So, now I enter on the first bus that stops in front of the commercial center, and, then, as I move to the last seat, I hear an old lady protesting about the weather, and then, an old man protesting about people that have the habit of protesting about the weather. And, as I move to the back seat, a young couple is kissing next to me, but then they get off at the next stop and a man with an umbrella comes and sits on my side. And, as I stare at him, I remember that dream inside the cellar-bar with people getting entangled with umbrellas at the entrance. So, I decide to ask him if he knows about that place and instantly he asks me what kind of idiot am I. I say that I'm a straight kind of idiot and he gets out at the next stop. This time, a woman with a dress 'till the knees comes to sit on my side. I ask her name and actually she tells it to me. Then I ask about her job and she tells me that she is a secretary. And I ask what she secretariats. And this time, she smiles but does not answer and then, she gets off on the next stop. So, the next one is a young dude with a cap. I look at his cap and he looks at my vision with intimidation. I look out. Silence follows. The bus goes around. Some people are dozing, other ones looking at their phone, other ones looking through the windows. Out of the city we go into the suburbs. And here, the square buildings are getting more diversified, less square, and the green fields turning brown, yellow. So, last stop, time to get off. And here I go now, following some pedestrians, going down into the subway entrance now. I watch the publicity on the walls, this is, I read the signs on the papers and I choose a direction, randomly. Already aboard the metro carriage, being squeezed against the masses, I try to accommodate myself. Everybody is touching everybody in silence. Dull expressions. I get out at some station and I change lines and then I enter another carriage going in another direction. Randomly. Following a natural order of the things. I watch people and their autism or small eccentricities. Some are playing with their phones. Some read books about exotic tourist destinations and self motivation like “The meaning of everything in the cosmos, for dummies”. But after a while, my curiosity is gone, my eyes are getting tired, the nervous system being lulled, saliva coming out through the corners of the mouth, and down I go, falling and falling, slowly, like if I’m falling from the earth onto the sky, in between the clouds, but I’m not afraid, and then “Que est ce la decadence?” I hear and as I open my eyes I can see a beggar passing through the carriage, and automatically I answer something silly about over-dancing. The beggar goes away, smiling, an evil kind of smile. The train stops, many people getting off, some of them with some big luggages, and I get off too. So, here I go, already running through tunnels with perfume advertisements, bank advertisements, travel advertisements... I go up through some different kinds of mechanical-stairs and suddenly when I reach the top, I see myself inside a super modern airport, and I’m already staring at the large departures timetable: LasPalmas / Paris / Dallas/ Tokyo / Melbourne / Düsseldorf / Frankfurt / Nice /TelAviv / Istanbul / Manchester / NewYork / Brusselles / Manchester / Johannesburg / Geneve / Stockholm / Prague etc etc and all this names say nothing to me. So, I go around through the airport's big hall, observing people, their impatience, and I even dare to make conversations with some of them... thus, I ask about their destinations, their goals in life... and some other more personal subjects, and yes, I get some answers and then I take the opportunity to also ask about some coins, I say “I also would like to go in holidays, 'cause afterall, I'm a son of God as 3 well…”, but unfortunately, after a while the security comes and throws me out of the airport. And so, there I go again. It's night and I move3 through the back of the airport, the last air-planes are taking-off, passing over my head, destination unknown. I cross the suburbs of the city, going through some dirty roads between shacks and hovels, and then, I even end up sleeping at some cottage, somewhere at the end of the suburbs. In the morning, a man with a small tractor pops up, asking me what am I doing here and my answer is confusing, so he ends up inviting me for breakfast, at his house, “close by”, he says. So, there I go, aboard the trailer of his small tractor, full of pumpkins, and among farmlands we follow, farmlands with sheds and old pavilions from factories in ruin. And after a while, we are already arriving in front of a big yellow building with scaffolding attached, like a house in permanent construction. So, as we pull over, we dump the load of pumpkins and enter directly into the kitchen of the house, where there are some men and women seated at a big raw table, talking aloud, and some children climbing the walls around, coming out and coming into the house, through the windows. And on a wall at my front, between the windows, I see a picture of saint Sara-la-Kâli, the patron saint of the gypsies, a very worn sort of portrait, even with some spots on it, spots that make it almost unrecognizable, but I recognize it. So, straight away, my host tell me to sit and introduces me to his comrades saying “I just found this one outside, he was sleeping at a hut on the agrofields down there, and says that is traveling…” and now, some of them are looking at me, with curiosity, with aloofness, a mixed expression of innocence and malice in their eyes, and then, a fat woman with a colorful dress is already bringing me coffee and porridge, “eat that” she says like giving an order, with a big smile in her face, a odd kind of smile. “Traveling!?” exclaims the older man at the table, the one with a long scar on the face, a scar that goes from the corner of the eye until the corner of the mouth, “the airport is not far… Did you lose your flight? We can get you a brand new passport, if you need…” he says while emitting a soft but hoarse kind of laugh. “Ah yes, the airport, I was there yesterday, but the security sent me away…”; “aum! But why? Didn't they like the way you dress?” asks the same lady that just gave me coffee, with some irony in her expression. “No, I was there asking for money… and then, they said that was not permitted…” and so, while I say these things, some of them are actually emitting suppressed laughs. “But where do you wanna go, afterall?” asks me one of the young guys at the table, actually not that young, more like middle aged, something like that, well, I can't guess his age because he’s got a very slim kind of face but his skin is very rough. So ““North Pole, South Pole…” I say. “And where is that?” some of them ask me. “It is the extreme north and the extreme south of the world. “Stop bullshitting us” one other tells, snot dripping from his nose. “Tell us where have you really been”, he insists. “Well, I have been to different kinds of deserts, searching for different kinds of oasis… ”; “Oh yeah, I have also been to deserts, the Golden Triangle, the Golden Crescent and the Shan State, do you know that?” he asks, and I say no. Then he explains, “The Shan State is the leading global production area for YahBah methamphetamines, 4 also known as 'horse drug', "bikers' coffee" or "kamikaze", and now is this telling you something?”; “no idea” I answer. “Well, they there are4 other alternative names for that, like “ya khayan “ or “palarkar”, “pil kuda”, “shabú”, “ma-goo”, “baba”, “guti”, “laal”, “khawon”, “jinish”, “bhul bhuliya” etc etc. And then, the kids around start to repeat all these names and change their forms, making onomatopeias with it. Then the older man at the table tells them to shut up, and sends them out of the kitchen, and off they go, all jumping through the window, but still repeating this names as they do it, “Yahbu-Shabu-Baba”. And so, the one with snot dripping from his nose continues his explanation “the most common of these pills are red, pink, orange, or lime green and carry logos such as a big "R " or a big "WY". You also can put it on an aluminum foil and heat it from below, we call it ‘chasing the dragon’, wanna try it?”, “no” I say. And then he shows me some tattoos on his arms and chest, a few piranhas, some kind of flaccid monsters with multiple eyes being pierced by swords etc, and he tells about the meaning of all this and we get into some kind of arguing about symbology of this drawings and then, because I say something they don’t like, I get expelled from this gypsy place. So, as I walk away and come to the main road, a three-wheeled kind of motorcycle is passing by and without coming to a complete stop, the driver, a chubby middle-aged man with grayish tousled hair, makes a sign for me to jump on. And here I go now, already a-board that thing, standing up, my feet stepping over the brims of the rear axle, hands holding the back of the driver’s seat, Albino, his name, and on one of his shoulders, a parrot, calling me all kinds of dirty names while we ride. “Stand back from him” tells me Albino, “coz he bites”. The driver arms wide open, clinging to the steering wheel like if driving a Harley. And so, this way we follow along a zigzagging provincial road, up and down through a hillside filled with shrubs, groves, fields of cultivation, and here and there the farmers stopping their works to watch us passing by, and me waving at some of them and the parrot repeating “Fuk-Fuk-Fuk” and Albino making the motor accelerate more and more, this is, the engine emitting a wretched noise... and the exhaust pipe liberating an elongated cloud of black smoke. So, this way, quickly the agrifields are gone, and the farmers too, and then we slow down… rolling on flat ground now. So now we can hear each other, and so, I speak a bit about me, about my directions, and Albino, while adjusting the position of the crutch wedged between the seat and the mudguard, starts to tell his story... "I used to be a resin collector... from pinewood to pinewood I went, picking the sap from the pines... I had no family or house, and all the holy money I would make… I would spend it in the tavern or at whore houses... I never knew my mother or father... I didn't even have documents... My name was also a creation from... from people that liked me, this is, some of them helped me... and I helped them in all kinds of odd jobs as well… Things like, digging wells, killing pigs, dressing dead people, etc... In the winter, I used to sleep in the haystack of their properties, between the barrels of the resin... and during the summer, many times I slept in the crags, under the pine trees... these pines, that have been my best friends through the times... specially the female ones... and there, in the middle of the5 woods, I was not afraid of anything or anyone... because I had a ranch of dogs that would protect me, I still remember their names: Galvão, Pintas, Caçoulo, Xibanga, Cabrita, Magana and a few more... but you know... moving through thickets and groves at night may have its dangers… and there are hidden wells, ravines, slops, mineshafts, and other traps of the same nature... so, it happened that, one night, at a devil hour, when I was coming out from the tavern, filthy drunk… I collapsed… and down the cliff I went… into a dark hole... result... I broke my legs on several sides, and made a few holes in my head... and so, I couldn't move any more without crutches… and so, later, they, the people I used to work for, they bought me this machine... Well, you see, God punished me, I don't know why... me, that was already miserable... he decided to punish me, instead of torturing the liar, the abuser, the greedy... or maybe it was the devil that came into my body through these girls... I don’t know... but, fuck the girls... fuck the devils... I still do my life... People bought me this machine and I keep moving… This is, I have many friends out there, that is, everybody knows me, and so, I continue to run all the taverns, I take the news from here to there, and when there is no news, I invent them... that's my job now... you know… and what about you? Where do you wanna go? What's your destination?”; “Well, I have no proper destination, I just wanna go, somewhere…” I say. “So, have you not a family to stay with?” he asks, and “I’m not sure about that…” I say. “I guess there were some problems… I was hospitalized, and then… I didn't know about my past… It looks like I don't know who I’m. I don't know where I came from. I don't know where my family lives… and also they didn't come to claim me at the hospital…”. “Hum, I see now…” exclaims Albino, “so, we are brothers, actually we are both some kind of orphans…” And then he turns up the radio volume, and there we go, uphill downhill, listening to some classic music, some “gnossiennes”, some “nocturns”, some “fugues”, all this punctuated by a pleasant southeast wind, dripping against our faces and imagination. Then we stop at the tavern and I try to help Albino to get off, so I just pass him his crouches and he, with expertise, install both crouches under both his armpits, and then there he goes, dragging himself to the tavern’s entrance, and me on his back, moving with hesitant steps. So, already inside, the taverna man, a dude with big sideburns salute both of us, and there are only two or three tables on the bottom, and in one of these tables is already the lumberjack and other guy, drinking wine, and straight away, they invite Albino and me to sit on their side. And there, leaning against the bar, there are another group of men laughing and protesting about something related with politics… and so, at another table at the bottom, a man is holding a small accordion attached to his chest, the so called concertina, and this man has fat red pimples around his aquiline nose and the other two men on the side, one has hair coming out of his hears and a burnt mustache, and the other one with a bony face is wearing a funny beret and his mouth is already open. Wine is already coming to our table, and we begin to hear a dotted kind of sound coming from the small accordion, and so, at this time, the player is already opening the bellows, making the air come in, opening it even more, and then he stops, with that totally6 distended leather lung on the front of his belly, he is now throwing a deep look over us and then over the two friends on his side, as if, in a mood to eat them. And then, the one with the more scavenged face, already licking his lips, begins like this "Here we are now my friends and fiends of the vow... here we are in this estranged disarranged life with no fife... attending this nefarious life as if…", and soon after a short solo by the accordionist, the other guy, this is, the one with hair coming out of the hears, continues like this "Yes yes that's right, that’s wrong, here we are and here go... this is, you just started and you are already crying like a oh oh oh… and so, I say, if you wanna keep singing like that, you better move on to the loo...”, he trots, and as it goes, I keep drinking glass after glass, and then, at some point, I see Albino throwing logs on the fire, and after another small solo from the concertina player, we know, it’s his time to enter in the duel, and so, he goes on like this “Yes oh Joshua… hua hua, from whose is the fault we should apurate nowha... and who to blame after all for this hullabaloo??... the abominable snowman ohu? the Postman uho, or the boy Luciooohuouo?” And then, without my knowing, also came my time to sing, and I just make some grunt sounds, this is, moaning and groaning words with no meaning, and once more, I get kicked out of the place and there I go, leaving, getting lost. And so, I walked all afternoon without spotting a soul, until that, when I was stopped at some crossroad, thinking, in a groove, surrounded by eucalyptus, a guy came riding a bicycle, and as he came by my side he stopped and pointed to me the seat of his bicycle. And so, I took his suggestion and mounted his bicycle. Then, together we would follow, in silence, going down the hill, and I decided not to ask him questions... but then, it was he, who started asking me what I was thinking about. “Home” I replied, and almost everything was said. After, just to make conversation, I broke my own rules, and decided to ask him where he was coming from. And so, promptly he tells me that he had already done the silk route, the cedar route, the coal route etc. Then this new friend wants to know about my travels, and which adventures I've been into. And so, by now, I tell him I have been in many places, my memory is no more good, but “I still remembered about Heliopolis, the city of the dead, a place I have been wondering about before getting here”. “And where is that?” he asks. “Heliopolis is the biggest slum in the world…”; “And who lives there?”; “Well, the original profession of this city of the dead was guardian of tombs, allied with guardian of treasures... plus orphans of various genres transformed into scorpion persecutors… things like that…” and then he started to tell me about his life in the jail… the sexual assaults, the forced labor, his addiction... and about his family that never looked for him, while he was there, inside that inferno… Although, “while I was there, I learned all sorts of tricky techniques about traffic, robberies, looting and whitening... plus, I got a specialization in the locks matter, whether they were built-in, tubular, magnetic, or telescopic…” And then, when he was comfortable enough with me, he confided that his future project would be to rob a bank. This is, now he knew how to do it in a totally clean way. And when he invited me to assist him in that process, I felt tempted. And then, while we went down, he explained to me how we could do it, everything in detail, and after these explanations, we started to talk about what we could do with the money. And he already had a plan, “I want to buy a boat, make it my house and travel the seven seas” and I, what would I do with all that money after all? I was not sure.
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