I could feel stinging tears streaming down my face like acid rain.
She spat on the floor. “Hah! An’ even de one time I try an’ fly out from here for go back to de home planet, I get e’stop again by some e’stupid focking man! Filho da puta! So now I just wan’ control one little thing in de world, got it? An’ with these thing, only I decide! So de crack gonna be de way Narcisa gonna get de fock out from these e’sheet place. De way to dead gotta be de authentic way, my own way, got it? Nobody else way no more now, got it?”
I got it. I took a deep breath and wiped the tears from my face as she reached for another smoke and went on. Narcisa spent her next months in São Paulo on the run, dodging the roving midnight death squads, running, go go go, fast and frantic as a red-eyed burning demon in hell. Until she ran out of fuel and gave up with a sad little whimper.
Then, one cold, lonely night, she quietly slithered back to Rio; back to the Copacabana ho-stroll; right back where she’d started. Back to the shitty old pista. Patrolling the familiar, greasy old streets of Copacabana, living off the charity of Doc and nameless, faceless gringo tricks; depending, like some wayward Tennessee Williams character, on the random kindness of strangers.
Yes. Narcisa was back from her big New York City adventure at last. Back with her old tribe of glue-sniffing punk rat squatters at the Casa Verde. Back home to the losers and down-and-out nihilist anarchist addicts, winos, lunatics, beggars, murderers and whores of her dark, unhappy past.
Back home to herself.
Her Curse.
24. FALLING
“THE LANDSCAPE IS LITTERED WITH DAMAGED SOULS. AND DAMAGE IS A KIND OF LOVE. BECAUSE WHAT’S MORE SEDUCTIVE THAN DESTRUCTION, WHETHER IT’S ONE’S OWN OR SOMEONE ELSE’S?”
—Jerry Stahl
As the night merged with the hot, cloudy daybreak sneaking through my window, I could see in the morning light just how tired, beat down and vanquished Narcisa really was.
Right before my eyes, she turned into a cave woman. She sat down on the kitchen floor in her sooty, threadbare dress, like a mangy dog, devouring cold leftovers from my fridge, clutching the food in her filthy, ash-blackened hands.
After she’d eaten, I took her into the bathroom to get her cleaned up. Apparently, it was her first real shower in a long time. The soapy water ran black off her septic, bruised, beaten carcass. Trembling like a wet kitten with mad, malnourished, sleep-deprived crack jitters, Narcisa set to the long-neglected task of shaving her crotch like someone attacking a dreaded, gruesome chore. Golden-brown hairs flew off her like sparks from a blacksmith’s grinder as she hacked away at her poor, battered cunt. As she hurried to get it over with, blood ran down her legs like feathers falling from a beaten bird.
I watched in horror. “Jesus, slow down, Narcisa. Yer not butchering a fucking pig here!”
We began giggling like a pair of idiot children as she looked up at me, pale and wet, shivering, cupping her hands over her tiny, boyish nipples like an embarrassed crane on public display at the zoo for the first time.
That did it. I grabbed her and pulled her hard, naked white body close to me. She tightened up for a moment, fidgeting, pushing me away weakly, but I held on tight, forcing the hard cock right up against her. Then, as if remembering why she’d come home with me, she began to soften, giving in. We lumbered back over to the sofa together, like some mythical two-headed beast from hell. She knew she was in for it again, and with a deep sigh she opened her long, skinny legs, a tired old codger shrugging defeat.
Like a surgeon making a decisive incision, I stuck it deep up inside her warm, weeping wet hole, plugging us in again, pow! and we were swallowed up again in that crucial, deadly electricity we both hated and loved.
Like two drowning sailors clinging to a stinking little life preserver, our sex was hungry and frantic and raw. At the end, we tumbled away from each other, rolling across the floor like vanquished combatants; sweating, exhausted, murdered; gasping like moribund fish for one last crucial breath of life.
I had no choice but to take Narcisa in off the merciless old streets that had broken her poor, vanquished heart at the ripe old age of nineteen; no choice but to fall in love with her all over again too.
But, it wasn’t the kind of “falling in love” you see in the movies.
Not at all.
Right from the start, this mad new love was more like some dark, unholy tandem enslavement; a sweet and compelling torture, rubbing rock salt into the deepest wounds of ancient pains and traumas we both harbored in our flayed, skewered hearts, then feeding it back and forth between us, in a noxious, agonizing tango of self-perpetuating torture and mutual addictions.
With Narcisa, I found out what it means to “fall” in love—what they mean by falling; like the feeling you must get after jumping off a very tall building, wishing, halfway down, that you could stop, as it dawns on you that you’re powerless.
I think I’d always known my association with Narcisa was going to hurt someday. I’d sensed it the moment I’d first laid eyes on her, years before.
She even tried to warn me off this time. The next evening, out on the pista, she seemed surprised to see me coming back for more.
She looked at me with an air of pleading sincerity I’d never seen before. “Lissen, Cigano, you don’ wanna get involve with me. I am de Crack Monster now! De real crack addict, got it? One time you go up these road with me, bro, you can’ never go back no more. I can really fock it up de life to you, cara, belief me! I tell it to you these thing now as you friend . . . Don’ get you self no more closer to de Narcisa world now, got it?”
I got it. She knew what she was up against. And so did I—at least in theory. If I’d really had any idea what I was really signing up for, though, I’d have bolted like a scorched antelope. I will always remember the words that left my mouth that night as I took her by the arm and walked her over to my bike again.
“Ya can’t scare me with that shit, baby.” I’d laughed. “I’m in already, into you right up to my eyeballs! Já que vou pro inferno, não custa apertar a mão do diabo! Long as I’m goin’ to hell, I might as well shake hands with the devil.”
“Whatever, Cigano . . .” Narcisa rolled her eyes and came along.
I brought her home seven nights in a row that week, feeding her from my little icebox like an undernourished kitten, always giving her just enough cash to keep her with me overnight.
I was going broke fast, but it seemed important. And unavoidable.
We would fall asleep together after hours of long, hard, unforgettable sex, then have another desperate, sweaty go at it when we awoke the next day. Afterward, I’d give her a few cigarettes and a shower, hand over the money, then give her a ride back to Copacabana.
The favela where she copped clung to the hillside, a frozen, tangled brown avalanche of poverty, just blocks from the sparkling blue waters of the fabled tourist beach. I always dropped her off in front of the same narrow alleyway leading up into the crowded, smelly slum. I’d cut the motor and sit on the bike, watching her disappear up the long, grimy old cement path.
Sometimes I’d hang around at the bottom of the hill, waiting for her to finish smoking and come down again. When she emerged, we would walk across the street to this busy little local paderia for a quick cafe de manhá.
Sitting together at the cracked marble countertop, Narcisa always got the same thing: a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a Danone yogurt. A cup of hot milk with tongue-numbing heaps of sugar, and just a drop of sweet black coffee on top. Warm French bread with lots of butter. Two fried eggs, sunny side up, which she’d dip the bread into, tearing off frenetic little chunks, sopping up the gooey orange yolk and leaving the white.
Usually, I’d have the same. Over the weeks, that became our little daily routine. Somehow, sharing that late-afternoon breakfast ritual made me feel closer to her. Narcisa and I were bonding—like a pair of symbiotic mutant organisms.
As we were finishing our breakfast one afternoon
, a chubby, unattractive, whorish-looking mulatto woman came in, dragging a screaming child by the arm.
The kid, a beautiful little girl, was bawling her eyes out. The mother yanked and yelled and pushed and prodded and shouted. When the sad little doll refused to stop crying and struggling, the furious woman started spanking her on the behind, hard. The little one just bawled louder and louder.
Narcisa winced in disgust.
Then, she flipped. “Porra!” she yelped.
Before I could stop her, she leapt up from the counter and stood glaring at the ugly, dull-faced mother, with balled-up fists, spitting like a wildcat. “These a very good way for teach you childrens to be de good citizen, hein!? Focking e’stupid old e’sheet monster whoo-oore!”
I knew she was about to jump on the unlucky creature. I grabbed her by the arm and led her out onto the sidewalk before she could take a shot. I’d seen her turn violent on strangers so many times over the years, I wasn’t taking a chance. Poor Narcisa had enough trouble.
As I hustled her away down the street, she raged and cursed like a drunken, bloodthirsty pirate, hurling insults in all directions, as pedestrians stopped to stare.
Finally, nearing the beach, I stopped and faced her. “Lissen, baby, just take a deep breath and try to calm down.”
“I am very much calm down, Cigano!” Flecks of spittle flew like shrapnel from her pinched up, hate-contorted mouth. “I ha-ate it all de fat e’stupid ugly old womans! Focking Baby Maker!” She spat in the road as we crossed the Avenida Atlantica. “You know what? Soon as de young girl e’start make de babies, she finish! Now she just one big fat e’stupid old man-woman thing with de big black poo-sy hole like de tunnel to hell! Fat ugly old e’sheet-monster cow! Chicken head with two fat-ass elephant bottom! E’same like my e’stupid retard mother, mano! Focking fat old angry pig peoples! Porra! Beat de childrens, is only way they know . . .”
After a while, Narcisa grew quiet. I breathed in the fresh ocean air as we plodded along beside the crashing waves. She began speaking, more softly. “Hah! I remember when I was a little girl, I use to hide under de bed from my mother. These ridiculous woman, she all de time go an’ get de metal clothes hanger an’ put it to de fire from de wood oven, make it red hot for beat us! Porra, que merda . . .” She trailed off.
As we reached the shore, she started cursing again. “Filha da puta! My sister got so many e’scar all over de body! Porra, que merda!”
I didn’t know what to say. We walked along in silence.
After a long while, Narcisa looked at me and grinned. “When I was twelve year old, one time, I smell so much de focking cocaina my whole face go numb. Fock! I don’ go e’sleep for de whole week an’ don’ eat nothing too. Hah! These e’stupid old who-ore, you know what she do, Cigano? She take me away to de crazy hospital for get me lock up! Hah! She try e’say to them I maluca!”
“Yeah? So what happened?”
She shrugged and started to laugh. “Nada! Hah! I just go inside an’ talk to de doctor. We go an’ talk for long long time. An’ then he come out an’ e’say to my mother she de one who most crazy! Hah! He e’say she need listen more to what I e’say cuz I de only one who sane an’ rational there. So then I get out, go. Crowwwnn crowwwnn! Hah! Thank you come again! No more crazy hospital for de Narcisa, got it?”
I got it.
Like most addicts, Narcisa’s troubles had very deep roots.
25. INTO THE WOUND
“WE COULD IMPROVE WORLDWIDE MENTAL HEALTH IF WE ACKNOWLEDGED THAT PARENTS CAN MAKE YOU CRAZY.”
—Frank Zappa
Looking down the long white expanse of sand, drinking in the sounds and smell of the sea, I wished I could show her how beautiful life could be.
But Narcisa was lost on an angry, lonesome battlefield of memory.
Overflowing with ancient resentments, she growled and snorted. “I save these e’stupid old bitch life one time, after she drink too much cachaça, an’ she go crazy an’ try to run under a truck, I pull her out from de road! Fock! An’ then I gotta save her focking life another time when she take de big cocaine overdose. Come home from de e’school an’ she all flipping around on de floor like a big ugly fish, de big e’stupid crazy eye popping out from her ugly face, all foamy mouth like sick dog. Porra! I run an’ call de neighbor come, an’ they take her to hospital. E’stupid! I shoulda run away an’ leave her e’stay dead, e’stupid cow. But I only a little geer-ool then, maybe seven year old, an’ I don’ wan’ e’stay all alone. Hah! Woulda be better for me! But what de fock I know about all these e’sheet then?”
I looked at her, shaking my head. “How could some ignorant whore like that give birth to someone like you? You’re a a poet, a philosopher, a warrior. I don’t get it, Narcisa. How’d ya turn out so different from th’ rest?”
She got so quiet, I wondered if she’d even heard my question. I left it alone. We strode along the long mosaic boardwalk, the same beachside path we’d walked together that first night, so many years and trials and adventures ago. The sound of the crashing waves seemed to have calmed her, soothing her angry thoughts.
Finally, she spoke again. “You think I learn to read de books how, hein? Como, Cigano? You think de peoples teach it to me? Nada! My e’stupid mother, she don’ even know how to read. I was little baby an’ I go look de symbol on all de thing in de kitchen. An’ then I ask de woman tell it to me, ‘What thing is this, what is that?’ An’ she e’say me, ‘These is de soap, an’ these one is call sugar,’ an’ then I e’say de first word an’ boo! I know how to read! Pronto!”
I scratched my head. Could she have really said her first words and learned to read at the same time? With Narcisa, I knew, anything was possible.
“Simbologia, Cigano!” Her raspy little voice blended with the sounds of the sea and the steady hum of passing traffic. Then she began to laugh again.
“Hah! I learn it just from lookit de symbol, a, b, c, an’ all that. Symbols are word. Word are symbols, Cigano, got it? De word they so importante! They got so much power! These why you must never use de word casually like all de e’stupid clones peoples, for argument, debate, insult, criticize, whatever . . .”
I thought how ironic it was that Narcisa, for all her intuitive wisdom and knowledge of metaphysical law, could never seem to practice what she spoke of.
She sighed. “You know, Cigano, I was borned right in de middle of all de machines an’ noise, bro, nothing but de chaos an’ confusion ever’where! Motor an’ drill an’ electric saw! Fock! After I leave de home, I go an’ live all alone in de mountain with de nature, only de waterfall, wind in de tree an’ de rain, bird singing . . .”
As we trudged along the sand, she kept talking, sharing her bizarre life’s journey with me, detail by detail—all the exotic, multicolored happenings Narcisa remembered with her uncanny photographic memory, describing each thing in a glittering cascade of surreal poetic minutiae. I marveled, once again, at what a mutant, paranormal genius Narcisa could be, if only she hadn’t spent half her life attempting to erase all the trauma attached to her memories; trying to murder as many brain cells as she could.
“Who was it my genitora, hein, Cigano?” She began musing out loud. “Who de fock it is these ugly old man-woman thing they call de mother?”
I realized she hadn’t forgotten my original question, reminding me of the reason for my immense respect for Narcisa, my fascination with the power of her beautiful, terrible mind.
“What these e’stupid woman ever know, hein? What thing she ever really know about? Only de thing what got impose on to her in these e’sheet life. Only what got brainwash inside de woman baby mosquito brain by all de humans e’society she gotta live with! Fock!”
She took a deep breath, then began shouting again, waving her hands in the air, as if her hated parent were standing right in front of her.
“E’stupid cow! She don’ know about nothing! Nada! She nothing but de mind control robot for de big sinister one who she serve, an’ she don’ even
know what de fock she serving! De Je-sooz Church? Hah! De e’stupid preacher e’say to all de peoples, ‘Hey, never mind an’ don’ ask no question! Just go talk to Je-sooz an’ ever’thing gonna be okey, qua qua qua!’ Hah! They all gonna go to heaven inside de big plastic box marked ‘E’STUPID’!”
I laughed, feeling a sudden urge to stop and write down everything she said. But there was no time for that as Narcisa marched forward, like a furious soldier on an exploding minefield of recurring grievances.
“What de fock these e’ ignorant woman ever know about de architecture or de science, de culture, de mathematic, philosophy, de art an’ music or de physics, hein? Only she know what de church leader e’say, de authority peoples of these e’stupid clones peoples world she gotta live in! Fock! What do she even know how to e’say, hein? ‘Oh, hello. Good morning, good afternoon, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, whatever. What do you do? What kind de food do you like? Do you e’study? What kind e’subject do you e’study? What kind de e’sport you like? What is it you futbol team? Where you go de e’school?’ Hah! Porra! What she ever really KNOW, hein? Nada! Porra nenhuma!”
She stopped and stood in the sand, glaring at me with blazing hate in her eyes. I knew it wasn’t for me as she turned and stomped off. I shrugged along behind as Narcisa screeched on beside the waves.
“Hah! De woman just a thirteen-year-old ignorant geer-ool, pregnant like dog with de puppies, an’ now how she gonna raise them? How to survive, hein? What she can teach to de childrens, hein? She gotta go prostitute her fat ass to de ugly old mans for even buy any food for de childrens, an’ then she go e’spend it all on de clothes an’ e’shoe an’ drugs, an’ de childrens gotta e’stay hungry! Fock!”
Like a windup doll running out of power, she grew quiet. Her expression and body language changed, as if she were time-traveling, shape-shifting back into a child. Then she began speaking again, in a soft, whimsical little singsong tone, slipping away into another chamber of memory.
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