Tag Archives: brazil

a love story

by

…a watershed…

Friday, sometime early March 2005

Last nite was a watershed of story, as he poured the scotch
and poured his heart.
It started after he came home, after going out to get smoke, and
coming back two and a half hours later.  He goes to the favellas
to score, and although I worry about that, he tells me not to worry,
they know him, and he can take care of himself.  That I believe.

He’d run into friends, drank, coked, come home and looked into
her eyes, searching for anger.
She could not hide anything from him.  He always saw,  so this
time she truly said no, not anger, just adjusting to frequency.
It’s every 2 or 3 days…

“No… not every 2 or 3 days… no……. oh…………….yes….
I guess you’re so damned smart.
Just don’t be like the other ones, please.  Just understand me.
I will never lie to you, I will always be true to you, always,
I swear.  Can you handle me babe?”

She looked long into his eyes.  “I Think so…”

This night she desperately wished for a recorder. The things he told
her, the way they rolled from his tongue…how could she ever capture
a tenth of them…?

She told him her main concern with his drinking…
“Your drinking is your business…how it affects me is my business.
I’m concerned with your health, that’s what worries me.”

“When I die, they oughta cut out a few organs…burn the rest please…
but take some of me and study, because I am not a normal person.

“I have drunk and snorted and shot, and been shot, and I live.
I’m not normal.
I’m not going to live long, babe, and I’m not going to change.
I can stop, I have stopped if there is a reason.

“But I don’t wanna spend my life sober.  I’ve seen too much.
No, you’ll see me dead.
Just don’t bury me.  Burn me, throw me in the ocean.
A Viking burial would be nice.  But otherwise just burn me, please. ”
Water filled her eyes…..

“I’m not afraid to die.  I never have been .  You know what scares
me…the only thing?.  I’ve never told anyone this.
What scares me is dying without being called a man.
To be worthy of being called a man, that is the one thing.
Not to die one of the masses….. oh….”

“In the Legion, they had a name they called me…..”
(I know it, but I’m not sharing it right now, as I’m not
sure he’d be OK with that).
“Oh, I’m good…I never miss.  Never.  One shot to the head.
I took out a squad of 40.  I wait…I watch…watch for days,
I know their routine, I know how many and where.  Pow Pow…
I could take out 5 in about 14 seconds.  I was the Best.

“Once they found me, they chased me for 4 days in the desert…
140 degrees day, -35 at night.  I covered myself for some shade.
I drank my own piss.
“They called out my special name, “It’s ___we gotta get him!”,
and they chased me … a bunch of them…
It was 35 miles to the sea, Once I got there, there was a beeper
and I could be found.  But I had lost mine, and no one
knew where I was….”
Obviously he escaped and was found, but I never heard how.

As a child, he was always in trouble, always being punished,
and the parents seemed to enjoy it, and from his stories,
they were quite creative.

They laughed at him, and called him Tatubola… little Armadillo…
The parents had a new horse whip and were trying it out on him.
There were other family there, and they all laughed as his mother
whipped him, and he rolled into a ball, rolled all over the ground
and down the hill.
The others said the parents must know what they are doing,
they’re the parents.  Little Armadillo, rolled up in a ball.

“My father decided the belt wasn’t good enough.  So he turned the
buckle on me.  A man 6’2”, 190#…do you think he needed to use a
buckle on a child?  What a coward.  But I never cried.  Never.
I thought of what Tom would do (Sawyer), he wouldn’t cry.
No, it was not me who should cry.  It was them, they were the
ones who were not human, they should cry.

“Once, when my mother left him, in order to get her back, he tried
to impress her by taking me on the back of his bicycle, for a ride to
show what a good father, a good man he was.
He put me behind him, and we rode.

“My ankles rubbed against the wheels, rubbed them raw and bleeding.
And when he saw, he told me how stupid I was, and he beat me.
I’d ruined his beautiful fantasy picture.”

Turns out he was ADHD.  I know it.  Total Right brain.
Got in trouble in school every day.  He read voraciously, and
everything at school seemed stupid, he already knew it.
Typical of ADD brains, unusually bright and intelligent,
easily distracted, able to focus intensely, and on their own.

He read all the classics early on, filled his head with the heroes
of so many times and places.  All of them, the great books, he read.
History, Geography, but not math, not numbers.

“If you got a woman laughing, you’re gonna get some pussy… ”
he continued.
(She remembered the big swedish nurse who assisted in her last home
birth, the most perfect birth.  Smile Carol, big smile, she’d say.
An open smile means an open pussy…. see?  it was true!)

“You always made me laugh, you’re good at that,”  she purred…
“So you must have gotten a lot of pussy…”
“Oh Good Lord, you have no idea!”
He shook his head and grinned.

“You’re clean.  Your eyes are clean.
I want to rebuild myself from what’s inside you.
I planted something in you, back then.
I planted it, and it grew inside you, and 17 years later,
you come and find me.
Because you never forgot me, and I never forgot you.

“When I saw you, I saw your goodness.  I saw you’re clean.
I was not a nice person at that time.  But with you, I gave my best.
It was out of time, and I saw another way.  I drove 400 miles..
….do you know how many times?  Just to see you.
It was apart from my life.”

She had no idea of this.  All she knew was he was diving at the pier.
So it turns out he was driving from Tahoe each time?

He and his Tahoe girlfriend fought about her.  She had called that
day, when he’d been gone for so long, took that chance, and the
woman answered.
Later, the woman asked him, and he told her…
yes, I’ve met someone, and this is why I drive.

He told her his friend Mark was a good man, a good friend,
and he lost him as a friend forever, because he hit that woman in
this fight…”knocked her lights out”…and he knew he was wrong,
that was the only time he did that.
She asked him why he was untrue to her.
“She was not a good fuck.  She had become like a sister.
I left soon after I saw you”

“You know, they are offering me a job…. I can’t believe it…
$80,000 and I said no.  I couldn’t do it… I felt like a whore.
The Legion keeps asking me to come back, come back, we could
live in France, you would be my wife, we would live well.
I would be maybe a Sargent Chief.
And I would teach people how to kill.
But no, I can’t do it.  I said no, I want something else.”

“You wanna know the two saddest things?
A soldier without a war, and
and a Man without a job…
I know….. I’m both.”

by

…the plan…

“I Love you for your Intelligence,
your Temperament,
the way you Carry yourself,
and your Elephant Memory.”

…what a lovely picture he paints of me today.

After seeing Ibicui, our vision of the future began to
formulate for both of us.
Our number one priority became Happiness, and once
we had seen what we could build upon, what we could
create living in peace, and with our love for eachother,
well, our ideas just fell into place.

“Journal, March 1, 2005

I am engaged. We proposed to eachother today, before we
went out to see the city…we have at last Said the Words,
taken the giant step of faith and truth.
We just can’t decide if I should be Carol Souza, or
he Alcir Williams…hahahaa!
He likes the sound of it, and the custom of incorporating
eachother’s names into the other is certainly
amusing at the least.

“I can’t believe it…I’m getting married again!”, he thrilled
to me.  “Are we going to Die together?
Is this going to be IT?”

We are going to get a place in Ibicui.  A place with a nice
big backyard.
He will get a little boat, and run tours on the weekends.
His heaven!

He wants to make one of those big barbeques using a
trash can, and we can go to town, get big cashes of chicken
and beef, and have Barbeques in our backyard on the
weekends… and sell to the tourists and locals.

He can make soups, and I breads…
The tourists come every weekend, so there you have it.
I could even sell my jewelry from a cart on the beach.
Here, it’s all like the sixties, things easy and local,
and not all the regulations and limitations.

We can take foods to parties…
As well, we can scout around for things to Export …
On our trips we saw so many beautiful things that would
fill a container bound for the US.
Fantastic carvings, large ship models, little tables
and chairs sets…
Amazing precious hardwood chairs, the designs are
brilliant, and the exchange is so excellent right now.”

The ideas were immense, and flowing.  So many possibilities.

Journal continues…

“She shook her proverbial head, her mind reeling with
the truths of the moment.
Where had she been but four months ago?

Her birthday was a good, but sad relief from the efforts
of a year and a half of trying to make it work with the
son, out in the woods she loved.
A month of complete breakdown, sadness…and then
…the Dec 7th connection.

And now… to be married …the Fiancee…
the Intended…!
Still there were big questions for her,
especially regards the consumption of alcohol..

It was seeming that he would rather get wasted than make love…
over the past three weeks, she could likely count the
number of actual encounters on little over one hand, maybe…
this reality puzzled her… He was a sexy and sexual man.
And yet, it was not a priority, and getting Drunk was.

She had never known anyone who could drink the quantities
that he could, and every night.
If this was the reality ongoing, there would be trouble.

“Your drinking is your business…how it affects me
is My business.” she said.  ” I’m concerned with your health,
and that’s what really worries me.”

The problem for her was that she was already committed.
He was the man she had wanted, and no one would ever be able
to touch this place in her heart…

So it was a done deal.  The had to solve the quandary of
this terrible addiction that had hurt her so many times before…

It wasn’t that she didn’t understand… she did,
and all too well… it’s just that it was
a Now What…? situation.

 

 

by

…ibicui pics…

I share photographs here, of our trip to Ibicui.
You’ll see images of our drive along the coast, views of
the streets from George and Angela’s home, pictures as
we  walked, some shots from The Cachaca Museum, where
they have a collection of every label ever produced,
and G and A’s lovely dog.

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by

…an alcir joke…

Oh, he Loved this joke… and he told it well.

_______________________

This man is shipwrecked, with Sharon Stone.
It’s fabulous, but still he is not happy.
He asks if she will grant him one favor,
as she sees he is not content.

“Please, would you put on a moustache and beard,
and dress yourself as a man?”  he asks.
She cannot understand, but agrees to do it
for him, nonetheless.

So here she comes, all made up and dressed
as a guy, and wondering why…
He greets her happily….

“Hello!  How are you Doing?”  he asks…
“Fine…” she says.
“Oh Good….” he replies….
“And Me?…
Oh…. Well!  Very Well!……
….You wouldn’t Believe who I’m fucking!!!”

_________________________

 

 

by

…to ibicui…

After the daughter went home to mother, it was finally
our time.  He wanted to show me the backhills country,
and other sides of Brasil that he loved.

One particularly beloved place was Ibicui (i-bee-quee)
Going south, along the coast a ways, there were small
fishing villages, quiet and quaint, and here we found our
heaven.  I remember his saying …

“Oh babe, this is Us…” as we walked down the cobblestone
street to the beach.  A vendor pushed a little cart with hot
meat on a stick… a particularly popular food in Brasil.
The Scale of the place was so gentle and human, a certain
ease and slowness that you could deeply sense.

We found a bunch of little blue crabs for sale, sadly blowing
bubbles as they awaited their fate.  I couldn’t bear to buy
them, it was just too depressing.  Their colors were Art.

We stayed with his old friends, George and Angela…
(ghorrgh and anhella) who had an upstairs home on
the little cross streets, and they walked with us, and
the guys had a great time getting drunk and reminiscing…

Or so I guessed, as once again, it was all in Portuguese.
But they were so sweet, laughing all the time, playing great
music, and it didn’t matter…. I felt very included…

That was especially true, when the boys went to the bar,
and Angela, a giant grin on her face, said the magic word….
“…Caipirinhas!”  big smiles back and forth, and I got it that
She wanted to show Me how they were made for Reals,
her style, Brasilian Home style.
She was very proud of her methods…

This is the national Drink, and since we’d come from a visit
to the Cachaca Museum… sort of like a wine tasting bar, with
Cachaca bottles lining the walls, and huge casks in the other
room….I came prepared!  You say it ‘kashasa’…

There were all grades and flavors of this strong liquor, made
from the sugar cane.  I found that it was similar to Tequila,
with the same differences in hangovers too…. the better the
grade, the better you felt next day.
So after tasting a few, I got us a nice expensive bottle of Brandy,
and it was true.
We got wasted with our Caipirinhas, and I for one felt great
the next day.  Ha!

Caipirinhas are made by chopping up fresh limes into very small
pieces, and crushing them with a mortar and pestle, slowing
adding a little sugar, and a little cachaca, alternating them.

You work it and work it, and all the wonderful nuances
of the pulp and peel come out…
Once you get it to the desired taste and blend, and personally
I don’t like mine too sweet…
strain it, pour it over ice, and Drink it!    Zowey!!

You can also make Vodka Caipirinhas, if you can’t find Cachaca,
but there’s nothing like the real thing.

The next day we all went to the beach and jumped in the water.
This place is magical, truly.  These are 18th century colonial
Portugal fishing villages, along the edges of the bays.
Ibicui is clean, quaint, there is no crime, people eat locally, and
there are dolphins in the bay.
(“Dolphins….it Had to be Dolphins”, and they both snickered)

It is along the same mountain range as Rio, with views of the
village and forest of about 50/50, edged by varietal rainforest
covered hills, and up into the mountains.
Then there are the Angras…. 365 islands scattered along this
coast, and it is a quiet little tourist get away for Brasilians.
They like to say it takes a Year to see them all!

Journal, February 26…

“Ibicui, Mangaratiba county.  Paraiso!  (pa-ra-ee-sou)

The place was/is perhaps the most perfect place.  Surely
there are other such places, where people just walk along
the streets, and swim with their kids, and everywhere
you look, all is PAIX.   A peaceful paradise.
Complete comfort, easiness, openness…unreal.

Built on rising levels of ground and winding railroad streets,
it’s all cobblestone, ancient.  The strong healthy Rain Forest
within and along this series of communities, matches
approximately the mass of the manmade…
Life and Death, as Alcir was to call it.  No doubts that
if left alone, this jungle richness would cover over and
eventually eat up all the buildings.  How Lovely.”

“It’s Saturday nite … checking in from Brasil…
Dear diary,”…she wrote as she savored the day’s delights,
and remembered his eyes, in the water, glazed….
…glazed and blissed…..saying it was a new day, and
he was really a new man, and at last he Knew it.

He said he’d call himself Lazarus.
“Lazarus, brought back to life, thanks to…..Me!”
and he spread that wide enveloping grin as he had been
doing a lot of today.

“…and you!” (tenderness moved in like clouds,
soft filtered over primal joy)…
“I could never have gotten here without you.
Why are you becoming so important to me?”

His demeanor had altered today, as he showed her
the small town around the bay.
This day, she thought…has been perhaps the most
perfect day… or the closest to it so far.

Her feeling radiated from a heart and throat chakra,
a pearlescent center, and her entire face radiated with
light and color and hair… She felt it, she used it.
She was Quiet, and from the inside.

“He has joined us today,” she noted to herself.
“There’ll be a lot more power available for us to use,”
and she smiled to herself.

“Your new little egg heart has just cracked open,”
she told him, there in the bay, in the water, after
his dive and swim to her, and she to him.
Swimming to each other, each in their own fashion…

“I love you..” he said, his eyes pouring it over her
like soft molasses,  his eyes pounding out
the heart drum of truth.

“I love you… I know that now.  You’re going to see
more of the old Alcir that you knew….”
She looked clearly into his radiant eyes.  His entire
being glistened with sparkling drops of water and sun.

“Hi,” was her whispered reply, and they kissed…..”

 

 

by

…corcovado…

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A visit to Rio would not be complete without seeing a few
of the tourist spots.  Rio itself is a year’s viewing, but since
that’s more than I had, Alcir saw to it that I enjoyed that
Huge Guanabara Bay, 15 x 16 Miles, with scores of islands,
and the ferrys going to what they call Downtown Rio, and
what I called Mainland Rio…

Alcir had a theory that the Bay is a splash up from a giant
volcano… tossing up all those lumps that are so familiar
to us in pictures of Rio… a geological phenomenon that would
seem to be somewhat repeated on the NorCal Coast where I
used to live… although certainly not as massive or spectacular.

Corcovado is one of those hills behind and above Rio, and
back in 1931, they built the Concrete Christ, Cristo Redentor,
and at nearly 100 feet, the mass of it alone is rather awesome.
The day we visited it, his head was in the clouds.

Researching it, it sits on a base that adds 30 ft to the height,
but still it’s not as large as the Statue of Liberty, and dozens of
Jesuses and Buddhas and Quan Yins all over the world.
Still, in the presence of it, at the feet of it, and realizing the bulk
the mass, the scale…. quite wonderful.

A little side note:  it was recently voted to be one of the
New Seven Wonders of the World…

One of the other ‘Musts’ was Pao d’Azucar, what we call in the
States ‘Sugar Loaf’, and the whole experience of traveling on the
trams along steel cables, to the top of the largest of those Lumps
in the Bay… well that’s another day and another story.

 

 

by

…getting to know you…

One really amusing aspect of this visit with V was to
watch the two of them romp and kibbitz.
They were terribly in love with the reflection of each in
the other, and I was truly content to be amused by the show,
and to see this fierce warrior as a tender father was
a beautiful gift.

The photos I share here are but a fraction of the film I spent
on their interactions.  She was Made for the camera, and
if you add watching Lots of Novellas (soap operas) on TV,
Plus…if you’ve ever seen the Carnaval Queens of Rio, you
might consider the images that children there see every day.
Glamorous, gorgeous, and very comfortable in their bodies
…well, I guess you have the makings of a star….

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She and I spent the first couple days sharing and comparing
words.  I have pages in my journal of her numbers and letters,
and lots of things in Portuguese and English.

We had fun, and laughed some.  We would point to things, and
then we would teach eachother the language we each knew.
She spoke no English, which surprised me actually.  Alcir was
so conversant, but then again, the mother didn’t speak English.

While I was there, he would only speak English, as he was
excited to be practicing it again.
I knew some Portuguese, but couldn’t carry on conversations.
In particular we worked on pronunciation, for each language
has sounds that are not used in the other.
It was funny on both sides, and we laughed at eachother’s
attempts and tongue twisters.

It was lovely sitting out on the steps in the sunshine and breezes,
and making our little baby steps towards eachother.
She loved watching me paint with my watercolors, and
tried some herself.

But Alcir had his warnings for me….
“Watch out,” he shared.  “She’ll be nice at first…”

We took a little drive, after much coaxing by both of us girls,
up to Corcovado, the rolling mountain top where sits
the Concrete Christ, way above the downtown city of Rio.

The enormity just doesn’t get to you til you stand at the feet
of that amazing statue.
The day was overcast, and his head was in the clouds.

They were also in the midst of repairs, likely sort of like the
San Fran Bridge, where it just keeps going on in one manner
or another, constantly, and the drapery and fencing just
added to the surreal scene.

During this  visit with V, I came down with a terrible
fever, and although I was frightened, it turned out to be a
really bad bladder and kidney infection.

I remember his large warm hand on my forehead, checking
me often, as in dilerium, I was carried inside and tended to.
Chills came and went, deep shivering and heavy sweats,
and the comforting energy he gave me with his concern
stayed with me.
Beyond that, the only positive thing was the loss of five
pounds, which actually were helpful in adjusting to the
humid summer heat.

I think it was 9 or 10 days that she stayed, and during that time
there would be no intimacy between the two of us.
We had only had four days alone, our honeymoon time.

She began getting dramatic.  Very dramatic.
She would go visit Aunt Maria, eat sugary things, and
watch the Novellas.
Her father wouldn’t let her watch them here.
Then, when she would walk in and find us close together,
holding hands or cuddling, she would sigh loudly,
turn and stomp away.

One day the child Raged all day.
Every moment was consumed by her, nothing was enough.
Pai!  Pai!   Pai….!
Once she did her stomp away to Maria’s, and Alcir followed.
When he returned he was both angry and laughing.

“Oh Good Lord!” …he shook his head.
“She has thrown herself on the bed, and she is
pounding the mattress with her fists screaming…
…..WHY ..WHY … WHY….!”

journal continues… it’s Sunday

“She is doing a little better in general, doing her best to accept
something she can’t compete with…. or kill……….
….V goes home Tues or Wed. “

by

…the visit…

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I didn’t write much of anything while V was with us.
There was so much intensity, so much to take in and feel.

So much attention to pay, and things to learn.  This was the only
child he had really given himself to.  As is frequently the case with
men, when they are young they do not allow themselves to get as
involved in child rearing as they do when they have matured, and
I knew by the pictures in the drawer and on the wall that he had
indeed been very involved.  It was a beautiful thing to see.

When his girlfriend got pregnant, Alcir was very happy, and began
his quest for a healthy child, by enforcing rules upon her.
He told me that he made her eat her broosel sprouts, and
made her stop smoking and drinking.

From what I could glean, they had already split up and made up many
times, so I’m sure there was a lot of adjustment going on on both sides.

_____________

Journal, February 2005…

“He told me that when he introduced his woman to his grandmother,
later she told him..
“She loves you, yes, but she loves you because
of what your penis does.
Later on, when you turn to her she will not be there.”

This was the grandmother who was the only one really There for him,
and did her best to support him, while witnessing the abuse that
he suffered every day from the father and mother.

He says V’s mother hated him for taking care of her
during the pregnancy.

“I made her eat her vegetables, wouldn’t let her smoke.
Not for her, but for what she was building inside of her.
That was mine, and I wanted my daughter to be strong
and intelligent.
This was not Hers… it was Ours. ” ”
_______________

She gazed at the tiny snapshot of the boy.  Such innocence,
such beauty.  Perfect symmetry, those wrap around eyes,
a pure, sweet baby.
And here was that little boy’s picture, overlaid with one
of little V.

The photos of them, his face glowing with pride and
complete satisfaction… these pictures amazed me.
To see this man I knew as a fierce warrior, now a tender father
caring for his child was a beautiful side, and I was fascinated.
There were faces there I had never seen before.

It was at a tender age that he began to turn;  he was constantly
in trouble in school, couldn’t sit still or be quiet.
He was beaten, and punished on a daily basis, and emotionally
abused as well, frequently in public.
I know they did it out of ignorance and stupidity…
but…what a travesty.

ADHD or not, the sort of Hatred that was heaped on him, because
his mother never wanted a child in the first place, was
unforgivable in my mind.
They also may have been embarassed in front of family and friends,
by his inability to behave and fit in, and the trouble at school.

They knew nothing about ADHD brain chemistry in those days, and
well I know it, for my brother is close to his age, and is ADHD too.
And as well, and this is really strange, both he and my brother
were left handed, and both mothers made them go Right.
I thoroughly believe this made things even more difficult.

“All I wanted was kisses from the mother,” he said.
” Kisses and holdings….
But the same mouth that kissed, that same mouth punished me
with hatred, told me I was worthless.
I was hated by them because they said I was the most intelligent
in the family.  The Most Intelligent! and all she wanted was to turn
me into a faggot.  She could control me if I was a faggot.
She couldn’t control me as I was, and she hated me for that. ”

This small room which served as living room and bedroom contained
only things of and about Him.  The only one else present, in the form
of photos, was his daughter, who was now eight years.

The rest of his life was in a drawer, and I did look at the pictures
now and then, when he was gone…. of course I did.
But I could not find one picture of the mothers…. his Or V’s.
I wanted, nay, needed, to understand just what it was that
made up this man.

So it’s Birthday Day, a day of delight for him, we picked up V,                                                   and the three of us went out to a wonderful dinner….
a very fancy family restaurant, where the waiters bring out
huge slabs of beef, and slice it in front of you, as much as you want.
This was my gift to him… dinner and his new Raybans,
which he wore with pride.

When we came home, there was romping and play with the two
of them, and I happily sat back, doing my part by taking
scores of pics, and thoroughly enjoying the cloud of
wild abandon between them.

That night, we all slept together on the simple bed we’d made on
the floor, and I let her take possession of her father.

She lay in his arms, between the two of us, arms and legs wrapping
up any thought that another might join in.
Little puffs of soft, light green jealousy clouds floated up
now and then, and from both sides.