Narcisa

by Jonathan Shaw

  “Well, ahhh, actually, I was hoping to speak with you, Cigano.”

  “Eu?”

  “Yes. Just to chat, you know. But I’d prefer to meet up and talk in person.”

  I was dumbfounded.

  Meet up to chat . . . in person? I don’t fucking think so!

  “ . . . Narcisa has always spoken very highly of you, and I’d really love to meet with you! Do you think we might get together for lunch this afternoon?”

  Meet with me? Get together for lunch? What is this shit? Narcisa spoke “highly” of me to this little prick? She sure never spoke too highly of him!

  After establishing that he hadn’t been in touch with Narcisa, I blew Doc off, telling him I’d call him later. Then I went back to sleep.

  Somehow, “later” never came.

  I didn’t give it another thought. The next day, though, he called again. I recognized the number this time and didn’t pick up.

  As the day went on, I forgot about it. I didn’t have time to be curious. I was keeping busy with sweaty, hectic mornings on the downtown streets, running around town, hustling for cash—followed by those long, hot summer afternoons, sitting alone by the seaside, writing, reading and swimming, usually till after dark. Later, I’d go visit the dingy, piss-reeking old whorehouse alleys of Vila Mimosa, the ramshackle old red-light district down by the port. After years in jail, I relished every lusty minute of it, rocking the saggy, cheap hotel beds with lively, athletic chicks young enough to be daughters of the whores I’d once laid up with there, decades before, in another fuzzy, faded dream.

  I rarely made it home before dawn those days. By late afternoon, I’d be back at the beach, sitting up on the rock, reading, writing, bodysurfing and staring out over the breathtaking ocean view; then home for a cool shower, a nap, a cheap bowl of mocoto stew in the nearby favela, before going out to a movie; maybe a meeting or coffee with Luciana or some other acquaintance, and then I’d be out on another midnight prowl, like a leather-clad vampire bat.

  I was enjoying a simple bohemian bachelor routine, at last. But without the hard liquor and drugs this time; without all the fights, brawls, beatings, arrests, cops and jails. Without the bone-chilling, debilitating hangovers. Without the bleeding misery and torturous bouts of suicidal despair.

  A new life.

  Those early days back in Rio were good times. Times to cherish forever—a living apology to the shabby little ghost of that poor, sad, dirty-faced street kid, Ignácio. A day at a time, I was learning that it’s never too late to have a happy childhood; a new history made of long, productive days, and fun-filled nights of easygoing, unrestrained passions—a living amends to the long-lost kid inside me for all the failures and fuckups of a turbulent, unhappy past. I was enjoying a second chance at life; a new incarnation I would remember fondly this time around—even if my little nest egg was steadily evaporating. But I didn’t worry about even that. I just kept staying active, doing odd little hustles here and there for extra cash.

  The closest I ever got to my old life of professional larceny was practicing a few simple, harmless scams, like buying cheap fake designer watches from the wholesale Arabs downtown to sell to the gadjos and gringo tourists by the beach.

  All in all, things were all right. The wolf wasn’t at the door yet—even if I sensed he was lurking around the neighborhood; but I’d cross that bridge when I got to it. I still had enough money to get by for a while. And I didn’t want for much. So, day by day, I just kept going, maintaining a positive mind-set and keeping happily and usefully occupied with my new sober existence.

  When Doc called again the next day, I blew him off again.

  After that, he began calling every day—two or three times a day sometimes.

  I couldn’t figure what his angle was, but as the phone kept ringing at odd, inconvenient hours, he was starting to get on my nerves.

  Jesus! This guy’s as pushy as a Vila Mimosa whore! What does he want?

  One day, after I had forgotten to turn the ringer off, he awakened me again; this time from an early afternoon nap—right after a vivid dream of Narcisa.

  This time, I picked up and spoke to him.

  In a half-dream state of nostalgia, longing for a Narcisa who only existed in dreams anymore, I was hoping the repugnant little creep might be able to offer me some insight to her whereabouts.

  With some reluctance, I took him up on his invitation to meet for lunch.

  16. INSECT TALK

  “I WONDER WHETHER IT IS POSSIBLE FOR AN INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS NEVER HAD A PROBLEM—IF THERE ARE ANY INDIVIDUALS LIKE THAT—TO HAVE ANY SIGNIFICANT INSIGHT INTO THE PROBLEMS OF INDIVIDUALS WHO DO HAVE SERIOUS PROBLEMS.”

  —Wendell Johnson

  As I pulled up to the curb in front of the cheap local self-service cafeteria Doc had suggested, I spotted him strutting toward me from a shabby little plaza to my left. His uneasy, slightly arrogant gait gave him the overall bearing of a nervous, self-important chicken. He seemed to have been standing there, lurking, waiting for me, like an anxious stalker, even though I was a few minutes early.

  Greeting me with an overbearing, obnoxious air that was a bit too friendly for my liking, Doc stood before me, looking me over from dark, crafty eyes that barely concealed a ratlike glint of mad obsession. His short, rapid breathing and skittish hands were not those of a wholesome person. My gut impression was of some slithery closet pederast or chronic masturbator; an unctuous, unhealthy being who had never in his miserable, lonesome life engaged in sexual intercourse . . . Narcisa sure nailed it when she named this guy Dickless . . . Just looking at him gave me the creeps.

  Against my better judgment, I shook his trembling outstretched hand. His pallid left-handed grasp was unusually firm, but clammy as an eel.

  “Ahhh, it is so good to finally meet you personally, Cigano!”

  He leered, bearing down on me like some soul-sucking nightmare creature, eating me alive with those ugly, hollow bughouse eyes. Even hearing him call me “Cigano” made my nutsack shiver. This Doc reminded me of a giant mosquito; and he seemed to have no recollection of our previous unpleasant encounter.

  I didn’t bother reminding him. “Have ya seen Narcisa?” I blurted.

  He made a big fuss of studying a shiny fake Rolex on his wrist, as if he was trying impress the world as a busy impresario or something. “Por favor! Let’s sit down and eat, meu amigo!” He took my arm with a grand gesture, expertly shifting the focus. “And please, do have anything you’d like! Your meal shall be my treat!”

  Shrugging off his grip, I looked over the cheap, ratty little feeding hole he’d chosen for our big encounter and restrained myself from spitting on the floor. The way he made a point of calling me “my friend” and playing the big shot made my bullshit detector tremble . . . Danger . . . It was clear this guy had some kind of agenda, a need to butter me up or impress me for some reason. But as I sized him up, I realized it was probably nothing quite so sinister. Just another sad little people-pleaser, a weak-minded, natural-born ass-kisser, trying too hard to be liked.

  I knew the type. Looking at Doc, I flashed back to when I was a kid, remembering how my mother used to have this one old gadjo trick she’d always bring home. Sometimes, he paid the rent when things got tight—which was often toward the end of her crazed, unhappy life.

  Leonardo. A real asshole. That old sucker had become a regular fixture in our dysfunctional little excuse for a home, always slithering around like a sneaky old rat, acting all fatherly, calling me moleque and filhinho, forever trying to bribe me for details of the old lady’s erratic comings and goings. He’d never gotten far with me, though. I hated old Leonardo, and avoided him like the police when he was around.

  After the old lady checked out, he’d shown his true colors. When he came and tried to take back all the cheap trinkets he’d bought her, Tia Silvia jumped on him like a wildcat. She almost threw the bastard down the stairs head-first. That was the last I ever saw of him, but it was the beginning of my lifelon
g distrust of two-faced, passive-aggressive do-gooders like the one standing before me.

  Struggling to ignore my distaste for Doc, I tried to stay focused. I still needed to keep him talking long enough to squeeze some information out of him.

  We went and got our food from the cafeteria line, then sat down at a corner table, away from one of the ubiquitous blaring restaurant televisions that Narcisa always sat right in front of whenever we went out to eat together.

  “So, how do you know my daughter, senhor?” Doc smiled like a jackal, almost causing me to choke on a mouthful of cauliflower.

  “Daughter? I had no idea you were related to Narcisa!” I stared into his shifty eyes. “I mean, she told me she met you on the street in Lapa a few years ago, said she hardly even knew ya . . .”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “My goodness! Well, it is really more of a spiritual paternal bond that I have with our dear Narcisa . . .” Doc chortled in a phony, condescending “confidential” tone. “We actually do communicate quite profoundly, and a very great deal at that . . . But on a purely paranormal basis, a special sort of mental telepathy . . . So I suppose you might say she’s really more of an adopted daughter. My spiritual ward, you see?”

  I didn’t see. Narcisa had told me she’d met the little freak one day when he was reciting corny poetry and bumming change on the street; that he had inspired her pity with some sentimental sob story. And she, feeling sorry for such an obvious loser, had tried to help him by giving him leftover meal scraps from time to time, and even paying for a cheap rooming house once so he could get cleaned up to go look for a job.

  That’s where his obsession with her had apparently begun.

  He squirmed with a sigh when I queried him on the topic. “Well . . . ahhhh, when I first met Narcisa-ahhh, I was indeed suffering from a deep, prolonged depression. A profound and terribly complex existential crisis. I was quite low in funds as well, I’m afraid, practically destitute, actually, and I was so discouraged, I just didn’t care if I lived or died anymore. Ahhh, well, my friend, Narcisa was the only person who treated me with dignity! She has always had a good heart, you know, Cigano, despite the terrible hardships she’s had to endure, poor dear . . .”

  I put my fork down and planted my elbows on the table, looking into those swirling, unwholesome insect eyes as he continued with another deep, world-weary sigh. “Ahhhhh . . . You must know, of course, that her mother is an alcoholic, and a common prostitute, no?”

  I shrugged.

  “ . . . Yes! A terribly low-class, ignorant woman! An illiterate peasant!” He flashed a haughty, yellow-toothed sneer. “She claims to be some sort of evangelical Christian today. Hurrumph! Well sir, she was only thirteen years of age when she gave birth to Narcisa, and, well, poor Narcisa observed that filthy, immoral creature doing things I’d rather not speak of with hundreds of men, right from the time she was born. A terrible role model for a young girl, I’ll tell you that! Ahhhhh. Why, when Narcisa was only six years old, an angry client attacked her mother with a knife. He stabbed the dreadful woman ten times in the chest, almost killing her right in front of little Narcisa! A terrible incident for a mere child to have witnessed! Narcisa was actually the one who had to call for help to save the wicked creature’s life! Did she ever tell you about all that?”

  I gave a slight nod, not wanting to divulge much. I was there to listen.

  Narcisa had indeed dropped hints about an unstable, ultraviolent childhood, not unlike my own. But, like me, she played it cool when talking about her past. That, and the fact that she could lie as artfully as any full-blooded gypsy, had kept me from pressing her for details. Silence had always been my code too.

  Doc, on the other hand, was a real talker. He sighed and prattled on with pompous authority, his voice trembling with pent-up emotions. “Ahhh, you know a child can simply never recover from such terrible, traumatic experiences, Cigano!”

  I kept quiet and nodded again, feeling like a nuthouse head doctor.

  “ . . . But there’s more, Cigano. Much more!” He waved his hands around with the frantic air of a self-righteous, indignant reformer. “Ahhhh! The men who raped Narcisa and took her virginity when she was only twelve were acquaintances of her mother’s! Ahhhhh! They also introduced her to cocaine for the first time! So you can clearly see that Narcisa’s unfortunate upbringing was solely responsible for warping her values. She’s just another innocent victim of this morally corrupt, lawless modern society, Cigano!”

  I winced with distaste at his words. I didn’t buy the innocent-victim pitch. Even with all my own shitty childhood baggage, I didn’t consider myself a victim of life. I alone was responsible for my actions and attitudes today. People like Narcisa and I may have once been victims of extreme abuse and trauma as children, sure, but there was no place in my philosophy now for shedding such maudlin pity on anyone—including myself. I knew the tired-out old victim story is the surest road to hell for an addict. I’d played that pathetic card for most of my life, and it had almost killed me. An addict with an excuse is like a monkey with a machine gun. This Doc, however, seemed light years from that concept.

  Curiosity outweighing my growing urge to walk out and leave him sitting there talking to himself, I dummied up and nodded as he rattled on.

  “ . . . Well, after that sordid little affair, my friend, Narcisa quickly rebelled against everything, and then she fled home for good. Of course, she soon became a prostitute herself. It’s quite fascinating how the fruit always seems to fall so close to the tree, amigo, is it not?”

  I cringed at the way he called me “friend.” Between sighs and unpleasant, fastidious grunts as he savored his crappy food, Doc powered on in an obsessive litany of detailed accounts, spilling a rancid cornucopia of minutiae onto the table.

  As I examined the strange, bitter fruit, it all fell into place with random bits and scraps that had slipped out in Narcisa’s stoned-out ramblings over the years.

  In a sickening flush of identification and compassion, the mystery of Narcisa all began to make perfect sense to me.

  17. BORN TOO LOOSE

  “THE FACTS ARE TO BLAME, MY FRIEND. WE ARE ALL IMPRISONED BY FACTS: I WAS BORN, I EXIST.”

  —Luigi Pirandello

  As Doc’s monotonous mosquito voice droned on in my ear, it seemed to be infecting my soul, like some unwholesome, insidious virus. And still, I listened, clinging to each word falling from his vile, sluggish lips like an old witch’s curses.

  When Narcisa was just a little girl, he sighed, her grandfather used to give her and her sister cheap, sugary paçoca candies in exchange for French kisses, while he pulled his withered old pud and stuck a wrinkled finger into their bald little pies—just as he’d done years before with Narcisa’s mother. Later, Grandpa would teach the girls other little “tricks” for candy treats, bubble gum and coins—tattooing onto Narcisa’s impressionable young Alpha Centaurian mental matrix the earthly concept of sexual favors in exchange for material gain as the established norm for intimate human interactions.

  Doc let out another deep, irritating sigh. “Ahhhhh . . . When I first met our young friend, I instinctively knew that she was in desperate need of a benefactor, a protector, and I simply made it my business to see that nothing like that would ever happen to the poor child again.”

  When I queried him as to how he’d gone from such noble aspirations to being the recipient of Narcisa’s financial charity, he began to squirm.

  Between annoying melodramatic pauses, he stammered a vague explanation. “Well, ahhhhh, I was . . . I found myself rather lost at the time, Cigano . . . Practically homeless, actually, it is true, yes, but . . . ahhhhh, well, I’m terribly ashamed to make mention of all that now . . . It’s simply appalling to think that I could have ever fallen so low . . . Ahhhh, it’s an awfully long and complex story! Perhaps I’ll tell you more about my own life sometime . . .”

  What, and brag about how you killed your own fucking mother, you malignant little pustule? Just get on
with it, fucker!

  I could feel sweat gathering under my shirt. I looked around the hot, stuffy little eatery, shifting my aching butt in the hard metal chair, suddenly longing to be riding along the beach on the motorcycle, with a cool ocean wind in my face.

  “Anyway, Cigano, Narcisa was only thirteen when I first found her. She was already sleeping with many wealthy foreigners in Copacabana, and earning quite good money at it. Far too much for a foolhardy child like that to possibly know what to do with! Well, sir, I gave her good advice on how to invest her ill-gotten gains, but she just squandered it all away on drugs, spending a small fortune on those filthy ‘punk anarchist’ delinquents she associates with! Harrumph!”

  The sputtering air-conditioning unit above the door conked out and died, once and for all. My brain was melting as Doc droned on.

  “ . . . One of her clients, I recall distinctly, was a European tourist. Italian, I think. The fellow had gone back home and left behind a whole suitcase filled with expensive clothes. That’s what Narcisa told me, anyway, when she gave me all those beautiful imported designer suits one day. Or perhaps she just stole them from someone. Who could possibly tell? Our dear Narcisa has always been quite larcenous, you know. I’m certain you’ve been exposed to that side of her character . . . ?”

  Declining the invitation to get into it, I shrugged.

  Doc sighed and went on. “Well, ahhhh, the point is, she gave me a treasure chest, Cigano! She even paid for a room for me, gave me money to eat, and then she presented me with all those wonderful suits and shirts! After that, I was able to rejoin the workforce and find myself a dignified job, the same steady employment I have to this very day. Narcisa’s kindness frankly changed my life, Cigano. The kindness of an innocent child who has literally been through hell, who by all rights should be dead from all the terrible abuse and degradation she’s suffered!”