All Dogs are Blue (5 page)

The days went by and the nights were calm. Everyone slept peacefully. Just me and Rimbaud were awake. Had somebody killed Fearsome? There’s a lot of people here. He didn’t get along with anyone. He was off his rocker, as Mum would
say.

We’ll arrive in Cabo Frio today. And be in Búzios two hours from now. They killed a boy in Búzios. They’re saying it was your uncle. Your uncle’s a poof, but he doesn’t mess around with kids. He never laid a hand on any of
you.

I was at work and heard my mum tell me to go home. I knew that my grandfather was ill. Grandpa died that
day.

Mum, what’s death?

Death is a soap opera on Globo,
son.

Fearsome went by in a wheelchair. He was so fat, he wouldn’t fit on a stretcher.

How could an oaf like that be the Fearsome Madman?

Only Batman could solve that problem.

The Fearsome Madman, who has pestered the people of this town for fifteen years, died today in the city asylum. Some say he was hanged. Others, that he had a heart attack.

Turn off the TV. It’s on all day
long.

Another terrified scream. They stole some evangelical pamphlets and another thousand dollars. I was starting to distrust my own shadow. Could Rimbaud be involved? He didn’t like TV. I’m afraid of Rimbaud. I’m fucking afraid of Rimbaud.

Your uncle’s a faggot (hahahaha …). Watch it, he might take you up the
arse.

Don’t say that, it’s just going to make things worse for your uncle. This is a small
town.

Must have been someone from outside who screwed the little
boy.

My uncle was a joker. He liked to drink coffee. He liked to drink free coffee. He would have lunch in
botecos
. Those trashy
botecos
that serve pickled eggs and malt beer. He would eat his food leisurely. Pay for the food. Chat with everyone at the bar. Become friends with the staff. He loved a good
joke.

You’ve got something on your
face.

Where?

He would point at the man’s
face.

Go to the toilet and get yourself cleaned up, young
man!

The guy would leave and go to the toilet. Seizing his opportunity, my uncle would drink the guy’s coffee and leave. He did that a lot. One day, the fifth time he pulled the scam, the coffee was too hot. He took too long. The guy came back and beat him up. He gave him such a beating that he never tried that dirty trick again.

My uncle had money but he would do it for the adrenaline
rush.

A lot of people do things just for the adrenaline
rush.

Rimbaud was walking along the
wall.

Get down, you fuckwit. Careful.

I went to my room so I wouldn’t feel my adrenaline rising. Rimbaud soon came looking for
me.

I’m alone. That’s how this world is. Where’s Baudelaire? He’s playing snooker.

It’s so sad when your friends are two hallucinations. One that’s with me nearly all the time and the other who just shows up every now and then. Get out Rimbaud, you’re just a hallucination.

The doctors at the clinic treated people like customers.

You’re going to have shocks, but you’ll be sedated.

Dad, I’ll do anything to get better.

Shocks under sedation don’t cause those traditional muscle contractions. It’s more like a nervous
tic.

Rimbaud appeared and said that everything was going to be all right.

Night came and it was cold that day. Made you feel like building a bonfire in the asylum. A big bonfire. But the B agents were working on the case of Fearsome Madman’s death.

Why was Fearsome Madman afraid of
you?

Who knows. I had to act like I was crazy. And I did it really well when I wanted to. Don’t try to be crazier than you really
are.

He must have been afraid of my voice.

There’s nothing wrong with your voice. It’s not even
deep.

But apparently it sounds like his dad’s voice.

Insufficient explanation. Did you know Fearsome Madman outside?

That interrogation was fucking rough. I wouldn’t harm a fly. Much less kill
one.

Talk to Rimbaud. Talk to Baudelaire.

We’re going to build a bonfire. Tons of lunatics around here. Are you a lunatic?

I went to
bed.

The lunatic with a cobra in his hands wasn’t there any more. He’d been released. The room was free. I had a wank while thinking about the hottest nurse. The one that
came all in white
. Then I heard the bell ring for medicine time. The bell echoed shrilly throughout the asylum. The whole gang started to gather.

It had been days since I’d seen Rimbaud. Baudelaire had disappeared, too. It was better being without
them.

I missed my room. My blue dog too. I’d never slept away from home, in a friend’s house.

At my friend’s house
‌
I watched Esper on TV
⁸
. I ate meatballs. I didn’t have problems eating. I always ate everything. I slept on the floor.

When my cousin would come over, my grandfather used to
say:

Let your cousin sleep in your
bed.

I won’t.

Your cousin wants you to go work in Brasília.

Only if I get there in a VW Brasília. I have to graduate first.

Then they died in that plane crash.

I didn’t kiss the first girl I loved. I went and kissed another girl to learn how, so that I could kiss the one I loved better. The one I loved saw and gave me the
boot.

They bought a karaoke machine and put it in the TV lounge. It was one of those where you sing your heart out while the lunatics dance. The sergeant thought he was Frank Sinatra. He sang that old crooner Altemar Dutra. He was awful. My ears aren’t potties. The city street sweeper
‌
sang that
sertanejo
song ‘Boemia’
⁹
. To each his
own.

The B agents were still onto me. They were pestering me with that idea that I’d killed Fearsome.

It was you. You were close. He was afraid of
you.

It wasn’t
me.

Rimbaud appeared, gyrating and singing ‘Light My Fire’.

You’re the one who killed him. It was you. You killed Fearsome Madman.

I started living with more of that paranoia in my head. Now I didn’t even know any more if I
had
been involved in Fearsome’s death. Rimbaud said I
had.

Breakfast on the table. Toast. Jam. Hot chocolate. Sliced cheese. The table at home, with a new tablecloth on
it.

Bread with a single swipe of butter. The table in the asylum.

Three more police officers committed.

My room (I was still alone) is going to get overcrowded.

Three in the morning. I woke up and took a leak. In the dark I saw one cop rubbing on the other. The next day I didn’t remember a thing.

Nothing bothers people like karaoke. It’s everyone wanting to sing all the time. The halfwit knocked out ‘Andança’ and ‘Festa do Sol’. Why do these karaoke machines come with pre-installed songs that everyone knows how to
sing?

Rimbaud screamed in my eardrums: you killed him. I didn’t believe my friend. I’d never harm a fly. I treated flies really well. I’d catch them, keep them in plastic bags and release them in other surroundings.

I went to my room. It was empty and full of fireflies. There were so many that I had to turn off the light. They came at me. I went to take a shower. Was there a murderer among us? If so, I could be at risk. I told my dad I was at risk. He talked about my treatment. He said the B Cops had put a ban on anyone leaving. I speculated that that would cause more psychotic episodes among the psychotics. My dad said that if there were a murderer, he’d have to be arrested.

They should have everything settled in a week, son. Hold tight a bit longer.

I’ll either leave here dead
–
or something worse.

I wasn’t going to stay there in the shower for an hour. The murderer could sneak up on me, like in
Psycho
.

I don’t think the insanity inside me comes from my dad or my mum. But the gene is definitely from my dad’s family. My grandmother has a horrible persecution complex. She thinks my dad doesn’t like her. Thinks we should pay her
rent.

The whole gang queued up to eat meatballs with rice and beans for lunch. It wasn’t the choice of food that was the problem, it was how it was made. In large quantities, as if for animals. You couldn’t demand nice table manners in that place.

The B Cops are after
you.

Me and everyone else in here. But I didn’t kill anyone.

I know you didn’t. I was with you, said Baudelaire.

You could tell that to Rimbaud.

Lots of elephants walking round in a circle. Each one holding on to the tail of the
next.

I no longer knew who to call on to keep from getting smashed against the wall by the B Cops. They had a certain verbal aggressiveness that I didn’t like. Maybe it was their tone of voice.

The family wants to know who killed Fearsome Madman.

His family never came to see him. They just dumped him
here.

Do you hate your family?

I hate all of
them.

As far as I know they come to see you every day. Do you hold something against
them?

What does that have to do with Fearsome Madman’s death?

We think that only a very stable person could kill Fearsome. Fearsome Madman wasn’t just any madman.

Night came and I could finally go to my room and enjoy a beach holiday in Porto de Galinhas. I turned up the volume on my Walkman. I tuned the radio to rock and to hell with being
here.

Rimbaud showed up as a juggler, with fire torches in his hands. He swivelled his hips with them in his hands. He ate the fire. He breathed out the fire. He was a human dragon. But I was getting better and I knew that Rimbaud was a hallucination who came to pester me. I can’t deny that he was pretty entertaining.

I want a
JD.

I’m not going to drink.

After the show I gave you, you’re not going to give me a Jack Daniel’s?

I decided not to answer Rimbaud.

You’re not going to talk to me. You can’t live without my recognition.

It’s true that hallucinations are negative things. But they really could be trained in positive thinking.

Don’t do that. It’s wrong.

But how can I be so easily led by the hallucinations?

The wind cuts the midday knife. Zarathustra must be walking through the forest. How do you fly without moving? Does a noontime love exist? When she walks by me, I drool.

Daddy came alone today. He said that my brother wanted to come and see me. My brother is sicker than me. I feel sorry for my dad. Shouldering these two burdens. My brother is bipolar. He suffers from being sad. He suffers a lot. My dad studied psychiatry because of him, and then because of me. My dad was a paediatrician. Now he’s a psychiatrist.

I would like to have studied at Cambridge. So I could help my sons
more.

My dad cried. We all cried.

I’ve been seeing Rimbaud since I was twenty-three. Baudelaire showed up later.

I couldn’t even bear to hear someone say goodnight. If someone said goodnight, they had to repeat it three more times.

My life in the world of colours was hell. I only wore navy-blue trousers and white shirts. I didn’t wear black or designer clothes.

The clothes walked around on their own. They walked around the bonfire on their own, like spectres. Some clothes threw themselves into the fire. They were partying it up that night.

Schizophrenics with delusional disorder have no words. They harbour a great hatred for the disease. No one values what they say. I couldn’t tell anyone that Rimbaud thought I’d killed Fearsome Madman. Not Baudelaire. He knew I hadn’t done anything.

Fronsky was supposed to come get me when I was eighteen and he still hasn’t shown up in his flying saucer. They say that seeing flying saucers is crazy. After Haldol very few people see saints or
UFOs.

There was a beast roaring in my belly. I asked for food. A snack came and it had cake. It was a cake. All the lunatics queued up. The Attorney General and the drug addict were fighting over the cup of coffee.

I’m going to Paracambi. If you don’t eat, you’ll go to
Caju.

The toilet was fucking filthy. That horrible chill. A night cold enough for snow. Snow fell from the sky. It was California. California gave me a kiss and brought the drugs.

California was the name of the therapist who led a group session once a week. Only the feebleminded didn’t take part. I told the story of Garnizé, who was not only gay, but had a gay son, too. They both had
AIDS.

Take your hand off my
tits.

Pow! Bang! Crazy Nerd and Silver Alky were going at each other.

Take your hand off my tits. Take your hand off. Take it
off.

Pow! Bang! The two were rolling on the floor. Two monster nurses
–
strong, fat men
–
came and broke them up. Crazy Nerd was tied to his
bed.

They’re all watching TV. No one blinks. Every two minutes you hear the sound of a dimwit’s head against the wall. He had already made a dent in the
wall.

The Brazil match. Please let us watch the match.

You can watch until ten o’clock.

Rimbaud runs by, heading for my room. I’m watching the match. Brazil plays well.
Goal.

We went to bed late. Daddy came to sleep at home today. Mummy made an orange cake. It was delicious. Every Friday there’s
cake.

They held me down and put on the straitjacket.

Now everyone’s going to do a drawing. I drew Christ on the cross. Now everyone’s going to show their drawings.