Spirits who share the same atitudes and tendencies are drawn to each other. – Allan Kardec 

  (Read parts 1-6 here)

   I lit up a smoke and watched a skinny little grey tiger cat emerge from the shadows and go tipping cautiously across the dirty dark favela plaza. Another predator on the prowl. Suddenly the unmistakable red dot of a high-powered assault rifle’s lazer sight appears beside the cat. The cat stops, still as the night, watching the bright red dot. Then it pounces. The dot moves a few inches forward. The cat cocks back its haunches and pounces again. I watched the cat and smiled. I like cats. I hoped the kid playing around on the other end of the lazer beam liked cats too. But why waste ammo on a cat when there’s live human target practice every day here?

    Finally the cat moves on to live another of it’s nine lives, spooked off by approaching footsteps as the cab’s passenger emerges from one of the dark little becos before me walking fast and furtive, getting into the car with that strident ’Just copped’ body language. The cab pulls away. 

    Got it. Good. From here it’s easy. Just go down the same alley and follow the trail of gun toting teenage thugs… I get off the bike, put my boot down on the last of my smoke and walk up into the Boca.

to be continued…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

(Read parts 1-5 here)

     I rolled down into the favela past a row of sleeping shacks into the darkened deserted plaza. l stopped quietly beside an idling taxi. Don’t want to pull right up behind anybody and give them call for suspicion, paranoia… Most likely he’s just another runner at this time of night. Another Avião like me. But you never know… Could be a player, a drug soldier, armed and nervous and ready to go straight to hell… Or just another cabbie waiting for his fare up here. Probably just a regular customer, another garden variety cokehead getting party dust for the last night of Carnaval…

    Whatever… I don’t want to look too hard… Could be anybody, anything any time of the day or night up here on the hill. So I just pull the bike up and put the kickstand down, give the cabbie a quick nod and look the other way… Mind your own business. That’s the Rule here. The Code. The Law… And be smart about it. Be cool. Don’t act stupid. Don’t ever pull up behind strangers around here. Don’t take nothing for granted. Don’t Assume anything. Ever. Up in here an assumption is the Mother of a Fuck-Up… That’s another Law. Law of Survival. The only Law that matters…

     I sat on the bike for a moment getting my bearings before going in… Waiting for someone to come out so I’d know where to go in. Trying not to look lost. You don’t want to make a wrong move going in here with a strange face. And after all these years I was just another strange face. Don’t want to lose your way down in the dark labyrinthine maze of alleys looking around for the Boca either. Not nowadays… Not the place to take a wrong turn, can’t exactly stop and ask for directions. Nobody knows nothing here… That’s The Rule. Always has been...

    I remember when I was a kid, hanging out in the favela where I worked runs from back in the day. Some rich Ipanema playboy type came up looking to cop. He sauntered over and asked me, “Where’s the Boca?”

    The Boca, The Mouth… Favela code for The Spot.

    I remember I’d just looked at him blankly and said, “It’s right under the fucking Nose, stupid.”

    He didn’t ask any more questions.

    I reached in my pocket now and pulled out my smokes. I could feel the gringo’s money rolled up there in the cigarette pack. Two hundred and fifty. I’d give him about fifty’s worth and keep the rest for myself and he’d thank me profusely from the bottom of his pink little gringo heart and still give me a hundred as a tip just for coming back at all with anything. That and probably cut me off a nice little rock from his meagre stepped-on stash. More for Narcisa. That’s how it is with gringos. They always got to tip you to assure themselves they didn’t get ripped off. Even when they know better. This John Johnson looked like he didn’t know better anyway. Beverly Hills Gringo of the Clueless variety. So much the better for me. Better for Narcisa…

to be continued…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

(read parts 1, 2, 3 and 4)

       I gunned the motor hard, scrambling over the slick dark cobblestone path up into the favela, little fruit bats flittering under a big mango tree dancing around my head reminding me at the last minute to pull off my helmet and cut the headlight as I approached the entrance to the Boca. I knew those were The Rules now… And a good idea to obey and avoid getting ripped to bleeding peices by a flash burst of machine gun fire from some nervous coked-up trigger-happy teenage lookout.

       I have to keep reminding myself I’m going into a war zone here now. Nothing like the easygoing hillside shanty town cop spots I used to come and go from every day on my beat-up little stolen Honda as an Avião, an innocent adolescent drug runner a million light years ago. Not the same favelas I spent long afternoons hanging out in shooting pool, drinking pinga and smoking weed, playing cards at the open air botecos with my partners, my little rag-tag teenage gang, waiting for the next score to present itself in our myopic little world of bohemian malandragem and harmless petty crime. Back then the biggest worry was dodging the cops or having to pay them off if you hit a roadblock. It was all just a big game back then. Win some, lose some…

       Things have changed a lot in these favelas over the last twenty years. Politics. 

       New Gangs. New Cops. New Wars. New Rules. New Codes. New Bosses. New Drugs. 

       Crack Cocaine. War Zone…

        I cut the motor and rolled the bike silently down the winding bumpy alley toward the Boca, the Cop Spot. I saw the everpresent letters. CV spray painted on walls every few feet now, a constant reminder just where I was going. CV. Commando Vermelho. CV. Red Command territory. CV. As if any warning was ever necessary in here. CV…    

     War Zone. War Zone. War Zone…

to be continued…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

(Read 1, 2 and 3 here)

     Fernanda powered the shot down in one go and gave me a grateful smile that lit up the night. 

     “I gotta start making some fast cash around here, ‘Nanda…” I said, ”you know any gringos who wanna score?”

    She cocked a weary eyebrow at me.

    “Ta nessa, Cigano? Now you running brizola? Wha’ happen to all you clean and sober fun, gato? You fallen off the wagon?”

    “No way, baby. Nothing like that… I can’t fuck around with that shit anymore. I just need a little gig… Strictly business.”

    “Dando uma de aviao agora.. Tsk tsk, you always surprising me, Cigano,” she scolded, clicking her tongue with a scolding look of mock concern. 

      After an awkward pause, I gave her the punch line.

     “Narcisa’s back, got it?” I said.

      “Pobre gatinho,” she grinned. “Poor baby!”

      She got it.

      “Ta bom, gato. Me presta seu celular ai,” she winked.

      I reached in my pocket and handed her the phone.

      I watched as she dialed, then expertly pushed the speaker button so I could listen in.

      “Copacabana Palace Hotel, boa noite…” the voice crackled.

      “Mr. John Johnson’s room please,” she said.

       “John Johnson?!?” I said laughing. “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding, ‘Nanda!”

       She smirked, holding a warning finger to her lips. A distinctly American accent comes on the line .

       “Hello?”

       “Hello Johnny. It’s Fernanda, baby,” she cooed in the most adorable English.

       “Hi there, Fer-naaan-duh…

       “Remember that thing we talk ’bout last night? I got somebody here I wan’ you to meet…”

to be continued….

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

Here is a continuation from last week’s excerpts of the upcoming rewrite of Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes

(you can read parts 1 and 2 here)

   I spotted Fernanda standing out there just as her face lit up in recognition. She slid up like a shaggy little cartoon ghost in a light cotton mini skirt and knee high brown leather Fuck Boots. 

   She gave me a quick hug and a humid little kiss on the cheek.

  “E ai, Cigano, tudo tranquilo?” she breathed in my ear.

   Fernanda was a good egg. One of the cool ones. She knew the score. And she knew how to dress, not like these silly dog-faced Carioca bitches. A thin, attractive aging alcoholic Paulistina cokehead with a quick cynical wit and a mouthful of razor-sharp doomsday humor. 

   We’d spent many nights together while Narcisa was gone. We’d had some good sex. Good bullshit sessions too out there on the pre dawn ho-stroll on slow nights when there was nothing to do but hang out and talk shit and wait for the dawn. 

   She lived in my neighborhood so sometimes I’d give her a ride home on the bike at the end of the night if she didn’t score a trick. More often than not she’d reach over and give my crotch an affectionate grope halfway there and I’d take her home and shag her free of charge. She’d usually spend the night for a few drinks and some friendly company rather than just go home alone in defeat. 

    She liked my little crib, called it the ‘Doll House’… She liked me and I liked her but that’s as far as it went for either of us. Whore’s a whore. We were friends. 

    And she knew all about my hopeless love for some missing-link Apocalyptic phantom named Narcisa… 

    Sometimes I’d used to sit out there with Fernanda late at night buying her shots of cheap cachaça and feeding her cigarettes, keeping her company while she leaned on my bike and kept me entertained with local whorehouse gossip in her hilariously cynical Paulistana drawl… Fernanda had a few regular gringo clients and knew all the comings and goings of other gringos and whores out on the pista. She always had her ear to the ground in Copacabana. She had a pointy nose for the white powder too but only when she got invited to party with a coke-holding trick. Otherwise she just drank the nights away out there on the stroll. She wasn’t a pro when it came to drugs so whenever a John wanted to score she just tossed the business to one of the many alcoholic, coke-running cabbies patrolling the night shift there like so many roving sharks. A friendly gesture to the guys who sometimes set her up with high-rolling gringos at the expensive beachfront hotels. 

    I took Fernanda by the arm and led her over to the nearest street vender and bought her a shot of Mel.

…to be continued

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009

Who will pity a snake charmer bitten by a serpent, or any who go near wild beasts?

- Ecclesiasticus 12:13