Suzana and Brites knew lots of people. All die-hard bisexuals, with a boring spiel about the world being divided into bis and the repressed. The commies didn’t spend their time on sex, unlike the bis, who fucked like crazy. Brites was in love with a fag from the Dzi Croquettes who I think was named Ciro, too. I watched that crap more than ten times. The two of them liked to play Elis Regina singing “Dois Pra Lá, Dois Pra Cá” on the turntable and dance up close, imitating Lennie Dale. It was all a big freak show; no one distinguished between male and female. Total anarchy.
One day, Brites showed up with an invitation to a fancy party in a penthouse on Flamengo Beach. I thought she was bullshitting, but she explained that she was going to make a delivery and that the host, a millionaire painter, was going to let her in. The three of us went, along with thirty Gs of coke.
We took the elevator up and rang the doorbell. The music was at full blast, no one came. After ten minutes of waiting, nothing, so we turned the door handle and discovered it was unlocked. We crossed the massive foyer and went down the main corridor, following the music and voices. When we turned into the living room, behind a marble column, there were enormous windows overlooking Guanabara Bay. A hundred naked people were entertaining themselves majestically. We entered the court of the Sun King, the splendor of Versailles. We didn’t leave until the next morning and walked through Aterro do Flamengo Park to get home. We had sex all afternoon. I was thankful for having been born when I was, in time to enjoy that sexual liberation. I was never the same again. I said to hell with Christian suffering and reinstated the glory, In Glória… of the old Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire. What’s this guy in a toga doing in front of me? What’s he supposed to be?
“What are you supposed to be?”
“Hercules,” he says.
“Where’s your club?”
Hercules asks if I’ve got a light. Hideous breath.
“Yes, Hercules, I’ve got a light. Have you got a cigarette?”
We exchange pleasantries.
“Just what I needed, this Marlboro. I’ve got some blow, want some?”
“No thanks…” Hercules trails off.
“What about poppers?”
He wants poppers. Hercules takes a whiff and returns the flask, then off he goes down Rua Evaristo da Veiga, imitating a siren. Evaristo. What a fucked-up name.
I don’t have legs anymore, or arms, I don’t even have a head, I’ve lost my extremities. Screw the taxi. I’m staying here. Tomorrow Suzana will come and get me. I wonder if she’s already gone. It wasn’t her, Sílvio, it was another girl, girls. Suzana never came back. Cry, go ahead and cry. You left three pussies in the apartment and went out to buy more blow. Suzana never showed her face again. God, I miss it all.
I had an epiphany in the penthouse in Flamengo. I owe it to her. It was Suzana who made me understand that men were born to be free, and fuck, and come, and merge with other arms, asses, tits, thighs, and cocks. I don’t really remember what happened, just the ecstasy, the fulfillment. That night was a game changer, the peak of something that separated me definitively from Ciro, Neto, Álvaro, and Ribeiro. It was the end of my youth. In that neoclassical sitting room, with my tongue in Brites’s cunt, as she kissed Suzana, who was getting it from a blond guy with a beard, who was fondling the tits of the Japanese girl from São Paulo, who was admiring the jumble of bodies on the sofa in front of her, I thought: This is the pinnacle, the high point of my existence. I decided, there, to abandon once and for all the manual of good behavior, which stops you from having sex with your friend, your friend’s wife, your friend’s mother and father. A bunch of sissies who don’t know the pleasures of amorality.
I wanted to seduce Ruth, Irene, and Célia. As well as Ribeiro, Álvaro, Neto and, of course, Ciro. I actually tried with Irene. She’d been dumped by Jairo, the club manager she’d been having an affair with. I sniffed out my prey, called her up under some pretext or other, invited her out for a coffee. When I rubbed my foot against hers under the table, she gave me a slap, stood, and left, offended. Frigid idiot.
Her and all the rest of them. A tacky, uptight middle class, living under house arrest with their parakeets and their neutered dogs and cats. Tragic. The only thing worse is the crowd at the bank. They actually manage to exceed the bovine stupidity of my friends. Ricardo. Little Richie climbed the management ladder at the downtown branch. He was the incarnation of a new kind of employee, the economist just out of diapers, clean, pressed shirt buttoned up to his neck, tortoise-shell glasses, and a sense of ambition the size of Brazil’s financial crisis. Ricardo took office when the currency changed to the cruzado novo. He arrived kicking the door down. I don’t think he even had any pubes. He demanded returns. What returns?! The currency’s worth zip. We’re bankrupt, Ricardo! The government’s lassoing cattle in the pastures to fill supermarket shelves, and along comes this little brat wanting to be productive, demanding balance sheets, projections, and targets from public servants who have taken solemn vows, before the flag, to never lift a finger. Didn’t he get that that was the whole point? To get a job in public service and not have to strive for anything? Little Richie had hissy fits in the corridor and flapped his hands with dissatisfaction. I was the only thing standing him between him and Brasília, where he wanted to be a part of those shit plans for economic reform that always went to the dogs. My slowness was the direct enemy of his efficiency, my bare minimum, my not giving a shit about the brilliant future that lay before him. Go get fucked in that square little asshole of yours, Richie. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
The suit, the business district, the watercooler talk, nights out with the four, it all seemed like a big failure. There was just Suzana, she was the only one who got me. Why bother with the rest? Why not do to them what I did to Norma? To Inácio and Vanda? Give them all the flick.
Every three months or so, it was never exact, Brites would go to Porto Alegre to buy drugs from a Bolivian. Suzana suggested we go with her the next time. We could go to Gramado, drink chimarrão, go riding in the pampas. I said yes on the spot. In the deflated state I was in, it was my salvation. I told Little Richie that an uncle of mine was on death’s doorstep. “Soon, I’d have to make an urgent trip.” He was actually overcome with emotion at prospect of being rid of me. I really was going away on a trip, but I told my friends that I was moving down south. Even I was surprised by my lie. Why had I said that? Why did I need to sever ties with my chums like that? It was loathing. I hated that they wanted to be everything I despised. Nothing new was coming out of there. It was the end. One of many. I went on the trip, came back quietly, and asked for a transfer. Little Richie could barely hide his glee. He offered me the Niterói branch. Perfect; every day I would drive over the Rio-Niterói Bridge and wouldn’t run the risk of bumping into them. I didn’t want to leave Rio. Niterói was as far as I intended to go.
The Bolivian took his time to make contact. The wait gave me time to think. I couldn’t just up and leave. I needed to make a mark, provide proof of all they were losing by choosing normality. My chance came at the birthday party of a socialite in Leme. It was a golden opportunity for me to exit in style, leaving a lesson for those ignorant plebs, slave to their shitty little lives, barely managing to juggle marriage, work, and whiskey on the weekends. The party would be the beginning of something that would end in an orgy, in Glória, at dawn.
Brites prepared the arsenal and she and Suzana arranged to spend the night elsewhere; they knew how important that night was to me. I really wanted Suzana to be with me, but Ribeiro wouldn’t have been able to handle it. I looked after them all, handing out spirits, narcotics, and speed to warm up. I managed it until we were kicked out by the bodyguards. Neto had taken off his clothes to pay homage to the birthday girl. He kept quiet about what he had between his legs, but when he got drunk he insisted on displaying the goods.
On the sidewalk, I finished off the rest of what I had in my pocket and suggested we head to Glória. Glória… I was heralded as a hero. We got into our cars with some bimbos and I don’t remember how, but Ribeiro ended up in the passenger seat of mine. I only noticed he was there when I made a U-turn in front of the Hotel Glória. I’d been concentrating on the steering wheel while the brunette with fake eyelashes stuck her tongue in my ear. Ribeiro asked me point-blank if I’d fucked Suzana. He was curt, irritated. I laughed. What else could I do? I was headed for the grand finale of my farewell ceremony—we were about to have a fuck fest in Glória—and he comes out with, “Did you fuck Suzana?” Even Norma would have used the occasion better. Ribeiro opened the door of the moving car, the brunette screamed, and he threw himself out. I was going slowly. I drove off with the door open and didn’t waste another two seconds on the dickhead.
At the pad, Ciro gave it to the Argentinean babe in the bedroom. I thought it was rude. It was my going away party, for fuck’s sake, he could at least have invited me to watch. Neto must have backed out on the way there. He had the biggest guilt complex, by far, and was incurably, earnestly monogamous. Álvaro, obviously, couldn’t get it up. Ciro was the only one who called the next day to wish me luck.
I went horseback riding, dropped acid, stuffed my face with barbecued meats, pulled all-nighters drinking chimarrão and bought three ponchos: one for me and one for each of the girls. We fucked a lot underneath them since it was cold; it was really good. It was the childhood of my old age.
Because no one ever went to Glória, I didn’t have to change my routine. I drove over the bridge to Niterói from Monday to Friday and, from Friday to Sunday, hung out with the camp crowd from the theater, Brites’s friends. The other four were dead to me, along with my salad days.
Where am I now? On Evaristo da Veiga. What kind of fucked-up name is that? Are my teeth chattering from the cold, or is it the Parkinson’s? It’s the Parkinson’s. My doctors told me to cut out the excesses. My liver, pancreas, gall bladder, lungs, brain, they’re all hanging in there by the skin of their teeth. Mephisto comes to collect. What a pretty little devil… “Stick me with your horns! Stick me with your horns!” She didn’t hear me.
* * *
Brites was arrested on one of her many trips to and from Porto Alegre. She filled two suitcases with coke from the Bolivian and thought it was safer to come by bus, as she’d had two close calls at the airport and wasn’t taking any more chances. Didn’t do her much good. She rode for fourteen hours on a semi-sleeper only to end up detained at a police post on the Paraná–São Paulo state border. It would have been less painful by plane. She’d have served her sentence in Rio and Suzana wouldn’t have gone after her. Brites was transferred to a prison in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul. Suzana was devastated. She packed her bags and left for Pelotas that very night. She loved Brites. And I was alone again.
The incident in the foyer made my son want to be the father I’d never been to him. He hired a psychiatrist, a physiotherapist, a speech therapist—it was awful. I told him I preferred the money to that endless trial, but he refused and paid the specialists himself. Big bucks down the drain. Inácio tried to control me in every way he could, until I put my foot down. I explained to my saintly son that we were cut from a different cloth, as they say in English. That the neat little life he dreamed of for himself was death to me. That I had supported him, working for that bank my whole life, and now it was his obligation to help me with my vices. I said that I was grateful for the health insurance, but I was no one without my blow, my whiskey, and my weed. That if I had to live sober I’d rather he shot me dead right then and there and sent me off to Hell. Or are you under some illusion that Heaven awaits your beloved father, Inácio?
For Heaven’s sake, I stuck the kid in a Catholic boys’ school for ten years—I still don’t know how he didn’t turn out a faggot—and now he wants to treat me like his son? To each his own. It’s his goody-goody mother’s fault. It must be revenge, that has to be it. The medications, the exams, it’s all revenge. It has nothing to do with compassion. Human beings aren’t motivated by good intentions.
I forgot Norma even existed, her and Vanda. They’re back in Ribeirão Preto. Inácio tells me a thing or two. He said his mother married a relative and Vanda an engineer; she’s got a son. Engineer, what a mediocre profession. My dynasty was born and dies with me. No one’s following in my footsteps.
Footsteps. People are milling around again. “Fucking hell, stand back, can’t you see it’s muggy in here?” I fell over, I didn’t see it happen. Wasn’t I sitting up? When did I fall? I’m going to do another line. Poppers and a line. A line and poppers. For the journey. What journey, Sílvio? Yours ends here. I’m afraid. I must be in a bad way to have pulled such a crowd. “Fuck off, you, gimme those poppers! Give ’em back! They’re mine! I went to the den to get them. I’m gonna snort this shit right here in front of you, you dickhead, oh yes I am. Weee-aaaw…”
Again, it happened again. Sprawling and standing, at the same time. It’s a poetic scene, me and the Carnival-goers: pirates, Bacchuses, and vampires. I like it. My God, what a relief, what lightness, what a glow, what a beautiful sunrise over Guanabara Bay. It’s what I’ve always wanted, to not care about the things around me, to not suffer, not feel. God, it’s good.
I believe in punishment. Which is a way of believing in God. Crooked, but it is. My lineage is ancient and perverse, of debauchees, devilry, and the likes. Paradise is of no use to me. I prefer the company of those who have practiced violence against others, themselves, God, art, and nature. My own kind. Divine death is my empire. It’s what I’ve been looking for all my life. I got it. So why am I, now, in the delirium of my final moments, gripped by thoughts of damnation? Is it masochism? Perhaps. Who would have thought that you, Sílvio, would prove to be a dyed-in-the-wool Christian? There’s no such thing as pardon.
Padre Roque felt me up from the fifth to the eighth grade. He liked to punish us with Dante. We’d read and reread his circles during recess, in the heat of the library. He can’t even imagine the value of that long-ago torture at this hour. I owe to him the imagery that accompanies me now, as I hover over the Corcovado near the dome of the sky. There are no cherubs or seraphs, no bolts of lightning, doves or white clouds. I see the Wood of Suicides and the boiling river of blood, I see beasts, centaurs, and sodomites. “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost…”
I went in as I came out. Man doesn’t change, he transmutes, he is always the same. Until the next eternity.
Inácio organized his father’s funeral service. Neither Norma nor Vanda attended. The three women Sílvio had left at his apartment came to pay their respects, and stuck together the whole time. It wasn’t the first time they’d been called out by the Sex Fiend of Glória. A transvestite and a few other dregs of society completed the small group. Ribeiro didn’t know anyone. Sílvio’s son stood beside his father’s body the whole time and made a point of thanking every lunatic, drunk, bum, and whore for coming. Inácio was admirably composed, but when he saw Ribeiro walk over, he hugged his old acquaintance and broke down in tears. Ribeiro tried to reciprocate. He remembered Inácio as a child, on Sundays at Ciro’s, and how he’d felt sorry for the kid when Sílvio sent him to the German boarding school in Petrópolis. He gave him a tight hug.
Inácio had been getting ready to take his youngest daughter to the children’s street parade when he received the phone call. He’d been trying to contact his father since Monday. He’d made more than twenty phone calls, all ignored, and had even left a message with the doorman of the building in Glória, but Sílvio had disappeared. It happened sometimes, but the worsening of his Parkinson’s, his goddamn addiction, and his depravity condemned his only relative who gave a shit to live in a constant state of worry.
“Here comes my pain-in-the-ass son wanting to control me. Chop me out a fat one so I can toast Saint Inácio, Maritza!” the madman would exclaim every time 9634 5888 flashed on the screen of his cell phone.
A stranger asked who was speaking and wanted to know if Inácio was alone or if there was someone else with him. Inácio was suspicious, thinking it might be a kidnapping, and threatened to call the police. Then the person on the other end introduced himself as a paramedic. He was calling from a cell phone found in the jacket pocket of an unidentified white male, about seventy years of age, bald, slim, and of average height. He appeared to be drunk, was in possession of illegal substances, and had been found by Carnival-goers in Cinelândia, near the municipal theater.
“We redialed the number of the last missed call. Do you know someone by that description?”
“Yep. My dad.”
It’s a waste of oxygen to go into the legal pilgrimage required to recover the body of an addict who checks out on a street corner in a big city. Something straight out of Antigone. Inácio had to deal with the truculence of the police, the sarcasm of the coroners, and the sadness of having no reason to be proud of his father. He struggled not to give in to lethargy. While he waited to claim whatever was left of Sílvio from the cold chamber, in the same wing where, years later, Irene would go to ID Álvaro, Inácio ran his eyes over the pamphlets at reception to anchor himself to something concrete. One of them contained suggestions for funeral notices, medieval crosses, Stars of David, exalting words of love and unity. The wife, daughters, sons-in-law, and beloved mother of so-and-so thank everyone for their sympathies. Inácio didn’t know what it was to have a family like that. There at reception, where Irene would later be relieved that she was suffering less than the obese mother, made queasy by the same nauseating smell, Inácio made a decision. He would publish a large half-page ad, if possible, as big as he could afford, notifying everyone of Sílvio’s death. In it, he would apologize for his father.
He got a pen and a sheet of lined paper from reception and drafted a solemn death notice. The Heart of Mary next to the name of the deceased in bold, followed by a text copied from the templates he had seen in the pamphlets. He wasn’t happy with the result. He kept the heart and the name, but realized that the farewell to his monstrous father should be on par with what he had done in life. He was frank. And vindictive.
In the obituaries section of O Globo on February 23, 2009, a large notice, taking up almost a quarter page, caught Ribeiro’s eye. He habitually glanced through the death notices and often came across someone he knew, but Inácio’s name and, above all, the content of the notice, surprised him. Beyond a doubt, the Sílvio in the notice was Sílvio—that Sílvio, the infamous Sílvio.
Inácio, son of
Sílvio Motta Cardoso Junior,
wishes to communicate the passing of his ill-famed father,
unfaithful husband, abominable grandfather, and disloyal friend.
“I apologize to everyone who, like me, suffered affronts
and insults, and invite you to his much-awaited interment,
which will take place on February 23, 2009,
at São Francisco Xavier Cemetery,
Rua Monsenhor Manuel Gomes, 155,
in this city of Rio de Janeiro, at 4 pm.”
The resentment of times past, the spite, the betrayal: there it was, pounding in his temples all over again. The sudden feeling of revulsion made Ribeiro drop the newspaper. He walked across the sand and threw himself into the sea. It had rained a lot the day before and the water was filthy. The coldness of the water brought on a state of paralysis in Ribeiro, who floated there amid orange peels and plastic cups and bags. A Godsend, this cesspool. Once he had recovered from the news, he let his conscience act. He decided that he would accept Inácio’s invitation and celebrate the end of Sílvio. He wanted to be sure he was buried six feet under in a well-sealed coffin.
Ribeiro had never forgiven Sílvio. In the moral order of his backward mind, not coveting your neighbor’s wife was the first commandment to be followed by men who considered themselves brothers. But there was a second reason, furtive and unspeakable, propelling Ribeiro to the cemetery: to see if Suzana would be there. Now that Sílvio had gone, and Neto and Ciro before him, the only one left was Álvaro, who had already told him he didn’t know a thing. Suzana was the only answer to the question that had gnawed away at him for thirty-three years. Had they cheated on him, or not?
Suzana had fled Bauru. Her family wanted her locked up for dating another girl from high school. They kissed at school, at the movies, at the ice cream parlor, and had spent the night in the police lockup more than once. Her father would roar in his country accent, “That isn’t norrrmal!”
And she would reply with the same rolled “R”, “It is norrrmal, Dad! It’s norrrmal!”
One night, after a beating with his belt, Suzana jumped out the window, walked to the highway, and hitched a ride to Rio on a truck. She was seventeen.
The beach was a meeting place for gays. Shy ones, slim ones, chic ones, rude ones, fat ones. Suzana had friends in various circles up and down Copacabana Beach. Her wonderland extended as far as the Coqueirão beach kiosk, in Ipanema. “It was God who brought me here,” the open-minded country girl would repeat, laughing, with the April sun setting behind the pier, lighting up her white teeth. Suzana loved the gay crowd of Ipanema, she shared their outlook on life. She’d grown up a hippie and an outcast, among people who looked down their noses at her. That was why she was accepted immediately and became confidante, disciple, sister, and daughter to many. She was one of them. She worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a shop assistant, and a checkout girl, and she tried her hand at acting and singing. Suzana was eclectic, but she never really got anywhere in anything.
The drag queen Lana Ley rented a back-facing one-bedroom apartment over the Alaska Shopping Arcade. She missed the sister she had left behind in Maceió and made Suzana her darling in Rio. She liked to stroll down Rua Joaquim Nabuco with her, giving her tips on etiquette. Copacabana, according to Lana, was the beach for poor gays. Something very different was happening at Farme de Amoedo, in Ipanema, in the hedonistic worshiping of Barbies and pretty boys, in the high spirits, topless sunbathing, and free sex.
Ribeiro arranged to play a game of beach volleyball near the Coqueirão with Ciro and Neto. The king of Miguel Lemos was coming to grips with the new era, although he lamented that everything was unisex now. “I’m from the days when men liked women,” he would say, depressed by the scrawny macrobiotic-fed bodies. A more violent spike sent the ball into the middle of a long-haired group. Ribeiro came over to say sorry. He wasn’t good-looking, but his body was impressive. The gays all applauded. Suzana got up to return the ball. She was holding a joint and offered it to Ribeiro, but he turned it down. “I don’t like pot or coke, just spirits,” he said. She laughed and asked if she could be of assistance in anything else. Naughty, naughty. They hit it off in bed and the bodybuilder took a shine to the beach babe from Bauru.
Both Ciro and Sílvio got married, Neto and Célia were expecting, and Álvaro, the only one besides Ribeiro who was still in the game, was sweet on Ruth’s friend Irene, who, years later, would cheat on him for all of Rio to know. That was when Lana Ley kicked Suzana out of her cubicle. The girl wouldn’t pick anything up, ate whatever she saw in front of her, didn’t lift a finger to do the dishes or pay for anything, and was always in the company of a girl called Brites. “The freeloader!” Lana complained at the Sandalus Nightclub. Suzana moved into Ribeiro’s apartment without him even noticing it. By the time he did, she was already there.
Neto’s son Murilo was born in March. Ciro had everyone over for lunch to celebrate the new arrival. Ribeiro thought it would be good to take Suzana, show them that he was with someone. So he did. Suzana lit a joint in the garden. Célia was shocked—Neto’s wife was square. Ciro gave Ribeiro an ironic look and Ruth signaled to him to tell his girlfriend it wasn’t going over well. Irene disappeared into the kitchen with Norma, Sílvio’s wife. Álvaro still hadn’t arrived.
Ribeiro went to ask Suzana what was going on. He was surprised to find Sílvio sharing the joint with her in the middle of the ferns. Sílvio had never been trustworthy. Ribeiro told her to lose the roach. She and Sílvio laughed together as if Ribeiro were a hall monitor. He grabbed Suzana by the arm and left, offended. From that afternoon on, the certainty that Sílvio was having an affair with Suzana began to plague Ribeiro like a sharp, recurring migraine. Suzana hated to be put against the wall. Yeah, right! she’d reply in a fury. I did Sílvio, Ciro, Neto, and even Álvaro. Happy now? But the goddamn woman refused to put his mind at rest.
It took a long time for Ribeiro to work up the courage to ask Sílvio. He took his last opportunity before the immoral bastard left town, that notorious night after the party in Leme.
They were grown, desperate men, living out Rio’s macho heyday and sensing its inevitable decline. They were about to see off Sílvio, the libertine, the only one of the five who was divorced. Sílvio had split up with Norma two years prior and was free to pack his bags and go wherever he wanted. The night out was a farewell. The next day, Sílvio was moving to Porto Alegre in the company of two gaúchas who, according to him, had made him young again. “Keep your marriages, he ribbed them, your perfect little lives, ’cause old Sílvio here ain’t ever coming back!” The she-devils had stolen him from his four friends. Ribeiro suspected that one of them was Suzana. He was almost certain. Almost, but not enough, which is why he hesitated to confront his rival, afraid of looking ridiculous.
Sílvio had planned his epic send-off with strategic precision. They would lift off from his place in Glória, mixing whiskey, blow, weed, and amphetamines, and would keep their adrenaline in check, alternating between uppers and Mandrax or Lorax, depending on preference. They would cut loose at the fiftieth birthday party of Gorete Campos do Amaral, the former Madame Juneau, in her exuberant ten-thousand-square-foot penthouse in Leme, fruit of her recent divorce from the owner of a chain of French supermarkets, the magnate Gilles Juneau.
The open bar was scheduled for nine. They arranged to meet at ten in Glória and head to the party between eleven and midnight. Gorete’s birthday promised to be a good one. The socialite, whose millionaire husband had traded her in for a Russian girl thirty years her junior, had decided to put to rest the role of exemplary wife with a big bash. She had dedicated twenty-five years of her life to others, but now her children were grown and Gilles was gone. She had wallowed in barbiturates for a year and needed to prove to herself that she was back in the saddle. With a bank account proportionate to the size of her husband’s guilt, she splashed out on her reentry into Rio’s high society. Her guests, a mixture of old money, jetsetters, starlets, sports stars, intellectuals, and counter-culture idols, didn’t include the five middle-class men with mediocre jobs and no artistic or economic achievements. Brites had gotten them in at Suzana’s request. The DJ, charged with providing the party favors, had ordered thirty grams of cocaine from Brites and had done her the favor of putting all their names on the list.
The Horsemen of the Apocalypse had rolled up to the party as high as kites. Ciro was the first to break away from the mother cell, attending the come-hither stare of an Argentinean woman who was devouring him with her eyes in the library. Sílvio let it all hang out on the dance floor with John Travolta moves. Álvaro leaned against the bar, while Ribeiro ordered a vodka and went to check out the view from the balcony; it was hard for him. Neto was nowhere to be seen. Sílvio kept an eye on his friends. If he saw signs of flagging energy, he’d race over with the right pill and, voila, the puppet would come back to life. If they appeared to be racing, he’d calm the monster with quaaludes. And so the hours passed, between increasingly confusing highs and lows. Wild Saturdays. Sílvio looked after the others until he could no longer look after himself. Those with masochistic tendencies sank into the Italian sofa, the maniacs reached the stratosphere. Neto was on the moon. They had been in different corners of the party for some time when he opened the bathroom door with his fly undone and, singing the chorus of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” shimmied into the middle of the dance floor with his dick swinging as a tribute to the hostess. Álvaro finally got off his ass. Ciro abandoned the Argentinean, Ribeiro, the balcony, and both ran to control the old goat. Sílvio saw that it was time to wind up phase one of their spree, but before he could do anything, four security guards trained in Israel immobilized Neto with an arm lock and dragged him to the back door, together with Ciro and Ribeiro. They were kicked into the elevator, received by a second battalion of Mossad agents in the garage, and ejected into the bed of yuccas in front of the elegant building. Álvaro, Sílvio, and a selection of first-class meat came down the guest elevator. Sílvio handed out the last round of narcotics and suggested they all head to his pad in Glória. They accepted the invitation with cheer—everyone but Ribeiro, who was doing the math. There was one broad missing for each of them to be able to look himself in the mirror when he got home. The possibility of having to share one with Sílvio—him of all people—made him want to puke. Even so, he hurried to get into his rival’s car, God knows why… The brunette climbed into the back seat and the others got into their cars with their respective companions. Today, I’m going to settle this, Ribeiro swore to himself, and rode in silence as Sílvio drove through Aterro do Flamengo Park.
The girl was licking Sílvio’s ear, while he tried to keep the car moving in a straight line. Near the airport, Ribeiro blurted out, “Sílvio, did you fuck Suzana?”
Sadist that he was, Sílvio sneered.
“Is the gaúcha Suzana? I know it is! Tell me to my face!”
Sílvio’s face twisted into a grimace, his mouth opened and his teeth protruded forward as he guffawed. Ribeiro wanted to grab the steering wheel, crash the car into the first lamppost, die, and kill the monster at the wheel and the ho in the back seat. He decided to hurt himself instead. He opened the door of the moving car, jumped out, grazed his knee on the asphalt, and went home to torture himself. He and Suzana hadn’t been together for six months.
His jealousy from that lunch with the joint had never abated. Everything about Suzana had begun to annoy him. Her habit of kissing him without brushing her teeth, the funk of her hairy armpits, the panties scattered about the floor, the Fagner records, and the roach cemetery that made the place stink so badly of patchouli and cannabis that the building manager had come to complain. The apartment had become a meeting place for dubious sorts, a coming and going of weirdos that made him envy Lana Ley’s eviction. He followed Lana’s example and kicked her out. Later he regretted it.
Ribeiro didn’t know there was such a thing as subjectivity. He had no sense of humor. He was dumb, and a faithful friend. He died an eternal adolescent, survived by no children or wife, more of a cousin than uncle to his sister’s son. His mother had died young of heart problems, and Celeste had stepped into her shoes. He had only a few memories of his mother, of her big eyes, of being bowled over by the surf and being saved by her hands, nothing more. His father was a taciturn military man from the state of Sergipe, who longed to see his son graduate from Agulhas Negras Military Academy, rising to ranks well above his own. He never hid his frustration at his son’s performance at school, and spoke of his disillusionment to friends and relatives. Ribeiro didn’t rely on him; he only trusted his sister, just her—she was support, solace, home.
The beach was his reason for being. With every pink sunset, with every storm or full-moon night, he confirmed that he had made the right choice. Ribeiro didn’t go to university and finished his studies at a bad public high school, but he managed to make a living from the geography that he worshiped. The minute he graduated from high school, he worked hard to obtain a lifeguard certificate and got a job as a swimming instructor at Lifeguard Post Six. He didn’t make much, but it was enough to get his father off his back. Apart from that, he seduced the virgins who passed the bikini test. Unlike Sílvio, he didn’t do it out of perversion, he was sincere. Ribeiro never saw his fetish as a sin, much less a fetish—it was true love. He grew old without realizing it. His age was a trump card for a good while, until his shelf life expired.
When he had just turned fifty, he got a job at Impact, a gym on the way up to the favela Ladeira dos Tabajaras. Impact prepared thighs and triceps for Carnival, that was its forte. The muses Marinara, Monique, and Marininha had all trained there. The instructors sold steroids and the brawn shot up in the bathroom. Ribeiro hated being in that environment, but he had no choice. He could only make a living teaching Schwarzenegger disciples. He existed in a state of bewilderment. The girls no longer wanted to be like the bombshells Leila, Danuza, Florinda, and Norma—not Sílvio’s Norma, but Norma Bengell.
Ribeiro had discovered Norma Bengell as a teenager. A bohemian uncle had had a fling with a cabaret dancer and smuggled his nephew into the wings of a Carlos Machado production. Ribeiro watched, live, as Norma parodied Bardot. He was sixteen. He jerked off to the end of his days to that image. He memorized it down to the last detail. Memories of his mother mingled with those of the muse.
Women had lost their appeal, they had ceased to be women, he used to say. Why so much muscle? Few of them turned Ribeiro on, the conversation didn’t flow, it was all very boring. Worse, they all treated him as if he were harmless. Then Lucíola came along. He gave her the first set of exercises, but she was new and couldn’t keep up with everyone else during Jair’s squats. “Row, row!” yelled Ribeiro in encouragement, but it was no use. He gave her some water and suggested private lessons. Lucíola might injure herself if she tried to keep up with the group. He offered his services outside of the gym, the beach being the most appropriate place. She took him up on his offer. She really wouldn’t have survived at Impact for very long.
They met one splendid morning at the fish market and began their walk toward Leme. She was pretty, very pretty, beautiful, in fact, Ribeiro only noticed there. Her red cheeks contrasted with her white skin and her delicate face was marked by thick, black eyebrows that gave her features a masculine touch. By the time they got to Lifeguard Post One, they were in love. Her father couldn’t find out, he was very strict, and Lucíola was still a virgin. Perhaps she was afraid that her first time might be with some brute, it’s hard to say, but Ribeiro was exactly what she wanted. Hypnotized by the possibility of taking her virginity, he played his cards skillfully and slowly until one day, after a lesson, Lucíola cut her foot on a shard of glass and he carried her to his apartment to bandage it up. It took less than a fraction of a second for his hand to forget the cut and slip between her legs. Lucíola was quiet and Ribeiro did what he had to. Afterwards, he left her on the corner near her apartment and went home to remember.
Sometime around midnight, the deflowerer woke with a start to the sound of someone banging on the door. He ran to look through the peephole. An older man, accompanied by a well-built young man, stared at him through the hole. It was Lucíola’s father and he wanted to talk. He had barely turned the key in the lock when he was hit in the face by the door. The young man followed up with a sequence of punches and kicks, while calling him a dirty old man. It was Lucíola’s brother, he found out later. It was the first time Ribeiro had been called an old man. The whole thing lasted five minutes—not even that—but it felt endless. When they grew tired, the father told the shitty little gym instructor that he was dead if he ever went anywhere near his daughter again. And he disappeared, dragging his troglodyte son behind him. Ribeiro suffered a lot, a mixture of humiliation and missing her. You didn’t fuck a virgin only once. The first time didn’t even count; the secret was how the plot developed, the discoveries, the way they gradually loosened up. “Then it actually gets a bit boring,” he would say. Lucíola remained a dream, leaving him with an awareness of his age and a sense of the ridiculous, to boot.
Bye-bye, young ladies, it was time to move on. He tried twenty-nine-year-olds, thirty-one-year-olds, thirty-two, thirty-three, all complex and demanding pains in the ass. Virgins were like him: simple. They dreamed of gentle sex and that was all. What could be better than that? And Ribeiro knew how to detect problems, abort missions, give up on the ones who didn’t relax after two weeks. By the time he was in his forties, he’d grown tired of the missionary position. That’s why Suzana had driven him wild, because she was the perfect combination of naivety and call girl. She got him all flustered with the obscenities she proposed, without losing her childish air. Lucíola was the end of the road, the last virgin to love him, his last attempt to go back to being himself. Suzana was the furthest he’d been from himself, the only one with whom he had shared a roof, the closest thing to a wife he’d had. Thirty-three years after the incident in the garden with the ferns, Ribeiro was still consumed with jealousy. Sílvio shouldn’t have done what he did.
The coffin was lowered into the grave without tears or words of praise for the deceased. Inácio stood there, pallid and unfazed. Burn in hell, he muttered. The gravediggers slathered cement over the grave with shovels, giving the ceremony an odd aura reminiscent of a bathroom renovation. The group left, single file, with the transvestite in front, weaving her way around tombstones to the main path. Ribeiro pretended to follow the group, but turned left and found himself a remote vantage point, hidden among the headstones. He watched over the grave, certain she would come, alone, after everyone else, to mourn her lover. He imagined Suzana’s gaze; finally, he would know the truth. When he was kicked out by the guards, it was already late at night. Suzana hadn’t come. Maybe he’d been wrong after all. He had suffered for nothing. Outside the cemetery, with his back to the fence, admiring the lights in the favela of Dona Marta, he understood: he didn’t love Suzana, he never had. In his jealous delirium, she had cheated on him with Sílvio and would reappear there to put an end to his uncertainty. But she hadn’t held up her end of the bargain. She had nothing in common with him, or his friends. She was a stranger, an excuse not to think about Ruth.
Staring at the lights on the hillside, Ribeiro bid his torment farewell. He lived the last four years of his life without passion, fervor, jealousy, or rancor. He was cured. It was good and bad, because in a way he was already dead. He had died there, outside the cemetery.