To add to my mounting jealousy and stress, Carnaval was approaching like a cackling demon train from hell. The drums had been pounding all over town for weeks now.
I looked around, taking it all in, hating everything.
The whole fucking city’s already swarming with pink-faced gringo sex tourists with their bulging gringo wallets . . . Fuck! They’re coming in from the four corners of hell now . . . It’ll be a fucking heyday for Narcisa this week, if she even survives it! Carnaval! Shit! Five full days of demented, mindless, directionless, godless, piss-guzzling Roman debauchery!
If I don’t get her off the streets soon, she’s a goner!
Right then, it hit me. I was going to have to make sure Narcisa never ran out of crack again. I was caught like a fly in her greasy sex web. Sitting there, I could hear her voice echoing in my brain, whining, pleading, cajoling, threatening.
“Cigano, I need mo-ore money. Why you so focking cheap, cara? I gotta go e’spend de whole night with some e’stupid fat old gringo trick again. An’ is all you fault, ’cause you don’ wanna take care of me! How these make you fee-el, hein? What kinda man make his geer-ool-frien’ go out an’ suffer all de day these kinda e’sheet life, hein?”
It was a losing battle. Sick with love-lust for Narcisa, Cupid was a greedy, blackhearted cosmic pimp, having his strong-arm way with my soul.
36. DARK CARNAVAL
“LOVE DEMANDS ALL, AND HAS A RIGHT TO ALL.”
—Ludwig von Beethoven
Journal entry: Carnaval—Monday—The streets were littered with mobs of somnambulant jaywalkers tonight. Fucking zombies. I don’t know if they were just drunk or so burnt-out they’d been drained of all will to live. After four days of nonstop partying, they wandered around like stray chickens, staggering right into the road. Everyday people, letting their demons out to play, their shuffling, stupefied demeanor said it all: “Just kill us, g’wan, we don’t care. We just wanna lie down somewhere, anywhere. The gutter, the hospital, the morgue, whatever.”
I looked up and down the street, hating the whole distasteful mess.
Carnaval. Shit. Strange deal, this shit-brained, monkey-fart of a holiday. I guess people just aren’t meant to have a whole straight week of nonstop license, with nothing to do but jerk off and party and drink themselves stupid. Idle masses, as far as the eye can see, hovering, milling around, drinking, shuffling back and forth, to and fro, bleating like diseased sheep, jumping up and down like worn-out, raggedy old circus chimps and sick, mangy dancing bears, twirling around and around in befuddled little circles of shit.
My eyes wandered to the bar. Up on the TV screen, another Carnaval; a distant fantasy parade of perfect coffee-skinned dervishes, gyrating away under twenty-foot statues of naked African warriors, shaking supernatural television hips to the breaking point atop gigantic trembling floats, paid for with drug-dealing mafia blood money. Everything looked so perfect onscreen, pulsing to an unnatural rhythm of glittery, sweaty TV life, a shimmery kaleidoscope of sequined, flashing color, motion and music; a swirling parallel dimension of toothy smiles and sparkly eyes, cheery televised faces, laughing amid explosions of pounding, apocalyptic drumbeats and color; singing, dancing, waving hands in the air. Familiar faces of mailmen and maids, the hardworking wage slaves of my city, peeking like cartoon mice through little cracks in a clammy blanket of crappy mundane concerns, not thinking, just for that one sweaty, beer-soaked little moment, about all their bills and infirmities, their miserable lives of slavery, violence, poverty and decay.
Looking back at the real Carnaval on the street, I shuddered with revulsion as a foul epiphany struck me in the heart: these fuckers really need to be caged up in factories and offices. Take that away for five whole days, and they degenerate into these unruly destructive savages, slithering through the gutter like demented, deranged reptilian vomit-monsters. The horror! Left to their own devices, people will just dive straight into the toilet every time, like deviant, overfed, masturbating monkeys, wallowing in the sequined, drunken, glittery glory of their own filth!
I paced the streets, mingling with the delirious hordes, watching the revelers staggering, scrambling, stumbling around, babbling, stuttering, stammering in a dull-witted, incoherent language of the damned, like packs of giant rats crawling around an overturned trash can.
People. Pathetic shit-eating vermin! Rats!
Then it hit me. No! That’s an insult to rats! Rats don’t neglect and abuse and torture and abandon their offspring. They just eat them when there’s too many to feed. People keep making babies and throwing ’em away. Cranking out their sad little meat puppets and throwing ’em away. Popping out the Meat. And the streets are teeming with the Meat tonight. Rotting meat. Reeking of futility. Idle hands. Idle minds. And now they’re all partied-out, wasted, bored to stupidity. Shit.
Carnaval—Late Monday night. Fat Tuesday morning. Last day of this long, demented shit-fest. Thank Christ it’s almost over now. Two hours to sunrise, and the boozy night air is still humming with these stupid, drunken, degenerate cockroach crowds. Insect-people, stumbling around like stunned mosquitoes, gorged with booze and debauchery. Dizzy, lazy, intoxicated, burnt-out. They’re just about ready to drop. I can feel it. And my tragic, mad-eyed crack baby’s still holed up in there, locked away in her musty little tomb. God help us!
Restless and edgy, finally, I couldn’t take anymore. I stomped into the shabby little hotel lobby. In a hazy corner, a fat man with holes in his socks sat slumped in a chair, sleeping, with a newspaper over his face. My eyes pleaded with the weary-looking old Arab lady at the desk as I asked her to go up and please tell Narcisa I was there, still waiting. She gave me a wry look, then shrugged off down the hall.
A few minutes later, Narcisa appeared, looking gray and disheveled.
“Whassup, Narcisa? You pissed-off at me or something?”
“Of course I no pe-eess off! Why you e’say it to me these thing, Cigano?”
“Well, I came by twice today, and you never came down . . .”
“Arrhhhh, well . . . you know.” That precious shifty little-girl grin.
She’s been up there smoking all day again . . . Musta hooked another gringo to get the cash for all that crack . . . Carnaval . . . Shit . . . They’re still swarming all over the place out there . . . Fucking gringos . . . Fucking Carnaval . . . Shit.
“So what’s the plan, baby?” I looked in her eyes. “Whaddya wanna do?”
“I wan’ it, you know, some money . . . for some more little thing to e’smoke . . .”
The little girl who ate all the cookies . . . I nodded. At least I had some cash again. One good thing about drunken gadjis and gringos in a big, milling, stupefied crowd. And little Ignácio still had his old pocket-fishing skills . . . Perfect, Max!
“Okay.” I stared at her, lost in her eyes, her smell, the need to hold her, to fuck her. “I’ll take ya up to cop . . . But first, well, you know what I want.”
She smiled back.
“Porra, Narcisa!” I took hold of her arm as we stepped out onto the street. “I’m really hooked on you. It’s getting bad, just like a drug.”
“I am de only drug, ya-ass.” She nodded. “I am de e’same thing you feel when you take de first drink, bro, when you e’smell it first time de cocaina.”
I took a deep breath. “Let’s go then?”
She nodded again with that guilty, crooked little-girl grin as I started the bike. She jumped on behind me and held on tight as we blasted off through the stupid mob of aimless, milling, bleating revelers. Swept away.
Riding along the dark streets, I ran my free hand up and down her leg, in awe at the force of my own obsession. “Fuck! I’m strung out on you, princesa. Just like you on that crack.”
“Narcisa de only droga for you now, Cigano, hein?” She gave the roaming hand a meaningful little squeeze. She knew.
I smiled . . . Fuck the world . . . Twin Flames . . . Burning fast . . . Go go go!
After another long, crucial
workout in Cupid’s Gymnasium, I dropped her off at the Love House. I watched in awed admiration as she vaulted off the back of the bike and trotted away, like a healthy young mountain goat.
I called out behind her. “Hey, Narcisa, ya forgot something!”
She stopped.
“Come back here and kiss yer man goodbye, ya rude little cunt!”
With an expression of tragicomic sorrow, she turned around and looked me in the eyes. Right then, that heartbreaking look weaved itself into the fabric of my soul. Beaming with love, I stared at her beautiful, evil, porcelain baby-doll face.
She drifted up and I hugged her close. I could feel her heart beating against my chest like a dying monkey. I was choking on some deep, twisted tangle of errant emotions; feelings I didn’t care to know or remember or understand.
I heard myself whispering. “I love you, Narcisa.”
“Don’ give up on me, Cigano . . .”
“I’ll never give up, amor . . . But I gotta go now. Just be careful. Por favor.”
I knew she had a date with a deadly, soul-sucking, parasitic entity.
The Crack Monster was far more powerful and persuasive than even our twisted, mangled, unbreakable bond. And I couldn’t stick around for that scene.
At least I still thought not.
The next night, though, I was back, standing outside her window again, waiting, longing, wanting. The smell of Narcisa haunted my thoughts. I could almost hear the sound of her ghostly moans as we fucked and fucked, rocking back and forth, like some insane, malevolent rocking horse, digging a plodding hole to hell.
I stared up at her darkened window, wondering, watching, thinking; as if the sordid little drama going on behind those crooked old wooden shutters might somehow reveal the secret to life. Maybe it would, at least for me in my own little corner of the Abyss.
I hung around until way past midnight, wondering if she’d survive these final hours of Carnaval, or if this would be the night when her heart would finally freeze up and stop like a rusty old broken-down lawn mower.
God help us, help me . . . Meu Pai Ogum, me ajuda, por favor! I need your help!
As I prayed, Narcisa’s last words to me rang in my ear, echoing and zinging like the overpowering, debilitating buzz of a good, strong hit of crack.
“Don’ give up on me, Cigano . . . Don’ give up . . . Don’ give up . . .”
I knew right then I wouldn’t give up.
Not then. Not ever.
I realized I’d do anything now to get her off those goddamned slobbering streets.
I got on the bike and tore off into the night, looking for cash.
This time, I knew just where to get it.
37. THE PUSSY ARCADE
“SEDUCING A WOMAN YOU DON’T KNOW, FUCKING HER, HAS BECOME A SOURCE OF IRRITATIONS AND PROBLEMS, [ . . . ] ALL THE TEDIOUS CONVERSATIONS [ . . . ] TO GET A CHICK INTO THE SACK, ONLY TO FIND OUT [ . . . ] SHE’S A SECOND-RATE FUCK WHO BORES THE SHIT OUT OF YOU WITH HER PROBLEMS AND TRIVIAL OPINIONS, LIKES AND DISLIKES [ . . . ] IT’S EASY TO SEE WHY MEN MIGHT PREFER TO SAVE THEMSELVES THE TROUBLE BY PAYING A SMALL FEE.”
—Michel Houellebecq
Journal entry: Carnaval. Fat Tuesday. After Midnight. Looks like they’ve yanked open the gates of hell down by the Prado Júnior. The Pussy Arcade.
Coked-up gangs of funny-faced whores, all standing ready to face the ashy dawn, like grim, determined warrior ants of the apocalypse. They’re all out for the last night of Carnaval, huddled together in protective little whore-gaggles, waiting for the next car to roll up, the next boring exchange of futile ho-stroll banalities.
Gringo tourists, businessmen, the odd lonesome neighborhood playboy, a few henpecked husbands hopping the conjugal fence for one last boozy night out. The usual, predictable, end-of-season ho-stroll lineup.
A hot wind blows in across the water from Mother Africa, the full moon lighting up my mind like a pinball machine, and it’s on.
I cruise up and park, taking it all in like an old, familiar dreamscape. Same old dejected faces of eternal disappointment, and that odd little glimmer of innocent, heroic optimism. All eyes alive, flashing like searchlights, looking for the big, last-minute Carnaval score: the legendary Hundred-Dollar Gringo Trick.
The competition is thick as pissed-in pizza dough here, ten or twenty young whores for every swinging dick, and plenty more where they come from, packed like showroom dummies into cramped little one-room Copacabana backstreet flats reeking of transvestite piss and garlic, stale beer and weed smoke; howling babies, funk music, angry shouts and the occasional small-caliber gunshot from down the hall.
The lucky ones emerge from the disco bar, hand in hand with their gringos; sleek, muscular, well-tanned Italian boys in tight designer jeans and crisply pressed, colorful shirts, or the typical balding, sloppy, sunburned americanos. As they step out onto the sidewalk, they’re bombarded by an army of beggars and pushers, hollow-faced flower peddlers, strong-arm taxi drivers, pimps, killers, hustlers, shakedown cops, bandidos and glassy-eyed, glue-sniffing eight-year-old wallet-snatchers.
I kick back on the bike, light a cigarette and sit watching the action.
The Pussy Arcade.
Got a ringside seat for the grim festivities from my crow’s nest perch.
Watching the freak show flesh-parade of lost souls, an idea pops into my brain, like a cartoon lightbulb.
I fire up the motor and roll off down the twinkling yellow Avenida Atlantica, stopping in front of the Holiday Bar, the old whorehouse where I finally found Narcisa again.
Now it all seems like another lifetime.
I park and get off, already feeling disgusted with the tired-out scene; same stale old loveless mating rituals. Gringos and whores. Whores and gringos. American and European sex tourists. Lonesome, horny refugees from the frigid puritan wastelands of the North, where sex is a virtual video game played by solitary, middle-aged white men on glowing computer screens—a pathetic perversion of the real world. But this is another kind of perversion. Little Ignácio’s real world. In living color, sight, sound, smell, touch, memory.
Gringos, cabdrivers, cops and muggers, pimps, pushers and whores. Dozens of whores, with their worn-out plastic heels, shitty tattoos and saggy-flapjack-baby-sucked breasts, the same old nondescript, misshapen creatures clustering around in the late-night shadows, like gangs of hungry rats, milling around in ravenous, giggling rodent droves. Faceless, graceless, loud-mouthed, razor-sharp hustle-bitches, straight out of the teeming, dirt-poor whore-factories, the dusty, godforsaken slums of the Baixada. Cold-hearted, predatory pussy, eyeing the nervous little clumps of gringos, like slobbering jackals circling a henhouse.
The tricks are all tricked out in their crisp white linen suit jackets, Panama hats, and gringo party wear, ready for their big Copacabana Carnaval Adventure. The same stupid, faceless foreigners who kept little Ignácio in food and clothing, drugs, lodging and whores, back in another time, another life, another dream.
Easy enough to spot the cokeheads in this crowd. Always was. The punters stand out like donkeys at a horse race down here. Shit, I should’ve been a shakedown cop. Just keep an eye on the men’s room and watch for the gringo coming out rubbing his nose with that guilty little “just did a bump” look on his pasty pink gringo mug.
Easy pickings down here, as usual.
Same old whores. Same old gringos. Same old hustle. Same old shit.
Some things never change.
I spotted Fernanda standing on the far edge of the ho-stroll.
Dressed for business in a denim miniskirt and knee-high brown leather fuck boots, my little friend was looking pretty good, as always.
Her face lit up in fond recognition as she slid up beside me like a shaggy cartoon ghost, greeting me with a quick hug and a humid little peck on each cheek.
Fernanda knew the score, and was always down for whatever. And she knew how to dress. I always liked that. The attractive, aging, hard-drinking paulistana was a talkative, anorexi
c little lifer with a mouthful of razor-sharp doomsday humor, a good-natured, seasoned veterana. We’d had some fun times together when Narcisa was away. Long, easygoing bullshit sessions sitting out on the predawn pista on slow winter nights; nothing to do but talk shit and wait for the dawn. I’d hang out on the corner with her, buying her shots of cachaça and feeding her cigarettes while she leaned on my bike, entertaining me with local whorehouse escapades in her hilarious, world-weary paulista drawl.
Fernanda had a few regular gringos, and she always kept her ear to the ground as she drank away the long, steamy summer nights at her regular street corner post, forever waiting for the big payoff, which never seemed to come for her.
Not being big on the brizola, whenever a john wanted to score some blow, she’d toss the business to the roving coke-running cabbies patrolling the night like sharks; a tip to the friendly drivers who set her up with high-rolling gringos at the expensive beachfront hotels.
She stayed at this cheap little rooming house over in my neighborhood. Sometimes I’d give her a ride home at the end of the night if she didn’t score a trick. More often than not, she’d reach over and give my crotch an affectionate grope halfway there. I’d take her back to my place and she’d stay over for a few drinks and some company, rather than limping home all alone in defeat.
Fernanda liked my little crib. She called it “the doll’s house.”
She liked me, and I liked her, but that’s as far as it went. We were friends. And she knew all about my hopeless love for an apocalyptic phantom named Narcisa.
Taking her by the arm, I led her over to a street corner booze vendor and bought her a double shot of pinga. She powered it down in one quick, professional gulp, flashing me a grateful smile that lit up the night.
I grinned back, putting my hand on her delicate shoulder. “Lissen, ’Nanda.” I leaned in, whispering in her ear. “I gotta start making some quick cash around here . . . Ya know any gringos who wanna score some blow?”
Narcisa Page 18