Lunatics

Lunatics · Chap 012 · Lack of luck

12 · Lack of luck

HE HAD to do something to get the flashdisc back. Gotta talk to Ibin! He walked through dark, narrow streets until he stopped at the corner of a busy avenue cut here and there by viaducts and entrances of tunnels. He approached the big building that once was a catholic church with a huge square behind it. Now it was a night club called Leprechaum.

There were hundreds of youths dressed with weird clothing crowding in front of the club. Beefy men wearing grey gear tried to control the noisy groups. A multiplicity of ethnicities, colours, languages and dialects gave the illusory impression of being in harmony. Amidst the young people, drug dealers tried to do good business with their eyes hidden behind shades with mirrored yellow lenses.

The crowd occupied not only the front of the club but stretched to its outskirts, leaving little free ground on the Roosevelt Square. There were some yellow fair tents where one could buy Altenwurst and soft drinks with quinine or assaï; barely legal energy drinks were also sold and drank mixed with paradroxal, anphetalin and pirhydrocarbonates.

The bitter smell of netinambutol suspended in the air was strong near a group of girls wearing black. A boy wearing a shirt with red and purple stripes just bumped into Chico Manoel, hurting his wounded elbow. Blood stained the boy’s white plavinyl pants and metallic boots. The pain was fierce and strong, and a tear rolled from his left eye while Chico Manoel fell over the group of illegal smokers. Officers of the Transit Authority and brutes of the 19 were using violence to avoid the kids to invade the expressway.

The proximity to law enforcers left Chico Manoel uneasy, making him desist of teaching a lesson to the distracted kid in the striped shirt.

He was moving away when he recognized the beautiful girl with the tattoo on her face. Walking some feet without looking ahead, he pointed to the girl. When he was sure he had caught her eyes, he yelled.

“You’re wonderful!”

He distanced himself, now taking care not to slip on the way. If I didn’t have to meet Ibin, I’d find a way to stay with her. He touched his elbow. The wound had a soft crust and his shirt was drenched in blood.

He walked the last feet of the avenue with very few other passers. He went into the tunnel under the Holiday Inn to reach the Anhangabau Boulevard. A boy ascending the steps gave him a broad smile and Chico Manoel was surprised as he looked just like Jair Pontes. With a high-pitched voice, the boy stopped in the middle of the staircase, showing his explicit interest in Chico Manoel’s buttock.

“Oh, how hasty! Back here, number!”

No way! Chico Manoel kept silent, although smiling lightly, and went on his way to Ibrahim’s without saying goodbye to his old neighbour enervating lookalike.

He had heard of Jair Pontes’s death two years before. Then he read the news with sensationalist headlines. Jair Pontes had become a successful politician in the North-eastern region of the country and had become the mayor of Recife. His indication to be the federal secretary of Agreste and Neosaara was firstly faced as a joke by some of the traditionalists. He won the election by a landslide and Ishmar Souza—the defeated candidate—had disliked it big time. Having lost an open poll for an “immoral” left deep wounds on the relations of the Traditionalist Party. They were able to produce a special report—a thick volume—with the prior scandalous sexual adventures of “Libertine” Pontes, the coloured pantuff. Tony Francisco’s political contacts and an old notebook with the records of the services Jair Pontes had provided in his youth came in handy to keep Chico Manoel’s name out of that other big book.