The Painting of Porcupine City (33 page)

When Mateo first moved to SP Vini thought of him as the boy, big and ten, from the country where people walked on the Moon—his Aunt Sabina was still going on about it even though by that time it had been nearly twenty years since anyone set foot on the Moon. But it was family lore, one of those legends that develop in families. Mateo was tied to the Moon, and Vini suspected Mateo had even been there on secret missions. Mateo never seemed inclined to talk much about his space travels—but on Vini’s birthdays or when Vini was crying over a stubbed toe or a spill out of a hammock and needed cheering-up, Mateo would sometimes drop hints about his visits to the Sea of Tranquility.

That faded as they got older, though, as Mateo shed his alien Americanness and became almost indistinguishably brasileiro. But the respect of the ten-year-old for the fourteen-year-old stepped up to replace the awe of the new and the alien. Mateo grew hair under his arms so Vini stood in front of the mirror with his hands in the air, watching for sprouts of his own that would not come. Mateo grew tall so Vini hung upside-down off the end of the couch, to try to stretch himself and match his cousin’s height. To no avail. But when Mateo started copying the paintings that covered Rua Giacomo, Vini found his hand liked a can too, and they took off together in a direction that welcomed them both regardless of their ages.

Only once did Vinicius’s idolatry of Mateo waver: it was the summer between Vini’s first and second years of high school, when Mateo, again an American, now a college student, was in SP on break. On the Metro on their way home from the art museum, Mateo had told Vinicius he was gay. Vini thought at first his cousin was joking, but when he gathered from Mateo’s watery eyes that it was true, the pedestal on which he’d always kept his cousin rocked and pitched Mateo off and Mateo seemed to lay prostrate on the ground with dirt in his face.

A homosexual. Um baitola. Vinicius’s heart quickened and they were silent for the rest of the ride.

For weeks afterward there had been a quietness between them. And then Tiago came out too, not a coincidence of timing but something shared and planned between he and Mateo away from Vinicius. Suddenly Vini was in the minority, and in his isolation he wondered if perhaps Mateo had caught on to something that he wasn’t able to see. If perhaps Mateo was still, as always, intriguing in his alienness, the boy from the Moon.

They walked for a little

while and Vini pointed out other pieces of his. He was happy when Mateo looked close and sometimes seemed to study the work, even past the point of awkwardness, as though Mateo thought they were the most interesting things in the world.

«How’s your
bridge
doing?» Vinicius said coyly when they were walking again. He was speaking, of course, of the Zakim. «Your beautiful bridge.»

«Heh. I’ll pummel you.»

«Your sweet, precious, lovely, darling
bridge
.»

«You’ll be sorry.»

«Heh. So you haven’t tagged it yet?»

«Don’t rub it in.»

«Just do one of the thingies, the cables.»

Mateo shook his head. «I don’t want to do a cable, I want to do the obelisk. As high up as possible.»

«What if you just start with a cable, though, just doing a cable? Or the bottom part. Might take some of the edge off.»

«V, it’s not like fingering a girl or something or feeling up her titties till you can round the bases.”

“The bases of what?”

“I mean I’m not going to dabble with it. I’m going to wait until I can do it right.»

«You’re saving yourself for your true love.»

«Call it what you will.»

«As high up as possible, huh?»

«Preferably the tippy-top.»

«You’re sure there’s even a way to
get
to the top?»

«Has to be. It’s got lights on the top. Which means there has to be a way to change the light when it burns out.»

«True. Unless they change it by helicopter.»

«They’re not going to change it with a helicopter.»

«I guess.»

«So there’s gotta be stairs. Or an elevator, although I think it’s too narrow for an elevator, because if there’s an elevator there has to be stairs too, for emergencies.»

«You’ve thought about this.»

«Sometimes it’s all I think about.»

«You can’t just go online or something?»

«You know they don’t put this stuff online. This is top-secret shit. Someone would try to blow it up.»

«You can’t just wing it?»

«I’m not going to wing it. I need to have a plan.»

«You know,» Vini said, «from all the pictures you’ve sent, it looks a lot like the Oliveira Bridge here in SP. Over the Pinheiros. Practically identical, right?»

«Actually the Oliveira is bigger.»

«It’s bigger and you don’t want to paint on it?»

«It’s not that I don’t want to paint on it, but it’s not the one I want to paint on.»

Vini sighed. «But it’s pretty much the same, right?»

«Guess so, in terms of construction they’re pretty similar. Both cable-stayed, both have obelisks with lights—»

«If we could figure out
that
bridge,» Vini said, “then you’d have a pretty good idea about how to get up inside
your
bridge. Right?»

«Theoretically. But the Oliveira is a highway too. And the traffic’s even thicker than in Boston. I don’t want to see you get flattened if we make a run for it.»

«Sweet of you.»

They were passing a familiar street that turned onto another familiar street. Mateo looked up that way. On the corner there were a lot of young people standing around. He could hear the faint sound of rock-and-roll.

«You still go to Colonel Fawcett’s?» Mateo asked.

Vinicius looked up the street and back at his cousin. «All the time. Want to stop in? I bet you can’t get any decent cachaça in Boston.»

«Tiago will probably be there, right?»

«He might be.»

«Need a good night’s sleep before I tackle that.»

They continued on to Buraco da Paulista and stood on the opposite embankment looking down at the highly-decorated wall at the mouth of the tunnel, into and out of which cars were still streaming at this hour of the night. They didn’t paint anything, and kept their hands in their pockets. Finally Mateo started walking back up the embankment and Vini followed.

The morning would soon gather

its strength for another bright, loud day, but right now it was wee and quiet and their sneakers clapped on the cobbles of Rua Giacomo. As they got closer to home their footsteps were joined by the tell-tale
ffssshhtt
of paint meeting wall.

“
Tucano. Oi
,” Vinicius whispered loudly, cupping his hands around his mouth.

The writer stopped and looked and grinned and capped his can. «I know you,» he said, pointing at Mateo. «I heard a rumor you were back.»

«Who are
you
, though?» Mateo said. «The Edilson I knew was only up to here.» He held his hand against the teenager’s sternum. Edilson grinned, blue eyes gleaming. «This looks good,» Mateo said, nodding at the unfinished piece. «Saw you grabbed some space from me down the street.»

Edilson flinched. «You know how it is. It just kind of happened. You went away. There’s only so much wall.»

«Only so much wall, sure. This is one of the biggest cities in the whole world. You got all the favelas!» He meant the shanty towns, the slums, where some boys dribbled soccer balls along the winding roads and others not much older walked with black pistols tucked in the waistbands of their colorful swimsuits.

By now Edilson realized Mateo was playing. He thumped his can against Mateo’s arm. «
You
go paint the favelas, Dedinhos.»

«We’re going to go in there. You and me, Edilson. And V. And we’ll trade their guns for cans. They can spray paint at each other instead of bullets.»

«Yeah. Right. So how long you back for?» Edilson said.

«Few days.»

«You guys stop at the Colonel’s?»

«No,» Vini said. «Around there though.»

«Where’d you guys go?»

«Around. Avenida Paulista.»

«Oh. Still Nuncamais there?»

«Yeah.» For a minute they looked at Edilson’s piece, which looked to be the start of a smiling motorcycle, and then Vini said, «We’re going in.»

«OK. I’ll see you guys later. Welcome home, Dedinhos.»

Edilson watched them go and then resumed painting, wondering if Mateo was serious about the favelas.

Mateo came into Vinicius’s

bedroom wiping toothpaste off his mouth. «Give me one of your pillows.»

«Where are you going?» Vini said. He was lying on the bed poking at his phone, checking for texts.

«To sleep on the couch.»

«Awh, don’t stay way out there. How will we shoot the shit?»

«I need to sleep somewhere.»

Vinicius scooted over and patted half of the bed.

«I’m not sleeping in the bed with you, V.»

«Why? Oh, I forgot—you Americanos get all sketchy about bodies. So uptight.»

«I’m not uptight. It’s because you fart all night.»

«I do not fart. Hey, will you stay if I get you the bitch pad?»

Mateo sighed. «Where is it?»

«I’ll get it.» Vinicius hopped off the bed, maneuvered around the stool in front of his PC, and rummaged in the big particle-board armoire. With some effort he pulled out two big foam pads rolled into tubes.

«Bitch pad,» he said, tossing them one by one at his cousin.

Mateo caught them and unrolled them alongside Vini’s bed. Vini pushed down a pillow and a threadbare sheet with Buzz Lightyear on it.

Mateo wrapped the sheet around himself like a toga and lay down on the pads. Under the bed were a few pairs of sneakers, a cardboard box and, lined against the wall, a row of clear soda bottles of latex paint reflecting the weak orange light from a power strip. At the other end was a bundle of rope and a climbing harness. Mateo stretched out his foot and touched one of the buckles. He felt dust on his toes.

«Don’t use the harness much anymore?»

«Nah,» Vini said in the dark. «Not for a long time. It’s too hard to stencil when you’re swinging around on the end of a rope. Plus I don’t know how much I trust Tiago. It’s not like when it was you on the other end.»

«Yeah. It was fun though.»

«Heaven spots have to be hard or else they’re just spots.»

«Yeah.»

«Edilson offered to buy it. But I didn’t know if maybe you’d want to come back for it some day.»

«Nah, go for it.»

«You don’t want it?»

«You need a crew for that stuff.»

«What about your boy?»

«I work solo.»

Vinicius was quiet so long Mateo wondered what kind of shit it was he’d wanted to shoot. Finally his voice from a few feet above and over, disembodied in the dark, said, «So how is Fletcher?»

Mateo rubbed his hair and pulled the sheet up around his shoulders. He didn’t feel like talking about me but he wasn’t home often enough to be evasive. «We’re in a rough patch.»

«Break-up rough?»

«Yeah. Pretty rough.»

«Oh. ...That why you came home?»

«Guess so.»

«You go kissing on someone else?»

«No. But Fletcher and I both have other loves.»

«I can guess yours. What’s his?»

«He’s a bit of a—playboy.»

«Oh.» And then, gently: «He go kissing on someone else?»

«Someone elses.»

«Hmm. Oh—you mean not at the same time, right?»

«You ask too many questions.»

Vini laughed, softly, then was quiet a long time. Mateo thought he had fallen asleep, but then Vini cleared his voice. «Tiago asks about you.»

«Yes. You mentioned.»

«You could probably pick right up,» Vini said gently, «if you ever wanted to.»

«That was a long time ago.»

«He keeps asking me if you’ve joined Orkut yet. He wants to friend you.»

«You mentioned that too. He’s just hoping I’ll post hundreds of shirtless pictures of myself like all you guys can’t resist doing.»

«Well we gotta advertise, primo!»

«What are you advertising? Aline’s got you roped like she’s a gaucho and you’re a cow.»

Vini slid to the side of the bed and peered down, shook his head. «Aline dumped homeboy’s ass all over town.»

«Again? You didn’t tell me. When?»

«Two days ago?»

«Why this time?»

«She thinks I was getting with this chick Camilla.»

«Were you?»

Vini grinned. «Primo, you should’ve seen this girl, though. Hot enough to make you like girls.»

«So was it worth it?»

«No. But all we did was kiss a little. If she had let me»—he slammed his pelvis against the bed, knocking the legs against the tile—«
bam bam
, then it would’ve been worth it, right?»

«You’re terrible.»

«I can’t help it. I try.»

«You’re just like Fletcher.»

«Whoa, let’s not go all Greek tragedy, primo!»

«Hm?»

«The one where homeboy goes to town on this chick who turns out to be his
mom
.»

«Oh. Yeah. What?»

«Family lusting, primo.»

«I missed something.»

«You were saying I was like your boy.»

«You’re crazy.» Mateo reached up and smacked his shoulder. «You’re not even my
family
, V.» He grabbed a twist of Vini’s blond-blond hair. «Where’d this come from? Ain’t Amaral. Ain’t Bittencourt. That’s for sure. You find out who your papai is yet?»

«Is too Bittencourt.»

«Is not. You’re adopted.»

«You’re lucky you’re sleeping on the floor, or you’d be sleeping on the floor.»

«Haha.»

They were quiet a long time.

«I’m glad you’re home,» Vinicius whispered.

«Go to sleep, V.»

You’re adopted
, Mateo had told

him. He’d always kidded Vini about that, even right from the start. A classic case of a transplanted ten-year-old’s insecurity.

He listened to his cousin breathe and looked around the room—his old room—at the posters and clothes and books and computer that weren’t his and that were even more unfamiliar at this angle from the floor that wasn’t his beside the bed his cousin slept in now.