Carioca Fletch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  Once back in Teo’s box he would curl into a corner and sleep. For only an hour. People might be amazed or insulted at his sleeping during Carnival Parade, but he could not help it. He would arrange with Laura to wake him after an hour so people would not be too insulted. Even in that noise, he could, he had to sleep.

  Just as he was comforting himself with this decision, using it to strengthen him to make it all the way back to Teo’s box, strong hands pushed suddenly and hard against his left shoulder.

  Instead of looking at who had pushed him, Fletch tried to save himself from falling. The edge of the parade route’s pavement shot out from under him.

  Someone pushed him again.

  He fell to his right, into the parade.

  A foot came up from the pavement and kicked him in the face.

  Staggering from the blow, arms raised to protect his head, he looked around him. He was just inside the edge of perhaps a hundred young men doing their murderous, practiced kick-dancing. A foot landed flat against his stomach. Immediately, the air was gone from Fletch’s lungs. Gasping, he tried to duck sideways, back to the edge of the parade.

  Again he was pushed, hard.

  Spinning, he fell more deeply into the group of capoeiristas. He was surrounded by fast-moving, swinging legs striking at crotch height, stomach height, shoulder height, head height. A blow landed against the back of his right knee. He fell against someone. All around him flashed intense eyes. Aw, shit, was in Fletch’s head, I’m messing up their presentation. A damned North American, a tourist. He was being kicked from all sides. The eyes of the capoeiristas were seeing him, popping in amazement at his being there, but usually only after they had pirouretted, when it was too late for them to stop their momentum, avoid kicking him.

  I don’t belong here.

  Someone had pushed him into the capoeira troupe, not just once but three times. Whoever pushed him doubtlessly was still between him and the edge of the parade. Arms over his head, Fletch ducked. Keeping as low as possible, he began to scurry across the parade route to the far side, toward the stands.

  A hard kick in the stomach lifted him off his feet. He came down hard on his left foot. He kept moving forward, through the muscular bare backs shining with sweat, the wildly flailing legs, balancing arms. Without air or the ability to breathe, he felt he was drowning in an ocean of churning arms and legs. The sound of the drums, the sound of the men singing in short, practiced phrases, rushed in his ears. He was being kicked and kicked. Even the gray pavement of the parade route was heaving beneath his feet.

  He didn’t see the foot that came up from the pavement and kicked him in his face. A cracking noise blasted his ears as his head snapped up and back.

  A firm hand against his waist ejected him from the parade.

  There was hard-packed earth beneath his feet. The capoeiristas were now a meter behind him.

  Blood was on his hands. From his nose and ears and mouth blood was pouring down inside and outside his white shirt. It disappeared into his red sash.

  He turned, half-conscious, to see if he could spot whoever had pushed him into the capoeira troupe.

  The Ala das Baianas was passing by. A few of the tall black women in long white robes saw him, grimaced at his bloody appearance as they sambaed to the edge of the pavement and turned back.

  His eyes wanted to close. He knew he had to go to ground somewhere.

  Clutching his ribs, he turned toward the stands. A few people were pointing to him. Most were moving their heads, their shoulders to look beyond him, at the parade.

  He staggered, fell toward the stands.

  People he approached on the bottom tiers of seats stood up in horror at his appearance, to get away from him. Maybe one or two women were screaming. A few men were shouting at him, angrily, pointing at him. He could not hear the women screaming or the men shouting. He could only see their mouths move.

  He knelt down and put his head and shoulders between the second and third tiers of seats. Whoever had pushed him into the capoeiristas had intended murder. Perhaps he had succeeded. Chances were good he would follow his quarry until he was sure he had killed him. His head under the seats, Fletch reached out, grabbed a couple of metal uprights and pulled himself through.

  Fletch crawled beneath the stands.

  He lay on his back on the dirt, the bottoms of the seats, the bottoms of the spectators just above him. He had been kicked in the stomach so many times he could not breathe.

  Vomiting turned him over, got him up on his knees, got him gagging, breathing again. Blood from his nose and lips joined the more forceful stream of vomit.

  On his knees, he backed away from his mess.

  Stomach muscles quivering from the blows, arms and legs shaking, he remained on hands and knees coughing, trying to clear his throat of vomit and blood.

  A meter ahead of him, the people who had risen from their seats, allowing him to crawl under the stands, were sitting in their seats again, pounding their feet like pistons again in rhythm to the drums, cheering on the biggest and most amazing human spectacle in the world except war. Fletch knew they could not hear him retching and choking. He could not hear himself. He was sure his appearance to them was as unreal as the rest of the spectacle they were watching.

  After a while he crawled backward farther to give himself more headroom, more air.

  Sitting cross-legged then, he put his head back to try to stop the bleeding from his nose. He remembered the crack he had heard when he got that final kick in the face. He did not think his neck was broken, nor his back, nor his head.

  Above him rose, as far as he could see, the undersides of the stands. Pieces of skirts, the undersides of thighs, a few dangling feet. A sandwich wrapper floated down and landed near him in the dirt.

  The light under the stands was weird. It was midnight. There was no illumination under the stands. The powerful light from the parade route filtered under the stands through the densely packed bodies above. Nodes of light, apparently sourceless, quivered in midair.

  Streams of light wavered at odd angles to each other.

  His crotch hurt, his stomach hurt, his ribs. His head had been hit from every direction.

  Fighting the temptation, his body’s demand to stretch out, to go to sleep, become unconscious, he lifted himself to his feet. It took him three tries to become upright.

  He fell foward, and caught himself. A chope can fell from the stands and landed near his foot. He put one foot forward and fell on it. Maintaining upright balance seemed important to him. One hand rubbed an ear; the other tightly held his ribs. He gasped.

  Later, he supposed he had moments of unconsciousness as he stood there.

  He saw a man walking along under the stands. About to wave to him, make some gesture he needed help, Fletch noticed how oddly the man walked. Fletch looked more closely. The man’s steps were short, high, fast. He landed first on his toes and then his feet rolled forward to his heels.

  The man’s feet were backward. His toes were behind his legs.

  The hand pressing against his ribs Fletch lowered to press against his stomach.

  He blinked blood from his eyes.

  A headless mule cantered out of the dark under the stands, slowly turned, and cantered away.

  Fletch fell forward on his feet several steps. Now truly he was the walking North American, falling forward. Each step, his feet barely prevented his falling on his face.

  Out of the dark at Fletch’s left appeared another man, walking, bouncing slowly. He was to cross in front of Fletch.

  As he passed Fletch, the man’s head, backward on his shoulders, turned and smiled. His eyes and teeth shone even in that light.

  In an impossible angle from his head, one of his arms raised. He pointed to Fletch’s right.

  Standing very close to Fletch was an old man in an oversized coat. The man’s hair was thin and gray. His eyes were sad.

  He raised his arms toward Fletch.

  Fletch backed away.


  Only hair came out of the old man’s sleeves, not hands or wrists.

  Again, Fletch’s head snapped.

  Someone kicked him hard, on the muscle of the upper left side of his back.

  Brushing away the old man with hair for hands, Fletch spun slowly on the hard-packed earth.

  He saw the second blow coming at his chest. He did not know how to avoid such a blow from the foot. He could not duck it. Moving sideways, slowly, stupidly, he still caught the full force of the blow.

  His feet caught him as he fell backward.

  A man, a wiry old man, was kick-dancing in front of him. Groggy, Fletch admired the perfectly executed pirouette.

  And as the man’s face turned to him, a beam of light through the stands shone fully on the face of a goat. Through the mask’s eye-holes gleamed steady brown eyes.

  The man’s instep hit Fletch hard on the side of the head.

  Fletch’s head felt it was traveling through space by itself.

  Reeling, Fletch saw the small boy standing not too far away on his wooden leg.

  “Janio!” Fletch yelled. Blood bubbled from his throat to his lips.

  In all that noise, he could not even hear his own voice.

  His shoulders pumping unnaturally, the small boy ran away.

  The capoeirista was real. He was in front of Fletch, behind him, all around him. The blows from his feet were real.

  The man behind the goat mask was kicking Fletch to death.

  Fletch tried to keep his legs together, yet not fall over. He tried to keep his back to the man, which was impossible. Hunkered down, he tried to keep his hands over his head, his elbows protecting his ribs. Falling this way, that, he tried to get away. The capoeirista was on all sides of him at once. Each blow from his feet opened Fletch’s body for another blow.

  Fletch received a hard kick in his throat, perhaps a killing kick.

  Then one more kick in the back of his head.

  He was face down in the dirt.

  Consciousness was coming and going like an old song on a high wind. Blood was pouring from his face, particularly his nose again, but he could not get a hand to it.

  His legs would not get him up. They would not obey orders, they were well beyond the necessary impulse to get up and run.

  The man in the goat’s mask grabbed Fletch’s hair and twisted his head sideways and up. Fletch’s whole body rolled sideways. He was lying on one hip.

  A knee either side of him, the man knelt over Fletch.

  For a second the man’s hand was flattened on the ground in front of Fletch’s nose. In one of the odd flashes of light, Fletch glimpsed a ring on the man’s finger. A ring with a black center. Intertwined snakes rose from that center.

  Farther along the ground, Fletch saw a piece of wood sticking into the ground again and again as it came closer. Paired with the stick of wood was a boy’s leg.

  Pulling Fletch’s hair, the man in the goat mask twisted Fletch’s head forward and back.

  With his other hand, the man was doing something under Fletch’s chin.

  Fletch felt a nice warmth on the side of his neck.

  The nice warmth of blood.

  The man was slitting Fletch’s throat.

  Then, as if hit by a great wind, the man was blown sideways. He sprawled into the dirt beside Fletch.

  Above them were many legs, strong men’s legs.

  In one incredibly smooth, lithe movement the man was up, on his feet, on one foot. The other foot on a straight leg was whirling through the air. From the ground, Fletch saw all the other legs, the legs of his rescuers, back away.

  The toes of the man in the goat mask then dug into the ground with the grip of a sprinter. They were gone in a blur.

  Heavily, the other feet went after him.

  The wooden leg still stuck in the ground nearby, next to the boy’s bare leg.

  “Janio, I need help.” On the ground, Fletch managed to get a hand to his throat. He stuck his finger in the knife hole. “Janio! Socorro!”

  Fletch knew he was not being heard. He could not even hear himself.

  It was not sleep then, into which Fletch fell.

  Thirty

  He was conscious when the phone began ringing, but it rang five or six times before he could get rolled over, stretch his arm out to it, and pick up the receiver from the bedside table.

  “Bom dia,” Fletch said into the phone, not believing a word of it.

  “Fletch! Are you better?”

  By now, Fletch knew Toninho’s voice over the telephone.

  “Better than what?”

  “Better than you were when we found you.”

  Fletch’s memory was far from perfect. His brain had begun to clear only shortly before noon. He still tasted blood.

  Lying on the ground under the stands at Carnival Parade, he remembered seeing from close-up the creases of Toninho’s or Tito’s belly.

  He remembered being carried, it seemed for kilometers, under the stands. The sky was full of human feet and legs pounding in rhythm. The noise was no longer of singing, pounding samba drums. It was all just roar.

  Then they were out from under the stands, and still he was carried a long, long way. The sounds abated. The air became clearer. The sky was high and dark.

  “We’re getting good at lifting bodies around.” Tito said. Why was he speaking English?

  “Bury me at sea,” Fletch instructed them. “The fish will appreciate dessert.”

  As they carefully fitted him into the back seat of the four-door black Galaxie, Fletch saw the ten-year-old boy standing next to the car. His eyes were round.

  “Hey, Janio,” Fletch said. “Obrigado.”

  During the ride in the car, he lost consciousness again. He remembered none of it.

  He remembered being walked into the lobby of The Hotel Yellow Parrot. Orlando was holding him up.

  The doorman and the desk clerk hurried around, each questioning Toninho and Tito in Portuguese. Toninho and Tito were placating.

  The ride in the elevator took forever.

  Finally, Fletch was on his own bed. Being on his bed was so unexpected, so wonderful, he sucked in great gobs of breath. And passed out again.

  He remembered Toninho working up and down his naked body, squeezing, testing, looking for breaks in Fletch’s bones.

  “My neck,” Fletch said. “Is my head on straight?”

  Orlando came in from the bathroom with wet towels. He and Toninho washed Fletch down, even turning him over, gently, to do so.

  As the towels passed in and out of Fletch’s sight, they became pink, and then red.

  The formally dressed desk clerk arrived with bandages and bottles of antiseptic.

  He took away the wet, bloody towels and Fletch’s blood-soaked clothes.

  “Not my sash,” Fletch complained. “Not my beautiful red sash.”

  “Your bloody red sash,” Toninho said.

  “Laura gave me that bloody red sash,” Fletch said. “She brought it from Bahia.”

  “He says he’ll burn your clothes,” Tito said. “A sacrifice to the gods. They get only a little of your blood. You live.”

  “Ow.”

  Toninho was applying antiseptic to a hundred places over Fletch’s body. He stuck the antiseptic-soaked face cloth into the small slit in Fletch’s throat.

  Consciousness was lost again.

  They rolled Fletch this way and that, to put a fresh, dry sheet under him. The desk clerk was back in the room. He was trying to fold a wet, bloody sheet while not letting it touch his clothes.

  With his fingers, Fletch discovered plaster stuck to various parts of his body: his shins, ribs, face, neck. He did not remember their being put on.

  “Should I stay with him?” Tito asked.

  “He’ll be all right,” Toninho said. “He needs a few hours of meditation. There’s nothing really wrong with him.”

  “Except that someone tried to kill him,” Orlando said.

  “Yes,” Toninho said. “
It looks that way.”

  “He did not succeed,” Fletch announced from the bed.

  “No,” Toninho said. “He did not succeed.”

  Softly, Tito said, “He almost succeeded.”

  The room was black. Fletch did not remember their leaving.

  Through the dark night he listened to the samba drums. The sound was not coming from the street. It was coming from various televisions throughout the hotel, around the neighborhood. An announcer’s voice came and went over the sound of the drumming and singing. Rio de Janeiro’s Samba School Parade was continuing.

  He did not sleep. Some unconsciousness other than sleep came and went like a presence in the dark room. It came closer and went away.

  He did not move. No part of his body wanted to move. Every muscle in his body had been kicked at least once. The skin and tissue against his bones throbbed. For a while, the thighs of his legs would hurt; he would think about them, then his shoulders; and he would think about them, his back, the area high in his stomach just below his ribs. Even his fingers and toes hurt. Anything was better than thinking how his head hurt. His head felt as if the inside had been kicked loose from the outside and rattled.

  Laura would return. Sometime during the morning. Or perhaps within an hour after the parade was over, by two or three in the afternoon. How could she know, at the parade, he had been kicked almost to death? All she knew was that he had left the box to take a walk with the Tap Dancers. She would return.

  Daylight came through the balcony drapes. Then direct sunlight entered the room. The television coverage of Carnival Parade continued. The room grew hot.

  In his bed he experimented moving an arm. Then the other. One leg. He dug his fingers into his left leg to cause it to move. Slowly, he rolled his head back and forth on the pillow.