Some Thing Called Myself (Complete)

X: That's some rubbish

Ch. 10: That's Some RubbishIn a dark corner of Dead Man's Junction, Sé square, São Paulo, Brazil. 03:47 AM

The figure climbed out of a caramel Ford Del Rey and closed the door with a loud, metallic bang. So late in Sé square, only the homeless, the sick, and the drunkards inhabited the streets, and while the police cars still cruised by, now that the Military Dictatorship had ended, things were starting to change around the city.

Ten years ago, he, code-name Calango—he always used code-names in his most secretive business meetings—could walk the streets of São Paulo without a shadow of worry. The violence, the police, the kidnappings, the interrogations, the torture, and the constant riots for direct elections never really bothered him.

What really ticked him off was happening right now, and it was the idea of how much money he would lose if those new fuckers in power stopped paying his fat, hard-earned salary.

Calango and the high brass both in the government and in the Brazilian elite had a deal—a good one—that tagged his services as "pest control" for the rich and powerful looking to expand their influence into greener territories. With his place in the Sentinels and enough influence to steer the ship in the way he needed, Calango had found his groove in the past ten years of making fame and fortune.

And just to think he would lose all that...!

"Virgem santíssima," he muttered under his breath; a shiver crossed his body. Calango stopped behind the Sé Cathedral, splayed his fingers on the stone, and leaned forward like a bad actor in a terrible play.

Forty years ago, at fifteen, he had left his home in Saint Lucrécia to his battered mother and his five sisters to their violent father. Calango had been tired of working the land. He'd been tired of the beatings for being thin, for being delicate, for being studious, and for not wanting anything to do with a farmer's hoe or a hunter's gun. As the oldest son, he'd been tired of the blisters and the cracking sun and the fermented water from the pigswill and the earth under his fingernails. More than anything, he was tired of the smell of shit that didn't leave his hands for days after fertilizing the land.

His stomach knotted and upturned as it did forty years ago.

Calango touched his forehead on the cold stone of the cathedral. The smell of piss, so characteristic of downtown, didn't even bother him anymore.

Back in 1950, when he was leaving his parents' house, his father cursed him. The old man had been drinking again, so the usual smell of salted meat, sweat, and cachaça was even stronger. Father said Calango would be back home one day, and that he would have a hoe on his hand and another in his bed, and he would work the land and the woman like every single member of their family had.

Crass, inelegant, ignorant old man.

Families, Father had added, are to be built in the fathers' and forefathers' image, generation after generation, in an unending and unbreakable cycle that he could never run away from.

Now that's some rubbish, Calango thought now—just as he had thought then. His heart ached with the mere possibility.

Steps approached. Would it be her?

"Oi. You, taking a piss. You have some change for a shot of 51?" a ragged man asked.

Calango turned around. He gestured to his crotch to show that no, he was very much decent and very much not taking a piss. Then, he fished for something in his blazer's pocket.

People could never respect his dramatic moments, could they?

"Here." Calango pulled out a couple of bills. It was a ten cruzeiros and a one thousand cruzados. The currency was changing so fast, and the inflation was so high that he was pretty sure they both had the same value today. "Take both, my man. Maybe they'll still be worth anything tomorrow." He put both bills on the man's waiting hand and gave him a kind pat on the shoulder. A small puff of dried earth and ashes came up from the man's hoodie.