The Boy on Ipanema Goes Thinking: Bloody Periods and A Toothy-Gerbil

Towel in hand and my bottle of water and the new book that I picked up yesterday I'm walking back from the beach and I laugh thinking about last night, I'm scratching a mosquito bite and Ray on the bottom-bunk opposite me says it's too bad we don't have a screen on this window, how bout that expression, it's "too bad". It sounds like something my six year old nephew invented, because he kicks ass (another expression) and could prob invent stuff if he wanted, and it would be legit, but it's something I say all the time, such an archaic expression. It's not only bad, it's too bad. Ray rolls his eyes and says okay, it's unfortunate. I pause and say, "yes, we are without fortune." But now I'm on the sidewalk walking into this jazz club/record store and, still smiling and I see all these listening stations and I spot Gotan Project which I haven't heard in a year and I play it and I'm transported to the more romantic neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, to the milongas of the madrugada, to a time and place I don't know, to one that doesn't exist maybe, but fuck this music is so good and familiar and I scream out "Yes Yes!" and I don't know if anyone hears or cares or is looking over, everyone so numb, but not me and how do I communicate this? How do I transfer what's going on in this head, all coiled up. But maybe there's hope I say, a journey of a thousand begins with a step goes the proverb, and hope yet and some can be saved, but what do I know, a displaced Angelino of but little thought. But I want the Here and Now, the Rio de Janeiro, the Brazil not Buenos Aires, my home of so many months and I switch the CD to ELECTROFUNKSAMBAGROOVE by Luciano Huck, and it works, I'm listening to Marcelinho da Lua's Cotidiano and grooving to it, or maybe I'm electrofunksambagrooving, to it. Then a track by Sergio Mendes and one from Bebel Gilberto and Yes! Yes! I'm in the Here and Now.

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I think it's like three a.m. or so and everyone's in the other room drunk and loud from wine and I'm sprawled out on this red couch adjacent to the pool table and I put down my book on my chest and yawn and think it's time to go to bed but I've been addicted to checking email so I'll go do that maybe. I've been thinking that this hostel's decent, even the cockroaches seem to hold it in favorable opinion, the mosquitoes are undecided as they're sometimes there and sometimes not, but I'm gonna start naming the roaches soon. I'm at the computer checking my email, even though I just checked it two hours ago. There's a new Myspace message and two forwards from my cousin, two facebook messages and a new friend request only I don't recognize the name. Intrigued I log onto the site and check this guys profile, I don't think I've ever seen him, I mentally scan the faces of people I've met and am pretty sure, almost positive I've never met the guy, and I see that all his friends messages are all in Spanish and I think of writing him "te conozco?" But no I don't care if I know him, but still I click on his photos and he looks pretty gay and I check his "interested in" and it says "women" and then I see a picture of his friend, this girl who's pretty cute so I click on her profile and yes, definitely cute, and I begin reading interests: Running, my girls, music, chilling w/ my man, that's annoying I think but continue reading and: laughing, singing, sushi, spending time with God, dancing, wait- spending time with God? And I scroll down and it says Jesus=Love, and under "favorite books": Just like Jesus, and The Bible, and I sigh and sort of scratch my head and there's an irrelevant quote from Sir Francis Bacon, and it's late I think and sign off and there are two new girls from Barcelona that checked into our room and are annoyingly already asleep which means I'll have to be absurdly quiet to not wake them when I go in, because I'm nice and if I was like ninety-one percent of the people who stayed in my room in these hostels I'd just turn on the lights and bang and clang things and maybe say something stupid audibly to no one like "what a night", or "oh, I'm tiiiired" or yell out someone's name who's not even in this room, but I'm not that inconsiderate. The last couple that was in our room was actually pretty cool, although the way I met the girl was interesting. I was sprawled out on my bed, on the bottom-bunk reading, and I knew someone new was above me because there was a stuffed animal on the bed and a pair of jeans and a girly-top, and all of the sudden the door flings open and this girl comes charging in and flies by me and into the bathroom and begins yakking her guts out, I mean vomit-city for like six minutes, and then comes out and casually walks past me and is about to close the door, but then, almost as an afterthought looks back and says "oh hey," and I just sort of look at her blinking, and she amends "that must have been like totally gross huh?" and instinctively I ask "are you okay now?" And then realizing we haven't been introduced say in a sort of asinine way "I'm Matt nice to meet you." And the next two days were gross-free until I think she was on her period and simultaneously forgot how to flush the toilet, and I was slightly shocked to see that, not because of the period but because it wasn't flushed and there was a tampon in the trash and I didn't feel like dealing with it so I left the room and went to the bathroom in the hall and closed the door and locked it and lifted the lid of the toilet and staring back at me was a piece of Rhinocerous-poop, or perhaps a medium sized elephant snuck in and let out a wail of anguish and then exploded a turd the size of an anaconda that swallowed a toothy-gerbil and three bloated parakeets sewn together and there's no way that thing is getting sucked down and seriously did that come out of someone's asshole? So helplessly I unlocked the bathroom and Thank God no one saw me come out and defeated I went back to "my" bathroom that was less zoo-like and did some stuff. Only now it's like, pretty late and I'm gonna go upstairs and get my toiletries and try not to wake up the girls from Barthhelona.

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Yes, You Do.

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Disturbingly, I'm singing "I'm Fergie-licious, hot! hot! that puts them boys on rock! rock! it's so deli-cious". I think it was on in the background while I was eating breakfast or something. I've never been good at blocking out ambient noise. So we got offered jobs at this hostel in Rio, and now I'll have a chance to make as much as seven year-old Malaysian girls with mad sewing skills, but they have to work thirteen-hour days and I'd only have to work six. But free board ain't half-bad I tell myself. I try and think if the Malaysian girls get board. Or bored for that matter. Hmm. In a ten-day span I finished three books and two were in Spanish and I've just started another and I've probably never read this much and I love it. I want to explode from happiness. And I do. My stomach bursts, but it doesn't hurt, it just opens like a door and the cake I ate falls out but not mush-style but whole and dry and a rectangle-slice and then all the coffee I drank is spilling out onto the floor and a small, white-furry mouse scurries over with a small white straw, the kind that bends and it sips up all the coffee in an instant and the mouse's belly swells and pudges out and irrationally I'm furious at the teeny mouse and squeeze it a little and plead with it to give me the coffee back but it's so stubborn and then asks me if it was decaf? and I say no! and squeeze the mouse harder and place it over my mouth and shake it (like a po-la-roid pic-ture) and like a wine sack the coffee comes out in a thin stream, almost mouth to mouth until the mouse deflates to nothing, just a thin sack, soft and I place it on the table. Only none of that happens, only the happiness part. And I think everyone should be happy, there really isn't a reason not to be. Some people have it tough, but I've never known anyone that has. Only fortunate people. And the ones I know who think they have it So tough, Are unfortunate, simply because they don't realize how fortunate they are. Así de simple. And if you're foolish enough to still be reading (what a loser, there's probably good reality TV you're missing out on right now, go!), but if you are still reading (not advisable), then take a second to say "I'm fortunate. I have it pretty good." Because if you're reading this right now, you Do have it good, and you Are fortunate. And you're probably 'Fergie-licious, hot! hot! They want a taste of what I got, so delicious.. To the left, to the left..


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An Hour and Forty-Eight Minutes in Copacabana

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It's early afternoon. I'm sitting in a café across from Ray. We're three blocks away from what might be the single most famous beach in the world, Copacabana, in Rio de Janeiro. We arrived in Brasil about seventeen days ago. Or so, I'm to lazy to count exactly. Brasil greeted us with red, clayish-dirt, lithe, svelte palms, an army of them sun-bathing, sloping into the dense jungle-green hills. The key here is sun, warm sun. Uruguay had sun, but not the warm. Our first stop is Floripa. Florianópolis in full, we plan to stay two or three days. Two weeks later we get a move on. Overnight bus to Saõ Paulo, connect on another and Rio. Back to the café. I'm anxious I tell Ray. Why? I don't know. I just came back from the cyber-café next door, I sent off Myspace and Facebook messages into internet oblivion. And I changed my ticket back. From August 28th to September 18th. I think this is the third time i've pushed it back. Or so, I'm to lazy to count
exactly.


Is it that? Is that I'm feeling a slight financial crunch? All this traveling sans work, responsibility, steady income? Was it the big breakfast? Papaya, ham n' cheese on a roll with jam and guaraná juice, two coffees, a hot chocolate and cake? I need to run. Yes. On the beach. And I am. It's twenty minutes later and I'm walking up to the strand. I can see Paõ de Açucar, Sugar-Loaf. And somewhere nearby is Christ the Redeemer looking over all the Cariocas in Rio, maybe three miles away. Or so, I'm too lazy to find out exactly.


My feet are dipping into soft-cool sand and my flip-flops are in hand. I'm wearing white jersey-shorts and a white-tee. I pull the tee off. I plot my route, and I start running. Immediately I feel liberated, a release flowing through my body. Waves are crashing down and the white crest tickles through my toes. I'm running hard, sprinting and now I'm panting and I stop to catch my breath. The clouds hang suspended above, three thin-ones, absolutely still, as if they too want to admire the view. I look to my right. Three large, tanned, glistening-asses are prominently in my view. I count to confirm. Six cheeks. But one of these cheeks is equivalent to a whole U.S. ass (U.S.D.A rump). Carnal desire sets in, I become an animal, a beast, I want to go over, like a dog sniffing, maybe just to verify, and just go at it. Right there on the beach. Raw animal-sex. One of the girls is looking over, smiling. I smile but get nervous or something and look away and start jogging again. I run to the end of the beach and plop down in the sand, huffing.


There are boats and maybe you can rent them but no one has or is so maybe not. I decide to jog back and out of the corner of my eye I spot something flying at me and I look mid-stride and it's a soccer ball about to pelt me but strangely I turn into Ralph Macchio from the Karate-Kid and do some crazy maneuver and bunt the ball with the side of my foot and I can feel it was a great kick and "opa!" and "oi!" and "legal" or cool and two girls on the beach make some comment in Portuguese and this one kid does this flicking thing with his hand that I take to mean "wow that was cool" and I run on inspired and I've probably never had such quick reflexes nor kicked a soccer ball so well and in this the country of Pele and the most World Cup champions I feel like Ronaldinho if only for twenty-seconds.


I'm walking now and I'm thirtsy but I spot some monkey-bars so I stop and do some pull-ups and walk over to a café and buy a bottle of water and sit and sip and gaze. I ask for a lime at the bar for my water and squeeze it and plop and drink and it's done and I go to the "public" restroom and pay $1.50R (bout 80cents U.S.) and take a leak and wash my hands and the bathroom is the nicest beach-bathroom I've ever used, all sleek with stained-glass and modern. I emerge from the subterranean bathroom and the Calle 13 song Atrevete-te-te comes into my head and I start running again and people-watch and before I know it I'm at the other end of the beach and walking back and I've got $1.50R left and want fresh coconut juice, in Floripa they come to you on the beach and machete-off the top and plop in a straw and fresh, cold coconut juice. I hope it's the same here, but all the coco stands charge $2Reais and I try and bargain and finally find one that'll do it and I hope for the machete, I just feel like it's more menacing, South-American, authentic and just plain cool. No machete but he takes out a hatchet and Yes! Hack the shit out if it! Slice it up! Gimme that cold coconut juice and I Snatch! it from him, and then I purse my lips tight and suck through the small-thin straw and smile coyly and say thank you yes it's very good and meander away. I'm walking back to the hostel and I'll be there in nine-minutes. Or so, I was too lazy to pay attention before to know exactly.


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