Brazilian
Independence Day
September
7, 2004
Leaving the building, happy, content, Erika on
my right, the road and the beach and the sea on my left, we talk about
unimportant things, the things that happy, content
people talk about. Turning the corner and walking away from the beach,
talking still and smiling, not touching but sensing
each others’ presence as if we were. The sun shines down, at an angle,
from close to the horizon, now behind all but
the shortest of the buildings and down the street to the ocean, yellow
light filters
through the spaces between the buildings, between
the branches and leaves of the trees, and unblocked down the street to
the ocean. Two older men sit on the sidewalk
up ahead, backs against the wall behind them blankets over their legs,
bottles
to their lips, inhaling glue on the streets as
they have been all their lives. Traffic passes two blocks ahead, busses
briefly
blocking the light down the street to the ocean,
then the busses are gone and the light returns. Walking down the street
toward the intersection at the end of the first
block talking about beautiful views and happy people on the beach and the
environment that the combination creates, two
men on bicycles turn around in front of us.
Looking at the street as we cross it, not wanting
to walk in front of the glue sniffers, black, cracked asphalt passing below,
grey concrete curb approaching in front, Erika
says, "Look." Look up to see the two men on bicycles in front of us, waiting
for us to approach, one pointing a thin, dark
finger at us. Erika starts to open her purse, I am not giving them any
change,
any money, they don’t need it for the bus, they
have bicycles. "Give up the cell phone, give it up!"the one who is not
pointing
says in a soft voice, the other one looks calmly
and expectantly. The world spins quickly once around and resets, centered
on the speaker and the small, small, yet powerful
piece of metal in his hand. Maintaining my balance with less effort than
I
would have thought the task required, reaching
into my pocket for the phone, wondering why it isn’t sitting on the table
in
the apartment waiting for my return, thinking,
if thinking at all, about all the phone numbers in the phone that are not
anywhere
else, all the friends who will never hear from,
nor call me again. Surprised, surprised, nothing but surprised, fumbling
in my
pocket for the phone that should be easy to extract.
"Quickly! Quickly," the man with the gun is insistent,
but still quiet. This is not his first time. Finally, fitting the phone
in my palm,
pulling it out of my pocket, reaching out in
front with the phone, looking anywhere but the faces, not wanting to know
what is in
the eyes, not wanting to know who they are, not
wanting to know anything. The phones are in his hand, the gun is back in
his
green shorts and under his green shirt, and off
go the men on bicycles, down the road to the ocean, or off to either side,
away
from the people who have served their purpose.
Walking toward the busy road, not looking at the glue sniffers on the other
sidewalk, not talking, only now considering the
meaning of the gun, the cold, dull, black metal, the revolving chamber,
the hammer – was it cocked or not? There was
no time to look, no time to think, no time for fear, just a simple situation,
a simple request, not easily refused. "I knew
they were going to rob us," Erika says. And what if she did know?
There was nothing to be done, nobody would have
stopped them. Walking Erika asks, "Your first time?" Quickly, "Yes."
"My third." Walking past the parked cars to the
corner, thinking about the gun, held sideways, pointed where, didn’t look
closely, wasn’t enough time, toward her, better
if toward me, above the hips certainly, hopefully, wondering what would
have
been hit had he fired, would he have fired, he
would have, he was on a bicycle, he would have been gone before anyone
reacted,
what would he have hit, intestine, probably,
liver, maybe kidney, spine was a possibility, the phone was a better sacrifice.
Feeling ghosts of pains in places that could
have been pierced, if. "I’m going to get two phones, and only take the
old one with me
when I leave the house," Erika declares. "I don’t
care that they got my phone, I care that they got the chip. My phone was
a piece
of shit," I tell her. "Not mine," she says, "I
just bought it." Walking in silence again, a quick hello without a smile
to the security at
the restaurant on the corner. Erika stops and
says something about the police and something about calling and walks to
the payphone.
The police can’t do anything, never could, no
point. Erika picks up the phone and dials, waits, and says "Mom? I was
robbed.
Yes. Again. On the way to the bus stop. No, just
the phone. Okay. Of course, yes. Okay. Bye." She hangs up the phone and
turns to me, "Still nervous," she states and
I nod in agreement. Why were the phone numbers in the phone, and nowhere
else?
Walking down the block toward the bus stop, people
all around us, a different world entirely from the sufficiently deserted
street around the corner, no danger here, nothing
left to steal. "What bothers me the most is that I have to get a new number
now.
That will hurt business." Is that a callous thing
to say? It’s the honest thing to say. We are safe, and without cell phones.
My business cards are suddenly out of date. "It
shouldn’t be difficult to get another phone with the same number."
"It’s very complicated. You can’t do that here,"
Erika tells me. Knowing, but not understanding, walking the last few steps
to the bus stop, Erika, still on my right, turns,
raises a hand to shoulder level, says "Still trembling, see?" I see. Shaking?
Not knowing, looking away, Erika moves to the
left side, putting an arm around her shoulders pulling her close, she looks
up
and gives a look that says thank you, it’s not
enough to make me feel better, and I know there was nothing you could have
done then and there is nothing you can do now.
This is life in Brazil. Remembering the elevator in the building, telling
Erika
"I left my money in the apartment. I don’t have
enough money to take the bus into the center of the city with you and return."
She said, "You don’t have to come with me. It
will be crowded today." She would be safe. Wishing I had the money with
me
to get on the bus with her, not wanting to say
goodbye when the bus comes. Not understanding what Erika just said, watching
her open her purse and root around. "You’ll see,"
she says and keeps looking for what? She looks and looks and I look and
wish I wasn’t violating her privacy by looking
but how can I not look now? She finds a pen and keeps looking, opening
smaller
pockets with smaller zippers. Finally she finds
some thick glossy paper that won’t like the ink from her pen and closes
her purse.
Realizing what she is doing and feeling angry
that I didn’t think the same thought, Erika holds the paper against the
advertising board
on the side of the shelter of the bus stop and
tries to write her phone number on the paper, but the paper doesn’t like
the ink.
She turns it over, from white glossy to manila
glossy, and this time the paper accepts the ink from her pen. She writes
a landline
number, and then a cell number, and then turns
the paper over again, to write another number. The white side of the paper
still
doesn’t like the ink. She shrugs and gives me
the paper. Smiling sheepishly, putting the paper in my pocket, putting
an arm around
her shoulders again and pulling her close again,
she rests her head on my shoulder for just a second and then straightens
up but
doesn’t move away. What can we say? It happened,
and now we go on. Erika walks out from under my arm, in front of me as
a bus drives past. Not her bus. She walks back
in front of me and stops. Touching her back looking down the street in
the
direction of the incoming traffic. Waiting, wanting
the bus to come wanting to go back to the comfort and safety of an apartment
with a locked door and nobody else, not wanting
the bus to come not wanting to be alone not wanting to let Erika go alone.
Waiting. Waiting not saying anything because what
is there to say? We will probably not speak about this again because what
is
there to say? It happened, it happens, it will
happen again. Knowing now that it hurts less than I might have thought
it would, it still hurt.
The bus comes and I point it out to Erika, who
kisses me quickly on the lips and runs to get on. I wait, watching her
climb the steps,
watching the bus pull away, watching her wait
to pay and go through the turnstile, if she looks at me I don’t see. Waiting
for the bus
to leave, turning and walking back thinking that
when I enter the apartment I want to call Erika but I can’t because neither
one of us
have cell phones. Walking thinking there is nothing
to lose now, nothing that can be stolen, no reason to worry about anything
this
time down the street to the ocean, turning left,
the road and the beach and the sea on my right, walking back to the building.