The Sun on My Head

by Geovani Martins

  “What else you got in that bag?”

  All I had was a jacket, a book, and, inside the book, one hundred reals, the rest of my pay. The pig’s eyes glittered when he caught sight of the dough, but he kept a straight face, placed it in my hand, and told me to hold on to the cash.

  “I gotta say, kid, you look like a smart guy. So tell me, what’s the parley?”

  “Ain’t no parley. I’ve lost the weed, you can take it. I need the money to pay the electric.”

  “What do you mean nothing? You come all the way down here, give us all this trouble, and you’re telling me we ain’t gonna come to an agreement?”

  “That’s right. If you want, you can take me down to the station. I’ll sign whatever I gotta sign, but I’m taking that money home.”

  “You sure you wanna go down to the station with ten bundles of weed?”

  “I only handed you five.”

  “How many you got there, captain?”

  And the captain, who was holding a 12-gauge, answered:

  “Ten!”

  That’s when I noticed none of them were wearing IDs on their uniforms. I couldn’t believe they were trying to fucking frame me, making me take the rap for drug trafficking. Also, no one could guarantee that, if I left with them, I’d even end up at the station. They could just make me disappear and keep the scratch. I knew I was gonna lose out, but I couldn’t believe it. I’d spent the whole week thinking about that money, planning what I’d do with it, it was like we were pals. I tried one last time:

  “I need that money. It’s for my electricity bills, I swear, officer.”

  “Son, when a brother gets caught, he forgets his bills. Everybody knows the deal. Even the old-timers know that’s how things roll. You lost, you lose, kid.”

  By that point, I’d come to the realization that the internet bill was going to have to wait and the vibe at home would be tense for another week; I tried to at least save some of the grass:

  “Easy, y’all can take the scratch. But let me keep the weed.”

  The way things were going, I didn’t think he’d accept any conditions I put down. His response took me by surprise:

  “Sure, I’ll put it in your backpack.”

  I made to place the hundred in the cop’s hand, he said:

  “You crazy, kid. Put your hand here, inside the pack. There you go. Leave the bill in there and I’ll take it off you.”

  I left the bill, he handed me the pack.

  “The weed in here?”

  “Of course. Do I look like the kind of guy who’d double-talk you?”

  I opened the bag, checked for the bud, right there in front of them. They kept watching me, the weed was there. I closed the backpack. Then I remembered something:

  “That’s all the cash I had, I need money to pay for a ticket from Central to Leblon.”

  The cop came up to me, handed me two ten-real notes, and walked off with his partners. I was so pissed that, if I could, I would’ve killed the four of them right then and there, without blinking. A slow, painful death, the kind every pig deserves. I walked to the station, reached the turnstile, swiped my card: “Insufficient fare.” Motherfucker! There are days when everything’s outta whack, when your luck just blows. I walked to the middle of the station, jumped over as usual, got my shirt all covered in mud, but I didn’t care anymore. At the station, folks asked me:

  “What happened with those five-o up the way, were you dirty?”

  “Five bundles of ten.”

  “They take it all?”

  “Hell no. I had a hundred reals on me for the electric, they took every last fucking cent! But I said to them: ‘Nah, you gotta at least leave me the drugs.’ And they did.”

  “Shit, son, those motherfuckers are messed up!”

  Lots of folks at the station got all worked up about my story, everyone had something to say, cursing out those pigs. I’d stopped talking and busied myself skinning up, blood in my eyes. Whenever I thought I was done, I’d look down at my hand, figure it wasn’t enough, throw in a bit more, keep on rolling … As I thought of all the perrengues I’d ever gotten into with the cops, I felt this fierce weight on my chest. When I lit the blunt, I realized what I’d rolled was more like a cigar, a bazooka big as the arm of Judas, or the finger of God. I kept on smoking and the bud was crisp, rich. But as I breathed in that smoke, it rode into my lungs thick with such hatred, sadness, and hopelessness that I couldn’t help thinking that those sons of bitches should’ve just taken the goddamned weed with them, too.

  THE CROSSING

  “Ain’t gonna tell you twice: get that motherfucking corpse outta my sight. If anybody misses that fool and lands me with another conviction, you’ll be the one in the ditch, motherfucker! Now go, get outta my face, ’cause ain’t nothing worse in this world than a stupid-ass thug.”

  It’s fucked up to hear that kind of talk from the boss, enough to make anyone shit their pants. Beto had never spoken to him before, and this is how it went down, his ass handed to him in front of everyone on the hill.

  Beto hadn’t fired his gun once since he’d started dealing in the bocas, more than a year ago now. That shit messed with his head, standing around holding a goddamn machine gun he never got to use. Almost like the fucking thing was just for show. Sometimes, still buzzing from a baile funk, he’d pretend to stake out alleys, all wild-eyed, pointing his piece at shit that wasn’t there. There were loads of others like him, young kids who’d started working bocas when the hill was dead quiet, the brass scared off and no rival crews even thinking about invading. It wasn’t that Beto wanted to put his neck on the line, he often sat around eyeing his machine gun and his pistol, picturing what would happen if the BOPE suddenly showed up and started coming down on them. All it took was a straight shot and tchau, you’re toast, that’s the truth of it. Way things were going now though, no way was he ever gonna win the crew’s respect, and that got him all worked up. Everybody knows if a thug’s gonna earn their stripes, it’s in combat, the moment they prove their heart pumps cold. Now he’s gone and got himself into the fix of figuring out how to dump the corpse.

  And all ’cause dude made the other faction’s sign after taking his eight-ball. If Beto’d known shit would hit the fan, he would’ve just slapped the guy around a bit, or maybe even let the fool run. But nah, he’d pumped the son of a bitch full of lead instead. The moment he opened fire, he kind of knew he’d fucked up—too late, though. Now this. What’s worse, looking at the dead fool now, all that hate he’d felt, the rush and the adrenaline, were gone, and kid was just God’s son again, some mama’s child.

  It was gonna be a bitch getting hold of a car to take him across to the landfill. Folks knew what’d gone down, and it seemed to him he’d already been pegged as a favela fuckup. Then there was the risk for the guy who owned the car, if it was registered, all that stuff. No way around it, though; not like he could walk the body out or hitch it a ride on a mototaxi. Beto kept thinking: “Been working bocas for over a year now and never once bought myself nothing. No TV set, no PlayStation neither. It’s rough being a broke-ass thug. Time when this shit made you rich is long gone. Back when I was a kid, I was always seeing guys riding motorbikes and buying imported cars off dudes who swiped them off the blacktop. Now it’s twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week. And next thing you know, you’re broke, eating ready-made meals bought on credit. Fuck that noise!”

  He went around asking guys he used to sell to for a loan, but nobody wanted to get mixed up in his mess. Some made up excuses, others just spat: “You fucked up, kid. Gotta face the music.” Beto was pissed; when fool wants a solid ’cause he fresh out of dope, when he’s mid-funk and wants a huff, when he asks to hold your gun ’cause he’s hitting on a babe, then you tight. But when you need a hand, this all they got for you? He couldn’t stop thinking about the body stashed in his shack. The hot, bright sun makes everything smell ripe—sewage, trash, death. If the stiff started stinking before he got it out, the stench would be hell to
clean up.

  But what really hacked Beto off was he just couldn’t figure what the boss’s deal was. Dude had a rap sheet longer than his arm, and he feeds him that bullshit line? Would’ve been nothing to just stash the fool in the woods. Cops don’t come looking for drugs, you think they gonna come looking for a junkie? Please. Nothing he could do, though, you gotta respect the hierarchy, he’d learned that much as a kid.

  He bought a Chevette to pay off later. Dealer in the store guaranteed it’d make it to the landfill. Beto was becoming more and more desperate. He knew the car was the classic ride for pigs to pull over. Wrong-looking, no registration, busted headlights—cops would roll up thirsting for breakfast. And if they peeped the body, that was it, they’d try and squeeze him for the month’s groceries, too, and Christmas presents, as if he was flush with spare dough to hand over to the brass. At first, he thought he’d soft-pedal the body over in the morning. But then he convinced himself that if a cop caught him in that car at the crack of dawn, it’d take a miracle not to be pulled over. Trick was to leave that same afternoon, and pray God protect him on his crossing. It’d been a while since Beto had taken the wheel, on the hill he only ever went on motorbike. But he’d have to face this mess himself, no way he’d find a driver up for the mission.

  Dead guy was all bunched up in the trunk of the rolling Chevette. “Wonder what his name is,” Beto thought. No ID on him, no cell phone, no nothing. “Wonder if a dude like him’s got a family. Hope not,” he then thought. Which made him think about his own ma, of how they started growing apart once he got to his teens, of how things started changing when he stopped going to mass and started smoking weed on the street, about how they’d argued—she’d always dreamed her son would be a priest. For the first time that day, he considered how his old lady would take it when the news finally reached her. Rough enough having your kid working bocas, but a murderer to boot, goddamn, no way would the church sisters let that one go. Those old biddies are rough, they know more about other folks’ lives than they do the Bible.

  The landfill wasn’t far, but he was so strung out in that Chevette that after thirty minutes at the wheel, he couldn’t handle the pressure anymore. His whole body ached, like he’d just taken a thrashing. Suddenly, the worst possible thing happened: the car died. Beto looked around him, quickly clocked where he was: militia turf. “Now shit’s well and truly fucked,” he thought. Cashless, he knew the only parley with these guys was bullets. No breed worse in this world to get into shit with than the militia—not only are they rotten to the bone, they under police protection, too. He stayed put, trying to think up a solution. He felt he was being watched. A group of old-timers was playing pool and drinking beer at a bar across the street. One of them must be militia, just had to be.

  No way around it, three of the old-timers crossed the street toward the Chevette. Two of them were shirtless and Beto could tell they weren’t strapped. Except the only one with a shirt had a militia look about him, Beto could even see his gun bulging at his hip. He pictured how he’d drop, if they’d come down on him right there and leave a mess for someone else to clean up, if they’d take him to some other place or get a single shot to the head, or if they’d decide not to skimp on bullets to riddle his body. Maybe if he told them the dead guy was a junkie piece of shit, they’d go easy on him, he thought, those motherfuckers hate junkies. Trouble was having to explain all those bullet holes—and what’s he doing with a goddamn machine gun, anyway? Wouldn’t be long before they clocked that Beto was working at the boca, and then, meu amigo, it’d be talk of all kinds of torture if the dough didn’t show. And it wouldn’t. He was scorched on the hill now, no point trying. Fools wouldn’t think twice before ordering him dead, ’cause a fuckup’s place is six feet under. His mind went to his ma again, to her hugs, her eyes, her voice. He was so sure he was done for, he even started thinking about God.

  The Chevette’s exhaust pipe popped like a gunshot, but he was free and easy on the road. He couldn’t believe those old-timers had helped him push the car. He’d lent a hand in that kind of situation before, even when he didn’t know the driver. But he never considered somebody’d return the favor, and on one of the worst days of his life. “Saving others, you save yourself, too,” he thought. It was starting to feel like things would turn out all right, they had to. He was a rookie to this shit, never fucked up before, saw no reason he should be blackballed forever.

  That’s when he reached the landfill. It was getting dark and folks were still milling around rifling for junk, though none wanting to peep anything they shouldn’t. Which is why he pulled out the body from inside the trunk, dead easy, rolled up in that black trash bag. Fool was heavy as fuck, considering he was a junkie and Batsuit-thin when he was sent to a better place. If he’d dumped the kid in the bushes, he would’ve covered him in a blanket of tires, perfumed him with petrol, and set fire to the sorry fool. But it was too risky here, the flames could set off licking everything in sight, somebody might see what he’d done and say something. There’s always someone watching. That he’d learned on the hill, where fuckups always drop, one time or another. He dumped the body right there, figured the vultures would end it before anyone came looking.

  Now to head home and try and win back the boca boys’ trust. Show them shit had flown but it was all in the past now, nobody’s perfect, and any fool can lose his head from one moment to the next. Beto couldn’t decide if he should show his face for the next shift or wait till the dust settled before rolling up on the quiet. He hated all this shit. It was like a nightmare, the kind you never woke up from.

  Everything went to pieces when he got to the hill. He was on his way to take his shift, thinking he best show himself sooner than later so fools wouldn’t start talking crap about what’d gone down. He glanced at the alleys, at folks on the street, the cachaça-drinking drunks, the stoners, the believers, the girls, the workers heading home. Everything seemed different, as if, back from his mission, he was seeing the hill for the first time. It was straight-up wild. He got to the boca, everybody taking it easy, smoking up, shooting the shit. One pusher bellowed, “Come get your kush!” Another: “Ten-real cola, you snort you tweak, ten-real cola, bring your sniffers!” So far, business as usual. But when they spotted Beto, the boca fell quiet. He knew at once, from the looks on all their faces, that there’d be no getting past anything. It ain’t pretty going down as a favela fuckup. Without a wake or a tribute. He knew the lieutenant had it in for him, that he was just waiting for the right time to fuck with his life. If anybody, he’d be the one to pull the trigger, Beto was sure of it. But, instead of a bullet, what he got was a warning to clear out; don’t bother stopping at your crib or kissing anybody goodbye ’cause the hill’s no place for a hotheaded kid who can’t handle the burden of carrying a piece.

  That shit’s messed up, no kid thinks he’ll have to quit the place he was born and raised, with folks saying he’d cut and run on account of wasting. Beto turned right around and left; if they shot him in the back, fuck it, what difference did it make. No idea where he was gonna sleep. Nobody came at him. His sentence really was to bolt, and it stung like a bullet. He loved and hated that hill like nobody could ever understand or explain. He looked at those alleyways and remembered some things from way back when: Cosmas Day, always scampering up and down, playing with Bob Teco, sling-shooting rats. He remembered the dreams he dreamed as a kid, what he used to think his life would be like, back then he never thought he’d be selling drugs. He’d wanted to become a soccer player, an airplane pilot, an IT tech. Now, as he heads down the slopes and off the hill, all he can think about is how everything’s going to be so, so different.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Geovani Martins was born in 1991 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He grew up with his mother in the Rio neighborhood of Vidigal. He supported his writing by working as a sandwich-board man and selling drinks on the beach, and was discovered during creative writing workshops at FLUP, the literary festival of the Rio fa
velas. The Sun on My Head is his first book. You can sign up for email updates here.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Julia Sanches translates from the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Catalan. She has translated works by Susana Moreira Marques, Noemi Jaffe, Daniel Galera, Claudia Hernández, and Liliana Colanzi, among others. Her work has also appeared in Two Lines, Granta, Tin House, Words Without Borders, and Electric Literature. She is a founding member of the Cedilla & Co. translators’ collective, and lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Lil Spin

  Spiral

  Russian Roulette

  The Case of the Butterfly

  The Tale of Parakeet and Ape

  Bathroom Blonde

  The Tag

  The Trip

  The Mystery of the Vila

  Padre Miguel Station

  The Blind Man

  TGIF

  The Crossing

  A Note About the Author and Translator

  Copyright

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  175 Varick Street, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Geovani Martins

  Translation copyright © 2019 by Julia Sanches

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  Originally published in 2018 by Companhia Das Letras, Brazil, as O Sol Na Cabeça