If you asked me, what good was it all anyway. What good is meeting Johnny Depp if you are not single? What good is a foreign underground club without the allure of a foreign one night stand? What good is a sinister looking Arab if your rape fantasy is constantly interrupted by the grip on your elbow from your overprotective boyfriend.

We’d grown restless in Paris. Everytime the realization hit Jonathan that he was drinking every night, that he really wanted perhaps even needed to drink every night, he grew restless. Somehow being constantly on the move helped. We didn’t like to stay put. Even when we were at home in New York we were in perpetual motion, always going somewhere on the motorcycle. There was always an errand. Something needed to be bought at the flea market. Something needed to be sold. Something needed to be packed. Something needed to be unpacked. And there was always dusting. Lots and lots of dusting. The lower floors of his building were still under construction and all the dust would float up to the top floor where even there I lived out of a suitcase and the two drawers he had so graciously cleared out for me, but didn’t understand why it was not enough. Every day I dusted and every morning there was a new coat of it on everything. The bookshelves that had once made me fall in love had become the bane of my existence.

Ironically, I had run into an old uniform store back in New York down on Orchard street that sold maid’s dresses. I had the blue and white one, a dark blue one with a white collar, a red plaid one and a pink plaid one. Jonathan liked them. Not only were they utilitarian due to the abundance of pockets, which is his definition of fashion, but I suspect he could fantasize I was an exploited underage hotel room maid in some third world country at his disposal that he could grab, toss onto the bed, and screw. I was relieved at first, to not have to worry about what to wear in the mornings. Just throw on a maid’s dress. If I felt particularly nostalgic, I’d accessorize with a pair of Betsey fishnets that I cut the feet out of. I tried to ignore the fact that my life was filled with someone else’s meaningless errands, someone else’s fantasies. That I was dusting my youth away.

I wear a knee length light blue and white striped maids dress today as we wander the Casbah. But the dresses have long lost their magic. I have been wearing them every day for months now and I am fucking sick of them. They are walking by themselves and they are taking my soul with them. But they are the only things I have with sleeves. Jonathan has warned me not to show tattoos and to cover up as much as possible or the natives might try to grab you, thinking you are a white devil whore of Babylon.

No wonder I haven’t shit for a week. The toilets in Morocco are not really toilets. In fact to call them that is a blatent insult to the French. When I hear the word toilet, I picture a white, porcelain throne-like appliance. Something you’re not afraid to sit on. Something with a sparkling clean, white seat, the mere sight of which beckons you to come, sit, relax, let everything go. It is in pristine condition. There are no signs that anyone besides you has ever laid eyes on it, much less an unfamiliar hairy ass. There are multiple rolls of bleached white toilet paper and a sink with a soap canister…almond or perhaps peppermint. Your poo smells like roses there, something that could be bottled and sold for a thousand dollars an ounce. Maybe there is even a bedet. A bit over the top maybe, but better to err on the side of cleanliness.

I squat uncomfortably over another smelly hole in the ground. My knees tremble as I try to relieve myself. Praying for a rumble, a cramp, any sign of life from my clenched, uptight bowels. I pee a little. I’ve been trying to drink as much water as I can to loosen things up down there but it’s difficult to do in a country where you can’t drink the water. It is so hot, what little I do ingest is immediately absorbed by every shriveling cell of my dried out toungue and throat. By the time it travels through my jerkified small intestine to my pruny stomach and parched, dehydrated bowels, it is little more than a vapor.

“Do you think the people that live here got bottled water and air conditioning?” Jonathan asked rhetorically last night as he was dousing the walls, the mattress, the floors, the ceiling. Dousing everything with rancid tap water in a desperate attempt to cool off the stifling cheap hotel room. There were windows and it may have been cooler outside, but I didn’t know because he wouldn’t let us open them for fear someone would hop into our cheap little hovel on the ass end of the Kasbah and steal all our stuff.

“The people that live here shit in holes!” I protest futily. Its not that he was cheap, he told me. He just believes that when you’re traveling, you should live, i.e. spend, like the natives.

I agreed with his theory in principle. In theory it sounded terribly romantic, yes. But it all goes down the stinking, toilet less hole when you’re laying there wide awake, sweating on a hot, soaking wet mattress, when your bowels haven’t stirred since the last civilized place you stayed, far away in northern Spain. You long to be there now. The last place to have morning coffee. The last place to have beer. Its not so easy to find the romance in your romantic adventure when you haven’t shit in nearly a week.

We’d impulsively left Paris and the comforts of Johnny’s rented house behind in search of a romantic adventure. He was filming a Polanski movie and courting Vanessa Paradis. He’d invited Jonathan and me over, most likely for Jonathan to serve as some form of cheap entertainment for him. And Jonathan, as usual, was happy to oblige. For weeks I’d had to hear about the grave injustice of Roman Polanski being thrown out of the country and what a genius he was. I didn’t know much about it but it seemed to me Jonathan was just gaga to meet a fellow borderline pedofile. His cinematic counterpart, Soulmates perhaps.

We’d eaten langostines with Kate Moss, flown in a private jet to see Bob Dylan in Italy, gone to surreal underground transvestite clubs in Paris. I’d stolen a skull and two femurs from the catacombs, all things which served to impress my mother when I called home.

“We’re going to Paris! I said exitedly. “To stay with Johnnny Depp!”

“Oh Amy That’s so exciting!” She’d said. But something was forced in her delivery. I could sense she’d been a little worried when I gave up my apartment and quit my job all within a week of meeting Jonathan Shaw. She’d always been independent although resentfully so, and had passed this on to me. It was a bond we shared in martyrdom. Something we could complain about together. And now I was leaving her alone on the cross, crown of thorns and all.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You seem sad.”

“Jimmy has been laid off again.” She whispers. Great. I could just picture him there in his brown leather lazy boy, shoveling down the pain pills and complaining about his fucking syatic nerve. A wave of guilt washed over me. I tried to stuff the feeling that I was abandoning her.

“Maybe when we get back you can come visit us.” I said trying to include her in my good fortune and cheer her up.

“Maybe…” she said over his loud television blaring in the background.

‘Well, I love you mom.”

“I love you too… You’re still my baby…”

“I know.”

72. GOD IS LOVE

“There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.” — François de La Rochefoucauld

“Hopeful.” I said as Antonio poured his third beer into the glass.
“Almost hopeful,” he corrected me.
“Yeah, well.” I confided, “l guess my real hope is that this could all evolve into some kinda crazy kinship. Why not? Jesus, after all these near-death bloody rumbles. What the fuck else is left?”
“For a true poet, hope is always the last little soldier to die on the battlefield of love.” Antonio said philosophically, taking a big gulp of beer. He was silent for a beat. Then suddenly he laughed.
“I just had a wild image of you two as a pair of battle-scarred Samurai warriors teaming up for the common good or the common bad in some cataclysmic battle to the death, fighting side by side for Truth, Justice and The American Way!” He laughed again.
“But seriously, Cigano, it sounds like a real story book love affair, just like a Hollywood movie. I just hope you both survive long enough for the happy ending.”
“Me too. But who knows, man? Stranger things have happened in the course of human affairs. It reminds me of this book.”
“More of your self-help metaphysical spiritist studies, Cigano?”
“You might say so. Remember, I lent you some of those Course in Miracles lecture tapes last summer? Marianne Williamson? Dunno if you ever listened to her. Anyway she basically explains how, when there’s an alliance between two old adversaries, it leads to a stronger than average bond.”
“How’s that?” Antonio said.
“Well. The best analogy she gives for it is something like this: You know how, back in the day the doctors used to worry about new pregnancies with women who’d had C-sections before. They used to think the mended flesh was weakened by the operation and that it was gonna bust open from the new pregnancy. Then they discovered that the place where there was all that scar tissue was actually tougher than the original skin. Ya see what I’m saying?”
“It’s an interesting concept.”
“Yeah, but for me, it’s more than a concept, man. It’s my only hope! I’m walking a fucking tightrope every day. Life or death. That’s it. I can’t afford to theorize in this fucking thing. I gotta trust what I know.”
“Forgive my naïveté, Cigano. But you just said how confused you are about it. So what do you really know?”
“I know miracles, man, first hand, from my own experience. And I trust that shit. And I know I’m in love. And I know that love is powerful. Real powerful. Being in love is like being in a state of grace, man. Maybe that’s why they say God is Love. But its not just a theory, not for me, amigo. It’s grounded in a lot of real personal changes i’ve been through myself. Ever since I got clean and sober, l’ve started healing up so many basic conflicts of my heart. Root stuff that almost killed my ass before with liquor and drugs and all kinda creepy self-destructive shit, unconscious shit, unresolved shit, just like my little friend, Narcisa. But if God is Love, and God is all powerful, all seeing and all knowing, then anything’s possible, right?”
“God is Love!” He repeated. “Dear Lord! Coming from you it sounds almost blasphemous, you dirty gypsy pimp!”
“Damn!! That’s exactly what her mother called me the other day.What the fuck? This shit must be going around, man! I can feel the love everywhere now,” I laughed. “But really man, ya know, that’s what all the songs are about, one way or another, it’s all about love and sex. So sex is some great shit, right?”
“Good enough for two worldly old bachelors like us to be sitting around having this pussy-whipped little conversation, I suppose. Yes, Cigano, I must agree with you that sex is great.”
“A great hands-on healing magic brother.”
“No doubt. Even in the hands of a dirty old whorehouse terrorist like you.” He said. “.I know it’s true though, Cigano. Just look at what this silly little model is doing to me with her goddamned pussy,” he said, throwing up his hands in mock dismay. “God help us!”
“God does help us, Antonio. He really does. I know that something unusual is going on. I can just feel it. I still don’t know quite how to name this shit or even deal with it every day. But i’ve got my faith and hope that she’ll get better. I’m desperate enough now not to take any little ray of sunshine for granted. It all gets pretty scary though, but l just gotta trust my intuition, man, what else can l do?”
“That’s a great attitude, my friend. You are a true warrior. My heart’s with you. If there’s ever anything I can do to help.”
“Thanks, brother. I really do believe that if we can just survive this whole nasty, fucked up process here, there’s a chance it’ll all smooth out enough for us to become allies like you said. Like a pair of gemstones getting polished for some bigger thing.”
“If you don’t both die first, of course.” Antonio said.
I had no answer for him there.
As time went on that possibility seemed to loom larger by the day. Finally, fearing for her life and my own, one fine day I just flat out refused to give her the money to buy any more drugs. She really let me have it then. She started screaming at me right in front of my building as neighbors gawked from their windows, watching the whole embarassing show.
“You got it only two choice now, you focking e’sheet!” She hollered. “Or you gonna help it to me to dead, or I gonna kill you, got it? You choice, Cigano!! These the only game here! The End!”
I quickly reached in my pocket and handed her my last few crumpled bills just to shut her up and get rid of her.
“Now you got it! Thank you come again!” She sang triumphantly as she snatched the cash from my hand and tore off down the street.
I’d sworn her off forever a hundred times only to be eating out of her hand again within hours. But even right there in the dragon’s mouth, I still never really questioned my good fortune through it all. I was still the luckiest man alive. Simply for being able to see through all her malevolent posturing and drama and still love the sweet child I knew lived behind those raging flames of demonic possession. That and for being granted the power to have somehow survived it all so far, one crazy day at a time, to know and share my life with such a vital, dangerous, savage creature.
Yes, I had become a full-time adrenaline junkie. And she was a man-eater, a swift, ferocious tiger, a shark. A primal force of nature. At that point I simply accepted the fact that I was hooked. And l swallowed my fate a day at a time like a squirming red spider. And then it ceased to even be a struggle.
All my old ideas of self-respect and reason, even reality itself were gladly deep-sixed for the rare, awful privilege of standing in the blinding light of the blazing apocalyptic fire of Narcisa.
There’s an old saying in Brazil. “Antes so que mal acompanhado.” It means, Better off alone than in bad company.
Fuck that. I gladly suspended all concepts and notions I’d ever had of boundries, limits, sanity, self-preservation, acceptable conduct, bad or good company, right and wrong, whatever. Right out the fucking window, one by one. One crazy helter-skelter day at a time now. Circling the drain in bad company, the very worst of company. But together. Not alone anymore. Together with Narcisa.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009

71. GEMSTONES

“Even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth, so is he for your pruning.” Khalil Gibran

“Well, I didn’t say I’d actually figured any of this shit out yet,” I laughed. “But one thing I have noticed over all this time duking it out with Narcisa. All the fighting doesn’t really terrify me the way it used to anymore. I used to run away from confrontation like the devil runs from the cross. Now I just hang in there. And that’s been a big step forward for me in some strange way. It’s almost as if we’re both slowly smoothing out a bit over time.”
Antonio didn’t say anything, but he had that look on his face that told me he was interested, paying attention. So I kept talking. Not so much to impart anything in particular to him as to just hear myself verbalizing all the odd thoughts and concepts that had been brewing and stewing in the back of my mind for some time now.
“It’s really strange, man,” I mused. “We’re like these two fighting cocks that just gotta keep fighting and fighting and we can’t ever kill the other one or die no matter what!”
Antonio took a sip of beer and looked at me.
“I dunno, man,” I shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like we’re both like a couple of raw gemstones bashing up against each other. Ya know that’s how the jewelers refine the rough stones, right?”
“What’s the point, Cigano?” Antonio said, his ears perking up now like a pedigree poodle.
“I’m not sure, brother. But I had this jeweler friend up in Mexico once. He explained the whole gem polishing process to me. I saw it. He’d stick all these rough stones into this mechanical tumbler thing he had there and then the stones would just beat each other up until all the rough edges and shit were smoothed out.”
He was listening intently now.
“And then after they’re smoothed out by all the friction, then they’re ready to be fine cut into precious gems. And sold to rich ass mothers like you to give to yer high class bitches, got it?
“i’ll overlook your typically crude references to my high class bitches.” He laughed. “But that’s an interesting concept, Cigano.”
“Yeah, right?” I said. “But the trick is they always gotta put the same kinda stones together for that rough polishing, see? Gotta put the diamonds with other diamonds, ruby with ruby and so on. Cuz if ya put a diamond in there with an emerald or something, the softer stone just gets pounded down into dust and then the other one’s left there sitting all alone again. Kinda like people, hein?”
“I see what you’re getting at,” he said. “I really like that analogy. I knew there’s a reason I like hanging out with you, you sick bastard. You’re pretty wise. For a degenerate old gypsy.”
“Thanks, man! Coming from a depraved ruling class oppressor of the working classes like yourself, i’ll take that as a boost to my own mortally-wounded self esteem.”
“Moving right along,” he said laughing. “Tell me more, oh wise gypsy seer.”
“Seriously, man. I think Narcisa and I are similar enough to actually be benefiting from all this fucked up violent conflict. You know, what don’t kill us makes us stronger.”
“From what you told me about this crack smoking maniac you’re in love with, I don’t doubt it at all. She’s a poet like you and she’s highly intelligent and she sounds like a classy damned pirate criminal with a touch of the mystic. She really could be just the right girl for you. But she’s a goddamned lesbian whore and a drug addict, Cigano. You’ve told me the stories about your past, so I can see how you can relate to some of this girl’s issues. But you’re so far removed from that life now. How can you stand being around all the instability and the constant danger?”
“That’s the whole point, man. Like ya said, I totally relate to it all. Especially the fact that she’s a drug addict. Or didn’t you know? I’m a fucking drug addict.”
“No! That’s my whole point, Cigano. You’re an ex-drug addict.”
“No such thing, Antonio,” I said shaking my head. “That’s like being an ex transexual or something. Once someone crosses some invisible line and becomes an addict, they’re always gonna be an addict. Ya can’t turn a pickle back into a cucumber, man. Listen, you went to that A.A. meeting with me once, remember? Well, the whole twelve-step philosophy describes it as an incurable progressive deadly illness. Sure, it can be treated, but the shit is never fucking cured. It’s a spiritual program of daily reprieve. I’m just not taking drugs and feeding my disease today so it’s not progressing and wrecking my life today the way it’s fucking up her life. But the default mindset of any addict is still exactly the same, whether they’re clean or still taking drugs. Don’t make no difference, brother. A wild animal don’t stop being a wild animal just because you tame it or stick it into a cage. It’s just contained. If it ever got out it would still kick your ass and eat you alive.”
“But what’s the attraction for you to a wild animal?”
“I know what makes her tick, man. I can read her like a fucking book! And anyway ya slice it, we’ve both got a lifetime of all kinds of self-centered living and mad nasty habits under our belts. We’re basically just the same. And that helps us to see ourselfs, like looking into psychic mirror or something. Cuz we’re both covered in all the same kinds of creepy emotional trauma scars that keep bubbling up to the surface all the time in this thing.”
“Even after all these years you’re off the drugs?”
“Yeah, man. That’s why they call it a program of recovery. It’s a life’s work. Even after years, its always kinda like peeling layers off an onion. The process never ends, just keeps getting more profound over time. Different issues. That’s why this thing with Narcisa’s so relevant to me now. It keeps making me have to keep digging deeper into my own fucking issues. Deep stuff. The kinda stuff that made me try to drink and drug myself to death for decades. Old shit that’s gotta be faced sooner or later if I really wanna keep going with my life now. Arrrggghhh, it’s complicated stuff, man. But since I been doing this twelve step thing, I’ve come to really believe that whatever the fuck comes my way now is for my own good, for my own spiritual growth.”
“Everything?”
“Yep. Everything, man. Even stuff like Narcisa. Shit, man, especially stuff like Narcisa! They say that if it hurts, it’s growth.”
“You’re more courageous than me, my friend!” Antonio said with a look of real admiration.
“Yeah, well. My definition of courage at this stage of the game isn’t the lack of fear, brother. It’s just the willingness to keep going and walk through the fear. What choice do I got? If I don’t face the fears, they’ll just keep running my life. And for a recovering alkie and an old dope fiend like me, that’s a fucking death sentence, man, believe me. Anyway, it’s not so bad. Could be worse. At this point we’ve just pounded and bashed the shit out of each other so many times in this crazy war of egos and damaged minds. To where it’s all just gotten so fucking significant to both of our real issues. All these wierd unconscious mental twists. It’s amazing how fucking similar we are. I’m just a few steps closer to sanity than she is. But only a little. If I ever let my fucking guard down, I could be just as nuts and destructive as her in a minute. She don’t know it, but the truth is, Narcisa’s got nothing on me. When I was out there doing my thing, man, I made her look like a fucking kitten. But I’m keeping my nose clean today, thank God. And i’ll tell ya, going through all this shit is teaching me stuff. I’m not quite sure what just yet, but I can feel it.”
“But if you still consider yourself a drug addict, Cigano, how can you stand to be around all those drugs every day and not fall off the wagon yourself? Don’t you ever get tempted?”
“That’s the funny thing, Tony. It’s like there’s a power bigger than myself, bigger than my addiction is keeping me from harm here. That’s another reason I really believe I’m meant to be in this thing. Intuition. That’s God’s way of talking to us. And if I ever did get tempted to go back to that shit, all I gotta do now is take one look at her. Living with this shit right up in my face every day, it’s not looking real attractive to me, believe me! No thanks! Really makes me grateful for my recovery and not wanna take it for granted. Another blessing. And another good sign is that we haven’t killed each other in this fucking relationship yet. That’s a real blessing for sure,” I laughed.
“No doubt that’s a blessing, Cigano,” he laughed.
“No doubt is right. Meanwhile we both seem to be slowly adapting to each other’s obnoxious solitary ways and nasty habits. We’re like these two wild animals, a coupla lonely old solitary predators locked up in a cage together now. What the fuck can we do, man? It’s like we’ve just spontaneously been coming to some sort of an uneasy truce, at least on some weird unspoken level.”
“Sounds almost hopeful, Cigano,” he said as he called for another beer.
I took advantage of the pause in the conversation to do some thinking.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009

70. TRUE ROMANCE

“You’re never too old to grow up.” — Shirley Conran

After eating in comfortable silence for awhile, I asked Antonio how he was doing. Suddenly he started confiding to me about his dilemma with the current girlfriend.
I’d met the girl with him the last time I’d seen him at the beach and was duly impressed. A gorgeous, well-known Brazilian supermodel whose picture was on the cover of all the fashion magazines. She’d seemed like a pretty good egg to me at the time. Real down to earth and very spirited and natural for such a high class bitch. She had an open manner and an easy laugh to offset her almost intimidating beauty. A class act. I told him she seemed pretty sweet to me.
“Well that’s the problem, Cigano. This girl’s driving me crazy. She’s a little too sweet! And too open with her manners for my liking sometimes, flirts with other guys right in front of me. She was raised without any social graces. Very low class upbringing. And she’s bossy, faces me head on. Like a man.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, man,” I said. “Sounds like the girl’s just got some spirit.”
“Yes, well it’s a little too much spirit for me,” he lamented. “She curses like a sailor, and she eats with her mouth open. No class at all. And she has so many goddamned opinions about everything.”
He looked like a little boy who didn’t get what he wanted from Santa. I could sort of relate. Still I chose to play the devil’s hand.
“Opinions. Hmm. Sound like anybody you know?” I said.
“But I’m a man, Cigano. I’m very well educated. It’s different. It’s just not right, it’s not a woman’s place.”
“I never knew you were so old fashioned, Antonio,” I laughed.
“It’s not about being old fashioned, Cigano. But there are limits! Standards! She’s a pig!” He cried.
I laughed out loud.
“Seriously, Cigano! Before she began seeing me, she’d already spread it around to every other guy in the world. I’ve heard all sorts of things.”
“Promiscuous, hein? Hmm. Sound like anybody you know again?” I said again.
“Mother of God! Its not the same. I’m a man.” He whimpered.
I laughed. He looked at me with that good old ‘poor me’ hang dog victim look I know so well.
“So why do ya keep going out with her then, hein? Ever ask yourself that?” I said.
He looked around the little restaurant as if making sure nobody was listening. Then he looked at me again with a look of desperation.
“She’s got me, Cigano,” he whispered. “I am. Screwed! Please pardon the expression. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I suppose I’m sort of in love with this damned vixen. God help me.”
He really looked as if he was telling me he’d just been diagnosed with rectal cancer. I could understand. His whole world was going down the shitter. A confirmed card-carrying old-school Brazilian playboy can’t afford to fall in love with one of his “conquests.” It just goes against the whole program.
“So why don’t you just dig in and enjoy the ride, man?” I said, smiling widely. “Shit, Antonio, it’s good to be in love. It’s the best fucking thing in the world! What’s the big problem here?”
“That’s the point, Cigano,” he said. “I don’t want to be in love! Not with someone like her.”
“Why the hell not?”
“She’s just not my type.”
“And what’s your type, hein?”
He shrugged helplessly.
“Maybe she is your type and ya just didn’t know it before she came along.” I suggested.
That drew a blank, so I dug in a little deeper.
“Antonio, if you’re so hung up on this chick, there’s gotta be something going on.”
He was quiet again for a moment, seemingly lost in thought this time. Finally he looked at me with a bewildered expression.
“Maybe there is,” he said. “But, there’s just something missing.”
“Such as?”
“A certain innocence,” he said. “I want a girl who has … purity.”
Purity?
“You’re a sick fucking pervert!” I screamed, laughing till my eyes watered.
Antonio started to laugh too, despite himself. I’d got him. Takes one to know one.
“Jesus, Antonio, look at you, man! Ya meet a fucking soul mate, a beautiful intelligent famous young supermodel who fucks like a demon and hangs out like a man, who can drink you under the table, and she’s your equal in every other way too, a fucking female version of you. And she’s even got her own fame and fortune, so ya know she’s not some fucking gold digging whore! And you’re still not satisfied? Just because she was born below your fucking social class and had to hustle her way up? What? That’s not enough character for you? What the fuck? You should be thanking yer lucky stars, man! But no!! Now the first thing you wanna do is swap her in for some clueless beige little upper class doll-face virgin schoolgirl who you can stick your dick into her eyeball and destroy her and sully and corrupt her life and move on again! Just so you can feel like you’re in control. Control what? You are an evil old pedophile, my friend! You are a very bad man! Repent!!”
I howled with laughter. He looked at me with a look of horror that confirmed I totally had his number.
“But I’m not cynical like you, Cigano,” he pleaded. “ I still believe in true love. True romance, courtship.”
That one set off a new burst of hysterical laughter. Finally I caught my breath.
“You’re a fucking sex-crazed perverted old pussy fiend and a drooling love junkie. Just like me. But when the game goes to the next level, then suddenly ya don’t wanna play anymore. I can sure relate to that shit. This is exactly what me and Narcisa are practically killing each other over, trying to end the fucking thing. Neither one of us wanted to fall in love. Love is bad for business for people like us. We’re loners. But we couldn’t kill each other and we couldn’t kill the fucking thing either. No matter how hard we’ve both tried. And believe me, we’ve tried. Shit. It’s like were stuck with each other now. Fuck, man, that shit has really had me thinking a lot.”
“So what did you figure out with all this thinking, Cigano?” Antonio asked.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009

Here’s another outtake from the new edit of Narcisa

69. Lunch With Antonio

“In my friend I find a second self.” Isabel Norton

I got the call right after she crashed the next afternoon. My friend Antonio.
“Wanna join me for lunch, Cigano?”
Antonio was the notorious black sheep of a very powerful and influencial family in Rio de Janeiro, something like the Brazilian equivilant of the Rockerfellers or Rothschilds. Masters. Rulers. Empire builders. Captains of Industry. High-ranking Freemasons. The Hidden Hand. Politics. Banking. Wealth. Power. Influence. The works.
For all that though, Antonio was a pretty nice cat. A hard drinking bon-vivant bohemian Brazilian playboy with a glad eye for lots of top shelf pussy. A big fan of writers like Keroac, Bukowski, Baudeleire and the like too. And, like so many people of his privileged rank and status in life, Antonio was an avid people collector.
We’d met through a mutual acquaintance at a party up in Santa Teresa back while Narcisa was still away, missing, married to the gringo in New York. Once Antonio had established that I was an authentic “beatnik,” an eccentric world traveling half gypsy ex-con and a lowbrow poet and aspiring novelist to boot, it didn’t take him very long to add me to his private collection of exotic people.
We’d run into each other a few more times at the beach after our first meeting and he’d invited me to a few exclusive parties and elite intellectual social gatherings. Then over time, a strange, unlikely friendship had developed between two people from very different worlds. Eventually I became almost like a sort of fucked up father figure to the guy. For some reason he respected my opinions about life’s larger issues.
I’d even attempted to maneuver him into an A.A. meeting once after he’d called me in the middle of the night drunk, crying, all messed up and completely demoralized, having gotten beaten up and robbed after going out drinking with the wrong people. The next morning after he sobered up, hung over and repentant, he’d called me again to apologize for the night before. I took the high road and jumped on an opportunity to try and help him out with what I suspected his real problem was.
I’d told him some more of my own hard luck drinking stories, freely stressing my recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous for him this time around. Why the hell not just give it to him straight? The worst that could happen was he’d just tell me to fuck off and then find a new kook for his collection. Then at a strategic moment I’d lowered the net and asked him if he’d like me to take him to “one of those meetings.”
Somewhat reluctantly he’d conceded and away we went. He’d sat there for the obligatory hour, listening politely. But, with all his wealth and power and powerful connections, Antonio had a problem with the concept of his being “powerless” over anything, much less his ability to control and enjoy his chosen hard-drinking, coke-sniffing playboy lifestyle. I guessed he was still having a pretty good time with it all, even with his heavy drinking which sometimes got a bit ‘out of hand.’ But all in all, my friend Antonio was obviously a long way from hitting any real bottom. So of course A.A. hadn’t taken for him, and he’d just continued to fry his high-class liver to a crisp at high-class social gatherings all over town. Meanwhile though, from that day forward an even deeper bond of trust and complicity had developed between us and our friendship had quickly taken wings.
Antonio was already sitting at the crowded lunch counter of a neighborhood seafood joint when I arrived.
“Fala, Cigano!” he shouted gleefully, rising to greet me with a warm embrace and a beery sandpaper kiss on the cheek.
We sat and talked of this and that as the counterman filled his glass with beer and both our plates with spicy exotic crab dishes from the indiginous Amazon Basin.
He asked how I was doing and why I’d effectively disappeared from the beach and everywhere else for the last several months. I filled him in, sharing some of my more dramatic trials, tribulations and high-risk dramas with him. And as we sat there eating, I told him all about Narcisa.
“That’s some crazy stuff, Cigano,” he said, shaking his head in a mixture of shocked humor, disbelief and awe.
“Only you for an adventure like that, man. I can’t believe she actually smokes crack. That’s insane! You are the sickest person i’ve ever known!”
“Hey, amigo,” I said, feigning indignation. “I resemble that remark!!”
“But that’s what I like about you too, I guess, you crazy gypsy” he laughed. “Seriously though, wouldn’t you like to find a better girl? Somebody more on your own level?”
“You mean like ‘the sickest guy you ever knew’ level?” I growled.
“Touche, brother,” he said laughing.
“My pleasure, Antonio,” I said.
“Well, the best of luck to you with her anyway.” He shrugged magnanimously. “Looks like you really got a live one there. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“i’ve never known what the fuck I’m doing, man. But I guess i’ll find out, right? Anyway, a live one beats a dead one, Antonio. What the fuck else am I gonna do, hein? Go sit around a buncha boring high class Ipanema social gatherings with you and yer fancy friends and try to score with some nice little well-bred milk-fed rich patricinha girl?”
“Works alright for me, my friend,” Antonio shrugged, taking another slug of his beer.
“Yeah, well, not all of us can be millionaire playboys, amigo. Shit, their rich mafia politician daddies would have my dirty old gypsy ass kidnapped and fed to their pedigree Rottweilers. Anyway, I kinda like fishing in the poluted waters of the love pond.”
“I guess it’s alright if you don’t mind eating three headed fish that glow in the dark.” He laughed.
“Keeps my life interesting at least,” I conceded.
“You will never die of boredom, Cigano!” He declared.
“Amen, brother!” I said. “And that’s all i’ve ever fucking wanted for Christmas.”
We sat there and ate. The food tasted especially good after weeks of subsisting on cold pizza and stale crackers with Narcisa.

Hey Guys- Just pulled an excerpt from Jonathan’s new edit of Narcisa for a sneak peak.

CHRIST THE REDEEMER-

“His craving for alcohol was the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God.”  – Carl Jung

She had another freaky vision later that day in the park that slowly blossomed into a full-blown obsession. Suddenly she’d gotten it into her head that the gigantic white statue of Christ the Redeemer watching over Rio from Corcovado Mountain was made of solid crack cocaine rock. That’s right. She’d managed to convince herself that the drug was cleverly hidden there by the evil Freemasons she’d been obsessed with ever since her surreal childhood.

When she first told me that shit, man, I just looked at her the way you look at some terrible calamity, with a mixture of disbelief, shock and pity. She caught it. Narcisa missed nothing.

“Why you look it me like the crazy peoples, Cigano, hein? This is real truth I e’say it to you man, believe it!”

I listened as her delusional vision unfolded.

“Why the fock you think it is so many the gringo an’ the policia an’ the tourista van, all the time these peoples go go go always up to there, hein? For look on it the vista? These e’sheet e’stupid man. Nobody gonna go on the big airplane for go so far to here from the Europa an’ the Ja-pon only for go look it e’stupid vista. They only come to here for get it the drug, man, for take it away to they home. All the South America freebase crack rock!”

She told me that the real reason for all the interest in the statue of Christ was the international drug trade. Hundreds of sinister foreign agents and globe-trotting James Bond-like drug traffickers disguised as silly tourists with cameras and back packs and stupid shorts and t-shirts, all going back and forth, to and from the huge white statue of Cristo Redentor. Taking all that crack away on all those big jet airplanes flying around overhead. Away to strange malevolant underground compounds in Japan and Europe and the United States. Aliens. Secret Societies. Satanic Rituals. Ungodly Hybrid Breeding Experiments. Secret Things.

I asked her how she explained the fact that the statue had been there for almost a century. How would it still be there if they were selling it off piecemeal to her sinister legion of foreign drug runners?  She was ready for me there.

They simply replaced all the original pure crack with this new laboratory manafactured, transgenically engineered toxic mind control substances. That’s the shit they’re really selling up in the favelas now. Which also conveniently explained why she’d been having so much trouble lately – mental trouble. The same reason that everybody was shooting each other up there in the hillside ghettos. The so-called Drug Wars are really just a neurotic side effect of the Bad Gringo Replacement Substance in the drugs. Fucking up everybody’s buzz, turning all the normally passive, peace-loving crackheads and drug gangs all stressed out and homicidal now. Damn!

And she soon became totally obsessed with finding some way to bypass the thundering armies of police and tourists and secret government agents. A way to tap into the dwindling mother lode of crack up there. Before it was completely depleted. It even got to the point over time where whenever we went near Copacabana or any other place there were tourists, she flew into a big frenzied panic, convinced all the crowds of bumbling lost-dog gringos were really all sorts of malevolent secret agents, CIA spies and rival drug dealers and shit. All part of a complex plot to suck away all the drugs hidden up there on the mountain top, cleverly camaflauged as a statue.

The statue of Christ is visible from pretty much everywhere in the city, sitting on top of the highest peak in Rio. Soon she began watching it intently from my balcony. Then one day she looked up and pointed frantically at some sightseeing helicopters buzzing around the statue.

“Look it! Now is almost finish, Cigano. Only remain it the good drug now she on the head! These why they gotta bring it the helicopter, they got it now the e’special machine for es’tract it from the head. Oh Fock! What I gonna do? Make think, man. Think, go go.”

She was really falling. Stark raving mad, crazy. She needed to get to the head of Christ, no more time, go go go! The head of Christ.

I thought about the odd signifigence of her latest psychotic meltdown.

The head of Christ.The Godhead. Enlightenment.

She’d been up for five days this time, absolutely refusing to sleep or even rest for a few moments. She cried big tears of frustration that just broke my heart.

She had to get to the head of Christ!

Finally after all the usual delicate and complex trials and torments of trying to get her to sleep, she just raved and ranted about the Christ Head some more and then suddenly went Tilt. Passed right out in mid-rant, light snores coming from her gaping snout.

I thanked the Gods of Chaos who ruled our lives for allowing me to survive yet another day. I fucked her slowly as she slept. Then I rolled over and passed out beside her sleeping carcass, thinking how a man will put up with just about anything as long as his fucking sex drive is satisfied.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009