Jesus! No!
She looked back over her shoulder at me with that glassy, faraway expression. Then, just as she turned to jump, I ran over and grabbed her by the waist. As I hauled her back inside, Narcisa let out an eerie, blood-chilling howl, like a wounded, tormented ghost.
After she’d calmed down, I asked her why she’d tried to kill herself. She just shrugged, as if she didn’t remember a thing.
Things were getting bad. Worse than ever. Days blurred into nights in a vague, timeless limbo. I swore I could hear the unseen things howling, prowling around the periphery of my awareness. A dark presence of doom was looming over us. I could sense it everywhere. I prayed and prayed, as Narcisa slipped away, deeper into the bottomless pit.
One night, after another long, crazed, sleepless mission, she began glaring at me, cursing under her breath. I looked at her in wonder. Narcisa had become obsessed with the notion that I was a “clone,” an impostor.
When I laughed and assured her I was the same person I’d always been, she ordered me to strip off all my clothes so she could examine my tattoos, one by one.
“You don’ fool me!” She hissed like a viper, grabbing at a weathered old blue-green anchor tattoo on my chest and clawing at my skin till it bled. “These tatuagem no de e’same one was there before! Good try! What you do to him, hein? Where de Cigano?”
My mouth dropped open.
“Is no good you lying to me, cuz I know you de clone, so don’ try even make no more trick on me, got it? Hah! May-be I crazy, but I no so e’stupid like you focking Shadow Peoples think!” She took my face roughly in her hands and peered into my mouth, inspecting my teeth like a horse, counting the gold ones, one by one, insisting they were “fakes.”
Crying out in anguish at the evil spirits, the dreaded Shadow People, she lamented how they’d usurped her Cigano, her faithful caretaker, her friend, her man, leaving nothing but a soulless, robotic “clone” in his place. A spy. A conspirator. An enemy.
And so Narcisa rampaged through her life, a mad, solitary maze of progressive torment and impending doom; always looking for a new tree, another cave, a new refuge to hide from the Curse; going out day after day on her crazed, unholy crack missions, each time convinced it would work out better the next time. It never did. Narcisa was going down fast. I felt so powerless, all I could do was look up at my statue of Ogum and pray. Staring at the comforting, familiar image in silent supplication, tears welled up in my eyes as I recited the Lord’s Prayer under my breath.
Pai Nosso . . .
Narcisa was my twin flame, and hers was burning out fast.
Que estás nos céus . . .
I lit another candle and set it carefully, lovingly at the base of the shrine, praying that my own flame would stay brightly lit.
Santificado seja Vosso nome . . .
Fighting to affirm my own unsteady faith, I prayed she might find the power to overcome the malevolent Curse of her warped, damaged mind.
Vem a nós o Vosso Reino!
I prayed for her to shed her weakness like a straitjacket and rise up from her crippled little empire of ashes, to be made full and healthy and whole again, flaming tall and strong, like a magnificent, triumphant phoenix.
Abrí os caminhos de luz . . . Por favor, Heavenly Father, keep me strong enough to reignite her dying little flickering spark . . . Help me light the way for her to Your loving care and protection, before it’s too late.
But disbelief is more powerful than faith, because, unlike faith, it is reinforced by our cruelest, most primal animal instincts. And in that savage state, Narcisa hated all talk of God. Coming from a long line of Bible-thumping Pentecostal religious fanatics, unconsciously, she was plagued by the primitive, angry religion of her people; all their paranoid, unmentionable fears and greasy superstitions were bullwhipping her down the road to hell. Guilt. Shame. Original sin. Hellfire and eternal damnation. The works.
I’d always despised the so-called born-again Christians. To me, those sanctimonious, hypocritical fundamentalist churches were to faith what whorehouses were to love. Poor Narcisa. I felt so bad for her as I watched her trembling under the unforgiving glare of that cockeyed despot of a man-made, evangelical Christian God she both hated and feared.
“Disastre, disastre, disastre, disastre . . .” She began repeating the same word, “disaster,” over and over under her breath, with a helpless expression of terrified, fervent anguish.
I struggled to hold my tongue. Finally, after ten minutes listening to her repeating that hellish mantra, over and over, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What fuckin’ disaster?” I blurted. “What th’ fuck are ya talkin’ about? Yer whole fucking life’s the disaster! Wake up, Narcisa! Yer sitting around smokin’ crack all day long, fer fuck’s sake, waiting for some big fire-and-brimstone doomsday shit! What th’ fuck? Forget all that shit, man! The disaster’s already happened! Don’t ya get it? It’s you! It’s yer whole fuckin’ world! It’s the crack! Ya gotta stop smoking that shit!”
She sat there in silence, staring at me, too bugged-out to retort or retaliate. Taking advantage of the lull in her usual arrogance, I tried and tried to drive the point home.
“I can see it! The whole fuggin’ world sees it, Narcisa! Only you can’t see! You’re the only one who can’t see what’s happening to ya, cuz that shit has made you blind! Why don’t ya just admit yer beat? What th’ fuck are ya waiting for? Just lemme take ya somewhere! Please, let’s get you some help now, before it’s too fuckin’ late!”
I kept at it, trying to convince her to go into treatment.
I begged and pleaded. “C’mon, baby! Don’t just sit there. Por favor! Say something. We gotta do something! You’re dying here . . .”
Finally, she told me to shut the fuck up.
When I refused to let it go, she jumped up and ran out into the night, crying.
“Shit!” I groaned, stepping into my boots.
It wasn’t safe for her to be on the street alone anymore. Anything could happen with that murderous old stalker creeping around the neighborhood. I knew I’d never forgive myself if the bastard caught up with Narcisa before I did.
With a weary sigh, I put on my jacket and picked up my keys.
69. CUPID GETS A GUN
“LOVE IS A TYRANT SPARING NONE.”
—Corneille
I spotted her a couple of hours later, standing on the corner in front of the paderia. Looking around like a fugitive, babbling to herself, Narcisa was a scrawny, demented, homeless little shadow of herself.
As I sat observing her from a distance, it struck me again just how far gone she was. People were giving her a wide berth, some even crossing the street to get as far away from her as possible. Like animals, they could sense the shadow of Death on her. Narcisa had become a grim public warning; an urban ghost, haunting the streets, reminding passersby of their own fragile mortality.
After a while, she wandered into the store for a pack of cigarettes. I watched as she got in line at the cash register, pulling a ten-spot from her filthy, snot-encrusted jeans. As if sensing a phantom creeping up behind him, an elderly gentleman turned and glanced at her with a startled look, shoving his hand in his pocket, as if she’d managed to somehow extract his cash.
Narcisa picked up on it, like a dog sniffing fear. Glaring at the poor little fellow like a fiery-faced dragon, she started yelling, flecks of spittle flying, waving her crumpled banknote in his face. “Why de fock you looking me, hein? You think I teef it from you these focking money? Hah! E’stupid old e’sheet! I e’spending each day more cash on de droga than you can earn in a whole focking month, got it?”
He didn’t get it. He just stared back in mute bewilderment. I cringed as pedestrians stopped in the doorway to marvel at her latest public outrage.
Shit! Narcisa was hurtling toward the bottom like a stone. Maybe it was a good thing, though, I mused sadly, a blessing in disguise that she was deteriorating so fast now. After all, for someone like her to wa
nt to stop what they’re doing, there’s no other way out but total, rock-bottom, ego-crushing defeat.
Narcisa was a slow-motion train wreck. It was just a matter of time.
After getting her home, another ugly catfight ensued. Objects were broken, clothes torn, tears shed and voices were raised to the heavens in a flying shit-storm of wailing frustration and rage. It all ended in the usual manner: an fiery explosion of desperate, sweaty, hungry sex.
Afterward, she sat beside me on the bed, smoking a cigarette, cool smoke rings hovering above her like tiny halos in the dim, sex-charged air.
“You know, Cigano, is too much ironia . . .” Her face glistened with an exquisite melancholy light. “ . . . For de geer-ool is all like de big bad joke. She e’spend her whole life with de big dream de right man gonna come, you know?”
I nodded like a priest in the shadows of a confessional, waiting to hear all.
“ . . . All de time she make so many big plano . . .” She took a deep drag off her cigarette. “ . . . She make all kinda sexo with so many different mans. But really she only practice for when she gonna meet de one e’special one who all de time she dream about, de one she gonna love with de whole heart. An’ all de time she e’stay dreaming, waiting, dream an’ wait . . .”
Her deep, raw, childlike voice yanked a reluctant tear from my eye as she breathed out a bitter little smoky guffaw, folding her long, slender legs like the crosshairs of some ghetto Cupid’s high-powered assault rifle, taking deadly aim at my heart.
Feeling my throat constrict, I ran my fingers along her firm white skin, cupping her velvet kneecap in my palm. As her hazy words fluttered in the dark like ethereal cobalt butterflies, I had a sudden, powerful feeling that I knew the rest, had already read the script.
“ . . . An’ then one day these person finally come into de girl life . . .” She fixed me with those intense laser-beam eyes, freezing my breath like an ice storm. “ . . . An’ then is all like de fairy tale! Everything perfect, just like all de time she dream about. Now she finally got it, de thing she always wan’ so bad . . .”
As she talked on, the moment seemed to freeze and run back in time, like a recurring movie reel . . . Déjà vu! Like a dream of another life.
“ . . . An’ after all these time waiting, Cigano, now, just when she wanna do everything right, she gotta go an’ do ever’thing wrong!”
Déjà vu! I know this . . . This has all happened before!
“ . . . An’ then you’ find out de truth! An’ de truth she ugly, Cigano! Because de real truth is you can never be happy, with nobody!”
I couldn’t look away. A burning light shone in her eyes, dancing between the fibers of time and space. “ . . . Because is inside of you,” she whispered, “some-thing terrível, some dark companheiro who make it so you always gonna e’stay all alone! Inside, Cigano, got it? You always alone, even when you finally find de one e’special one, got it?”
I got it. I knew all about that dark companion. She was telling the story of my life. I never felt so close to Narcisa. We were birds of a feather. Birds with battered, broken wings. Homeless, hungry, lonely birds. Sad, angry birds. Birds without a flock, without a nest.
“ . . . Because you never can be satisfy, Cigano. Nunca! When is cold an’ raining, an’ you homeless in de e’street, dreaming and wanting for de comfort an’ de companion, then you find de e’special one who gonna give it to you . . .”
That’s it! Somewhere in the back of my soul’s infinite memory, I knew something important was being said. Narcisa was talking about me, about us, about the roots of the Curse itself. A weird electrical current seemed to crackle between her words as I listened, studying her face closely, intently, thirsty for any small clue to her terminal frenzy.
“ . . . An’ when finally you got it, all de thing you always wan’, then, porra, you gotta go an’ fock it all up. Destroy all, so you can go back to be all alone again! Because you wan’ it only de freedom again now, got it? You wan’ de freedom to go e’stay cold an’ hungry, an’ walk all alone on de e’street in de night, looking, wanting, all de time wanting, got it?”
I got it. I got it good. It was me she was talking about! My whole life! The long, restless, endless, hungry, directionless road to nowhere.
“ . . . Because really, you only wanna want, got it? No satisfaction! Nunca! Is all just like de big game, Cigano, an’ then soon you e’start to win, boo! Then you tire of playing. So you gotta go an’ throw it away! Can’ help it! Don’ matter what is it, who is it, got it? Because no thing can satisfy nobody! That’s why I am e’satisfy with nothing, bro, cuz I am really Nobody here, got it?”
Of course, I got it. I always had. Looking at Narcisa, she seemed so sad, so small, so agonizingly disappointed with herself, with her life, her unhappy stay on earth; so disillusioned by the cruel tricks her own weak humanity had played on her.
“Princesa!” I cried out. “You’ve done nothin’ wrong! Nada!”
She folded her arms across her chest and shot me a skeptical look.
“Shit, man, it’s just cuz yer too smart, too sensitive for this fucking world, too good! But that’s why I love you, Narcisa, see?”
She kept staring at me, squinting, as if she was surprised that anyone who’d been tested and tormented, used and shit on and abused as I had could still love the tester, the abuser.
“ . . . Lissen, baby, what would I want with a ‘nice girl’? You’re perfect for me, just the way you are. I just get you, Narcisa, and that’s why I love you . . .”
Even as I said it, I could feel that deep déjà vu premonition again, as if I had just taken some sort of sacred vow, from which there would be no escape.
70. DEATH FROM ABOVE
“I’M GOING TO DIE,” SHE SAID; THEN WAITED AND SAID, “I HATE IT.”
—Ernest Hemingway
The next day, I was fast asleep when Narcisa tapped on the door.
Without a word, I staggered over and let her in.
Breezing in past me, she halted in the middle of the room. She stood there like a statue, staring up at the ceiling fan with a dark look of panic, as if there were a giant guillotine blade there, teetering over her head.
“Turn it out these e’sheet, Cigano!” she hissed in a hoarse, trembling whisper. “Now! Go go go! It gonna fly off an’ cut us off de head, mano!”
“Relax, Narcisa, it’s just a fan. Can’t come loose.”
“Do what I e’saying, Cigano! Por favor! I seen these thing happen one time! Is terrível, belief me! Go an’ turn it out now, go go!”
“What? Where’d ya see that shit?” I laughed.
“No no no no no! Don’ make no more question! They implant de e’secret microchip, for listening all de thing from my head, inside!”
O-kay . . . Can’t argue with that one . . . I went over and switched off the fan. It had been a long, blazing hot summer. Since before Carnaval, I’d been keeping that fan going day and night. It was running my electric bill to Alpha Centauri, but the little apartment was a Turkish bath without it. A week had passed since I’d seen the light of day. Giving in to her promise that it was “just this one time,” I’d let up on the smoking ban. For the next several hours, I sat squirming in discomfort as she smoked and choked her brains out. Sweating in the dark, locked up in that stifling, airless little greenhouse with a babbling psychopath, finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed out.
“C’mon, baby!” I pleaded, mopping the sweat off my face and neck with a damp, clammy hand towel. “Let’s just go for a little walk . . .”
She shot me a look as if I’d suggested we go scuba diving in the toilet.
Desperate for a break, I tried again. “Please, Narcisa. Por favor! We’ll come right back, I promise. I just gotta go out and buy a pack of smokes.”
After I agreed to buy her some more crack along the way, she nodded and rose to her feet as I breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Narcisa seemed to be moving in agonizing slow motion as we went down the
stairs and crossed the street into the plaza. As we stepped into the park, all of a sudden she stopped, feet frozen in the dirt, glaring up into the muggy summer sky.
I turned around and watched her, confused . . . What now?
An anguished, distrustful expression crossed her face, like a storm cloud. Like a nervous dog on an invisible leash, she took a few more timid steps, then crouched down, like a soldier on a blazing battlefield. Then, without a word, she scurried off into the bushes like a lizard. I stood there, baffled, rubbing my chin, staring at the shrubbery, waiting for her to come out.
She didn’t.
Shit! Now what? Nothing to do now, short of following Narcisa into the underbrush, I shuffled over and sat down on a bench. To kill the time, I started reading this old magazine she’d fished out of the garbage can in front of my building. As people strolled past, I plastered a stupid smile on my face and sat there. Time went by. I sat and I sat, waiting, acting casual; trying to breathe in any little meager scraps of everyday life, wanting desperately to appear normal. Stealing guilty little glances around, I leafed through the pages, struggling to look like a regular person, without a care in the world.
Yep! Just a regular, normal, everyday guy, that’s me, just sitting here on a park bench, reading a magazine, waiting for my girlfriend to come slithering out of the fucking bushes! Shit!
After what seemed like a very long while, Narcisa emerged at last. Dried leaves and cobwebs clung to her hair. I stared at her and bit my lower lip to keep from laughing. She slid onto the bench beside me, looking around, peering up in the air with a frantic, paranoid expression. Curious, I glanced into the sky. Vultures were circling high above. Narcisa grabbed my arm and bored into my soul with those big, tragic doomsday eyes. “Pronto! These is it, Cigano!”
“What?”
“De aviso, de last final warning for me! Narcisa finish now!”
I stared back at her, saying nothing, waiting for her to go on.
“Maior urucubaca, porra! Lookit, mano, is de urubu. De buzzard! Lookit now! You see it, Cigano, hein? Is right up there, lookit!”
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