City of God (12 page)

Salgueiro came out on top. Even before the judges' points had been counted, everyone was already saying that Salgueiro would be champion.

Niftyfeet again won the prize for best
sambista
. He laughed and cried, drank, smoked heaps of really good shit and snorted the best coke to celebrate his victorious dance steps, the perfect-scoring percussion section, and the most beautiful master of ceremonies and flag-bearer of the Carnival.

* * *

Stringy, Rocket and their friends said goodbye to the holidays in the Eucalypt Grove. They'd woken up early that Friday morning. Rocket had promised to bring a frying pan. Stringy had brought the oil and the others had brought flour, sugar, matches, cold water and an instant squash mix. One busied himself lighting a campfire and preparing the raspberry squash, their favourite, while the others went into the Eucalypt Grove armed with slingshots to hunt for birds.

They were sure that Pipsqueak (who had started showing his face around the estate again), Night Owl, Carrots, Slick and the other kids that hung around with them would not turn up there. They liked picking fights for nothing, ran off with the ball when other kids were having a kick about, stole their toys, smoked dope on street corners and conducted all transactions with their guns cocked. They saw the other gang – Hellraiser, Squirt and Hammer – as adults.

After their meal, they lay in the grass. The sun's rays sent shafts of light between the leaves. Over in the fields, the cows roamed back and forth. Cars went past unnoticed on Motorway Eleven. The river flowed softly. The water snakes swam freely in the pond. The lake remained unruffled by the gusts of wind that the boys felt on their faces. Our Lady of Sorrows Church and the mansions looked more beautiful from there. The fishermen tried their luck in the big lake. The sky was reflected in the sea at Barra da Tijuca, embodying the metaphor ‘bluer than infinity'.

Batman was an earthly superhero, you had to be on his side. Superman was the strongest of all the superheroes, but if National Kid wanted to, he could knock him out, no sweat, because his pistol beamed kryptonite and a shitload of other things. That Doctor Smith in
Lost in Space
is the biggest faggot. If a gorgeous naked girl appeared here in the Eucalypt Grove, what would you do? You say ‘but it's not' after everythin' I say. I thought my nose
was bleedin' … but
it'snot
. If you make a hole and dig and dig and dig and dig, you're gonna come out in China. I'm gonna be a doctor when I grow up. Well I'm gonna be a policeman, 'cos if anyone tries to mess me around I'll arrest them. My friend's got a dog just like Rin Tin Tin. Miss Vera's the most beautiful teacher at school. Once I dreamed she was my girlfriend. Let's see who's got the biggest dick? This story about the stork is a load of balls, we come out of our mums' snatches. I went to Santa Catarina by air, the plane stopped when we were halfway there, my parachute wouldn't open and I was fallin' fast, so I told the manufacturer to stick it up his arse. Milk milk, lemonade, round the corner, chocolate's made. Think of a number, multiply it by two, add four, divide it by two, take away the number you thought of. The answer's two.

They stayed there until nightfall. Classes started the following week.

Right after Carnival, Hammer had got lucky in a robbery over near Freguesia. He'd gone alone one sunny morning to hold up the employees of a mansion and had broken open the safe, grabbed jewels, a .38-calibre gun, dollars and a few cruzeiros that were on the dresser. He returned to the estate by taxi. When he arrived home, he told Cleide:

‘Here, go buy us some furniture, and get yourself a nice dress. Go to the beauty parlour, get your hair done and fix up your nails. But don't take too long, 'cos I wanna see to ya!' he finished, narrowing his eyes and biting his lip.

‘Where do I change the dollars?'

‘Go see Bahian Paulo – he'll do it in a flash.'

The gas delivery men didn't worry about the hold-ups any more, as only Pelé and Shorty carried them out. They even found it funny when the two of them made spectacular appearances
from one alley or another in broad daylight, as if they were holding up a carriage or ambushing an enemy in the Old West. The delivery men already had something set aside for them. They'd leave with their guns pointed at their victims, and before turning the corner they'd fire shots into the air to intimidate them.

Hellraiser and Squirt made some good money from the five taxis they held up one Friday night. They'd agreed that the money would go towards guns and ammunition. They'd let Armando know that they would be at the Doorway to Heaven bar to make the transaction on Saturday morning. Beelzebub delivered the goods to Armando. As always, he warned the middleman that if he ever found out that his name had been mentioned to the gangsters, he'd kill him. The former policeman signalled his agreement with the detective. The transaction took place among Doorway to Heaven customers at ten o'clock in the morning.

Before saying goodbye, Hellraiser lowered his head and looked as if he were trying to decide on the best date for an important engagement. Armando and Squirt waited for him to speak. The time Hellraiser was taking to talk made them somewhat ill at ease. Then out of the blue he confronted the middleman:

‘It's like this, man – you've been makin' a nice little bundle off everyone for ages, haven't you? A cop down in the Fifth Sector sent us a message sayin' he'd send us a box of bullets for half your price. That means you're makin' twice as much as you should. So this time I'm takin' the shooters. Give us yours too and gimme back my money.'

Armando obeyed the villain in silence. Squirt was surprised by his friend's attitude, and he concluded that they'd just made a dangerous enemy. Ex-policemen were worse than gangsters,
because their old buddies in uniform would always cover them when they got into trouble. It wasn't a good idea to go around making rods for your own back. He decided to bump him off. Hellraiser frisked Armando and told him to get running. Without consulting Hellraiser, Squirt fired at the middleman, who zigzagged back and forth across the vacant lot next to the bar and entered the bush unscathed.

‘Get ‘im?' asked Hellraiser.

‘Yeah, right. You go and make decisions without consultin' me … That guy's all cosy with the cops. He's a dangerous enemy to have. We shouldn't have let him go alive …'

‘Just as well you didn't waste him, 'cos I wanna know who his supplier is. How much you wanna bet that Beelzebub or Boss of Us All are gonna show up round here today? Let's get out of here and tomorrow we'll find out.'

Boss of Us All left home in a temper because he was broke and didn't like demanding food from shops, bars, bakeries and supermarkets like the other policemen did. He went to work without the slightest inclination to do anything. He dispensed with the company of his fellow officers on his beat. He wanted to get some money on his own. He went through the estate with his gun cocked. He was unlucky in his first attempts, as everyone whose papers he demanded to see was employed. He crossed over to The Other Side of the River. He wanted to bust someone smoking dope so he could extort some money. He noticed a boy step up his pace when he saw him. Boss of Us All took two bundles of dope from his pocket and sized him up from a distance, to make sure he really was loafing around. He could have got some dough out of him by threatening to take him in for vagrancy in the event that the bastard had been arrested previously, but that'd be a lot of work. He'd have to call the Fifth
Sector to get them to check, and his friend there would want a little something to do the job on the quiet. He decided to frame the boy as he was frisking him. Each time he said the dope wasn't his, Boss of Us All thumped him with the butt of his gun. He'd only quickened his step because he didn't have signed working papers. Boss of Us All ranted and raved, saying he didn't like being called a liar. When he found out he lived with his parents, he didn't take him down to the station, but instead made the boy take him to his house so he could demand money from the family. And he did just that.

The boy's father had to ask for the neighbours' help to raise the money Boss of Us All demanded. Before heading back to the station, he went home to give his wife half the money. It was much more than he made as a Military Police officer. He arrived at the station in a better mood and told his friends that everything was calm in the area. He took off his boots, lay down and spent the rest of the day reading a trashy novel.

That same Saturday, Mango had waited for Acerola, Orange, Jackfruit or Green Eyes on the corner by Batman's Bar to smoke a joint, but no one had shown up; they were all with their girlfriends. He was dying to have a toke or two and then stay home under a blanket watching a flick in a spacey haze. Time passed and none of his friends appeared. He decided to go to Jackfruit's place, as he knew he had some weed at home. The day before he'd scored a shitload of dope in Curral das Éguas. The driving rain saturated his Lee jeans from the knees down, where his umbrella offered no protection. The electricity went off and on with every crash of thunder, frightening the dogs, the stray cats, the chickens in people's yards.

‘Jackfruit!' he called anxiously.

‘He's not here,' answered a child's voice.

Mango took the same route back, hung around Batman's Bar a
while longer, strolled to Main Square, spent more than an hour watching the buses arrive and not one of his pals showed up to have a smoke with him. He rolled up the bottoms of his jeans, reopened his umbrella and hurried off to Teresa's place.

‘She's gotta sell me some dope on credit!' he thought aloud.

Teresa was home alone; her daughters had gone to the dance at the club. She was packaging up the dope she'd bought in Curral das Éguas. She no longer had a supplier to bring the weed to her place, as Ercílio had done; he used to supply her as well as his mother. Teresa had begun dealing six months after her arrival in the estate. Before that only her husband had dealt, but he was always drunk and spent all the money he made getting trashed day after day. Always losing money and marijuana; sometimes he didn't have anything to offer customers, so his wife and children had to go hungry. He was killed because he used to go around mugging whomever to show how tough he was, making a lot of enemies in no time at all. One day he mugged a gangster, who then shot him in the head six times with a .38.

The only asset he left his family was thirteen pounds of marijuana, which Teresa thought about giving to their friends, but her girlfriends advised her to sell it. She'd be silly to just give it away to the heads. All that weed was worth good money.

That was how she was initiated into her life of crime. Her den, now well run, yielded better fruit. She managed to extend her house, change her daughters' rags for decent clothes and feed them better. She bought a sofa, wardrobe, fridge and had plans to buy a TV set. She had nothing to complain about; her life had improved considerably.

She was getting ready to go to bed when she heard Mango's careful voice through the crack in the window. She said she'd be there straightaway, after seeing him at the gate through the partly-open door.

‘How many you want, son?'

‘I just want a bundle of weed, just one, but I'm a bit broke, you know? If you advance me one, I'll bring you the dough tomorrow before noon.'

‘I don't sell on credit, but if you want to have a smoke with me, come on in,' said old Teresa.

In a flash her thoughts turned to seduction. For a long time her only sexual experiences had been solitary. Mango sat on the filthy sofa and looked around the room: Saint Cosmas, Do Um and Saint Damian lit by an oil lamp, an old crystal cabinet with a few coloured glasses, a tea set, the coffee table covered in knick-knacks, spider webs billowing in the slightest breeze. Old Teresa meticulously rolled a huge joint, aiming to get him off his face so he'd be easier to seduce. They lit the joint. Teresa said it was special weed. She offered him a shot of whisky and told him she had some coke for after their smoke. Mango loved the idea. He smoked quickly so he could get to the coke – so expensive and hard to find. Teresa suggested they go to her room, saying that one of her daughters might arrive home and she didn't want them to see her snorting. She closed the curtains, sprinkled the coke on a warm plate, and got a razor down from the top of the wardrobe. As she chopped out a couple of lines, she told Mango that she didn't know why she was so fond of him, that she had never snorted with any other customer, and that he was the first and only one. Whenever he wanted a snort or a smoke, all he had to do was let her know.

‘Why don't you take off those wet trousers? Stick 'em behind the fridge. They'll be dry in no time.'

‘Good idea!' he said.

He took off his shirt too, egging the old woman on in her game. His white skin was lit by the glow from the oil lamp coming through the flimsy curtain. Teresa went to fetch more weed.

‘Let's have another joint so that when we do the coke we'll get really out of it?'

She asked Mango to skin up, while she chopped out ten lines of coke on the plate. While he smoked, she let her hand slide down his leg. She did this several times. Mango's silence made her place her hand firmly on his right leg.

‘Your leg's
so
hairy!' she said in a soft voice.

Mango remained quiet. Old Teresa squeezed her fingers, moved her hand closer to his hard-on, and left it there. The joint was half-smoked. She slowly took hold of him through his jocks.

‘Mmm … you've got a stiffy!'

She squeezed his dick and ran her hand up and down it. Mango acted as if everything was completely normal. She knew he had the energy to give it to her good. ‘Isn't life great!' she thought as she made his cock spring from the clutches of his jocks. She took him straight into her mouth. Mango felt nauseous at first, but old Teresa's appetite made him come quickly. When he'd recovered, he asked her to do it again. They forgot about the cocaine on the plate, the joint in the ashtray, the rain on the roof. He rammed his dick into her. He didn't know why, but he remembered his mother, his girlfriend, his friends … He tried to stop, but couldn't. He felt real pleasure acting out that scene. He slowly started to behave as if he were madly in love.