ANT POISON AT THE WATERFALL

RIO JOURNAL 1

I landed in Rio de Janeiro on Friday morning.

The airport is located on the Ilha do Governador—the Governor’s Island. My mom was born on the Ilha and her ancestors have been dust-to-dusting there for several generations.

Here’s a story my grandma just told me: her grandpa was a surly racist German married to a woman who was the granddaughter of slaves. He owned an ant poison factory on the Island. So one of his children, my grandma’s Uncle Mauri; —this woman said he knocked her up. This was way back then so you couldn’t take care of this problem abortionly so they forced him to marry her. Turns out some vagabond fellow was the real daddy and they stole away to São Paulo in the middle of the night. Leaving Uncle Mauri duped and alone and without recourse to fix it, divorcewise (cause divorce wasn’t legal until 1977 in Brasil, —I just looked that up what the fuck!). He fell in love with this other girl, Mariazinha. He wanted to marry her, but her father thought it would be quite ignominious for her to shack up with this legally-bound, duped, cuck. So they stole away in their own middle of the night and went to the Tijuca forest, and they sat lovey-dovey under a beautiful waterfall. They got a can of Guarana and Uncle Mauri—as a final fuck you to his family, one can only imagine—poured some ant poison in there (from his father’s company) and they both drank it romeoandjulietally. Probably a little hasty and dramatic: they coulda just gone to fucking Uruguay.

You probably won’t believe this, but this is why my grandma knows this story. My grandma is a spiritist medium. And she’s had visions;—I told you you wouldn’t believe me!—since she was a kid. When she was around eight (she knows this cause it was before her father died and her father died when she was nine), she was with her friends and she seen a guy, um cara moreno with his hair parted in the middle and brushed back tight, getting beat and dragged away by military officers and she was screaming, “leave him alone!” and her friends who didn’t see nothing said, “Chill Lucia, you crazy bitch!”

She ran home and told her parents and described the man she seen, and her mom was like, That’s your Uncle Mauri—who of course died before my grandma was born. And so her mom told her that romantic waterfall story.

Anyway, my flight was good. The guy in the seat next to me pre-takeoff was watching tiktoks in portuguese that were all videos of like mopey guys with text over it saying, “when you haven’t fucked in a while” or; “when your friends ask you how often you’re smashing” with extremely sad music. (Maybe he wanted me to see: it was a seduction ploy.)

I’m sorry for doing airplane material. But when he starting functionizing his little TV he scrolled over to a tab that said FAVORITES when what he needed was the tab: ENTERTAINMENT, and since he hadn’t marked any favorites, it said zero movies and zero shows for him to watch. Which really pissed him off. And he started muttering and steaming and banging on the flight attendant assistance button. But after watching him helplessly poke the screen with a hard finger like a punitive nun, I stepped in.

He was not effusively grateful as I expected. In fact, he seemed to turn on me. For the rest of the flight, he and the flight attendants seemed angry at me. It might’ve been cause of my slack-jawed snory sleep; or cause, somebody was farting it up and they pinned the fart-locus on me. I DON’T KNOW IF IT WAS ME I WAS SLEEPING.

The guy who picked me up at the airport was Luiz: a slick blabby cariocão (a character profile I’m very warm to cause it fits many members of my extended family, especially my late uncle, Luis). He told me he once spent a month in New York and his english was afiadíssimo—sharp sharp sharp—cause he’d been studying his whole life. After showing me about 20 minutes of his favorite songs on Youtube (yes, obviously, reader, while driving) he went on Whatsapp to prove his english in a voice message to an american client.

He said, “uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… tour today, we doing? or do you uhhhhh now, decline the tour? because you are with friend?”

It did sound like the fruit of a lifetime of study. He went back and replayed it, “lets see how that turned out” and he goes, “niiiiiice.”

On the home stretch he hits me with, “cara, you gotta love Trump right?” and gave me a brief lecture on communism versus capitalism.

I got to the apartment—683 Nossa Senhora de Copacabana; pull up, bruh. I put the damn address in my book.

My fourteen year old cousin Stella was visiting. She went all fucking out on my christmas gift: she painted a small bottle cap with a sun (basic yellow circle with porcupine-quill rays) and then painted an H on the inside. And she even got one for Gaby, but hers had a G on the inside. And also she got me a copy of Dom Casmurro. I said, “bitch, I already got two copies.” DO BETTER NEXT CHRISTMAS, STELLA.

The drama this week was swirling around her. I have a very fracas-forward family, —it’s like medieval Europe in terms of frequency and diversity of conflict. The problem is Stella’s father, my mom’s brother, is dead. And her mother, whom I call Titty (not even cause she’s that buxom but her name is Tati and I’m just being a little lewdic—if you will) is trying to remove his memory and any trace of his family from Stella’s life.

Stella got a very tough draw, lifewise. I hope she can overcome it. It bums me out, —and it really bums my grandma out. My grandma will do anything for Stella cause she’s the last connection she has to her son. My uncle was a tough person to be married to, and I know Titty went through it. So much so, that after they divorced, Titty and Stella lived with my grandma for three years. I won’t get too deep into the story cause it’s been Groundhog Day over here, repeating the same shit every day. But it’s strife about money and loyalty. Ancient human shit.

I used Stella’s likeness (yes, without her authorization, OBVIOUSLY) for a character in Tropop—betcha can’t guess who—and if that book had sold any copies, I might owe her some money.

My twin sister who has requested I do not write about her was there too, but she left the day I arrived. But she has requested I do not write about her, so I will say nothing further.

Anyway, let’s move onto Saturday. I went to a Vasco game! Now Vasco da Gama is my team. I don’t root for anybody in the United States by virtue of being a bookie’s son. But I claim Vasco, though I don’t get heartbroken when they lose—, thank God cause all they seem to do is lose!—like I do with Brasil’s national team in the World Cup. That’s the only team that can genuinely effect my mood.

My grandpa was an absolutely fanatic rabid supporter. Though it could be a frustrating experience to watch a game with him because he was so absurdly negative. The standard of perfection he demanded from the players, I think, was a bit over-exigent. If a player missed a touch in the midfield, Vovô would ejaculate… “CARALHO! Seu filho da puta!”

Proof I was a Day One:

And he’d keep screaming until he got so dour he wouldn’t say a word; he’d become a box of seeping grumbles.

My best sports watching experience was with him in 2011 when Vasco won the Copa do Brasil. We watched on TV as Alecsandro scored a goal to give them the 1-0 win and hugged! and cheered! and then I went to the bathroom so I could angrily text the girl with whom I shared my first kiss cause I found out she had a crush on my friend Mike (who was a shoelicker! he licked his damn shoes in grade school! and she wanted to kiss him instead of me!!?!?)

But I hadn’t been to a game in 15 years cause I usually come to Rio during the off-season.

So me and my gringo father (my mother was sick and didn’t feel like going) took a trip to São Januario expecting to just buy tickets at the window or from some scalper. I should’ve maybe checked in advance, but I trust my horsesense.

But I always forget that Brasil is an extremely extremely technologically advanced country! And what I didn’t realize is that they don’t do physical tickets anymore. You have to register every detail about yourself and get your face approved. Cause you can only get into the stadium via facial recognition. I always fucking forget Brazil is a gleaming technocratic surveillance state! I should’ve remembered that when I took that flying car home from the airport!

We ran into this scalper on the corner and he wanted 200 reals for each ticket and he was a tough negotiator cause I said “eh” and he said, “100!” Which was a bit expensive still, the ticket goes for 88 reals full price (about $14), but he said he was gonna help us register with the technological overlords.

He was another slick blabby cariocão. You wouldn’t believe how many there are around here.

Anyway, he didn’t know how to sign up like he suggested he did. But he gave us this ticket voucher code—God this was all so complicated just recalling it renews my fear—and another guy cut him off saying, “you don’t know what you’re talking about” and he explained to me how to proceed.

Basically, each person has the right to a single ticket. And you gotta sign up on Vasco’s website, and you don’t have to give them a lot of information. Just your name, address, date of birth, CPF, passport number, picture of ID, picture of your face, your first pet’s burial site, your most traumatic memory, and the latin name of any type of flora or fauna germane to Rio de Janeiro.

The website is also very flimsy. Holy fuck was it an ordeal. I typed shit in so many times I memorized my CPF (which I needed to do) and my dad’s passport number: 57——

The game started at 4:30. We got there at 4:00. They let people in until the second half starts, that’s the hard cut-off.

We heard Vasco score. I never get FOMO, but hearing a stadium roar from just outside when you’re supposed to be inside is a little frustrating.

We got in at 5:30. With like 10 minutes to spare. But it was totally euphoric when we got in.

I enjoy almost all live sporting events, but there’s nothing like a soccer match in Brasil. Especially at a local stadium. The field is so close, the fans are singing the whole time. It’s just stone bleachers right? And you just stand wherever you want. And unlike a Knicks game or a Yankee game when they’re fucking pumping in artificial noise the entire time. Snippets of songs, tragic stories on the jumbotron, the announcers having to manufacture cheers: LETS GO KNICKS.

In São Januário there's no artifical noise. You can just enjoy the game, —well you can’t enjoy it that much cause Vasco is fucking spiritless and not interested in making a big effort and they tied 1-1 with Nova Igaucu who is literally in the 4th division in Brasil, —hearing the drumbeats and songs and incessant complaints.

Obviously because of how advanced a country Brasil is, there’s also a row of heavily armed police officers watching everything you do, ready to blow your head off with a shotgun if, say, you tried to jump on the field naked.

There was a rambunctious little kid next to us throwing a water bottle around and his mom was yelling, “the police are gonna arrest you! Arrest him police! Arrest him!” and a cop stepped up to kind ruffle his hair and the kid grabbed his baton and wouldn’t let go and the cop got immediately pissed but prudently and bravely refrained from shooting him.

But the game was good. I’m going back Wednesday cause I’m desperate to see Vasco score in person. But I’m going with my friend Franklin who is notoriously bad luck, so we’ll see.

Sunday the only thing that happened is I got drunk in the middle of the day at this bar on the corner. I love this bar. It’s my platonic ideal of a bar. It is literally a hole in the wall; all the tables and chairs (plastic, Brahma-themed) are on the sidewalk. They bring you a 24 oz of beer for 12 reals (a bit less than $2) and a little plastic cup and it’s wonderful.

Also, —if you’re so inclined— inside the bar in the untenably narrow hallway on the way to the “bathroom” there’s a few gambling machines.

Apparently some guy lost 2500 reals playing on one of the machines and he was so mad, he told the bartender he was gonna come back and shoot him. The bartender quit right then and there and hasn’t been seen since.

Fucking bastard watching me lose 2500, I’m gonna get him.