Childhood of the Dead

by Jose Louzeiro

  “Let’s go, you sons of bitches! No special privileges here!” the same man continued to shout.

  Dito rushed to take off his clothes before they caught him. After a couple of minutes the policemen with capes and hats began to back up to the driver’s cabin. The back door also opened, while the man with his shirt out of his pants, continued to shout and clap his hands. He was close to the police in the back of the bus.

  “Let’s do, scumbags. Everyone is going to leave here with one jump. You’ve already warmed up too many spaces!”

  One of the boys tried to escape and he was caught by policemen who began to beat him up and threw him over the seats. That was just the signal for the dogs to attack. Great confusion reigned for the next few moments. There were boys shouting everywhere, trying to escape, some trying to climb up the seats, others holding on to one another, the vast majority trying to face up to the dogs who jumped from one side to another, above and in between the seats. Dito was soon bitten on his arm; even so, he was able to push the dog away with his feet. The policeman close by hit Dito on the head with a nightstick. Dito lost his senses for a moment, but came to and discovered that the best way was to lay down quietly on the bus floor while the confusion lasted. There was a great melee of sounds between the high pitched shouts of the boys, the dogs barking and the man shouting orders.

  In the tumult the first boys rolled through the door, out of the bus. The policemen were already awaiting them and continued to beat and kick them. The few who tried to escape by going around the bus had their arms twisted, received blows in the face and were pushed off the side of the road. Dito couldn’t understand exactly what was taking place. He kept just dragging his body on the bus floor. He was already covered with footprints, when a dog bit him on the leg. A policeman caught Dito by the neck and pulled him up to the door. From there he pushed him with his foot. Dito felt the earth give way beneath his feet. The night was dark. The first sprigs of grass that passed by his body and by his face at a fainting speed, appeared to him to be cold. As he covered some distance, he lost consciousness, just as if he were diving looking for the depths of a river. He didn’t feel anything, because he suddenly fell asleep and everything was definitely distant and silent. He didn’t see his travelling companions, he didn’t feel the dogs’ bites, he no longer heard the orders from the man with his shirt out of his pants.

  When he felt the cold on his feet, he imagined he was asleep in a public bench, the same one he had always taken in Glo’ria. He remembered his work at the market, Pin pushing his cart, the basket he had carried for the demanding housewives who stopped everywhere discussing the prices of things with the vendors. He opened his eyes only to discover he was not at the bench nor was he in prison. He touched his body. His head felt as if it were very big. He couldn’t perceive very well what had happened. He tried to keep his eyes open and felt the smell of wet soil in his nostrils. He discovered he could move one of his arms, and a little bit of his body. Then, slowly, it appeared that his pains were also waking up with him, both in his face and arms as well as in his legs. He remembered the bus that had been crowded with boys and had parked somewhere around there, so they could be thrown away. He remembered the dogs jumping, biting indiscriminately, biting Gabriel’s face. He remembered the boy being thrown over the seats, and the shouts because he had fractured his spine, while the policeman kicked him to stop the crying and to stand him up.

  The pain was stronger in his right leg. He thought he might have broken the other one, and that’s why he wasn’t feeling any pain yet. He tried to move it slowly, and to his surprise it was intact. All he needed to do now was to stand up. He moved a little and rolled several feet more down the cliff. Only then did he realize they had been thrown down a mountain side. He had, evidently, got stuck on some bush and not rolled on down to the bottom.

  It was still raining and dawn approached. Dito remembered what had happened, in every detail. He hadn’t forgotten the incident of the tearing of the clothes, nor the dog biting Gabriel’s face. Where would he be now? Where would the three little boys be, the ones who travelled in the seat in front of his? Where would the one who looked so much like Pichote be?

  He grabbed onto some bushes, aware now that the bite he had on his leg hurt and that his arms, scraped by the underbush, burned like fire. He would try to go down to the bottom of the cliff. A great number of them should be there. Holding on to whatever was available, he went down until he found the first bodies. Some were hanging from tree trunks that had been cut by lumber jacks, others had fallen on stones. A little more and he would be at the bottom of the hill. He went around a big stone and found other companions. On the side, where there was a flat plane, some were already trying to stand up. He approached them. One whose arms had been dislocated was in great pain. Another one, who had a broken leg, only moaned. A little blond boy had been bit on the back and he was bleeding. A black boy had one arm broken. A strong young man had a wound in the head. Dito couldn’t stand dragging himself around so much moaning. Then, behind a thick leaf bush he heard Gabriel’s cough. He was lying there with a cut in his chest, one eye shut and his face very swollen.

  “Let’s go, friend. I’m gonna help everybody leave this place.”

  “How many survived?”

  “I don’t know.... But there’s a lot who can at least stand up.”

  “Do you think they’ll come back?””I don’t think so,” Dito said.

  “If I can’t get up, can’t you do me a favor?”

  Dito could hardly believe his ears, and his eyes filled with tears.

  “Will you do it, man?”

  Dito nodded.

  Gabriel looked around in the grass, searching for something, “It must be here. I had it in my hand when I fell down.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a pocket knife. Would you cut my wrist with it?”

  Dito din’t know what to say. Gabriel’s hand continued impatiently looking for the knife, feeling among grass tufts all around.

  “You promise me this favor?”

  Dito agreed, tears running down his painfully tired face.

  “Then help me find the knife. I won’t be able to go back up the mountain.”

  “You can be cured, man!”

  Gabriel opened his arms and just smiled, “You’re kidding, man. I’ll just stay around here.”

  Dito crawled searching for the pocket knife.

  “If you can’t find it, get me a piece of glass.”

  II

  Gabriel extended his arm to Dito. The piece of glass was a little larger than a fingernail. It was the only thing Dito could find. Gabriel prepared himself for the pain. He had always had fear of shots, and he imagined this would be no different. But, it had to be done. He couldn’t just stay alone there, when all who could move would have gone on. He didn’t want to think about Dito’s cutting his veins. Perhaps the first cut would not be enough, but he knew the boy had the guts to try another one. He would only have to withstand the pain. He twisted his face in pain, moaned, and then calmed down. Dito released his arm and stayed there for some seconds looking at him. The blood drained, dripping over grass leaves. Gabriel smiled again, his eyes appeared sleepy. Dito knew he had been right. He would not have been able to go up the mountainside. He would have been an extra burden. And the sickness that was rotting him away from the inside — it would have been foolish to have insisted on anything different with Gabriel. He had chosen the best way out. There was no doubt. He stood up and walked towards the moans he could hear. He gave Gabriel one last look. There was daylight. The rain beating on his face was now stronger.

  He went back to the flat landing, and there he found some other boys. One of them, a blond one, said that there were three or four others who were trying to go up the mountain. Dito shouted for them to come back.

  “We have to go together, or we’ll be caught again!”

  The small boys began to show up, among them one who travelled in the seat in front of his.<
br />
  “Who is better off?”

  “I only had a scratch on my back,” the boy said. “I can help.”

  “First we must see who is unconscious.”

  They began searching among all the bodies. Dito had been right. With a few light touches, some who appeared as if sleeping did wake up. But for many there was nothing else that could be done. They would just stay there like Gabriel. Among them was the black boy who had travelled at his side crying quietly.

  They gathered at the bottom of the cliff and Dito explained what to do to reach the road.

  “We don’t climb in a straight line. We weave back and forth, not to tire ourselves.”

  Then, five other boys showed up. One of them had his face nearly deformed by the beating he had received.

  “When we get to the road, we look for transportation. There must be a town close by.”As soon as the climb began the rain became even stronger. Dito tried to secure his footing, but often he would just slide back.

  “Careful! No one should roll back down again!”

  One of the boys fell and couldn’t bold on to the bushes. He somersaulted three or four times. Dito went to help him. The boy had now several new cuts on his body, but he would continue to try. He wasn’t going to give up easily. Dito knew it. He looked back and saw at least one half of the boys were there. When they found larger bushes, they were able to get firmer footing, holding on to thicker branches and the climb became easier. One by one they arrived at the road. At that time it was deserted. A long black strip, the shiny road, reflected on its surface the eucalyptus trees and disappeared in a foggy hillside.

  “Where are we?” A little boy wanted to know.

  “Anywhere, man. Why would it matter?” A dark haired boy answered nervously, his face covered with scratches.

  “Let’s go to the shoulder on the other side of the road.”

  They crossed the road. They were about fifty boys, Dito looked as if he might be the oldest. They were all naked, bleeding, hungry and cold.

  They had been walking for about twenty minutes when Dito saw a gas station sign.

  “Before we get there, gang, let’s grab some sticks and any iron bar we might find. We’ll invade the place and break anything we find.”

  They went back to the woods, this time looking for sticks and iron bars, parts of any old car or a truck. Now, whoever saw them would have the impression that they were a bunch of lunatics, armed with wooden sticks.

  The gas station had its lights on. Dito told the group to go around the back to the office. There were only two employees at work at that time. At the office’s side and in front of the pumps was the restaurant, still closed. They advanced cautiously, almost dragging themselves on the soil. It was still raining. One of the men warmed himself up by keeping his heavy raincoat on while snoozing close to the office’s door; the other was cleaning the windshield of an old Willys van. They had no customers. Cars passing by were probably rare. The kids by now were very close to the restaurant’s door. Dito tried to open the door, but it was locked. He shoved it with his shoulder and the glass door clicked, and the glass panes broke. The man woke up in a flash, calling for his colleague and they ran toward the boys. The kids had invaded the restaurant, the big kids faced up to the gas station employees with sticks and stones. Dito grabbed hold of one of them by his shirt.

  “Look here, you son of bitch,” Dito said angrily, “we need food and clothing. We came here to get them and we don’t intend to be challenged.”

  The big and strong black kid kept his eye on the station employees with more than tewnty boys around them. Dito jumped over the counter, opened drawers and distributed as many knives as he could find. He went to the tables, where plates had been piled up and began pulling the tablecloths. As he did this, plates would fall off and break on the floor, an action that made the smallest boys laugh continuously. Dito began cutiing the tablecloths in eyeballed sizes and gave them to the boys to cover themselves. He went back to the big one who dominated the men and said:

  “Take them to the office, lock the office and take the key with you. If there is a telephone, pull it from the wall.”

  The men were taken by the black boy and a group of another ten boys who shouted and begged to beat the guys up with their sticks and bars.

  While Dito tried to find more cloth, some of the boys had found food in the kitchen cabinets and began to eat ham slices, bread, drinking soda pops and eating chocolate candies and chewing gum. Dito went to the office and found one of the men trying to break the lock.

  “Look here, man, don’t be a fool or we’ll finish you off, right now. Stay calm because we are here only temporarily. We don’t want money. I only want to know what place this is.”

  The man didn’t at first understand the question. He kept looking at Dito, at the piece of tablecloth covering his partially naked body.

  “We’re over a mile away from Camanducaia.”

  “This here, is along Minas state border,” the one who appeared calmer said.

  “Then, that’s where we will go.”

  “What happened to you?” One of the men, surprised with so many naked boys, wanted to know.

  “The police threw us over a cliff.”

  “But we are so good that we escaped,” the small blond boy said. He might be the smallest of the group, and yet he carried a heavy wooden stick.

  “Whose restaurant is this?” The black boy asked.

  “The firm’s. I don’t know the name of the owner.”

  “We’ll eat what we can find there,” Dito said.

  The man shrugged his shoulders, indifferent. Part of the group was still in the restaurant, opening cabinets and refrigerators. Once in a while more plates would get broken.

  A truck passed slowly on the road. The children didn’t notice it, but the driver saw all that action and found it strange to see so many boys gathered there, at that time of the morning, many without clothes on. He knew the restaurant only opened for lunch, and it had done so for the past ten years, since it had opened. He felt like pulling into the station, but he went ahead, because the rain had delayed him considerably. He was going to arrive in Camanducaia much later than usual.

  Some of the boys gathered around the Willys truck. Dito came to look at it. He got in and saw that it was in good condition. He called to the guy in white overalls with blue and red emblems.

  “We’ll take the truck, where’s the key?”

  The man agreed and gave him the keys. Dito looked for the ignition key and turned the engine on. The other boys are enthralled by Dito’s action. But Dito knew this was crazy, only eigh kids at the most would be able to fit in the car. Not more than that. They would end fast in the hands of the truckers. He turned the car off and returned the keys.

  “Not even one half of us would fit in here!”

  He went back to the restaurant and asked the man in overalls to look for more cloth, old pants, flannel rags. The guy disappeared in the back but came back bringing what he could find. The kids began to feel that he was helping them out. He wasn’t such a bad guy, after all.

  On the counter and on the tables were now a large number of open bottles. The bigger boys had been able to get some wine, vermouth, Sao Paulo’s fire, rum drinks and cognac. The glasses passed from hand to hand.

  “This warms you up better than any clothing,” the dark haired boy, who was always smiling, said.

  Dito took several drinks. A boy who was probably younger than eight years old was also taking a drink. It looked like cognac. Dito thought of taking it away from the boy, but he figured it would be better to leave him alone, the cold was getting worse by the minute, the rain had increased and they still didn’t know where they where they would go from here.

  “How are things in Camanducaia?”

  The man in overalls answered as he could:

  “I don’t live there, but I know it’s a small town. It has a square and a few streets. Nothing more.”

  “That’s funny. We’ll sur
prise them all,” the black boy said. He was probably about Dito’s age, but taller.

  “If we need clothes and money, that’s where we have to go.” Dito said.

  They waited for the rain to decrease to begin the walk to Camanducaia.

  The ones who had tired of eating and drinking, lay down on the wooden floor and under the tables. Others, more cautious, made packages of left over foods.

  “We may need it later.”

  III

  The truck driver entered Camanducaia still thinking of the naked and noisy boys he had seen. The town was sleepy and the rain was very heavy. It thundered. The wind was so strong as to render the windshield wipers useless. The truck driver couldn’t see well because that truck also had only one windshild wiper working. He only remembered the other needed fixing when it rained like now and the water was so voluminous he couldn’t see.

  He went along a stone paved street, narrow and flanked by old one-story houses. He didn’t see the ditch and the front wheels of his truck fell with one shock into the ditch. He began to fear some problem with the shock absorbers and suspension. He decided to stop by the police station to report the boys he had seen and also to take a look underneath his truck. He was worried about it. He couldn’t take a whole day off for the truck to be in the shop.

  The police station was also closed. It only had one light on in the outside. He knocked at the door and a policeman opened it still very sleepy.

  “Gosh, what a rain!”

  The policeman opened his mouth but didn’t say anything.

  “Do you think we could bother the police chief at this hour?”

  The policeman frowned. The truck driver readjusted his rain coat, the water poured down into his old shoes. He mentioned what he had seen at the gas station, the policeman didn’t appear interested.

  “I didn’t stop, but it looked as if there were more than forty street kids. And they were all naked, in this cold!”