click HERE for Part 1.

 After about half an hour my phone rang.
 ”Alo, Cigano,” Narcisa’s savage growl croaked in my ear. “I am finish with Reike now. Where are you? Wanna see me?”
 ”I’m at the office, baby.”
 ”Ok bye,” she said.
  What I heard was actually “ok b- CLICK!” That’s Narcisa.
 I packed up my laptop and stashed it with the guy behind the counter. Then I walked outside and wandered across the street to my “office”, which is really just a yellow plastic chair facing the pounding waves behind the little kiosk at the end of the beach.
  I stood there making small talk about the unseasonally cold weather and high surf with the lady who runs the spot. Suddenly her eyes lit up.
 ”Here she comes,” she said.
  I turned around and there was Narcisa running crookedly up the crooked mosaic sidewalk with her arms held out like a kid playing airplane. With her skinny legs propelling her toward me, all dressed in purple and blazing with life, she looked from a distance like a crazy little butterfly.
 ”She looks like a butterfly!” The kiosk lady exclaimed. I smiled. More and more lately Narcisa makes me smile.
 She ran straight into my waiting arms and I could smell the oil in her hair from her spiritual massage. It seems to be working for her. Progress… I was happy.
 ”Hello!” She said to the kiosk lady as if suddenly noticing her standing there… More and more Narcisa is actually being selectively polite to people. Amazing. Progress…
 ”I gonna get it my ficha for thirty days clean on Monday, Cigano!” She breathed excitedly into my ear. And Marta Luiza gonna come to the meeting to see…”
  I was happy. Marta Luiza is the Reike lady. And she’s been a very bright light in the dim landscape of Narcisa’s burned out soul.
 ”That’s great, baby!” I said smiling.
 Then I remembered the strange invitation I’d just received.
 ”The weirdest shit just happened, Narcisa,” I said.
   She looked at me with concern. Narcisa doesn’t like surprises. Probably because she always expects the worst out of life.
  “I got invited to go to Niteroi and receive a trophy…”
 ”Trophy?!?” Narcisa said. “What trophy, hein? How?”
 ”It’s a prize they wanna give me. To honor me for my writing…”
 ”Hein?!? What?!? Fala serio, Cigano,” she said nervously. It was as if I’d just told her I was diagnosed with rectal cancer or something.
  “Why you gotta get it these trophy, hein? Fala serio…”
  “I’m serious, baby. That’s what the guy who just invited me said…”
 ”What guy?!? Who invite you for these trophy e’sheet, hein?”
 ”The guy at the internet cafe,” I said. “He’s working with some kinda cultural commitee for this big municipal arts thing…”
 ”The FAG?!?” She said skeptically.
 ”Yeh, that’s the one…” I said.
 ”You better be careful, Cigano. I don’ like these guy…”
 ”Why don’t you like him, baby?”
 ”He is NO good…”
 ”Why is he no good, Narcisa,” I asked.
 ”Cuz I don’ LIKE him…”
 ”But WHY don’t you like him, Narcisa?”
 ”I already e’say it why I don’ like him. Is because he NO GOOD, got it?”
  Oh yeh, right… Narcisa.
  I tried to explain to her that it might just be a good thing. A nice thing…
  “Well is no the Nobel prize or an’thing like that, Cigano. So I don’ wan’ you got you hope up an’ then when these thing turn out be a big e’sheet, then you gonna come complain into my ear, got it? I just try protect you… An’ you better be careful ’bout any invitation where you don’ know it the peoples…”
  “Jesus, baby, sometimes I’m really glad I’m not you,” I laughed.
 ”Yeh, okey, Cigano, is okey for you laugh now. An’ then just you no come cry to me later, hein?”
 ”Well why would I cry later, hein? What’s the worst that could happen, baby? Worst case scenario I take a nice motorcycle ride across the bay and if it sucks, I just got another weird experience to write about. It’s all good for me no matter what happens…”
 ”Or maybe no so good, hein? Maybe worse scenario you gonna got kidnap an’ kill you over there… I only try an preserve you safety…”
 ”WHAT?!?” I practically howled with laughter now. “Jesus! What a mind you got!”
 ”You think so funny, Cigano. Maybe you need think more. These e’stupid fag he seeing you there ever’day in these e’same place writing on the e’spensive private laptop computador…”
 ”So what, you really think the homo’s gonna go to all the trouble to print up a buncha fancy invitations to some big party with the Mayor of Niteroi and cook up a whole fucking three ring circus story to get me to go all the way over there just to rip off a fucking laptop?!?”
 ”Maybe could be… You don’ know the peoples e’same way I do…”
 ”Thank fuckin’ God for that!” I said. And I really meant it.
  Keep coming back, Narcisa. It gets better…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. 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 várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.