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It’s happened again. Stalemate. She’s gone. Disappeared. Running amok again tonight, God knows where.
It’s been truly horrible the last few days. Horrible in direct proportion to how great it’s gotten finally, how close we’ve really become…
And now it’s as if the demon curse is seeing her really letting somebody in, another human being getting closer and closer to her soul. It feels that threat to its malevolent soul-cancer that only wants to isolate her from all love and human contact, to better just kill her off. And seeing that threat, it’s suddenly struck her hard again with a new round of lightning bolts right to the brain, unleashing all of Hell’s fury. And she’s insane again, beyond insane.
South of insane. Digging her own hole to Hell again.
Violent, irrational, unreasonable… and out for blood.
My blood now.
After busting up my place, knocking over lamps and furniture, throwing all my books in the bathtub and turning on the water… Bitch… threatening me with death and worse, I finally managed to get her out
onto the street without too much violence. Her little bag was already packed and ready for a one way trip to Hell after her day-long tantrum, another attempt at emotional blackmail, her favorite trick and last resort, since I’d done everything in my power to just ignore her and all the insane outbursts and threats…
So I had no problem luring her out into the street on the pretext of giving her money, my other smart chess move which left her even more pissed and vengeful once I had her out..
Of course. Cause once maneuvered into that more vulnerable position, standing out in the street again like a vampire cat in the middle of a vast open desert, she still pitched another fit, right out in the open
for all gawking pedestrians to watch, threatening me with further vengence and dire retribution if I didn’t give her the “fuck off” money she wanted for more crack.
Scandalous tricks from her worn out whore Gucci bag.
Extortion.
“You got it two choice now, Cigano. You gonna help me to die… Or I gonna kill YOU, got it now?”
I believed her. You would too, believe me. I gave her a quick 20, happy to just be rid of her, and she was gone with the ill wind that brought her, off into the night like the wicked witch of Hell.
An hour later, she was on the phone.
“Wanna see me?” Of course.
I left my post by the waves at the end of Copacabana, flying down the fluorescent beach on the bike. On my unholy mission for Narcisa.
Again.
Ten minutes later I rolled up to the usual corner. There she was, sitting in the shadows, the eternal, dirty-faced homeless waif, sitting there with the little bag of clothes she’d taken with her to let me know she “never wanted to see me again” for the thousandth time. Sitting on her lap was the whole pile of the notebooks I’d given her to inspire her to write, filled now with her illegible scrawled crackhouse
epiphanies, genius transcendent poetry and rants.
She was sitting in an empty doorway of one of those crumbling old colonial buildings at the corner of Rua Santa Cristina in the shade of a big Mangueira, writing in one of her poetry
journals. She might have even been mistaken by some poor unsuspecting fool for an innocent little schoolgirl waiting for her daddy.
More like Lolita on crack waiting for Charlie Manson .
She was visibly shaken up after only an hour back on the streets that
used to be her home sweet home before I took her in off the dirty old ho-stroll and got her as strung out on me as she was on the crack.
As strung out as I am on her.
Sex, money, drugs, love, sex, money drugs, love. Drama. Passion.
Adventure. Danger. The endless roller coaster cycle of mutual addiction and Need…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008. All Rights Reserved.

NOTIFIÇAO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção – registrados na Biblioteca Nacional como ficção com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor, Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são interamente ficticios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As vários fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

“Jonathan Shaw. There are many words different people may use to describe him. What some may see as only a shallow, brash and impetuous incendiary; actually is a true philosophical, transcendent soul. With layers of insight waiting to be peeled away.” – By Lizzy Garcia

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Posted on LACityzine’s blog, and on Johnny-Depp.org, the article’s a pretty extensive and deep interview with JS regarding his tattoo career and his writing career. [click either link to read the article]

Narcisa’s mother, the self-righteous, unrepentant born-again Christian “chocadeira” or “egg layer” as Narcisa has aptly named her, continues to try and harass us, accusing me of being a corrupting influence in  the life of her poor, innocent, well-bred little offspring.

It’s really pathetic how these simple-minded evangelical twits’ warped minds operate. But its predictable, cuz in the absence of the acceptance of a coherent value system to keep the old ego in check and teach one to look inward at the true source of their problems and basic dysfunctions in human society, they’re simply compelled to construct a blame-oriented system of beliefs, always looking outward in search of a convenient scapegoat, an easy villain. The devil.

Now I’ve been given that dubious distinction by this pious old cow. I’m the one who is collaborating and facilitating and enabling Narcisa in her unholy quest for self-destruction. It is one point of view, of course, and quite an easy one to be tricked into, especially in the absence of any notion of personal accountability for karma or consequences in the evangelical doctrine.

Still, I’ve even asked myself many times if there isn’t some truth there, if I’m not indeed feeding her insanity, deluding myself that I’m helping in some way with my love, my belief, my own dubious good example of how an addict can become happy, useful and whole…

These are complicated, agonizing questions that obsess my thinking all day long. And, try as I may to find an answer, the more I live this life with Narcisa, the more I’m convinced there’s no easy answers for us here. So I go with the flow a day at a time, confident of one thing only: that nothing happens by mere happenstance or random accident. No way.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008. All Rights Reserved.

NOTIFIÇAO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção – registrados na Biblioteca Nacional como ficção com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor, Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são interamente ficticios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As vários fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

Lately I’ve been letting her hang out in my friend’s big house in Itaipava, spending days up there myself just to keep her company as she runs around in her futile little circles.

Little by little she really is opening up to me and the possibilities of connection with another human being. And I hope I can somehow serve as a bridge to humanity for her…

And sometimes it feels hopeful, gratifying to me. Being the only person who understands her, or really tries to, and wants to help her, while still not pressuring her or trying to impose my own will on her poor traumatized soul that everybody else has always tried to lock up and tie down and restrain and control and dominate.

These are hard lessons for us both to learn, especially living in a flaming raging war of indomitable wills and powerful damaged warped egos and massive trauma-fed dysfunction. But they are lessons that must be learned and lived at all costs, even at the risk of life or death. We are warriors, Narcisa and me, duking it out a day at a time on this bloody battlefield of love’s eternal redemption. And just for today there is hope, always the last little soldier to die. Hope for her and hope for me and hope for us all, somehow, some way, some day…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008. All Rights Reserved.

NOTIFIÇAO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção – registrados na Biblioteca Nacional como ficção com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor, Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são interamente ficticios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As vários fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

Narcisa is a timeless portrait of the damnation of the human soul, seen through a shattered magnifying glass. Its unrelenting detail is like pieces of food you find in your vomit as it drips drips drips off your chin.

-Mayra Dias Gomes (author of Fugalaça)

Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes has been reviewed by the fine people of Playboy.

For the full review, Click here.