All the women looked painfully old to me, nasty, creepy, evil and corrupt. Faces like rotten fruit, eyes as insipid and dull as donkeys’ assholes.
Disgusted, I started muttering under my breath. “Jesus! It’s like a fuggin’ plastic surgery convention gone wrong! Look at that withered old hag laughing over there, braying like a fucking mule! Ugh! Had so many fucking facelifts she looks like a dying cocker spaniel with its ears pulled back . . . Shit! What the fuck am I doing in this shithole?”
Lurking in the shadows, moping and groaning like an angry ghost, I sank deeper into a dark, depressed, cynical funk. The people all seemed to be moving in painful slow motion, like bloated squid floating around in a big cloudy bowl.
Look at these idiots! The Elite, the Rich, the Beautiful People . . . Vampires! Wealthy, privileged friends and relatives of a handpicked little mob of corrupt, bloodsucking politicians! Liars! Cheaters! Thieves! Murderers! Oppressors! Pampered, overfed, soulless clones! Ugghhh! Rich people! Catholics! Fat-ass, useless, overfed, bloody bloodsuckers! Reptiles! Parasites!
I could hear Narcisa’s disembodied shouts echoing in my inner ear, growing louder and louder . . . “Porra! Que merda, Cigano! They should all be feeded to de homeless bums in de Lapa! Ha! Burn them an’ eat de focking flesh!” Her words sizzled in my brain like the crackling of rancid meat on a rusty favela grill; the troubled, trembling cry of my own frazzled soul . . . “Hah! You can go an’ buy it all de Calvin Kleins an’ de Dolce Gabbana, de Versace, de Chanel! But always, all de life you gonna be de fat-ass ugly e’sheet-eater pig!”
I eyed a pair of chubby girls, about Narcisa’s age, chattering away gaily.
Shit! Where are the whores in this place? There aren’t any! Not a single one!
“You all gonna die fat, fat, FAA-AAT, got it? Chicken face with two fat-ass elephant botttom! Ugh! You all de whoore! De lost whoore! Hah!” Her thoughts were my own thoughts, exploding in my brain like grenades on a haunted battlefield. “Bo-ring! You loose it all you e’special whore magic now, e’stupid geer-ool! You all been corrupted by de society an’ de television an’ de e’stupid focking Jees-ooz Church!”
I watched those girls and compared them to Narcisa. They seemed less than human. Sleepwalkers. Zombies. Cardboard cutouts . . . Those boring, innocent, unformed, expressionless baby-doll mouths . . . Cold, complacent and lifeless . . . Plastic dolls, with souls of plastic!
I realized these were the clone people Narcisa always talked about . . . Stupid, predictable, chubby-faced plastic cherubs . . . Decorations . . . Trophies . . . Secure . . . Contented . . . Dead!
Standing there in my dark, leprous corner, I felt like an invisible predator, lurking, leering, slobbering at a herd of fuzzy pink polyester bunnies. I wanted to rape and plunder and smash them all. Punish them! Set them on fire and watch them burn and melt into grotesque, insane, agonized aberrations like Narcisa.
As I felt the shadow of my solitude envelop me like a comfortable, warm straitjacket, I knew I’d been kidding myself, shedding pity on my indignant little friend; seeing her as a mad, antisocial witch, a sick, misanthropic freak of nature.
What shit! She’s no more of a freak than I am!
Suddenly I missed Narcisa. I missed her like I’d never missed her before.
“What de fock you waiting for, hein, Cigano? Get de fock out from these e’sheet place, bro! Out! Go go go! Mooo-ooove, e’stupid!”
I beat it out the door like the devil was chasing my ass with fire.
78. QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
“FOR HIM WITHOUT CONCENTRATION THERE IS NOT PEACE. AND FOR THE UNPEACEFUL, HOW CAN THERE BE HAPPINESS?”
—The Bhagavadgita
As I crossed the street, loud music whipping at my back, the party was well on its way to becoming one of those tiresome affairs where bottles crash and flabby, unloved women howl like dying poodles into the indifferent night. I looked back. The place still hadn’t burst into flames. Yet. I sucked my teeth and spat on the sidewalk.
Too bad.
Just as I got to the bike, my cell phone began to vibrate, jumping like a silent firecracker in my pocket. I fished it out and looked at the trembling, blinking blue screen.
Pay phone . . . Collect call . . . Narcisa! Yes! Thank you, Jesus!
Twenty minutes later, I rolled up to the corner by the Casa Verde, and there she was. Narcisa, the Queen of the Night; the eternal dirty-faced, homeless waif. She was crouched down in an empty doorway under the looming, scraggly shadows of a giant, ancient mango tree. Beside her sat the little bag of clothes she’d taken with her after our latest fight. On her lap were all her notebooks—a mini-library of the damned, filled with her illegible crack scrawls.
Narcisa was still scribbling furiously into one of the ash-blackened journals as I pulled up. She looked so meek and harmless in the shady yellow streetlight glow. Some poor fool out walking might even have mistaken her for an innocent schoolgirl sitting there doing her homework, writing in a schoolbook while waiting for her daddy—unless he looked a little closer. Then God pity the unlucky bastard!
I parked the bike and got off.
Edging over, I noticed Narsisa seemed uneasy, shaken, frazzled, afraid.
Fuck! Her eyes are big as saucers . . . She’s all freaked-out . . . What now?
As I stood looking down at her with eyes of love, her voice reached out of the darkness like a prayer. “You don’ wanna fight with me no more, hein, Cigano?”
“Of course not, baby! But, hey, ya look all stressed-out. What’s up?”
Looking up with eyes like glowing globes, she told me she’d just come down from the favela, where some horrible new drama had occurred.
I sat down beside her, getting ready for another of Narcisa’s frantic day-in-the-life accounts from the trenches of her interminable battle with life.
“Today is a very ba-ad day, mano . . .” She began describing how, just as she’d started to smoke her stash in a dingy little shack full of jittery, coked-up, trigger-happy bandidos, a rival gang had come rolling into the boca, guns ablaze, automatic weapons crackling in the dull, businesslike language of murder; business as usual up in the favela, but bad timing again for poor, shell-shocked little Narcisa.
One of the dealers had been sitting beside her, holding an AK-47 in one hand and a crack pipe in the other. Caught off guard, the guy had taken a slug to his head, which exploded like a rotten watermelon right before Narcisa’s bugged-out eyes. She babbled on, spitting her words like bullets, telling me how she’d scrambled for cover and somehow managed to get out of the slum-turned-slaughterhouse.
“I know these boy, Cigano!” Big tears clouded her eyes, running down her face like beads falling from a rosary. “He just a young boy, an’ he always was nice to me. Porra! All de time he use to tell me be careful. Para que!? Why I wan’ be careful for, hein? He all de time too much careful up there with his big gun, an’ look him now! His brains is de dog food! Fock!”
She grew quiet, replaying on the tattered movie screen of her mind the massacre she’d just witnessed. Tears flowed. I sat there beside her, feeling sad. I hugged her and whispered in her ear, telling her everything would be all right.
“I am sorry, Cigano! I am de devil! I only make it de big e’sheet an’ de bad luck for ever’body. Porra! I am very sick in de brain!”
Stroking her long brown hair, I kissed her on the cheek, breathing in a hit of her wild, sensuous animal musk. “Tudo bem, princesa. Relaxa. It’s over now.”
Finally, she calmed down. I took her by the hand and led her over to the motorcycle. She seemed completely drained, depleted, as if a tooth had been knocked out of her face by what she had just experienced.
I shook my head and sighed. I knew Narcisa would never regain whatever little scrap of innocence she’d just surrendered. The Crack Monster was robbing her of herself, piece by piece. Whatever would eventually be left of her was going to be someone else. Someone without hope.
We rode back to my place in silence.
Once again, I thanked God for bringing her back to me alive.
A few days later, searching for Narcisa, I parked in front of the Casa Verde. Taking a deep breath, I got off the bike and ventured inside the rancid old squat. As I came to the top of the dark, rotting wooden stairway by her cramped attic hideaway, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a little flash from the shadows. Something was moving behind a crumbling plaster pillar to my left. What’s that? Somebody wearing a shiny watch or something . . . It was hard to make out in the dark, but I sensed it wasn’t the usual faceless, glue-addled squatter. Someone wearing a watch or a chain was lurking in the hallway, right across from Narcisa’s cubbyhole.
I could feel gooseflesh crawling up my back as I pulled the big switchblade from my back pocket and opened it with a resounding CLACKKK!
“Get th’ fuck out from there!” I growled. “Show yer fuckin’ face while ya still got one! Don’t make me come and slice you up, fucker!”
I saw him recoil like a furtive gray rat, then scurry off down the stairwell.
Doc!
79. LOBOTOMY
“I SAW AND I KNEW THE SOUL OF HIM, WHO COWARDLY MADE THE GREAT REFUSAL.”
—Dante
I followed the old stalker as he scrambled out onto the street. Hurrying behind, I caught up with him halfway down the block.
He stared at me in shock as I grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to a sooty brick wall, working the knife blade up under his Adam’s Apple.
“I guess it’s time to have a foot-to-ass talk with you, ya little shit!” I barked, spittle flying into his ruddy red face.
His beady black bughouse eyes darted around as he began to struggle.
I gave him a poke with the point of the knife, drawing a thin bead of blood from his neck. “Keep still or yer dead meat, motherfucker! Got it?”
He got it. He went limp.
Right away, he started talking, pleading, whining. “Please, Cigano! Por favor, allow me to explain! It’s not like you imagine! Por favor!”
His breath stunk like a dead dog’s asshole.
I let go and shoved him down into an empty doorway, pocketing the blade. “This better be good, ya limp-dick little shit! Desenrrola! Spill it!” I stood over him, glowering, but keeping my distance from that crooked cesspool mouth.
Doc’s cheek began twitching, as if with a life of its own. His demented yellowed eyes moved around in frantic little stabs. Sick eyes. “I have things all arranged, Cigano!” His high-pitched, nasal whimper drilled into my ear like a giant housefly. “I’m on your side! Escuta! Por favor! Narcisa needs our help! I know people who can assist! The director of the state mental hospital is a personal acquaintance of mine. Dr. Monteiro. He has everything prepared. You must help us to save Narcisa! All we need to do is bring her in, and they’ll perform all the necessary procedementos . . .”
“Procedementos?” I blurted out. “Whaddya babbling about, ya fuckin’ screwball? What fucking procedures?”
Doc fixed me with those swirling nuthouse eyes. “I have done extensive research into cures for Narcisa’s deplorable mental condition and, well, the best and most practical option is something known as electroshock therapy. It’s proven extremely effective in treating all sorts of pathological disorders. Of course, it’s no longer legally performed here in Brazil, technically, but with the right sort of contacts—”
I lost it.
“I hear them fuckin’ electric shocks did wonders for yer mother, huh?”
His black reptilian eyes glazed over, measuring me for a coffin. If looks could kill, I would’ve been turned to dust on the spot. Then he snapped back into his habitual mask as the groveling, ass-kissing, harmless little do-gooder. “I don’t know what in heaven’s name you’re referring to, senhor . . .”
“Ya know exactly what I’m talkin’ about, ya bitch-face creep! Narcisa told me all about yer dirty past, ya murdering little psycho!”
“Our dear Narcisa certainly does possess a fanciful imagination at times!” He flashed a nasty yellow-toothed grin and cleared his throat, staring at me just long enough for me to see the full extent of his madness. “ . . . But all that sort of antisocial behavior can finally be corrected now! I have it all worked out. They’re prepared to admit her immediately, Cigano!”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe my ears.
Doc’s eyes lit up like a pair of lynch mob torches as he prattled on. “ . . . And then, if all should go well, Narcisa shall be cured! The chances are favorable for at least a partial recovery. And, if there aren’t satisfactory results from the shock treatments, well, there are still other, more advanced options to pursue. I’ve already taken care of that detail as well. Her mother and I have been talking a great deal lately, and the woman is completely in favor of Narcisa being transferred to a private facility and receiving the operation . . .”
“Operation? What fuggin’ operation?”
“A lobotomia, Cigano!”
I was too shocked to speak . . . Lobotomia? A lobotomy? What the fuck?!
I glared at the old demon in stunned disbelief.
His mouth moved, a squirming pit of filth. “All we need now is two thousand reais to pay for basic expenses. This sort of procedemento can’t be done by legal means anymore, of course, but we can have it performed by a specialist in the Amazon, at a private facility just outside Manaus, where they have ways around certain silly bureaucratic formalities . . .”
I gawked at him . . . Is this little psycho for real?
As reading my thoughts, his tone changed to a melodramatic, confidential half whisper. “Actually, Cigano, I was planning on contacting you quite soon about all this, you know. After all, I’m well aware that you’ve been supporting Narcisa these last several months, and that’s damned commendable of you, sir, I must say. You have saved her life, senhor! But she requires professional intervention now. Her life is totally without value the way she’s living it! Surely, even someone like you can see that she must be saved, an—”
“Saved!? By you?! Ya murdering little woman-hating faggot! Sua merda! Get up, motherfucker! Stand up and get yer beating, ya sick little shit!”
Doc remained sitting.
Just as I was about to haul him up by his neck, he called out to a passing police wagon.
They stopped. A beefy Negro sergeant behind the wheel poked his head out the window. “Qual foi?” The cop eyed me with a disinterested glimmer of suspicion. “What’s up? Ya got a problem over there?”
“Oh no, officer, there’s no problem at all,” Doc chirped as he stood up slowly, smoothing his rumpled shirt, like a sick pigeon preening. “My dear friend here and I were just having a little discussion about yesterday’s futbol match. I was just wondering if you good fellows might be able to enlighten us as to the score . . .”
“Buy a fuckin’ newspaper, porra!” The big thug spat out the window, then pulled over to the curb in front of the bar.
Doc continued eyeing them significantly as they got out, shouldering their heavy black AR-15s like prospectors’ tools, and walked up to the counter for their weekly payoff from the drug-peddling barkeep.
“I’m sure you don’t really want any unnecessary involvement with the policia, Ignácio. That is your name, senhor, isn’t it? After all, you know as well as I do how the authorities frown on dirty gypsy predators with long criminal records who supply illicit drugs to poor, innocent young girls! Pedofilo!”
Looking at his dark, self-satisfied smirk, I knew this Doc was dangerous. And I realized he wasn’t about to give up.
Jesus! Blackmail’s his game now! Two thousand bucks. Enough cash to bribe some quack to perform an illegal lobotomy, if there even is still such a thing . . . Or maybe it’s just a straight-up extortion . . . Either way, this evil little parasite is out to fuck us over good.
The next words he said clinched it.
“But there’s no need to worry, my dear amigo. All of your shameful little peccadilloes are safe with me. Narcisa’s mother need never know anyth
ing more about your perverted little relationship with her daughter. Heavens forbid! That woman is an absolute horror, believe me! And she could actually make some serious trouble for you. One of the members of her beloved church group is a federal court judge, you know . . .”
He paused, grinning with as many teeth as a horse. The insane look on his face sent a chill down to my gut as he sighed dramatically, then went on. “ . . . But not to worry, dear Ignácio, you can just leave that illiterate peasant to me. And please, please, don’t forget our little agreement. Two thousand reais, Ignácio. For Narcisa’s cure. That’s all we shall require for my daughter’s care and treatment. Everything else will be taken care of, trust me.”
“Trust you!?!” I shoved him back against the wall and grabbed him by the throat, choking him into bug-eyed silence. “Ya filthy little rat-fucking shit-eater! Listen to me real careful now, ya dirty cocksucker, cuz I’m not gonna tell ya again!”
I could see his rodentlike eyes widen with mute terror as I tightened my grip on his windpipe, spitting the words into his face, one by one. “If I ever catch you within shouting distance of Narcisa again . . . I will cut yer fuckin’ head off . . . and I will feed yer ugly, shit-eating face, piece by fuckin’ piece,. to the stray dogs up on the morro . . . Got it!?”
His eyes nodded in terror. He got it.
“ . . . And that’s not just a threat, ya little turd! It’s a fuckin’ promise!”
I let go and backhanded him once, fast and hard, across his ruddy cheek.
He yelped like a kicked poodle.
I turned and stomped back over to the Casa Verde, without looking back.
I didn’t tell Narcisa about the incident. When we got back to my place, though, I informed the baffled-looking old porteiro that I would not, under any circumstances, be receiving visitors.
80. LOWER COMPANIONS
“WE OFTEN GIVE OUR ENEMIES THE MEANS FOR OUR OWN DESTRUCTION.”
—Aesop
Narcisa Page 38