Narcisa, like any good gypsy, had lived her whole life on the road. And, like me, she had all these little stashes of clothes and books and gewgaws stored all over the place. Watching her rummaging through her stuff, like an archeologist opening the Mummy’s Tomb, I could relate. I still had things of my own stashed with people all over the world.
As we walked back to the bike, I noticed a ratty-looking hairball of an old, decrepit bum shuffling up the street toward us. In painful slow motion, he limped forward, staggering under the unbearable weight of the sky.
Thinking he was going to ask for change, I reached in my pocket for some coins. As he drew closer, though, I realized he was only in his early twenties, maybe even younger . . . Woah! This poor guy’s tore up from the fucking floor up . . . Musta been a rough night!
As he made his excruciating approach, I winced. His was not an easy face to look upon. Sporting two black eyes, a crusty, freshly broken nose and other nasty contusions and abrasions, he was covered in dried blood and filth.
Suddenly Narcisa dropped her bag and strode right up to him.
With a split lip and bloody, broken brown teeth, her old friend contorted his mouth into a brave little smile, squinting into the sunlight. “Long time no see, Narcisa.”
She frowned. “What de fock they do to you now, hein?”
“What I done to myself is more like it . . . You know, the usual shit.”
She grinned, shaking her head. “Yeh, well, take care you-self, bro . . .”
“Yeah, you too, Narcisa . . .”
That was it. He shuffled off down the street.
She got back on the bike and we rode off.
Rolling on through town, Narcisa told me the guy was one of her original gang of teenage stoners, kids she’d grown up with running the streets there before she’d taken off to Rio.
“He look pretty fock up now, Cigano, but he one of de few most lucky one . . .” She let out a bitter little guffaw.
“Whaddya mean?” I grimaced. “Guy didn’t look any too lucky to me.”
“Yah, well he more luckier than most de peoples I know here, bro. He still alive. Hah! Ever’body else I know in these focking place dead or prison, Cigano. All de peoples I grow up with was de drugs addict, e’same like me.”
“Everybody?”
Narcisa chuckled. “Ever focking body, brother! Hah! From de time we was just little childrens here, we all just wanna be high all de time. We use to wait de big truck come e’spray poison for de mosquito, an’ we all go run behind for inhale de chemical an’ get de buzz, ha ha!”
Riding along past all her familiar old haunts, Narcisa kept chattering in my ear, reminiscing out loud, with dark, humorous bravado. “Hah! First time I take de real drug, Cigano, I was only five year old!”
“Ya got loaded when you were five? How? On what?”
“Poisé, mermão! I chew up de whole bottle of de diazepam from my mother drawer. Hah! I get so-oo fock up, bro, they gotta take me to de hospital for get my stomach suck out. But I know from very first time I like it, got it? Hah!”
She giggled like a kid, reveling in the memories. “Lissen these! When I e’stone like that, a mosquito come an’ sit on my hand, but I only look him, cuz I too fock up for even kill these little animal, got it? I sit an’ watch he e’stick de little needle in de e’skin for drink my blood, an’ then, boo! His little leg go all soft an’ then he fall over an’ dead, bro! Fock! Overdose! Hah! I e’say, wooooo-woooo! Perfect, Max! Hah! Thank you come again! Next?”
I laughed. Narcisa’s cheerful mood was contagious. Things were hopeful. Confession being good for the soul, getting out of Rio seemed to be doing her much good already.
Slapping me on the back, she kept talking. “Lissen these e’sheet, Cigano! When I was twelve year old, I go e’smoke all de time in de favela over here with my friend, guy name Ricardo, sixteen-year-old boy, he always got it de best drug cuz he work for de local gang, got it? One time I gone up in de favela with him, an’ then de other gang come in for invade de boca, e’same like de Rio, shooting guns, bum bum bum! Fock! One bullet pass right by my head, so close she lift my hair up an’ I feel de hot on my ear, wssshh! My friend jump up in front of me to shoot, an’ then pim! De whole top of he head come off! Caralho! I got de guy brain all on my face! So-oo much blood ever’where! Porra!”
I made the sign of the cross as Narcisa grew quiet.
We rode along in silence for a while, following a wide brown river.
“These always been my reality, hein, Cigano.” She sighed as I maneuvered across a clattery old wooden bridge. “Ever’body I know here long time dead. All but me! An’ I always e’stay thinking, ‘Why only me, hein?’”
Why indeed? Again, I was reminded of my own twisted, bloody roots. Like Narcisa, I had a whole lot of friends on the other side.
Our next stop was her grandmother’s place, on the outskirts of town.
A world of birds sang from a big, looming shade tree as I pulled up to a humble little one-story house on a sleepy backstreet. Narcisa hopped off the bike and marched right in, as if she were coming from around the corner, rather than years of mysterious absence.
Snatching a banana from a wicker basket on an ancient wooden table, she devoured it in two quick bites. I stood in the doorway, watching with amusement as she paced in hyperactive circles around the shadowy space, exchanging monosyllabic monkey grunts with a gray, faceless old woman.
It all seemed strange. I couldn’t imagine Narcisa even having a grandmother—as if she’d just been hatched and slithered out from under a rock or something. The haggard-looking crow talked over her shoulder as she washed some dishes. Narcisa didn’t bother introducing me, of course, as I lingered in the doorway, neither in nor out. The woman didn’t even glance in my direction as I stood there like a statue, waiting for the awkward visit to end.
After a few minutes, Narcisa grinned and pulled me outside by the arm, and that was it . . . Thank you come again! Next? It was all a familiar fucked-up family routine.
Motoring through the neat little provincial city’s center, she unloaded a rambling narrative into my ear. “I am infamo in these e’stupid town, Cigano. Notorious! That’s me.” Her hot breath on my neck gave me a quick chill. “Hah! I use to torment ever’body in these e’sheet place. Is only e’stupid clones peoples here, you know?”
Chattering on nonstop, Narcisa pointed the way along the rough cobblestones. “Hah! Well, now I am back!” She spun around behind me, hurling gleeful insults at some astonished pedestrians standing on a corner. “Got it, you e’stupid focking monkey-face clone peoples? Hah! Now you got it!”
“God help th’ poor bastards, baby!” I laughed, running my hand over her knee as we rolled along the quiet, tree-lined streets.
Narcisa was approaching her first full day of abstinence. I grinned with satisfaction. She was really doing it! A whole twenty-four hours off drugs! Fifteen minutes later, we were riding along the base of a towering granite mountain range, arriving at last in the quiet country village of Penedo.
We checked into a charming rustic chalet beside a babbling stream, then went for a stroll through the empty streets of the placid off-season resort. The night was cool and smelled of wet earth, pinecones, wood smoke and the vast, insect-twittering jungles beyond.
We went into a cozy wood-paneled inn, sat at a big wooden table and ordered some steaks. While we waited for the food, Narcisa led me across the street to a little Finnish sorveteria. Dessert always preceded a meal for Narcisa. Just because. We stuffed ourselves on ice cream; every sticky candy-coated gummy bear topping on hers.
Then we went back over to the restaurant for a real sit-down country dinner. There were candlelight and linen napkins, a crackling fireplace, the works. We sat talking in low, intimate tones, looking for all the world like a normal little honeymoon couple. And Narcisa was eating! It was astounding. She was even making plans.
Tomorrow, she declared, we’d go up the mountain to visit the magical waterfalls a
nd all her special, sacred places; a mystical world where she’d spent an enchanted childhood surrounded by fairies and high spirits of the Intergalactic Ashtar Command, benevolent psychedelic visions and positive vibrations. That’s how it had all been, she reminisced, back in the beginning, before all the violence and madness and chaos of the Curse.
As she chattered on, I smiled; Narcisa was coming home at last, to reclaim her innocence, her goodness, her youth. And she was sharing it all with me! Life was good!
Finishing our meal, we sat quietly, sharing a cigarette and coffee. After a while, she told me she wanted to score a dime bag of weed.
I gave her a look. “Are you serious?”
No big deal, she assured me, just a “little something to take the edge off,” so she could get some rest. The way she put it, it sounded okay . . . Sorta . . . Maybe not the best plan in the world, but whatever . . . Just to hear her talking of sleep . . . What harm can a few joints do?
I fired up the bike and we rode off into the cool, crisp night air.
Passing through Resende again, she directed me along the placid, tree-lined streets of humble dwellings and little corner stores. As we came to the outskirts, the scenery began to change. The commerce became sparse, the streetlights disappeared, the houses thinned out, and then it was all dirt roads, crooked clotheslines and garbage-strewn, dusty, dark, winding ghetto paths. Everywhere I looked were decrepit, run-down hovels, muddy dead-end pathways and miserable dead-end lives. Favelas. We rode on, past block upon block of creeping, septic slums; a crazy quilt of sorrowful little tin-roofed shacks, constructed of wooden crates and discarded cardboard political posters, the smiling, well-groomed faces graffittied with mustaches, vampire teeth and devil horns.
As I slowed for a big pothole, a motorbike with two skinny teenage riders passed. The pilot flashed a casual thumbs-up. Narcisa returned the gesture. They seemed to know each other. As the bike sped ahead, I saw a small black Uzi dangling from the passenger’s shirtless back.
We came to a little dirt clearing. She told me to stop and wait for her. Snatching the ten-spot from my hand before I could speak, she sprinted across the road and up a steep dirt path, disappearing into a cluster of shacks half hidden in a dense patch of banana plants.
With a weary sigh, I leaned back on the bike, my feet resting on the handlebars, waiting, watching a gang of tattered, barefoot Negro children playing soccer in the dust.
Everything smelled of shit and urine and rotting meat. Massive gray pigs foraged through piles of garbage, rolling around in the murky, mosquito-infested black mud. Another pack of kids was competing with the hogs, picking at the trash, looking for something to eat.
A swarm of buzzards circled above, waiting for something to die.
Exhausted, I leaned back on the seat and dozed off.
75. IN THE COUNTRY
“MOST OF THE EVILS OF LIFE ARISE FROM MAN’S BEING UNABLE TO SIT STILL IN A ROOM.”
—Blaise Pascal
A rooster crowed, snapping me out of a sweaty stupor. Time had passed. I sat up on the bike and looked around.
How long . . . ?
I checked my watch.
Forty-five minutes? What the fuck? Where is she?
Getting off the motorcycle, I stood there in the dirt, looking up and down the road. Skinny chickens scratched at the ground across the way.
Silence. No Narcisa.
She’s taking a long fucking time for just going to score a little bag of weed . . . Wait a minute . . . No! How? Could she . . . ? No! Not here!
I spotted her creeping across the road with that jerky, spastic body language I knew so well.
Aw, shit! No! Really?
She shuffled up and stood before me in guilty silence, shifting from foot to foot, staring at the ground, confirming my worst fears.
Shit! Of course! She could find a crack spot on the fucking moon!
She stood there, tapping her foot, her eyes averted.
I looked at her and sighed . . . Shit! Shit! Shit!
Finally, she broke the silence. “I fock it all up again, Cigano . . .”
I just stared at her.
She shrugged, looking up at me with those big, tragic brown eyes.
“Yeah? So what now?”
“You know . . .” she mumbled with another helpless little shrug.
I knew. I pleaded with her to reconsider. We’d planned this trip for so long, come all this way . . . blah blah blah.
Narcisa stood her ground, of course. I relented. Of course. I gave up and shut up. I reached in my pocket for the money. What else could I do? I told her she’d better not even think of smoking up in that fucking shack again.
She nodded with a shy little grin.
“I’m serious, Narcisa. If yer not back in five fuckin’ minutes, I swear to Christ, I’m leaving yer pathetic crack-smoking ass down here and goin’ back to Rio alone, and ya can go fuck yerself! Got it?”
She nodded again, without the grin this time. She got it. She gave me a quick, tight, shamefaced little hug, then snatched the money from my hand and sprinted away.
I stood in the dirt, shaking my head, frowning as she ran off like a happy kid on her way to an amusement park . . . There she goes! Off to the Magical Kingdom of Psycho-land! Shit!
I sat back down on the bike and waited, brooding, glancing at my watch. Four minutes and thirty-two pissed-off seconds later, I turned the key and fired up the engine.
Fuck this crazy bitch! I’m outa here!
Right then, Narcisa came charging across the road like a doe with its tail on fire.
“Go go go, Cigano, go go . . .”
She jumped on back and squeezed me tight as I tore rubber and dust out of there.
Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the chalet; our quaint little honeymoon hideaway with the babbling fucking brook.
Narcisa made a beeline for the bathroom and it was on. Again. All of it.
She crept back into the room, then got down on all fours and started crawling around on the floor like a mortally wounded anteater.
Great! Here we go again . . . Instant full-blown crack cocaine psychosis . . . Just like that, just like back in Rio! Shit! Goddammit!
I looked on in disgust as Narcisa smoked and her mind unraveled. I was growing dizzy just watching her . . . Jesus! Hugging the walls . . . Peeping out under the door . . . Switching the lights on and off . . . The TV . . . On . . . Off . . . The water . . . On . . . Off . . . Bathroom door open . . . Closed . . . Open again . . . Toilet seat up . . . Down . . . Lights on . . . Lights off . . . Fuck! . . . Creeping, peeking, peering, crawling, bugging, tweaking, spun . . . Shit!
So began our first night in the country.
After a few hours, of course, she needed to go back for more.
I tried to talk her out of it. “Baby! We came all the way out here for you to get off that shit, remember?” I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Just think, Narcisa. Pense! Por favor! There’s still time to get off this hamster wheel, man!”
I might as well have been trying to convince her to put on a clown suit and eat a sack of raw potatoes. She just stood there, looking down, shaking her head back and forth like a stubborn old donkey.
She looked into my eyes, whining. “Is no good now, Cigano. I already e’start it! I gotta go all de way. Just one more time, por favor! No way I gonna e’stop now, porra, cara . . .”
I knew it was true. I conceded. I’d take her to cop again. There was just one little thing that had to be taken care of first.
She knew.
Stripping her jeans off and flinging them in the corner, she lay back on the bed. “Hurry up an’ go fast now, Cigano, don’ take too long, go!”
I worked it home . . . Fuck! Sweet home!
“Go, Cigano, go go! Finish fast, hurry, hurry up, go, go . . .”
“Shut th’ fuck up, Narcisa! How’d ya like me to tell ya to hurry up while you’re smoking yer fuckin’ crack?”
“Menos, Cigano! Less talk! Go!”
She got it. She lay back and took it like a pro till we were both soaked in sweat.
An hour later we were speeding through the night again.
And so it went. Our first couple of days in the country.
It was the sleep deprivation that got me at the end of day two, going into day three.
Blurry-eyed, I told her I’d had enough, that she was going to have to give it a break and let me get some rest.
She flipped. “Fock you! I gonna keep e’smoking an’ you no gonna e’stop me!”
“Maybe I can’t stop ya, Narcisa, but I can stop buying it for you.”
Her eyes blazed. “You think I depending on you for any focking thing, you e’stupid old e’sheet!? I depend only on these e’sheet, Cigano, got it?!” She grabbed her crotch in her fist, clutching her pussy like a bag of salami. “Hah! I gonna go to de highway an’ take ten bucks from every truck driver who e’stop till I got de money for keep e’smoking, got it?”
I got it. Emotional blackmail. I sat just there, rolling my eyes.
Not getting the reaction she wanted, Narcisa turned up the volume, stomping around the cabin like an enraged baby storm trooper.
“Hah! Pau no seu cu, seu otário velho! Fock you, Cigano! If I go out these focking door, you never gonna see me again, got it!? You decision, mano! An’ don’ take too long time to think, or I gonna decide it for you, e’stupid old e’sheet!! Arrrggghhh!”
Calling her bluff, I said nothing. Did nothing.
I sat back on the bed, trying to rest my eyes.
It didn’t take long.
Narcisa shot across the room and lunged for my pants.
Fuck! She was halfway to the door with my wallet when I jumped up and grabbed her. Spinning her around, I snagged it back. In a burning white flash, she grabbed an empty Coke bottle from the dresser, smashed it on the floor and gouged the jagged, angry glass into her wrist, hard.
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