From the opening chapter of the new edition of Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes

I open the door and step inside my new neat little doll house. It smells of mildew. A putrid, nostalgic scent of the past, scent of memories… I pull the string and turn on the 40 watt light attached to an old wooden overhead ceiling fan, surprised it works. A high cieling… I look around. I vaguely remember the furniture. A masculine, no-frills little loft bed with nice fluffy feather pillows at the top of a short wooden ladder. Good. A comfortable old leather sofa. Two chairs, a little table, a tiny kitchen with a small fridge. No television. Good. A pile of books in Portuguese, my native tongue. Occult Spiritism, mostly. The Book of Spirits. The Gospel According to Spirits by Alan Kardec. Chico Xavier’s Nosso Lar. I’d read some of those books years ago in another long-forgotten haphazard quest for sanity.

I go into the bathroom, have a piss. Flush the toilet, brown water fills the bowl… Flush again and it’s replaced by clean, clear water. Decent water pressure for Rio de Janeiro plumbing. Better than what I got used to in a Mexico City Colonia. I test the faucet on the dirty seafoam green porcelin bathtub, looking out the large window by the shower at a scruffy green plaza five stories below.

I open up the window and smell the lush humid air of the city, hear its lumbering machinery pounding and humming, buzzing in my ears. Ship’s horns. Motors. Sirens. Roosters. Dogs. People. I’m still alive. Good...

I walk back across the little apartment, throw open the dirty whitewashed shuttered windows, the wooden door to a tiny dust coated Portuguese tiled balcony with the same sunny green view, a comfortable view. A blank canvas. Yeh, clean this place up and this will be all right for me. I can do this here now…

Not much else in the way of personal items in there though. It looked as if somebody has already pretty much cleaned the place out of any valuables. I guess that’s what happens when you die. I don’t really care. I’ve never cared much for televisions or valuables or personal effects. A motorcycle and a change of clothes. A few good books, some spending cash… Freedom, that’s about all I’ve ever aspired to.

And, just for today, that’s cool too… Now I gotta get out. The night is calling.

Here is a short chapter from Jonathan Shaw’s upcoming memoir Scabvendor: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist:

“A man becomes like those whose society he loves.”  - Hindu proverb

Voices singing, bottles breaking... A ship blows a horn nearby. A rum-soaked, tropical night emerging from yellow shadows. Lively open-aired cantinas click into focus, eyes clicking new images into consciousness. A seedy, crowded Plaza by the booming port. A cheerful whore blinks like a sleepwalker across a table cluttered with bottles. CLICK. Three other whores, two Greek sailors in tailored silk shirts, Pepe, Jonathan. Sitting. Drinking. Talking. You are watching a spinning funhouse carnival of memory. CLICK. White jacketed waiters dodging efficiently through the shifting chaos and clamor of jangling tables and an army of shoeshine boys, gypsy fortune tellers, old ladies in wide, colorful patterns, bright faced children selling trinkets behind shiny black eyes of night, a moving, twinkling tapestry of flowers, huge wooden ships floating by on brown shoulders, peddlers and trays of food and bottles, moving, sailing across a sea of hands and wooden trays and faces and words and song, cigarettes, chicklettes, candy, and crazy drunken life.

Pepe struggles through a joke, drunk enough to sail the rough seas of his broken English, gesturing carefully to bring each word along, like a drunken sailor stumbling home.

“One maing, he go for look de ladies. He tek one lady an dey go hotel…”, he winks to the audience of bright laughing eyes around the table. “Okey, so de nex day he, how ju say… huevos… eggs… BALLS. Yeh, he BALLS so e’scrachy… he e’scrachy balls so e’scrachy BAD, ju know?”,  making a frantic gesture, provoking tears of laughter from the whores. “okey, okey… so, de nex’ day now he go back de lady, ju know, an he say…’hey, JU!!! JU GIVE ME DE CRABS!!!” More waves of laughter. “Okey, okey, so she look HIM… an’ she say, ‘pues si, mi amor. What ju wan’ I give ju for only de fifty pesos… de LOBSTERS???’ ”

The table howls with drunken laughter as the sailors call for another round. Machine gun toting soldiers wind their way casually through strolling mariachis and dueling marimba bands… Across the table one of the sailors flexes his forearm muscle to make his tattooed hula girl dance to the delight of the whores.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009

Narcisa always liked the idea of a pet, even though she was totally incapable of caring for another living thing. It wasn’t about the animal so much as the idea, the image of having a pet. Like a prop. Something that so-called ‘normal’ people did… So she pestered me to get her a Pet.
First there was The Fish.
She got me to go out and buy it for her. Of course she never had time to go with me to pick one out.
“Narcisa too much buisy now, Cigano… I wan’ you go for buy it to me the fish, Cigano, go!”
Narcisa wants to look normal, not be normal. That would be too much like work… That’s something you get other people to do for you.
“Well, what kinda fish you want me to get for you then, Narcisa?”
“You know it what the kind fish, the one little fish who e’stay on the glass bowl. E’swim ’round, you know? The kind who go go e’swimming all ‘round… Go an’ get it for me now, go!”
​ ​I asked her to at least tell me what color this thing should be… There, she was a bit more specific.
​ “He gotta be very much the color, the crazy color, the real psychedelic color, man, got it?”
​ I got it. Sort of… So one day while she was off smoking crack somewhere, I went by that little pet store down in Lapa. The one where they also sold barbeque grills out front. I never quite got that. Filet Meow? Only in Rio de Janeiro… Whatever. I went in and picked out a healthy looking little indigo blue fish called Beta. Got the food and the bowl, the little drops you put in the water, the whole deal…
The Fish sat for a while in a little bowl on a shelf above the toilet. She was happy with her new Pet. Beta… For about a minute… Of course I ended up being the one to feed it and change its water when it got so cloudy you couldn’t even see the thing in there. She said she never fed it cause she didn’t want the fish to get fat… Finally one really hot day, she felt sorry for it and dropped a bunch of ice cubes from her Coca Cola into the water, killing it instantly. Thermal Shock. Dead Fish. The End.
She tapped the bowl loudly with a toothbrush, yelling at the floating Beta.
“Mooove… E’stupid!!!”

Then there was The Kitten.
We were riding down the hill from the cop spot. She slapped me on the back.
“E’stop, Cigano, e’stop!!!”
​ Before I could stop the bike, she jumped off the back and flew across the street, almost getting run over by a passing taxi. She came back smiling that crooked toothy grin, holding a little striped fur ball, the cutest little kitten. Narcisa was in love. Heart-warming moment…
That lasted a couple of days. But the kitten wanted way too much attention. So she threw it across the room and I said, that’s it, one more stunt like that…
​ Next day the kitten was perched over the toilet bowl, peacefully lapping up water. Very cute. Look baby look look how pretty, I said. She went over to watch. Suddenly, bam, she pushed it right into the toilet. Shit. Poor kitten crawled out looking like a drowned sewer rat. That was the one time I really felt like murdering Narcisa right on the spot. For a second. Then I remembered what they did to her when she was little. I just looked at her.
“Why? What is wrong with you, Narcisa? How the fuck could you do some shit like that to an innocent little kitten, man?”
​ “I do these only for to help it the cat, Cigano.”
“Okey… So exactly how did pushing the kitten into the toilet help it, hein?”
“Is because she too much trusting to the peoples. She need it for wise up. An’ then she learn it no for let her ass e’spose an’more got it? These way she learn some thing, is better for her these way, so the next time she gonna be more e’smarter…”
Next time? I took the fucking kitten away. I gave it to my neighbors Antonio Pedro and his girlfriend Florinda as 
a gift. They’re real happy with it. It grew up to be a big beautiful healthy mouser. I like to pet it when I see it out in the hall. It always comes right up to me, arches its back and purrs when I pet it. Nice cat… It always kept away from Narcisa though. Guess she really taught it, all right. She would even get jealous whenever I’d stop to pet it, told me that was the only pussy I’d get if I didn’t hurry up, go go go!

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

Without ceremony, Mimo and the other two who’d come with him quickly unpacked their instruments and dove right into the impromptu jam session and it was on… Dolo was laughing as he fiddled away furiously, leading the groove as usual. His bow tore at the violin with such fury I expected the thing to start smoking any minute. Pretty soon the other violinist from Para was trading riffs with Dolo. It was as if the two of them were having an inspired conversation in some advanced alien language that only they could speak. As the music picked up speed and momentum and levitated into that crazy communal magical gypsy telepathy that always happens whenever more than two Roma get together for song, everybody was “getting in” now, one, then another taking incredible individual instrumental solos, while miraculously never straying a note from the big thundering whole.

The accordion player from Para was like an unstoppable machine. The intensity of joy and pure intuitive improvisation was contagious, moving around the room as the waves of sound continued to mount and grow and the wine flowed… The laughter and shouting rose with each new verse and solo flying out of Dolo’s inexhaustible energy field like the dramatic streaks of lightining racing across the sky outside the big wood and glass balcony doors. It was a mystical and transcendent orgy of unrelenting sound and energy. Pure magic.

Hours went by like that. The music never stopped, but there were little breaks for individual players. Mostly in order for them to keep eating and drinking. Whenever one put his instrument down to go for a piss or light a smoke or drink or eat something off the big table piled with food and wine bottles, another one immediately jumped it and kept going in an endless tag team stream that kept the music itself going and going like some big unstoppable steam engine barreling down the tracks… Suddenly it was four in the morning and the party showed no sign of slowing down. I’d already pretty much talked and hung out a bit with just about everyone there over the course of the night- including my esteemed benifactor, Dolo, who seemed especially happy to see me still alive and looking ‘well fed’. Thank God he hadn’t noticed any strange smells in his beautiful house.

The rain had finally stopped and the dawn was looming. Narcisa hadn’t called. That was good. But I still had to be up to take her back to the nut house in just a few hours. During another break from playing, Mimo saw me looking at my watch and gracefully offered me a ride down the hill. I took him up on it and off we went with shouts of ‘de vlessa’ all around.

Home again, I let myself into the dark, silent apartment. Narcisa was out cold. Of course. I thanked God for the evening and, with all the musical fire and fury of my gypsy brethren still ringing in my ears, I set the alarm, crawled up the little ladder to my loft bed, and immediately passed out.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

Dolo’s cousin Dimitri was standing on the street waiting for us with a big black umbrella at the gate to the big house. Mimo parked the taxi and we unloaded the instruments and ran up to the the path in the rain under Dimitri’s umbrella. As we approached, I could hear the unmistakable mad bee sound of Dolo’s violin cutting through the mix of singing and seven string guitar playing. The party was in full swing in the big living room.
“Eiiiii, Nachinho… Sar san, prala!” Dolo shouted to me as we piled into a warm jumble of greetings, hugs, kisses and backslaps. Several round, smiling gypsy women in long, colorful silk skirts with lots of gold coin necklesses and jingling gold bracelets were singing and dancing around as their men played their respective instruments. I knew most of the people there. Those I hadn’t met before greeted me warmly and gestured wildly for me to “get in”… A distinguished older Frenchman, a gadjo was introduced to me as the big music producer Mimo had told me about. Like everybody else he seemed to be having a good time. No wonder he wanted to produce this crazy gypsy music. The good Roma spirits were rolling high and as always immediately infectious.
There where about twenty people hanging around, mostly gypsies. Those without instruments were singing along, shouting, clapping, tapping, beating, banging away with forks and spoons on table tops, joining in any way they could to reinforce that crazy kinetic gypsy rhythm with matchboxes, ashtrays, wine bottles, plates and every other available improvised percussion instrument in the room… I picked up an unclaimed brass tray and a wooden spoon off the table and “got in” as the others hooted their approval. With gypsy music, “more is better” seems to be the rule. Just like old times…

to be continued…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

Dolo was an orphan, like me. Legend had it that he had been taken away from his Calao gypsy people after being caught stealing from a grocery store and put into a reform school in Minas Gerais. From there he was adopted by a respectable local gadji family who had given him an upper class education and tried their best to raise him as a gadjo. One day they took him to the local Catholic church to be baptized by the priest. The priest had jokingly referred to him as ’shorty.’ Dolo, a proud Rom, son of a respected gypsy Baro himself, took offense. As the story goes, he stormed out of the church and promptly stole a horse. Then he rode the horse right back into the church in the middle of the Sunday mass. He galloped the big animal down the aisle and stopped abruptly right before the alter. Looking down at the astonished priest, he yelled, ‘Try and call me shorty now, stupid gadjo!’ before galloping away to find and rejoin his estranged Calão gypsy clan where he was immediately ‘repatriated’…

Now we were all getting together again after so long. Music, wine, food and laughter. Good times. The lusty “just for today” spirit that always bound us all together here as Brazillian Roma, no matter how many months or years and all the inevitable hardships passed between our infrequent gatherings. I was just glad to be seeing my old clan again, the people who had long ago adopted me as family despite my half-Rom, half-gadji heritage. They’d always been there for me when I was a fucked up homeless street kid and nobody else wanted to know… They were the most loyal people I’d ever known and they had taught me everything I knew of family and friendship and loyalty, even before AA. I was glad to be with them again- especially glad that Narcisa was safe and sound at home sleeping with the angels, giving me this chance to get out for a while and see my people again.

to be continued…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

“And Sergei here’s another great violinista,” Mimo went on, gesturing to the other guy. “These guys come all way here now from Para to see Dolo and play with all us together. Big Roma gathering on the weekend… Gonna be ciganos from all the South America, even some come from far away in Europa… Like Dolo. He got some big gadjo music producer up there to pay all their passage. He wanna study our music…”
The two visiting gypsies nodded and grinned proudly like overgrown kids. Mimo, like the legendary Dolo and most of the other Roma I knew in Rio, was an excellent musician. He drove a taxi and bought and sold old cars for extra money since it was never easy for gypsies like Mimo to earn a living with music in Brazil. But the music was his soul. Traditional Roma music fused with popular Northern Brazilian Forro.
Our mutual brother, Dolo, the Baro or spiritual Godfather of this local Roma clan was also a gifted gypsy violinist, a remarkable singer and composer too who improvised impromptu Romani poetry and story as he sang and played at Roma gatherings all over the world. But like most of the others, Dolo often made his living doing other things. Mostly buying low and selling high and other things of a more shadowy nature. Like any good professional con man, he never shit where he lived, so he spent as much time traveling around Europe as he did here at home. There he was always working hard to promote Brazilian gypsy music and culture. We never spoke of his other ‘business ventures’ when speaking of Dolo. Ever since we were kids, we only spoke of Dolo at all with the highest respect as a renound traditional gypsy musician and our very dear old friend. Dolo was always the Baro, the humble unspoken leader of the local Roma and the one Rom we all knew who had done very well for himself financially. He had always done us proud and generously spread his good fortune around the community. Dolo was a true gypsy and an all around stand up guy, a charismatic and ballsy Romanian-born, life-loving eccentric. A big outspoken lusty gypsy soul, Dolo was something of a black sheep among other gypsies, inspiring much envy and suspicion among certain international Roma clans, but always a real life hero to us all in Rio.

to be continued…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.