JOHNNY GONE DOWN (13 page)

I covered my right ear with my hand and pressed the left tightly against the wall as the bullets continued to pound against the door, and tried to calm myself with slow breathing. Not again, please, not again.
I will go back to the monastery, I will serve the Buddha’s cause, I will…

Suddenly, the bullets stopped.

I stayed where I was. The man sat down on his haunches after a while, his muscular body tense with anticipation as he crouched against the door. He peered through a crack and then turned to us, his brow creased.

‘The dogs have gone,’ he said, running his hand through his closely cropped curly hair.

He walked over to the woman who had served me the beer. She was sitting against the wall.

‘Lucia, bitch,’ he growled at her. ‘You told them I was here, didn’t you, men?’

She shook her head fiercely and opened her mouth as if to say no.

He shot her twice, in the soles of her outstretched feet. In the spaghetti Westerns I’d seen, the victim took the gunshots silently - and heroically. But Lucia probably didn’t share my taste in films because she let out a piercing scream.

He pointed the gun at her forehead.

‘Did you tell Baz?’ he asked.

‘No, you bastard,’ she shrieked. ‘I didn’t tell anyone.’

He lowered the gun, apparently satisfied with her response.

‘Get out,’ he said, and she limped to the door, howling in agony. She let out what seemed like a stream of expletives, though my Portuguese wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand any of it. I stared at her receding figure as she opened the door of the café and limped out into the setting sun.

He had shot her for no reason, I thought, yet he showed not a bit of remorse. What would he do to me?

He turned and pointed the gun at me. The muscles in his tattooed arms tensed, beads of sweat forming on them. He was about my age, but his easy familiarity with the gun made him appear formidable.

I felt nothing. There was just the vague thought that my soles already hurt from walking, so it would be better if he shot elsewhere.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

A tough question for me to answer at any time, more so at gunpoint.

‘Nick.’

He looked me up and down. ‘Why are you dressed like a bobo, men?’

‘I don’t understand bobo,’ I said.

‘Idiota. Joker.’

‘I am not an idiot. I’m a monk,’ I replied.

He stared at me in incomprehension, and came closer. ‘I could shoot you, you know,’ he said, pointing the gun at my forehead.

‘I saved your life,’ I said softly.

He guffawed so hard that he doubled up.

‘You are right, men,’ he said, flashing a smile. ‘I forgot.’

He acted like a man who was used to shooting someone every day.

Just then, three or four men with large black guns came running into the café. I stiffened.

‘Behind you,’ I shouted and he turned around immediately.

I expected them to shoot him. Instead, they aimed their guns at me.

‘Stop, don’t shoot, you bastards,’ he told the men. ‘While you midget fuckers were busy chasing women, he saved my life.’

He looked at me. ‘Bom,’ he said, ‘you are a good man. I’m Marco.’

‘Nick,’ I said again as he shook my hand.

The others put down their guns and shook my hand one by one.

‘Alex.’

‘Re.’

‘Jesse.’

‘Maki.’

They seemed like a walking advertisement for Brazilian diversity. One was blonde, one was brown, one was Oriental, one was black. No one looked at my arm.

‘You speak Portuguese like a foreigner but you don’t look like a tourist. Didn’t anyone warn you about the favelas of Rio? If you go around dressed like a joker, someone will mug you or shoot you sooner or later, men,’ said Marco.

‘I’ve been in worse spots,’ I told him.

He stared at me. ‘Why are you here?’

I hesitated for a moment. ‘I need a job,’ I replied.

‘But why in this favela?’

‘It’s a long story.’

He laughed. ‘Let’s hear it back home, men. You don’t have any place to go, right?’

I shook my head. He put his arm around me and began to lead me out.

‘Donos, should we go after Baz?’ Alex asked.

‘Another time,’ said Marco. ‘Today is for new friends.’

I hesitated. Although the gang had an easy frat boy air about them, the significance of the big guns
in their hands, the attempt on his life, and the casual ease with which Marco had shot the café owner weren’t lost on me.

‘Come on, men,’ Marco said. ‘You aren’t afraid of us, are you?’

I shook my head. Fear was the last thing on my mind. But it just didn’t seem right to join a street gang on the day I left the monastery.

‘You don’t understand, men,’ he said, patting his revolver lovingly. ‘Out here, this is a necessity.’

The Buddha had taught me not to judge people and situations. If he could accept Angulimal, the serial killer who wore a garland of human fingers, who was I to judge a man who had almost been killed?

We began walking through the narrow streets, Marco and I, followed by four men openly toting guns. No one seemed to pay much attention to our odd procession as we made our way through a maze of streets and alleys. People went about their business despite the noisy shootout, as though encounters like this occurred every day. But everyone greeted Marco with a tone of hushed deference and I finally understood the meaning of ‘Donos’.

Unwittingly, I had saved the life of a Brazilian slumlord, a smalltime Don. My only exposure to the mafia thus far had been the
Godfather
movies, but this setup didn’t seem as majestic. Instead of protecting the defenceless damsel-in-distress Lucia,
Marco had shot her in the feet; the expensive suits of the movie Don’s henchmen had given way to tattoos, crosses and chains; and Marlon Brando’s meaningful pauses had been replaced with Marco’s wild laughter. The only thing I was sure of was that if I tried to escape, they would make me an ‘offer I couldn’t refuse’, and I didn’t particularly feel the desire to negotiate terms just now.

We stopped in front of a large brick building that stood incongruously amidst several small wooden huts. The building’s façade was covered with colourful, arresting images of crying children, pregnant women and young men snorting drugs.

‘All done by the local favela artists,’ said Marco with a measure of pride.

We entered the two-storied house and I was immediately struck by its contrast to the world outside. Fully air-conditioned, with elegant furniture, a variety of electronics, and tasteful art lining the walls.

‘You live here alone?’ I asked.

Marco nodded. ‘Yes, but this whole street is ours. You don’t have a place, right?’

I shook my head.

‘Many strange creatures come here but I don’t think I’ve seen a stranger one,’ he said, more to himself than to me. ‘What work do you do, men?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I told you, I don’t have a job.’

He laughed. ‘You have no house, no job, no shoes,
no suitcase, not even an arm, men. Yet, you don’t look broke. You seem like a guy who should be living in an expensive apartment facing the Copacabana beach, but you wander around barefoot in Rio’s most feared favela, wearing circus clothes. You are not from Brazil yet I can’t recognize the accent, though I deal with all kinds of foreigners. Did you just drop off another planet, men?’

‘Something like that,’ I said.

At this, he laughed even more and sprayed the beer he was drinking on the carefully upholstered wall. I noticed he had no pictures on the wall, neither of himself nor his family, and I felt a certain kinship with him.

‘What are you good at?’ he asked me.

I was good at staring at walls, especially those covered with blood, I could sit in my faeces smelling decomposing bodies in airless rooms for years without going insane, I was something of a pro at escaping from jungles, I could survive without food or water for extended periods of time, and I could meditate without speaking to a soul for hours on end. Quite a skill set to have, wouldn’t you say? Even if it was completely, utterly useless.

‘I’m good at numbers,’ I said, suddenly reminded of my time at MIT.

‘You are not serious, men!’ he said. ‘I have enough thugs, what I don’t have is a good contador.’

I looked at him blankly.

‘What do you call it in English… yes, an accountant,’ he said.

The Buddha forbade me from working in any profession that hurt others - robbery and arms, for instance. A Brazilian Donos was likely to deal
only
in things that hurt others, yet I had somehow taken a liking to him despite everything I had seen. Or perhaps I was just too tired of moving from place to place rudderless, without an anchor.

‘What business are you in?’ I asked.

‘Is this your interview or mine?’ He laughed, the chains around his neck jiggling. Then, more seriously, he added, ‘How does that matter? You just do the numbers, we do the rest. You don’t need to know or care, men.’

Why not, I thought. It would only be for a short while, just enough to earn my way back to the US, after which I would have the means to walk on the Buddha’s eightfold path once again.

‘Okay,’ I said quickly before I could change my mind.

‘Great.’ He smiled and gestured with his hand. ‘You can stay here.’

‘Here?’ I asked. ‘Won’t that disturb you?’

He laughed again. ‘The work I do requires no concentration. Besides, I change my address every night to fox the policia and the local goons. I rarely sleep in my bed.’

So he wasn’t as cool as he pretended to be. He
must value his life to change his address every night. It made me feel more comfortable.

‘There are three rooms here,’ he continued. ‘One is for my personal use, one is for the business; you can take the third. Stay as long as you like. I will pay you anything you think is fair, men.’

I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude. An hour ago, I had no money, no job, no home, and no future; now, I seemed to have a little bit of everything.

‘Thank you,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘I won’t overstay my welcome.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘You saved my life. You are my guest.’

‘Can you show me the account registers, cash slips, receipts, whatever you have?’ I asked him. I was determined to be the best accountant Marco had ever seen.

He laughed. ‘Everything can wait in Rio, especially work. Why don’t you get ready? I will plan a small welcome party in your honour, men.’

I was out of the monastery but the same uneasy feeling of living someone else’s life crept over me again. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it? I was supposed to be a white-collar cubicle-dweller in an engineering firm, with a house in an American suburb and a sweet, pregnant Indian wife. Why was I being welcomed by a drug lord into Rio de Janeiro’s most violent slum after spending ten years, first as
a Cambodian genocide survivor, then as a Buddhist monk? Just what had happened? And what else was going to happen? More fundamentally, who was I?

‘…an idiot.’

‘Huh?’ I said.

‘Where are you lost?’ said Marco. ‘Go get ready now. You don’t want to go dressed like an idiot, men.’

The small party turned out to be at least a few hundred people.

‘What is this?’ I asked in awe.

Fresh from my first hot shower in years, dressed in Marco’s shiny shirt and tight pants and escorted by the gang in a Sedan, I was staring at a large football field with beautiful men and women dressed in slick, skimpy clothes, gyrating to the beats of the buoyant music coming from the thirty-foot-large speakers placed in every corner of the field.

‘Favela funk. We organize it every couple of weekends,’ said Marco as we got out of the car. ‘You got a hell of a lot to learn about rock and roll, boy.’

The DJ, who was scratching and spinning records on the stage where the elaborate music system was set up, saw our entourage and shouted Marco’s name on the microphone. A huge cheer went up from the crowd. Much to my discomfiture, Marco dragged me onto the stage.

‘Jakeira knows how to party,’ he shouted into the mike.

There were whoops of agreement from the crowd, and a few sharp gunshots.

‘Today, I want to welcome our friend from nowhere to Jakeira,’ Marco said and put his arm around my shoulder. ‘Welcome… Buddha, men.’

I cringed at my new name. I had violated almost every tenet of Buddhism within hours of leaving the monastery.

The crowd began chanting. ‘Buddha… Buddha… Buddha.’

Marco dragged me off the stage and thrust a large glass into my hand.

‘Soak it up,’ he said. ‘It’s a Caipirinha. A few swigs and you can start a new religion, men.’

So be it, I thought, perhaps the tenets of this religion would be easier to follow. I took a sip. It tasted sweet, tangy and harmless, so I took a larger sip. Someone grabbed Marco by the shoulder and he disappeared into the crowd. People came over and introduced themselves to me, slapped me enthusiastically on the back and left.

I stood where I was, gulping down the sweet drink and watching the sensuous movements of the attractive, bronze-bodied couples dancing in front of me. Expertly, they swayed their hips and tapped their feet one in front of the other with the man twirling the woman in his arms.