We made it out of the subway station without getting arrested and walked over to the sushi place, Narcisa stopping to ask for everything in every store on the way.
A diamond ring, a plastic toothpick holder, a box of Twinkies, a game of battleship, a parakeet, baby formula…
Then we were there and without delay Narcisa immediately began pillaging the buffet table.
I smiled, seeing the mirrors between her and our beloved JS.
Shrimp. Tuna, salmon. Shrimp. More tuna. In her mouth, but none on her plate.
The maitre de scowled at us. Jonathan shrugged and laughed. He was used to that scowl.
“Tempura! Now, go!” She said, bits of rice flying here and there. I wiped a piece off my forehead.
“Make sure you get enough for me.” I added.
“Coca Cola!” She shouted.
At that point everyone in the restaurant was turned around staring at us.
“Narcisa…” Jonathan said. “Relax. Why don’t you sit down with that plate of food?”
“That’s for the old peoples only, Cigano. Old. Got it?” She relented.
“Alright. So keep runnin around like a maniac. Whatever.”
Finally she picked a table right in the center of the restaurant and sat down.
By the time the two of us sat down to join her, maybe 11 seconds later, she was done, belching and moaning.
She hovered one of her knobby hands over my plate for a moment like a starved plucked vulture, and picked off a shrimp.
Then she plopped her head down on the table.
“I am SO full Cigano. I go to e’sleep now.”
“Princess, maybe you can wait a few minutes until I’m done eating then we can all go home and take a nap?”
“Okay Cigano, but hurry it the fuck up.” She put her head back down.
Jonathan finished the rest of the food off of my plate and his and called for the bill.
Narcisa threw herself into the street like a mangy, raggedy sloth and began to hail a cab.
“Maybe she’ll get run over…” Jonathan said, laughing.
Ya never know.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. 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.

No, it’s not over yet…

The pilot took us around the behemoth statue of Christ a few times and even over the ocean.

Narcisa squeezed my hand. I didn’t mind, I was a little afraid of the whole situation too. Jonathan just laughed as he looked back at our aghast faces. Narcisa continued to squeal and bleat like some young, tender farm animal. Like the odd duck that she is.
Finally, we began to descend back to down to the platform, which was basically just a flat cement block on top of one of the giant rocks that juts out of the city, adjacent to the Sugarloaf Mountain.
As soon as we landed Narcisa ripped her seatbelt off and jumped out.
Jonathan and I followed suit, a little slower though. I had a couple years on Narcisa in terms of learning the art of patience, and Jonathan had what seemed like lifetimes experience on it compared to me. We were a fine bunch.
“What now?” Jonathan yelled over the wshhhh wshhhhhh wshhhh of the spinning propellor.
“Now we get sushi!” Narcisa announced, acting as “benevolent dictator” today.
Yep, sure, why not and just like that we were on our way back down the hill, Narcisa and I the Peanut Gallery on the back of the bike while Jonathan yelled at us to stop squirming.
We parked in front of the Paderia and Jonathan told us to get off.
“We can’t ride into Copacabana like this, so we’re gonna have to take the train”, he told us as he bought some chocolates off of a girl on the corner. He handed one to me and one to Narcisa, and we walked down the steps into the subway.
We hardly made it past a souvenir shop in the station when the nagging began. ”I want this! And this! Oh and this Cigano…”
“On the way back,” he said, placating her majesty, pulling her by the hand onto the train platform.
We got on the train and I pulled out my piece of chocolate and began biting off the corners.
Narcisa wanted to do the same, so she pulled hers out of her “pocket”, which most people would probably call their “underwear”.
She began biting the plastic wrapping off of the corners. A few people stared at her, mouths agape.
“Why people always looking on me like I am the freak!” She asked me, laughing.
“What are you DOING!?!?” Jonathan nudged her.
I looked at the bag of weed she was gnawing on and started laughing.
“I’m SORRY Cigano. These thing all look like the same!”
She put the weed back in her pants as casually as she whipped it out and pulled out the chocolate.
“WHAT?!” She said, addressing all the other passengers as we stepped off the train.
Narcisa. What a fucking freak. Takes one to know one.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. 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.

I ran out of the favela behind Narcisa, turning around for one last look into that world…
Two kids kicking a soccer ball at a dog…
Jonathan smiled as we approached the bike and we hopped on.
My flip flops scraped against the cobblestone as we weaved up the jungle roads to the turnoff by the Corcovado where they give helicopter rides to tourists.
“Put you feet on the top of mine, then you don’t chop it off you toe!”
She told me, pointing down to her giant canoe-like extremities.
So I did, and we somehow managed to make it to the top of the hill without toppling over, Narcisa and I sitting there squished on the back like two bugs on a windshield, like suspended animation.
It was a Tuesday, and still winter at this point, so luckily when we pulled up we were the only “tourists” there.
Narcisa squealed with excitement and jumped up and down, twirling in her skirt like a happy giant mongoloid pointing to the chopper that was landing on the helipad.
Jonathan bought the tickets for the 10 minute ride around the statue of Christ, Pão de Açucar and the Praia Vermelho.
“Ey mister,” Narcisa said to the poor unsuspecting ticket guy.
“Yes, senhorita?”
“Can I bring it my cat on the heli-copter?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” He said, confused. Poor lamb…
“My cat. You know… MEE-OW. E’stupid fuck.”
“Oh… cat. Well, yes. I suppose.”
She cackled hysterically as she suggested to Jonathan that we go back down the hill to pick up Captain Kirk, her little black cat.
He said no, he thought that would be a bad idea.
“Maybe next time…” He told her, as he smirked at me.
She resigned.
She wasn’t on crack….  Definitely a few screws loose though.
We were briefed on helicopter protocol by the pilot, Jonathan sitting up front as co-pilot, Narcisa and I in the back, holding hands.
Narcisa fidgeted with joy as the helicopter began to lift off the ground.
“Joni, give it to me you ca-mera.”
He handed her his Blackberry, trustingly, and she began to snap pictures of us and the pilot.
“I’m so happy!” She said to me, as she leaned forward to take a picture with Jonathan.
“I love you all!” she shouted out the window. “I love you all!” and we were off.
“I want it the heli-copter for Christmas Joni. Got it?” She yelled up front, drowned out by the sound of the propellor.
“I got it, baby!” He shouted back.
Another great day with Narcisa? It was looking like it.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. 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.

Some dark carnival…

We ascended the winding path up the favela, keeping our feet from the watery sludge that was pouring down the same path that doubled as a sewer system.
A baby sat naked in the middle of it all, clenching her fists, crying, and I knew I was in another world. A place where the vibe was sinister and controlled, but the children making pow pow sounds and playing cops and robbers didn’t seem to notice.
One of the kids recognized Narcisa, and pointed up up up. She turned around to make sure I was still behind her as she started
winding between the shacks of the hillside shantytown.
Fascinated, I followed. This world was not unlike the projects in Harlem that I once knew so well. Our reason for being there was certainly the same.
We got to a small clearing, where a skinny black guy sat at a fold-up table.
On the table was about a pound of weed and a machine gun. Two younger boys stood around behind him, holding hand guns. One of them kicked a soccer ball against the stone wall a couple times.
He looked at Narcisa, nodded, and threw her a plastic bag full of weed.
She tossed a ten-spot on the table and placed the bag down her pants as the guy at the table eye-balled my tattoos up and down a few times, intently, fucking me with his eyes.
I did not shift uncomfortably, as I wanted to. I just stood still.
“Valeu.” Narcisa said to the guy, and gave him a thumbs-up. She nodded to me and we turned around to descend the filthy path we came up from, back through the maze of shacks and crying babies and barking dogs and children going pow pow pow with their little hands.
This surreal world I have always been intrigued by.
“Hey!” Narcisa said, grabbing my shoulder, snapping me out of my fear and curiosity-based trance. “They think you tough up here… Only the criminal peoples in
jail have the tattoo. Ha!” She laughed.
I laughed too, gaining a little wind back.
Then we were out of there, back in stately Santa Tereza. Just like that. Off to ride helicopters and eat sushi and other things that those people back there would probably never live to do.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. 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.

…Sure, but first I gotta do one thing.

I woke up in a panic and looked at my phone. It was 7 in the morning.
I’d survived a very draining day, and had wound up getting a surprisingly uninterrupted, dreamless sleep.
Immediately the phone starting ringing, and I climbed down from the little loft to grab it, avoiding a giant tropical waterbug who was making his way across the hardwood floor.
“Alo?” I answered.
“Alo. It’s me, what are you doing?” Jonathan asked.
“Nothing, just woke up…”
“Narcisa wants to go for a helicopter ride…. what do you think?”
“Fuck. Yeah. Let’s go. I’m coming… Is she lucid?”
He explained to me that her run was short and concise, as I put my clothes on, the phone clamped between my ear and my shoulder. She had smoked crack for a few hours and then passed out. Her tolerance for the drug was becoming weaker and weaker. ”I’ll see you in a minute,” he told me as he hung up.
And I stood out on the veranda for a minute, wondering. Maybe my presence and positivity had something to do with Narcisa’s waning ability to successfully smoke crack.
After a few cigarettes out front, they pulled up on the motorcycle. Narcisa handed me a helmet.
I looked at Jonathan incredulously, then at my flipflops. Some gruesome accident scenarios flooded my head.
“What?” He said, “The two of you is like having one regular sized bitch on the back of my bike.” True, I thought… I got on in the middle. Narcisa squeezed me from behind.
“Where we going?” I asked, turning around to see her.
“To the Corcovado to ride on the helicopter. But first we go up on the spot so Narcisa can get the maconha.”
We cruised up the winding cobblestone roads, higher and higher up the hill until the road simply stopped, turning into footpath that led the way through the crooked favela.
She hopped off. “You coming?” She asked me.
I weighed my pros and cons. Wait on the motorcycle or go participate in some sordid dealing of a drug-trafficking slum with Narcisa…
I looked at Jonathan as I got off the bike, handing him my helmet.
“It’s safe.” He said. “Just keep your mouth shut”.
And that’s exactly what I did as I followed Narcisa up the path.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. 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.

Joyride- 2nd Installment

As the taxi careened through underpass and mountain tunnels, Narcisa’s conversation was getting more and more heated. Though they were speaking Portuguese and I couldn’t understand every word they were saying, her arms were moving fast, they were talking fast, the cab was driving fast and there were words like “CRACK” and “ASHTAR COMMAND” and “UFO” being thrown around. Fast. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Narcisa!” I barked suddenly, surprising even myself. “WHERE are we going?”
She looked around for a second, stunned by the interruption, slunk back into the seat and looked at me, confused. “I donno…”
Suddenly she was lucid. She lunged toward the cabbie…
“Hey motherfucker! Where you taking us?” She yelled. “You already pass it my casa five kilometros ago!”
My teeth were clenched. There was silence.
“I think I am lost then.” He said nervously. “It is only my second day driving.”
My teeth unclenched. I took a deep breath and thanked God.
“Ohhhhh. Huh. ” She said.  ”Well you gotta make a left over there.
E’stupid!” She turned to me. “See these focking e’stupid asshole smoke so much crack he forget how to drive. E’stupid crackhead sheet.”
I laughed. Again I had somehow escaped another round of the insane scenarios that played out in my mind. Gloria a Deus!
The cab pulled up in front of the building and Jonathan was waiting there on the bike.
“What took ya so long?” He yelled over to us.
“Eventos estranhos!” I yelled back at him as I threw the cabbie a ten spot.
Narcisa ran over to tell him of the crazy crackhead cabbie before whispering something in his ear.
Jonathan suddenly looked sick. He walked over to me.
“We’re going up to the boca for a minute.”
I looked at him sadly. “No…”
He just shrugged.  I looked at Narcisa, pleading, but in that instant she had made up her mind. She was gonna get high.
It had been a good day, and all good things have to end eventually.
And as I sadly turned my key in the door of the little apartment, the bike went whirring of into the night. I listened to the sound until it disappeared. Then I said a prayer for Narcisa and climbed into bed.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. 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.

Joy Ride- first installment.

Narcisa’s eyes began to dart like pinballs around in her head. Like she was looking for the escape hatch, or more likely, looking around to make sure everyone was watching.
She drew a deep breath in and on the exhale emitted a low growl that built into a steady loud whine. “Go go go go go go go go. Gotta go now Cigano! Please please please. Go!”
She stood up like a venomous spider had just bitten her ass, and announced “I am leaving this place Cigano. Good bye.”
And she walked out the door, onto the busy street.
Jonathan looked at me and shook his head disapprovingly, shrugging.
“Whatever.” He said. “You guys go, I’ll stay here and pay.”
Things were about to get weird. I could feel it in the pre-dusk misty air as I walked out to find her.
“Narcisa?” I shouted.
“Yes! I’m right here!” She was across the street looking at diamonds in a glass case of a store.
Disregarding all traffic, she walked into the middle of the street, stood in front of a taxi and put her hand out.
“Come on Ale!”  She called to me.
I walked over and got in the cab. What else could I do?
“Where are you going?” The cabbie asked.
“We going up in Lapa right now okey? Go!”
It was silent for a minute. The traffic was thick.
“Where are you from?” The cabbie asked.
“Resende,” She answered.
“Really? Me too! I was just there…”
She nodded. It was silent again. The next question was a golf ball in my stomach.
“You smoke crack?” He asked.
“Yeah… why?”
“Me too…” He said. “You know about the extra terrestrials then…”
Narcisa sat up straight, her big eyes practically popping out of her perfectly round white face.
I looked at her pleadingly. It was too late…
I was in the middle of witnessing what I had heard about many times, Narcisa’s absurdly perverse synchronicity. This was the middle of a cosmic shit storm and, now already on the highway towards Cinelandia, I didn’t see any way out.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. 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.