Greener Grass

Rodrigo lived in a poor neighborhood in the small city of Sorocaba in Brazil. His father was a street vendor, he sold popcorn and his mother was a housekeeper. Rodrigo was never satisfied with his lot in life. He wanted more. He dreamed of one day moving to the United States.

Stan lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in New Jersey. He worked as a lawyer in Manhattan. His life consisted of a commute, work, sleep, a minuscule amount of time reserved for eating and little else. He had no family. He wanted to live more but he never turned down the firm when it needed him. He dreamed of one day moving to a tropical location and having daily adventures.

A step in Rodrigo´s dream came true at the U.S consulate in São Paulo. He was awarded his B-2 visitor visa. He could only stay six months and was not eligible to work, but as his grandmother used to say, “those are man´s laws and not God´s laws.” It was this convenient reasoning that he and his family used to skirt a lot of rules.  

Stan was called to H.R. one Friday afternoon and was given news that he wanted to hear for a long time. “Due to the negative financial climate in our great nation, we are going to have to lay you off.” With that news came a fat severance package. He immediately booked a trip to Rio de Janeiro. He was going to test the waters for a longer term move with this prolonged vacation.

After three months, Rodrigo found that the US wasn´t all he thought it would be. First of all, he arrived in the Boston metro area in December and it was already colder than his freezer back home. Secondly, he had to work. Work hard. Hard work was an even more foreign concept to him than the awful microwave dinners he was subsiding on. Lastly, he missed his friends and family.

In the same period of time, Stan was having a similar experience in Brazil. First, it was HOT. He sweated through three shirts a day. He also wasn´t learning Portuguese as fast as he thought he would. This isolated him. Lastly, he couldn´t get over how nothing worked properly. There were always lines to nowhere. Everywhere he went the system was always down and he found the workers to be unhelpful or incompetent. There was unavoidable corruption at every level of daily life.

Rodrigo decided he needed to pray. Nothing else was working and he figured it wouldn´t hurt. He walked to the nearest Catholic Church and to his surprise, they were having a mass in Portuguese. He took off his down coat and took a seat.

After repeating some sentences in a lifeless droning fashion and transitioning between kneeling, standing and sitting for what felt like fifty times minimum, Rodrigo felt better. That feeling went away quickly when he heard screams and shots. Rodrigo took five bullets from a self-proclaimed patriot who was tired of people praying to his God, in his country and in another language.

Stan realized that he was spending so much time dealing with bureaucracy of trying to get his affairs in order that he had taken very little time to go to the beach and live life. This was specifically why he chose to move to Brazil in the first place. He got his things together and went off to Copacabana Beach.

Stan sat in a chair in the sand under the sun with a delicious cold beer in his hand. He felt that he could get used to this. He watched beautiful women in bikinis walk by while he slowly rounded the corner from buzzed to drunk.

One lovely lady stopped to make small talk. It was a ruse to distract him. Her boyfriend came from the side with a knife and demanded all of Stan´s belongings. Stan refused. The thief plunged the knife into Stan´s heart with such precision he barely felt a thing. The murderous thief laughed with his girlfriend about how stupid the gringo was as they surveyed their booty while walking away from the scene.  

Game Over!

Foot volley, which is a mixture of soccer and volley ball is a way of life in Guarã, a small city in a remote part of the Amazon valley in Brazil. Players use their legs, feet and head to get the ball over a net. It sounds like a fun way to pass the time and it can be, just not in Guarã. There, winning a game can mean you get to live another day or will be burned alive bound by old car tires and doused in gasoline. It harks back to the worst days of the Roman empire but instead of Caesars presiding over the tournaments, there are drug dealers deciding the fates of athletes.

If parents see that their child is particularly good at foot volley, they sometimes will sell all their possessions to ensure their child has a bus ticket, one way, out of Guarã. The child will sometimes grow up in the company of relatives without their parents because the parents are too poor to make the bus fare to get themselves out. In some cases, parents end up dead for sending away a good prospect.

José had no parents to care for him or to sell possessions to get him out of Guarã. José lived on the street in a pack of about 10 boys. He was the best of around 4 really good players. When they weren´t playing foot volley, training foot volley or trying to get something to eat from the trash, the pack was usually either sniffing glue or trying to get their hands on it. Not José. Some time ago, José found some text books in the trash while looking for dinner. José was taught to read by the church and he was grateful and did not want their gift to go in vain.

José had won so much that he had built himself quite the name in Guarã. He was like a local celebrity. He was forced to go to the big outdoor “funk parties” as they were called, thrown by the local drug dealers. He was paraded around like a mascot. He despised them all. He despised the drug dealers who he saw as poisoning the community. He despised the party goers and useless people lowered even further in his eyes for idolizing such horrid people. He despised the cops who were easily bribed by the drug bosses and would abuse street children in every sense of the word for their own pleasure.

One night José lay in his concrete bed, in reality a sewer tunnel opening, trying to get the images out of his head of what he saw that day. He had won a major day long tournament closed with not only the murder of every loser but their depraved torture as well. José had seen a lot up to this point but this was worse than anything he had seen. His mind went back and forth from the torture to the faces of the spectators who watched in ecstasy and cheered on the torturers. He was forced to watch from a rickety homemade throne that was spray painted gold and had worn purple pillows fixed to it to make it look like a real king´s chair.

As he laid there, tears rolling down his eyes, he smelled smoke. It was not the usual smell of bonfires which were frequent during the nights after a tournament. It had a more chemical smell. He went out from his makeshift bedroom and climbed an electrical tower. A few thatched roofed houses were on fire. There was little to no response, probably because of the level of intoxication of the people. For the most part of the population, they were passed out drunk.

José thought quick. He knew how he could help. Help himself, help his city, help his country, help the world. He made his way to the police precinct which looked no different than the front office of a land fill. He went to the patio where the few broken down vehicles were parked. He grabbed two 20 liter canisters and went running. As he approached the burning huts he poured some of the liquid from the canisters into discarded water bottles and aluminum cans. He then proceeded to throw them near the flames.

Where the bottle and cans hit, great little explosions took place and the flames quickly spread. He was throwing containers of gasoline into the flames! He then moved on to huts that were not on fire and started to throw flaming soda cans onto the roofs. When they were sufficiently ablaze he went to the only houses in the village, slipshod building decorated by what looked like by psychopathic children, and started to fling his mini Molotov cocktails over the walls. In no time they were on fire as well.

José, satisfied with his work, started for the outskirts of the village. It was getting hot as the fire was spreading rapidly. He was surprised by the lack of commotion on the street. Surely some people were not so drunk as to burn to death without waking. He didn´t care either way. He made his way to the outskirts of the village, climbed a little foot hill and watch the fire do its cleansing.

El Gringo pt. 6

Part One     Part Two

Part Three  Part Four

Part Five

 

Gary asked for an officer who speaks English, which wasn´t all that uncommon to have. The receptionist called for Officer Medina.

Officer Medina came up to the front, greeted Gary warmly and asked him to follow him to his office. After leading him there, he sat him down and offered coffee which Gary was more than eager to except.

After throwing back the bitter black liquid and feeling a slight buzz of energy, Gary told his story, again, what he remembered. Officer Medina just shook his head in a show of disappointment. Then, his eyes opened wide expressing surprise. He threw his finger in the air in a Eureka like moment.

“Oh, Gary. I think I know why you are alive today. Let me make a call” Officer Medina furiously dialed a number on his touch tone phone. He was wildly gesticulating and speaking Spanish at 100 miles per hour.

He hung up the phone. “I was right! I know why you are alive today. The jungle saved you my friend”

“How so?” Gary asked.

“I just confirmed that two people were found torn to shreds, probably by a jaguar and it is around where you say this happened. I will send a crew to check it out. Wanna ride along?”

Gary felt uneasy but he thought, with all the help he had received, maybe this would help with the investigation. “Uh, ok” he obliged.

Gary got into a World War II era jeep and was off with Officer Medina and his crew. Gary could not have known this as his memory was so spotty, but they were on the same road that lead him to his captivity and ultimate escape. They started down a jungle road and came to an abandoned car.

“That´s it! That´s the car! I am sure of it” Gary screamed.

“I´ll be damned” remarked Officer Medina. “Let´s take a look around” They all jumped out of the jeep and walked towards the car.

“Take a look in the back seat Gary. Make sure you didn´t drop anything there” Officer Medina said.

Gary was sure he had left nothing but he knew the officer was being nice so he obliged. As he bent forward he felt a prick in his buttocks. Then he felt pressure that smushed him to the bench seat not letting him get up. The crew was speaking in Spanish and the more he tried to understand, the more he couldn´t. He started to feel the same way he did in the bar that night. Maintaining consciousness became labor some.

As the tunnels he was looking through became more black he heard something in Spanish that he could make out.

“Gringo guts gonna get us paid” then he heard laughter. Then he heard nothing.

 

 

El Gringo pt. 5

Part One 

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four 

“Hello….Ola” Gary stammered.

“Deus mio! Un gringo?” the old man responded.

“Si, un gringo” Gary answered.

“What da hell you doing here?” the old man asked.

“Chico led me here” Gary answered.

“Who da hell is Chico?” the old man asked and pumped the shot gun. The sound of the cartridge being chambered dropped Gary to his knees.

“I´m sorry, I gave your dog a name… Chico. I followed him here” Gary said, on his knees with his hands reaching for the sky. “I escaped something terrible. I mean no harm, I need help”

“Oh. You can get up” the old man lowered the shot gun. “I´m sorry about this” he said nodding towards the gun. “Around here, you can´t be too careful. A lot of crazy people”

Gary stood up and offered his hand. “My name is Gary”

“My name is Guillermo, nice to meet you. Come inside. Do you think they followed you?” the old man asked.

“I am pretty sure, no” Gary said feeling hope for the first time.

Once inside Gary told Guillermo everything he could remember. Guillermo explained how he was able to speak English. He had lived for twenty years in New York saving his money to one day go back to his native country and buy a piece of land in the bush and live off the grid.

“I am pretty sure they wanted your guts, but why they left you there, I don´t know” Guillermo said. “It´s pretty common around here. Don´t take it personally either. They do this to locals too. Gringo guts no more valuable than local guts. They saw an opportunity”

“When it light again, we get my truck. I take you to town. Nobody bother you here” Guillermo continued.

Gary thanked him profusely. Gary slept on what might be described as a couch in what might be described as the living room. Chico slept on the floor beside him and did not stir until sunrise.

When day broke, Gary, Guillermo and Chico hiked a few kilometers to where Guillermo kept his truck. It was well camouflaged in a makeshift garage made of cut bush. It was an engineering feat, Gary thought to himself.

When they made it to town, Gary thought it best to go straight to the police to report what had happened. They stopped off at an ATM first. Even though his wallet was gone, they didn´t find his emergency fund ATM card tucked in his underwear. Gary withdrew the equivalent of around $100 USD which was a handsome sum for a person of humble means in these parts. Guillermo refused. “You just come visit me at least once before I die. That payment enough”

They stopped in front of the police department. They said their good byes and the pickup was off, kicking up dust from the dirty cobble stone street.

Part Six

El Gringo pt. 4

Part One

Part Two

Part Three 

After what felt like hours, but in reality was more like twenty minutes, Gary was aroused by the sound of movement in the bush. It sounded frantic and without direction. It was coming toward his direction and getting louder by the moment. It took all he had not to cry out. He sat up with his knees tucked into his chest. Tears were flowing down his face. As the movement crept ever closer Gary decided he would succumb to whatever fate had in store for him. He didn´t have it in him to fight.

The rustling now was right outside of the tree that was hosting him. The braches started to move. He let out a childish weep and with that an animal burst through the lower bows of the tree. Gary closed his eyes and waited for death.

While Gary braced himself for excruciating pain he felt something wet and cold on his face. He opened his eyes. It was nothing more than a mangy dog sniffing him all over. He couldn´t hold it in. He started to cry. As the dog sniffed him over he embraced the wiry haired creature. Though it looked like a feral dog, it was quite domestic in the way it interacted with Gary. Gary pat the top of the dog´s head and the dog responded in kind. The dog rolled over and presented its belly to Gary. Gary pet the dog’s belly, tears flowing.

This renewed Gary’s spirits. He did not even think of the danger the dog offered, making even more sounds and in turn making it easier for his foes to track him. He decided to set out again with the dog in tow. He decided to call the dog Chico, which the dog seemed to immediately respond to.

Gary walked and the dog followed. The dog suddenly stopped and stared into the distant for a few moments.

“What´s wrong Chico?” Gary whispered.

The dog came to and started walking at a brisk pace. It was clear that he wanted to take the lead. Gary was all out of options so he decided to follow. The dog was sniffing furiously. It was clear he had a chosen path. After about a kilometer or so they came to a clearing in the bush. There was a rusty wire fence that was practically falling over in places. Chico was beside himself. He was jumping excitedly nuzzling Gary with each jump. Even in the dark it was clear that there was a little shack in the middle of the clearing.

Chico lead Gary towards the shack. As they approached, Chico bolted for the door. It was slightly ajar and he was able to open it with his snout and he entered. Once inside he began howling. Gary heard some extra movement in the house then a voice speaking groggy Spanish.

The door flew open and an elderly man was standing there with a shot gun screaming unintelligibly in Spanish. Gary understood when he heard “Who goes there?”

Gary was in a panic. This was either his rescue or his demise. It was a matter of time before the old man saw him, so running was out of the question. He decided to approach slowly with his hands over his head.

Part Five 

El Gringo pt. 3

Part 1

Part 2 

Gary sat just there for a while, alone. He started to feel better physically but emotionally he was falling apart. He was beating himself up for being so stupid. He was ashamed that he drank so much and fear started consume his mood. He heard some rustling in the bush. He wanted to call out the woman´s name but he had forgotten it. He thought to leave the car and look for help but he had no idea as to where to go.

A good amount of time passed and Gary gathered the courage to leave. He scavenged the car looking for anything that might help him find help. As he was sitting in the driver seat he noticed there was blood on his hands. He examined them. There was not a cut to be found. Then he checked his body. Nothing there either. Then he noticed a shimmer coming from the steering wheel. That was the source of the blood. There was thick coagulating blood all over it. This freaked Gary out. He jumped from the seat. He took a few moments to gather himself. He walked around the car to the passenger side. In the glove box he found a flash light that was so dim it was hardly usable. There was also a pair of pliers, a nail cutter and to his great joy, a map. He checked the rest of the car but found nothing useful.

Gary set out down the road that had brought the car to its current location. He quickly realized the folly that he was making. If the people were to come back to the car, surely they would use this road. He decided to cut through the jungle. The bush was absolutely alive with noises. Gary was shaking. The dim flashlight barely lit the area around his feet. He had to fight the urge to lay down and curl up into a little ball and cry.

He walked for about ten minutes when he thought he heard footsteps. He froze in his tracks. He felt paralyzed. It may have been his imagination because after a few interminable minutes he heard no further sign of someone or something walking around. He made up his mind to enter into the bush until he found some kind of hiding place where he could wait out the night and continue his trek with some daylight.

After some time he came to a large tree that was overgrown with vines. It provided almost a teepee like structure. He gathered up the nerved to look inside. The prospect of what was waiting for him on the other side was almost as scary as the prospect of being found by an enemy who he had no clue was.

He peeked his head inside and shone the dim light around. To his relief, there was no sign of life. Gary went inside and succumbed to the urge to lay down and curl up into a little ball and cry.

Part 4

El Gringo pt. 2

Please read the first installment here. 

“I told you I was not ok!” Gary slurred.

“You´re fine. You just felt a little sick in there. You´ll feel better soon. Maybe you should come to my place and relax” she suggested.

Gary was not sure about the idea. It was not that he felt any imminent danger, but he did not want to suffer the embarrassment of getting sick again in her home.

“Maybe I shouldn´t” he said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“I don´t want to make a mess in your house” he answered.

“Don´t worry. You´re fine anyway. Let´s go” she said.

He felt very dizzy as he got up. His legs felt weak. He knew he was going to throw up again and it was only a matter of time before he did.

The woman hailed a cab. She started speaking Spanish rapidly to the driver and her demeanor changed. She was more forceful, almost aggressive with the driver. The driver nodded at the instructions and off they went.

She turned to him and her demeanor went back to the soft, sweet version she used in the bar. “How you feeling? Better now?”

Gary tried to speak but decided against it. It was all he could do as to not throw up again. The waves of nausea passed over him. When the car slowed up to stop signs, Gary kept going forward, at least in his head. The car drove for at least twenty minutes before Gary realized that they were in the car for an inordinate amount of time. He was too busy just trying to keep it together before to notice. He also noticed that they were no longer in an urban area.

Buildings became more spread out and there was noticeably more green. Gary was not in a state of mind to really take too much notice or make anything out of this. The woman whose lap he was using as a pillow lit a cigarette. The waif of smoke did not calm Gary´s churning stomach.

He mustered enough energy to mutter the question “You smoke?”

“Only when I drink, dear” she answered.

Very out of character Gary said “That´s gross”

“I know dear”, she said as they went along.

“Where are we going?” Gary asked.

The woman was noticeably irritable. “My house. I already told you”

“You live far” he said childishly, slipping in and out of consciousness.

“You´re drunk. We´ve barely been driving at all” she said. She then blurted some rapid fire instructions to the cab driver in Spanish. The cab just kept on going. Gary completely passed out.

When Gary came to he was in the back of the car, stopped and it was very dark. He was alone. He could tell he was away from civilization because of the sounds of insects in surround sound all around him. His head was pounding. He had an awful taste in his mouth. Some people keep condoms in their wallets, he always kept an aspirin. He reached for his wallet but it was gone.

Part 3 

El Gringo pt. 1

*Note from the author. This will be a six part series. Please, give it a chance. It really pays off. Thank you.

Since he was young, Gary had always felt the need to leave his hometown of Shelding, PA. He never felt that he fit in. The problem was that he never felt he fit in anywhere he went. He would find reasons to leave and move away in constant search of home. He spent a beautiful summer in Chile backpacking around from hostel to hostel. He thought to himself he could drop anchor for at least a year without too many complaints. He decided he would rent a small apartment in Santiago and teach English for a living.

One night while sitting at a bar he caught the eyes of a beautiful woman. Her eyes stayed fixed on his gaze and a small smile came to her lips. Gary is very shy with women, especially one as beautiful as this one but her smile seemed so inviting. It put him at ease. He thought of a way he could approach her. “I´ll offer her a drink” he decided. “I see it in the movies all the time” He reached into his pocket to verify how much cash he had on him and noticed it was all gone.

He panicked. He knew he left the house with enough cash to get him through the night. His mind raced. Where could it have gone? Did it fall out of his pocket when he bought that street barbeque? Did someone pick pocket him? To make matters worse, the woman started to approach him. What was he to do now? He could not offer her a drink. Without that card up his sleeve, he had no idea how to engage this beautiful woman. After what seemed like an eternity of avoiding her eyes as she glided across the dank bar she arrived. In perfect English and with little accent she asked “Can I buy you a drink?”

Gary was taken aback. He momentarily locked eyes with the woman and was rendered speechless. He knew he had to say something.

“Uh, sure” he mustered. “Yeah, please” he added, worried his initial response was not worthy.

A few moments went by with Gary just staring at the woman. “Well, what will you have?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah” Gary fumbled “A beer. I like beer.” These words echoed through his head. “I like beer? I´m so stupid” he thought to himself.

“I like beer too” the woman said. “Dos cervezas, por favor” she called to the barman.

“Si, senhorita” the barman called back.

Gary waited in awkward silence as the bar man walked back to the cooler to retrieve their order.

“So, what are you doing here?” the woman asked Gary.

He thought it was odd that she did not ask his name first, but he remembered he was in another country with another culture so he didn´t give it much more thought.

“In this bar?” he asked back.

“No, I mean in Chile. I can see you are not from here. You work for a multinational company?” she asked.

“Oh, because I am in this bar… because I wanted to have a beer or two…. Not too many though. I don´t drink that much” Gary was getting the cold sweats. Why did he just say that? He had no control of his mouth. The woman giggled. She was amused by Gary´s social awkwardness.

“I´m sorry” Gary said. “I´m a little nervous”

“Nervous? Why? I won´t hurt you” the woman said in a seductive way with her head slightly tilted forward as to look up and she exaggerated the movement of her lips on the word “you”.

Gary swallowed hard. He thought a little laugh would break up the awkwardness but it came out a little creepy. Then he blurted “I teach English. That´s what I am doing here”

“Oh, really? That´s nice. I can use a little help with my English” the woman said.

“Not really” Gary said. “You´re English is really good. Trust me” If Gary could, he would punch himself in the stomach at this point. He recognized that she was flirting with him but was clueless as to how to flirt back.

“Well, thank you” she said.

They just sat there awkwardly looking at each other when Gary blurted out, “Have you ever walked on the beach at night?” Really, he thought to himself? Any other good questions for her, like, have you even drunk coffee? Do you brush your teeth on a daily basis?

She was very kind and very forgiving of Gary´s lack of ability to communicate well with her. “Why, yes. It calms me” she answered, tilting her head to the side and whipping it back to the other side to take a sip from her drink.

“Yeah, me too” Gary said.

“Maybe after these drinks we could take a walk on the beach” the woman suggested.

Gary fumbled with the words “Uh, that would be great” he said before his eyes dove down to the floor. Her gaze felt like it had a force field around it. If he tried to look into it, his own gaze was only forced away.

He finally came up with a good idea. It was to ask little, simple questions about her day and just let her talk. He would nod when he thought he should. It was working. She was talking away and he was loosening up with each cold drink that he nervously poured down his throat.

A few hours and many drinks later, Gary found himself drunk. He went beyond socially lubricated and went right into slippery reality. The woman kept telling him he was fine despite the fact that his vision was blurred and his hearing was off. He felt as though he was in a packed club and not in the busy, yet quite neighborhood bar.

Gary suggested ordering a bottle of water but the woman insisted on another round of drinks. When Gary put the glass to his mouth he projectile vomited as if his body was saying “no mas”.

The woman took Gary by the hand and led him outside. They found a bus stop bench and sat down.

Part 2 Click here

São Paulo- Life Stopped, Stopped Life

São Paulo- Stopped Life, Life Stopped

 

 

Daily, people sit crawling towards destinations- stopped life

Daily, people get hit floating towards dysfunctions- life stopped

Sensical absurdities, beautiful ugliness

Sad happiness, rich poverty

My São Paulo is an island surrounded by an electric fence

Invisible danger all around that exists in the hearts of men

On the same street a child goes hungry, another eats despite satiation

Here a man is not measured by the content of their character

but by the name stamped upon his garments

Slavery still exists here; it just took on different forms;

like traffic, taxes, low wages and a civil war that has become the norm

People throw rocks, police shoot bullets, nothing comes to change

Love it or leave it, because to São Paulo none of this is strange