Narcisa

by Jonathan Shaw

  As she waxed nostalgic for her delusional days of glory, I realized Narcisa was so far gone she remembered little of her time in Israel, recounting only a hazy whirlwind of dancing and partying at round-the-clock electronic music raves.

  “All de night they got de big psychedelic trance raver partys over there! Only de young peoples, beautiful peoples an’ so many pretty geer-ool. Ever’thing so-oo cool! Perfect, Max!”

  As she crowed on, I shook my head and grinned at the surreal image of Narcisa, stoned out of her skull in the Holy Land, stumbling along the same ancient paths where Jesus Christ once tread the Way of the Cross.

  Her eyes lit up like a pinball arcade. “I love it de Israel, bro! Is de best place in de whole world! Ever’thing modern an’ clean an’ technological over there, no like these e’stupid e’sheet third-world place! Me an my husband was completely in love, an’ ever’thing was perfect . . .”

  She took another hit and her face darkened. “ . . . But it all change after we go away to de e’stupid New York!”

  “What happened there, Narcisa? I mean, if you were so fuggin’ happy with yer gringo, why’d ya leave him to come back here?”

  She spat. “Fock de New York! Focking e’sheet place! I hate it de americano! E’stupid gringo cow peoples! Mooo-ooo!! Mooo-ooo!!”

  As she ranted on about why all fat-assed Americans should be ground up and made into McDonald’s burgers and fed to the poor people of the world, her words began to reveal the true source of her festering grudge against New York City.

  “ . . . Is these focking place where I e’start first time e’smoke de good crack!”

  I shrugged and asked her how such a self-induced misfortune as crack addiction could be blamed on a whole city.

  “Is all happen because I get so much bore in de e’stupid place! My husband, he no got no more time for take care of me, an’ he don’ give no more attention to me. Only work! Work all de day, only de work! E’stupid focking place! All these e’stupid americano peoples just wanna work all de time. No fun! E’stupid country! Capitalista de merda!! He become de focking Robot Man over there!”

  She sighed with a sad, confused little look. “ . . . Was ever’thing so e’strange . . . Before I go away with him, I think I really know these guy . . . But de peoples very different, I guess, when they on de vacation, you know?”

  I knew. Her Golden Gringo John wasn’t on his fun-filled Copacabana adventure anymore. The party was over for poor, needy Narcisa. As she talked on, I pictured it all going straight to hell for her, the minute the honeymoon ended and her Magic Savior had to go back to work at the firm. Back to a boring nine-to-five schedule at the bank.

  She told me how, for the first months, she’d played along, spending her days holed up in an apartment on Manhattan’s plush Upper East Side, smoking the endless supply of weed that Mr. Gold bought for his pretty little Brazilian pet.

  “ . . . But then de guy family they e’start worry an’ e’say to him I too much disocupada from e’stay all de day alone in de apartmento, an’ I need to go an’ find some other thing for be doing all de day, you know?”

  “So, what did ya do then?”

  “Well, first, I go to de art e’school.”

  “You went to school in New York? Really? How was that?”

  “Fock! Bor-ring! After these e’sheet, I get really bore, an’ I e’say fock it. I go back in de apartment an’ e’stay inside, an’ don’ come out no more. I get ever’thing delivery by phone. I don’ go for months outside, got it?”

  I got it. Narcisa felt abandoned. I could picture her perverse, self-centered mental process slowly poisoning her fairy-tale marriage.

  Her husband had committed a crime so foul, in Narcisa’s trauma-warped perception, as to be punishable by slow, insidious torture. Ample justification for the dreadful Curse she was about to unleash on his unsuspecting gringo ass.

  29. GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

  “HEAVEN HAS NO RAGE LIKE LOVE TO HATRED TURNED, NOR HELL A FURY LIKE A WOMAN SCORNED.”

  —William Congreve

  As Narcisa detailed her stint in New York playing hausfrau to the up-and-coming young banker, I could picture it all. Under the spell of her fast, crooked nihilist-anarchist double-talk and superficial knowledge of Kabbalah, he must have hoped it would all pay off—even if she wasn’t the Nice Jewish Girl his family had hoped for. She was smart and pretty and fun, in a quirky, exotic way.

  “Hah! I donno what de fock these guy thinking ’bout when he wanna get marry to me! He think I gonna conform an’ be de ‘happy camper’ like de e’stupid bourgeois geer-ool? Hah! Fala serio! I am raised by de anarcista punks, bro! Destroy! I don’ give a fock ’bout no e’stupid focking e’stock market!”

  She rambled on in a puzzled little contemplative tone, lamenting to herself, as if I weren’t there. “Caralho! Was ever’thing so e’strange to me! Sometime I don’ know what de fock I doing in these place. Was like de big crazy acid trip. My husband he got de one little cousin, de Jewish americana geer-ool, Long Island geer-ool. Focking sixteen year old an’ she got de new BMW car an’ de Lady Rolex watch an’ big diamond necklace, all these e’sheets from de daddy! Fock! She got even de plastic surgery nose! Putinha babaca! Just de sixteen years old e’stupid little who-ore, mano, an’ she got it all these focking e’spensive thing like de rich madame, an’ I thinking, whoa, what de fock going on here, hein?”

  Narcisa shook her head with a sad little guffaw, then stared off into space. “Hah! All kinda crazy thing I see in America! I never see nothing like these kinda e’sheets before, mano. Porra! Me, I come from de country, got it? Ignorant peoples, poor peoples. In my town, de family don’ even know how to talk, only growl an’ bark like animal. Only thing they wan’ do is get drunk, an’ then go break up their own thing, e’stupid poor people thing, television, radio, whatever, an’ then they even more focking poor. Hah! E’stupid animal peoples. Affff!”

  Narcisa stopped talking and concentrated on her next hit. Then she looked up again, shaking her head, grinning. “After I leave de home, Cigano, when I first come to Rio, I go e’stay de Casa Verde, you know? An’ there was even worst de focking peoples, hah! In de Casa Verde, they only know to e’say, ‘Destroy destroy!’ There, I listen only de urban sound, de broken bottle, police siren, shooting guns, bum bum bum! Musica urbana, got it? My familia here always been de e’squatter peoples, de punks, de whore an’ criminal. Was only these thing I know ever, got it? An’ then, bum! I go de New York City, living in de big luxury building in Upper East Side Manhattan! Fo-ock, bro! Gotta go visit all de museo, Natural History, Modern Art, Guggenheim, whatever, go all de fancy party! Was e’strange for me, you know? De peoples really try to be nice, but I know I never gonna belong . . .”

  Narcisa grew silent again, studying her empty crack pipe.

  “I donno, bro . . .” She shrugged with a sad little smile, “I e’start to feel kinda, kinda sad . . . confusa, you know? Fock, I really try to fit in, Cigano, but I never see nothing like all these thing before! An’ then I just e’start freak out . . .” Her eyes grew sadder. “Lissen these e’sheet. One time, I gone together with my husband an’ his mother, go de Modern Art Museum, an’ I see a guy there, a gringo, de old-time trick from Copacabana, you know? An’ he come over an’ e’say, ‘Hullo, Narcisa! What you doing here in New York?’ My husband mother, she look me an’ e’say, ‘Where you know it from these man, dear?’ Fock, Cigano! What I gonna e’say to these woman, hein? That I know all de mans only from de puteiro, hein? So after these I just go inside an’ e’stay in de house. An’ my husband he gotta go out every day, go de work all de day an’ I just e’stay inside all alone, got it?”

  I got it. Culture shock. Intimidated and overwhelmed by the Big Apple, ashamed of her crude whorehouse roots, Narcisa lost her game. Like a cat in a thunderstorm, she ran for cover, stuck her head in the closet and shut the world out for good.

  Narcisa became a couch potato. She told me how she’d spent months like that, ensconc
ed in a dark flat with the blinds pulled shut. She passed her long, idle days there smoking weed, playing video games and looking at naked little girls on her husband’s fancy new Apple computer, infecting it with every creepy porno virus. She was keeping herself busy, though, as best she could, just waiting for her husband to come home for dinner.

  “Dinner?” I looked at her, surprised. “You cooked?”

  “Fala serio! What cook, Cigano, hein? Of course I don’ cooking. What you think? You know I hate de focking food, mano!”

  That made sense. Narcisa wouldn’t know a fucking pot from a pan. And I knew she wouldn’t want to get her hands dirty to dish out supper for any Man named John with enough Gold to take her to the finest eateries in New York City.

  She scrunched up her nose with a look of profound disgust. “Only time I ever go out from these place anymore only for go eat! Eat eat eat! Afff! All de time he wanna go de e’spensive restaurant with de daddy credit card! ‘Gotta go eat!’ Hah! Fock! Every day de guy e’spend so much on de food, porra, more money than a whole year my mother make for clean up people house, de guy he e’spend it for one focking dinner! An’ de food still taste like e’sheet! Gringo don’ know how to cook, mano. I e’say de e’stupid waiter, ‘Hey you, garcom! Take these e’sheet back in de kitchen an’ tell you e’stupid cozinheiro learn how to cook de focking steak, mermão, go! These e’sheet is raw! I look like de dog? Woo woo! No? Okey, pronto! I no gonna eat it de raw meats then, got it?’”

  I chuckled, picturing her genteel gringo husband cringing in horror as she raised hell at his trendy watering holes. What an image! Narcisa in New York! An earthly nightmare of confusion for the poor, enigmatic country girl with trembling acid visions and shadow demons flashing behind those crazed, bulging eyeballs.

  Eventually, she grew restless again. Bored with the lazy pothead housewife routine, consumed with cabin fever and desperate for action, one fine day Narcisa summoned the courage to venture beyond the corner deli. She took the subway all the way downtown to meet her husband after work.

  She got sidetracked, though, and never showed up on Wall Street.

  Narcisa grinned, her eyes glowing like a Bowery bum’s trash fire. “I take de wrong exit, bro, an’ I get out from the metro on de Union Square e’station. Fock! In these praça, I meet all de Rasta peoples, an’ they give me de good strong maconha, Jamaica-style ganja. Hah! Perfect, Max! After then I go back ever’day an’ e’smoke with all de freak peoples. Better than sit all de day inside de empty apartment. Better than e’stupid museum an’ de boring art school, got it?”

  I got it. Water always finds its own level. Even in the gutter.

  Narcisa had stumbled into a Brave New Underworld, peopled with punks, poets, dreamers, schemers, lowbrow scammers, sidewalk screamers, druggies and winos, street people, junkies, runaways, hustlers, whores and lost, jittery, pissed-off malcontents, just like herself . . . Just like Home Sweet Hovel at the Casa Verde!

  Perfect, Max!

  After that, she was never waiting on the sofa anymore when Mr. Gold got home from the bank.

  “What de fock he e’spect, if he gonna left me all alone in de e’stupid apartment all de day, hein? Fock that! I am de young girl, Cigano! Wild girl, crazy geer-ool, got it? I no gonna sit around all de life an’ wait some focking guy come home, an’ then he wan’ only go eat an’ tell me all about de boring day in de e’stupid bank! Porra! Bor-ing! Fock these e’sheet, got it?”

  I got it. Girls just wanna have fun.

  30. UP IN SMOKE

  “TO PURSUE THE AMERICAN DREAM IS NOT ONLY FUTILE BUT SELF-DESTRUCTIVE, BECAUSE ULTIMATELY IT DESTROYS EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE.”

  —Hubert Selby Jr.

  Narcisa kept talking, spitting out her mad, crucial accounts. Like a prolonged ritualistic, lucid anxiety attack, her voice rose and fell with dramatic cadence late into the night.

  Running amok in the streets of New York, Narcisa would go missing for days on end. At his wit’s end, her hapless husband finally used the family’s “Secret Jew Connections” to get her a job; something to keep her busy and out of mischief while he was off at work, struggling to bring home the bagels.

  A friend of the Gold family, another Israeli, owned a chic SoHo tanning salon, where Narcisa became gainfully employed as an “Airbrush Girl.”

  As night blurred into another misty morning, I sat, spellbound, listening to her breathless, delirious tales. Between fucks, smoking crack and weed, Narcisa chattered away in a surreal torrent of imagery. Ensconced in the dark bunker of my little apartment, she was an actress in a starring role, wowing her adoring audience of one from the stage of my sofa.

  Narcisa’s big New York work adventure consisted of “tanning” teenage fashion models’ perfect bodies with an airbrush. High as a satellite orbiting Alpha Centauri, she described her “erotic” new career in wide-eyed, blow-by-blow detail.

  “Hah! They really love de Narcisa on that place, Cigano! Is because I am de real artista, got it? I make all de peoples look beautiful, e’same like de Narcisa! An’ they all de time calling to me come to an’ work de extra hour!”

  Obsessed with her new art-form, Narcisa shot to the top of the pecking order of airbrush girls.

  Crowing, smirking, she went on. “I always choose it de cliente, bro! Hah! I only make de paint to de most pretty girl! Young girl, top fashion model geer-ool! Always I pick de client to work on. Nobody get de airbrush job from de Narcisa if I don’ like de way you look, got it? Hah! Perfect, Max! Next?”

  Even under such ideal, ego-feeding circumstances, it was hard to imagine Narcisa showing up at a job every day, having to keep regular hours and maintain a normal work schedule. But according to her, she did. And she did so well at it, soon she was making thousands of dollars a week in fast-folding cash.

  “Sometime de fancy gringo lady give it to me de whole hundred-dollar tips, Cigano! Hah! These focking peoples got too much money! So many time I make de paint for de big famous peoples, an’ I don’ know who is it, don’ give a fock! All de other airbrush-girl come an’ e’say me, ‘Hey, Narcisa! You know who is these gee-rool you just make de paint to? These one so an’ so, de famous movie star, or top model cover geer-ool, de Kate Moss, de Christy Whatever, bla bla.’ But me, I never give e’sheet, got it? To me is only one more perfect body. These de only thing I give a e’sheet for, no de name or de title, got it? Only de pretty young geer-ool body, an’ then just gimme de money, bro! Hah! Thank you come again! Next?”

  To hear Narcisa tell it, she’d become some kind of superstar airbrush artist by the time she finally grew bored with the daily grind.

  “Fock, I donno what even to do with so much money, got it? One day I just get de fock out an’ don’ go back no more! Out! Go!”

  With all that cash burning a hole in her hot little hand, Narcisa was right back out on the downtown scene; a scene that would lead her straight into the wonderful world of crack cocaine.

  As she began the grim metamorphosis from Mrs. Gold to Mrs. Crack Monster, her unsuspecting husband became the first casualty. Narcisa hauled out the big guns from her native arsenal of seduction, emotional blackmail, manipulation, flawless debate, maudlin self-pity and expert mind control. There were bogus and even real suicide attempts, followed by death threats and extortion.

  Beaming with pride, Narcisa described how, in a matter of weeks, she bled him of all available funds, before plucking their happy home clean of all valuables while he was off at work, struggling to keep their floundering American Dream Cruise afloat.

  Narcisa would come home at all hours of the night, demanding money from her sleepy, overworked, browbeaten victim. It was a losing battle as she punished the gringo with increasing savagery. Finally, he realized that the faster he bailed water from the sinking Love Boat, the quicker it poured in through gaping new holes popping up everywhere. Ever-larger amounts of cash were needed to feed the hungry gang of demonic entities growing and multiplying behind the harsh Nazi Death Camp searchlights of her crack-a
ddled, bugged-out eyeballs.

  Oh shit! Look out! Here it comes! Hitler Youth on Crack!

  It was a mini-Holocaust. Without the slightest remorse, Narcisa giggled, bragging of how she’d disappear for days, running wild in the vermin-infested low-income housing projects of Brooklyn, Queens and Spanish Harlem—one time even turning up dazed and confused, tripping her eyes out on some bad ghetto acid in Las Vegas, where a high-rolling Puerto Rican drug dealer had grown tired of her shit and left her stranded in the middle of a sprawling, glittering casino.

  “What did ya do then?” I chuckled, picturing Narcisa in Las Vegas, lost in a psychedelic reptilian feeding frenzy; a whirling, flashing pinball machine vortex of apocalyptic Fear and Loathing.

  She told me she’d just called Mr. Gold collect, demanding passage home. He’d sent her a one-way ticket—which she cashed in and converted to Las Vegas crack, eventually hitchhiking back through a swirling whirlwind of wild new On the Road misadventures . . . Perfect, Max!

  Back in the Big Apple, Narcisa dove right down into its rotten core again, running the gritty streets and blighted ghetto housing projects of Harlem and the Bronx, till she ended up in the crack-ravaged black ghetto of Bedford-Stuyvesant.

  “Porra! I was de only white peoples in these whole focking place! Only de criolo there, Cigano, an’ all them all de time e’saying, ‘What de fock you doing here, Brazil?’ These what ever’body call me there, just ‘Brazil’ cuz nobody can even pronounce my name, e’stupid gringo! An’ all de time they e’say to me, ‘Hey you, Brazil! You better get back outa here, focking white gee-rool!’ Porra! White, black, what de focking difference, hein? These why I hate de americano, Cigano! These e’stupid peoples all big focking racista. So I e’say, ‘Fock you, I don’ gotta do what you tell me, e’stupid!’ An’ I e’stay in de Bed-Stuy ever’day an’ e’smoke de best, most e’strongest crack there, got it?”