If rivers had tides.

How things can change in a few weeks and even more so in a few months. If I weren’t cynical, I’d be depressed. I’ve had so many down turns lately I’ve forgotten what it’s like to look up, but the only thing that bothers me is that I have a week to figure out what the hell I’m going to do for the next 6 months. I don’t mind not knowing, but I have a little puppy to think about that I don’t want to leave behind. It’s about time for a change though. I could feel it as I was driving away from Christmas lunch. I got in my truck and good music was playing, and I felt like I should keep driving. It’s about time for somewhere else.

For the Love of God

People tell me about the things they love, and I wonder about them. What is this word so simple; only four letters. You care for someone and they care for you, and yet, difficult it seems. I’ve tried my hand at it, and failed, and I’ve watched other people failing thinking they were getting it right, and people still use it like it meant something, when really “I love …” should go the same way Godspeed went; by the wayside, except for those few who persist. My stepmother still uses something that translates as, “go with God,” though she’s Brazilian, and they still hold to religion, though not very closely.
I thought I was in love several times, but when I awoke, I realized love was beyond me just like the god that so many people talk about, but who never talks to anyone, except people who talk to themselves.
This love must be for either the simple, since it is such a simple word, or those too devout for me, about the same as god. Either only those too simple for greater things believe, or he only comes to those whose strength of belief is enough to create him, but where does he go when this strength is gone? Does he sit waiting for another with strength, or does he fade away until one day no belief holds him, and he is gone. And love? Are we evolving out of love? Out of belief? It seems we’ve gone so far to get nowhere. I think I’d like to go and take a nap, and that would be enough for me, but even that is beyond me today, at least until Friday. I hear Lady growling, and I wonder what she’s dreaming asleep under my chair. She must be chasing something ever active, even in dreams. If I could get close to love, it would be her, but still at times, I would even kick her, after chewing up something I needed or liked because it smelled like me. Is it a fault in me, a fault in her, or just the way things are? Does anyone know, or we all just pretending? And why do we always need a reason when not knowing is more truthful than pretending?

The Season for not Caring

The holiday emails are flooding my inbox, but what are the holidays? They mean nothing to me. Even without the lingering apathy, I still wouldn’t care for them. Years ago I stopped, and nothing can recall those feelings again. It stopped when I was a kid in court watching my parents fight and holidays torn between families. Soon there is nothing special about them, and getting together with the family means next to nothing. I had a brief resurgence of feelings when I was 19, but it was just like a surge in the generator; it lasted only a second. It’s getting harder to care about things these days. I don’t even feel like I should anymore. I used to try and guilt myself into having feelings, but now? I’m too old to make believe.
I thought about the different girls who were interested or are interested in me, but something special? What’s that anymore? I couldn’t care any less for any of them. I know the point when it stopped, there was a girl, though it’s not her fault. I wasn’t being careful like that day I cut my hand deep on that brick riding my motorcycle because I didn’t want to care about being safe, I just wanted to go fast. It was the same with her, and I look down at my hand which has basically heeled, but still hurts. It was like that, and certainly my fault.
Under my chair sleeps Lady on her back whimpering quietly in the middle of her doggy dreams, and I know there is something I care about, but that’s about it right now, but it’s enough.

The first this season.

I had another marriage proposal from a prospective father-in-law. It hasn’t happened for about a year because last season I was involved, but on hearing that I’m single, many men with single daughters offer them up for the sake of fishing. I count them to amuse myself. The season before last it was 5, and I let them know what number they are; a great way to make a joke of it and get out of anything more serious because half of them are actually serious. A son-in-law with a fishing lodge is a great catch (sorry I just noticed the pun), though they have no idea what I’m really like. Only about 5 out of 100 ever see that I have tattoos because they come back early and see me running without a shirt on. They all see me as the hunting, fishing, beer drinking sort, well some of that is right, but the other parts they wouldn’t like. They wouldn’t like my views on god, the government, and such. When I tell them I like to read they leave me books I would never read promptly putting them on the take a book leave a book shelf. I think I have 6 copies of River of Doubt, which I have yet to read. Hell I’m already in the Amazon, why read about exploring it? The guy who proposed his daughter to me today wouldn’t let me read on the way up here because he was telling me about what god has done for him and how I should read this book he is reading. If I weren’t working, I would say what I really thought, but no, I just smiled and tried to find a way to make it end, dear god let it all end, but no boat crash saved me from that conversation. Next time I’m leaving my head phones in while I read, and maybe I will buy a wedding band, so people will stop bothering me. Lying is more amusing than telling the truth anyway.

While I was away.

The rain was a constant in this city, rainy season or not. The only difference was that in the dry season it was a light rain that you walked about in not even knowing you were getting wet, and I only noticed when I felt the legs of my jeans wet against my heels as I picked my way through disarray of stones of what would soon be a renovated city park. I saw they were tearing down the old men’s bar as I passed. It didn’t fit in with the renovations I guessed. Last night had seemed no different as I made my way to the plaza passing through this old park; the old men were playing chess, checkers, dominoes, and cards as they smoked and drank. Probably fitting in some way; going out without a fuss, as they had passed all their evenings there.

In the church on the plaza there was singing. I bought a beer from a man with a Styrofoam cooler, and sat down on a cement bench listening to them, such sincerity… out of key. I asked a security guard, and he told me the ticket office wouldn’t open until 4, so I had 3 hours. Down the street and around the corner a ways I knew this Portuguese restaurant where the food was cheap and good, and I could waste the remaining hours sitting outside drinking beer watching the people walk past sticking close to the toldos de lona (I’ve been here so long I’ve forgotten the English word) trying not to get too wet. The owner had immigrated to Brazil when he was 19 and had been here for 51 years. His was a small town not too far from Porto about 20 km from a place I had been. The bacalhal pasteis were the best I’d had mixing Brazilian and Portuguese recipes. As I was pouring a beer I saw a motorcycle run into a car. His break lever made a long dent in the rear door of the car. After checking for damage the lady driving pulled off to the side of the street already cramped with cars. I was interested to see how it worked out because I had never seen an accident up close in Brazil. I knew you didn’t have to carry insurance, but they said you better have cash on hand to pay if you did get into an accident. I was quite disappointed, I saw no money exchange hands, she only took his information down, and didn’t ask to see his identity card to verify anything. “Plane boring,” I thought as I waited for my entree.
Paying my bill I walked down the side streets that would take me to the opera house fastest, and passing one of those stores that is only a guy hanging out a window with frigdes in the room behind him, I bought a specialty beer, and I was glad I had when I saw the line. 5 past 4 and already the line went down the steps in front of the opera house. An industrious ice cream vendor had set up his cart by the line doing good business, though if he’d had beer I would’ve bought another one. The man in front of me went to talk to the boy hanging out the window giving information about the show, and I don’t think he liked what he heard because he took off. I bought 2 of the remaining decent seats and called her up. We agreed to meet at 6 since the boxes were assigned but not the seats.
Walking back to my hotel I saw an old man selling avocadoes the size of softballs out of a wheel barrow. He said 2 for 5, but I only wanted 1. I waited until he bagged it up then I offered him 2. He said the price was fixed, but it never was. I took out 2 and offered it to him, and reluctantly he took it saying what they all say in that confiding voice, “I do this only for you.” Passing through the park again a vendor had set up tables with books, and I bought a pocket dictionary for 5. It seemed like a good deal until I found a typo while looking up a word.
I took the avocado up to the roof of my hotel eating it with a beer cutting thick slices of it as I watched the tourists disembark from a nondescript cruise ship without even a pool to be seen on it. The tourists flooded this area for a day as the cruise ship waited 10 hours until their return. The tourists always took cruise ships while only the locals took the river boats from town to town. There were 50 or so stacked up next to each other like so many parked cars waiting for their next destination. Passages of 50 if you brought a hammock, 100 if you wanted a room the size of a closet, 200 if you wanted a suit to take you to whatever part of Amazonas you wanted to go.

The café where all the tourists ate was where I waited for her. They had all sorts of import beers at a price, but they also had a decent Brazilian beer for cheap, plus it was the closest to the opera house, so I would see her before she saw me.
The line was around the corner by the time we got there, and I asked if she wanted any popcorn from the lady selling. She said no, but when I bought some for me, she helped me finish it. It wasn’t long until they let us in, and we were making our way up the 4 flights to the top of South America’s oldest functioning opera house. Luckily we were first to the box taking the only 2 seats with a view where we leaned our elbows on the velvet covered rail like kids at the kitchen counter. The couple behind us was not so lucky, as they had to stand to see at all.
She noticed how the mural on the ceiling wasn’t painted on but papered on like it looked from the tours of the place they gave when there wasn’t a show, and I tried to pick out all the names of famous authors, musicians, and philosophers painted on the wooden shields around the first row of seats: Racine, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Mozart, Goethe, and others I couldn’t see from the top, but that I had seen when I went on a tour of the place before. It reminded me of a theatre out of one of Balzac’s or Zola’s stories, which didn’t strike me when I was taking a tour, but to be seeing a play here would have taken me back in time, if it hadn’t been for the people and their flashing cell phones when the lights dimmed for the show.
It started with drumming in the dark, and then a yellow light shone on the drummers and dancers as they danced in. We both leaned out, our heads on our elbows in an almost comfortable position, so we could see. That it was a Brazilian play you could tell from how it resembled their soap operas. The acting was exaggerated to be funny, and the main theme was relations between men and women, and of course there was nudity with more male nudity than female, and all the women cheered when he first appeared naked on a bed. I laughed too, it was funny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tragedy in Brazil, outside of life. They’re not very fond of them.
She leaned in close and put her arm around me, though I didn’t make much of it as she was over affectionate. She called me love several times, which from any other girl would have disconcerted me, but coming from an actress, it was just a little sign of affection, half affected. Both of us were slightly uncomfortable, and I kept looking at my watch waiting for the play to end so I could put my neck back into a normal position. What didn’t help was the mosquito, who seemed to be just biting me, though I wondered why he had singled me out of all those other people.
Arm-in-arm we made our way down the steps out into the plaza that was already dark. She couldn’t think of anything close so I picked a place I knew had Italian food and wine. When we got there she told me it was where her father always went to when he was in town. I picked a table by the street because that was where I always sat so I could watch the people pass, and she picked the seat facing the TV so she could watch it. Of course I had to comment of this because they have TVs in all except the nicest restaurants. I asked her if people ever talked in restaurants, but she didn’t hear me, watching TV. Alright she said, “I’ll only watch you,” staring straight into my eyes like she would find something there, though I don’t think either of us knew what.
The waiter came over and I ordered a bottle of Alandra and we split a lasagna. I could tell he was nervous as he opened the bottle, probably the first time he had done it. It was almost painful for me, but I didn’t try to help him. Over his shoulder was the owner instructing him, which I’m sure didn’t help. He made to pour hers first, but the owner corrected him saying he should pour me a taste since I had ordered it. Dutifully I swirled it, tasted, and told him he could keep pouring. He was so nervous he left the corkscrew at the table, and I had to laugh.
With trembling hands he served our lasagna out of a metal pan using a fork and a knife, and she tried to make him laugh by telling him he could take away the corkscrew now. It didn’t help, so I didn’t pay attention to what he was doing, as if everything were going perfectly smooth, though I had to laugh when he left sorry to have made him so nervous, but she had wanted wine, and I hadn’t known any other place. So few people drink wine in the north, and they always try to serve you red wine cold, but I was in luck, they didn’t serve much wine, so I hadn’t been pre-chilled.
We walked back to the plaza finding most places closed or closing, so we walked over to the pizza place where I had a beer and she had a coke. She asked me about cameras, apple computers, and ipods, things that cost too much here. I had all except the apple, and she thought it was funny that my camera, ipod, and laptop combined were worth more than my truck, though even my truck would be worth 5 times its value here. “If I was to give her a present,” she said, “I should give her an ipod or a semi-professional camera.” I didn’t have that much money I said, but her look said she didn’t believe me. “I don’t want any jewelry, just a few electronics,” she said. She knew how much I had spent on jewelry for my last girlfriend, and I had told her I wasn’t going to spend that much money on a girl again, though here she didn’t quite believe me either. She wasn’t my girlfriend, and we weren’t dating. We never would, just strange friends who pretended they were dating, but never took it seriously. I liked having a beautiful girl on my arm, and I think that was about as much as she got out of me showing me affection, though when I returned any she brushed it off.
After they had taken up all the outdoor furniture but ours, we decided maybe they were trying to get us to leave, so we walked arm-in-arm down to the bus station where the taxis would be lined up, and she suggested we both take a taxi that could drop me off at my hotel then drop her off. I told her I’d rather walk than pay for a taxi, but that I would pay for hers. She said that the way back to my hotel was dangerous to walk down, but I countered that it was safer for a man to walk that way than a woman. She agreed, and I put her in a cab while I turned off by the park noting that only a few posts were left standing of the old men’s bar, and I bought a beer from a man who was wheeling his Styrofoam cooler home.

How my weekend started.

I saw an ex-girlfriend in town yesterday, the most serious one I’d had. She asked me about my hand like so many other people, and also about the pup that her sister had seen. She stood there waiting wanting to say something or wanting me to say something, but I said nothing. I knew what she wanted, but I didn’t. She’d fucked someone else while I was with her, and hadn’t I just seen her leaning over close talking to some guy as I drove past taking a group to the airport? No, not again. There were other girls waiting, and it seemed like there would always be, which is why I didn’t care. There had been one girl, but I had been the fool, not fooled, just a fool, and what a fool. The owner of the plane I had crash landed in the day before wanted to hook me up with some girl in the city, but I knew what kind of girl it would be, and I wasn’t interested, though we had a common interest in killing that damn pilot.
Last night a friend told me she loved me, though she’s Brazilian, and they say things like that, not to mention she’s an actress, and you never can tell with that type. Even if it was more serious than playful, what did it matter? We didn’t know each other well, so how could she know? I ignored it, and said good bye as she was leaving.
Today my hand hurts even more. That fall didn’t help as I was chasing the pup. I had to change the bandage I wasn’t supposed to take off for another 2 days. Blood ran out of the freshly broken open wound, but none of the stitches had come out, and it looked like it was healing well, despite the reinjury, and there were no signs of infection like we had feared because it had been a deep wound filled with dirt that had to be cleaned out. I took another amoxicillin with my coffee and went to look for some ibuprofen.

Another Day

I feel old, alone, a little melancholy, but alright. I’m so tired I can barely think. Simple tasks seem out of my reach if they involve thinking. I chose to workout instead of get enough sleep today as I have been doing many days, and I wouldn’t have lasted this long if I hadn’t made that choice. I’m stronger than I’ve been in two years, but physical strength is all I have to keep me going. I’ve been thinking about my next trip, though it’s months away. I mark off the days on the calendar, and I keep counting wrong, so they last longer. I’ve been thinking of studying Spanish, so I can disappear in Central or South America. I feel it will be the new Europe. I need to travel. I’ve found that I’m fine alone. I’ve spent so much time looking for someone, but we all know how that goes, it doesn’t work for me. I don’t think I could commit even if I found someone. Eh, it’s cheaper to travel alone. I need another Hemmingway book to read. I looked up all his works online, but I left my card in my room so I couldn’t order them. I wonder if that’s how he felt going through so many women. I don’t think he was a womanizer, just human. Some of us don’t have longevity in us, I think.

It was love.

I knew I loved her at first sight right when she got off the chartered plane. Even a cynic like me softened for a second, and I knew this would last. After 3 months of waiting, she was finally here, my Lady. Now she’s sleeping at my feet while Nicolau is sleeping in my lap. They just met this morning, and Nico is not quite sure what to think of her. She wants to play and he is like a cranky old man who doesn’t like kids.

Insomnia in the Amazon

To stop is to sleep. To sleep is to die.

Going on days without sleep my blood coffee content was up to 20%, and the cigarettes followed the cups.
Jet boat in the night with coffee and cigarettes on the bow staring at Orion on the 2 and ½ hour ride from town. 3rd week feels like the 1st or 10th, I can’t tell… even what day it is, though my watch says it’s Friday the 17th. 5 days to do drivers safety online before I have another warrant. Don’t need to be arrested again.
This no sleep thing is getting the hang of me, and it works or I work. 54 days left if my count is right, though Xs on the calendar don’t lie, they just come slowly.
Had a book, read a line, and stopped, it stopped… making sense. I put it back in my shirt with so many pockets opposite my cigarettes. Hour and 15 to go passing Peixeboi, the halfway mark. Even at night by spotlight I recognize that island that to tourists looks like every other one, but I spent half a day broken down there 2 years ago with a guide and supplies that spoiled in the sun.
One guide sitting by me goes back inside the cabin. It’s too cold but I feel right for once, and another sits by me asking me not to put him with a couple this week, though I know I already did. Sao Luis is 5 light bulbs in the black on the bank. 30 minutes to go. Cumaru passes with lit houses, and 20 minutes to go. Light at the point in the distance, first sight of the lodge still 15 minutes away. Radio chatter, and they know. Everyone is waiting on the dock and ready. The guests follow me up the steps into welcome drinks and cabin assignments. Still waiting for them to go to sleep so I can try.

The Wonderful Influence of Mankind

Monkey see monkey do, is pretty apt description of monkeys. My father’s first monkey on our original river boat learned quite a bit. He would watch the guests and when they left would pick up a still lit cigar and start puffing on it. He would also watch the guests drink beer, and kindly finish theirs for them when they stepped away. The only problem is that monkeys are terrible drunks. Chico was his name and he used to get drunk every night on the old boat, but being drunk he would lose his monkey stills to do such things as walk and climb. When climbing up the side of the boat from deck to deck, being drunk, he would then fall into the river giving you not only a drunken monkey but an unhappy one as well. The other thing he would do would be to slide across the deck propelled by one arm because he was too drunk to walk but not drunk enough to pass out. Other than the learned vices, he was always a good friend behaving himself for the most part during the day.
So yes, monkeys do watch humans and imitate them. Konge has been watching Gel my maintenance man I believe, which is the only way I can explain his hobo like characteristics. Gel has enough money, but he really doesn’t care, so when he goes into town instead of having a decent bag to put his stuff in, he uses a garbage bag quite resembling a hobo as he’s walking along the street having just gotten off the river boat. Another thing I tease him about is that after lunch he takes a nap on one of the benches in front of the employee mess just like some bum sleeping on a park bench at night. The first time I saw him doing this, I asked him, very sarcastically, if he didn’t have a bed, but it was too far away he said, which is why I suspect Konge of imitating him. I found Konge has a striking resemblance to a hobo as well. He sleeps on a bench in front to my apartment while the other monkeys are in the trees, and true to his hobo nature, he doesn’t forage for food, he sits begging outside the mess hall, or stealing when people are unaware of his presence. Another way monkeys have benefited from the influence of mankind.

Old Man with a Palm Branch

An old man came asking for work bent, worn out, and almost deaf, and I gave it to him clearing pathways with the group. Not expecting much, I stopped and watched him one day. With swift strokes up, down, and across his machete with a file taking certain care to the sharpness he didn’t pause long. Still I watched him. Getting up he moved with the rest, as fast as the rest though 20 years their senior, at least. I walked off to check on the cabins, too much work to get done before the season starts. I found they hadn’t made the tables like I asked, and wouldn’t get them in time. That’s the way it goes, they don’t tell you until you ask specifically hoping you will forget, and they won’t have to do it. Cursing I walked along the path, on my way to lunch, where I passed him still working away, and told him it was time to stop. I had to lean close and yell into his ear, but finally he understood. The others had gone and still he worked on. I think I’ll keep him on, I thought, and maybe get rid of one of those younger ones who can’t keep up with this old man.
Today, well into the first week, I saw him again as I was drinking my 3rd cup of coffee, the fishermen gone and waiting for the small generator to be turned on so I could get back to work. He was sweeping the pathway with a palm branch. We had a leaf blower, but the older ones stick with what they know, as long as it gets the job done, I thought, and chuckled at the different things we had tried to bring in without success. The lawn mower they liked, but the professional one they hated, it moved too fast they said. The younger ones like the leaf blower, but then one day you would see an old one slowly sweeping with a palm branch. It just blows them everywhere they would say. No wonder they looked at me with such curiosity when I rode by on my ecorider, and the kids usually running after me if they weren’t in school.

To End a Day

Smoking another cigarette
Seems like the only way
To end
The day
If I could

In a cycle
Dreams seem reality
And reality…

My eyes half-closed
I lie down
To dream of waking

Another day
I can’t tell
Just put my boots on
And walk
Into
The dark
Early morning
Or night
I can’t remember

She said she missed me
Who was she
Is it just my pillow again
Fallen on the floor
Too cold
Though my A/C
Isn’t working
And I can’t find
My boots
On my feet
Did I put them on
Dreaming
Or dream
I put them on
I can’t tell
But maybe
I should go
Outside

The Cowboys Don't Play in Brazil

In my bag I found a 2008 Cowboys football schedule. “How did it get there? I didn’t watch football, since the majority of the season took place when I was in Brazil.” Curious, I opened it to look at the games I wouldn’t see, and I saw an email address written inside, and I remembered the bar, the redheaded girl, and how I never did email her. Not that it mattered now, but it made me think about all the other girls; some lasting as long as it takes to mumble goodbye in the morning or the others whom I left or left me when I was leaving again. A long list it seems, and would keep getting longer because I wasn’t settling down, and they weren’t up for running away, so why make something more out of what is just another stop? That’s why I’m getting a dog. They travel well and will travel anytime, unlike cats, monkeys, or most women, even those crazy redheads that my friends all hated but were so much fun.

I felt old today talking to a friend from High School, one that I hadn’t seen in 10 years, and he was just as unsettled as me. I listened to some of Jim’s songs, smoked another cigarette, drank a beer, and went to bed.

A Brazilian Birthday Party

In Brazilian birthday parties no expense is spared. This is one of the few times a year they get to show off. Last night a little girl was turning one, and as is the custom, everyone was invited, not just the kids. The lady who is the cook for the employee mess, a great big lady, made sure she invited me personally because the more prestigious the guests, the better the party, and well I’m about as close as prestigious as you can get out in the middle of nowhere, not that I’m very close.
They had spent several hours after dinner cooking the snacks for the party, enough for about 40 people, and the cakes I’m sure they started 2 days before as there were 4 different cakes besides the birthday cake, and the decorations had been brought from Manaus at a cost I would never pay. There was enough soft drinks for at least a hundred people, only soft drinks since no employee is allowed to drink at the lodge but if we were in town there would have been plenty of beer, and people passed them timidly around afraid to take too much because those from the villages weren’t used to the showing off that goes on in the city.
So the desired effect was had, that some were impressed and even intimidated, and others got food they don’t normally get at the lodge. I even broke my not eating after 7 rule to get some food that wasn’t the black beans, rice, and fish or chicken I had been eating for the last 2 weeks, though I suffered for it later with a stomach ache when I did my workout.
It was all very serious taking pictures and such until another Brazilian tradition came out, and my head guide was making sure it was followed. You see, when it is your birthday, they crack an egg on your head, not a confetti filled egg, but a real egg, and since you can’t do that to a one-year-old, he decided that the father would do. As can be imagined, the formality dissipated when the egg was broken, and given the unorthodoxy to the situation, is wasn’t long until Ze’, my head guide, had an egg broken on his head as well, not to mention several other guides, and those unlucky enough to be standing too close to someone who had procured an egg, which may seem like an easy thing, but none of us had seen eggs for weeks only having crackers for breakfast, which I of course gave to the monkeys who didn’t seem to happy with the “treat” they were getting, though that was the only treat I really gave them, except for Nico. This only goes to show to what lengths people go to celebrating birthdays, and as is my custom, I avoid getting hit with eggs, so when there was a lull and the egg throwers had run off after each other in the darkness, I too walked off into the darkness, in the other direction.

that story

for those of you who heard it, and knew i was going to write about it, i finished that story. it put me in a bad mood because it brought all those memories back, but at least it's done. i think it will be a good story. half of it came out really well, and the other half still needs work. i think i'll look at it again in march or something like that.

The Game

The last of the box wine was gone, box wine with sediment in it not like a good old wine but an old not so good wine that leaves your teeth grimy but was all I had, and every muscle in my body ached, but it had been a good Sunday. I thought about the game as I lit another cigarette. We had almost won, gone into penalty kicks even, but they had an unfair advantage, and some on our side, if not more, blamed our goalie threatening to make him swim back.
Before the season we only worked half-days on Sundays, and on most Sundays there was a soccer tournament. This time we were to go to them instead of them coming to us, and we came in large numbers taking 3 boats: the people carrier/cargo mover with 18 people riding low in the water, an aluminum canoe with 10 also riding low in the water, and I was in one of the new bass boats with 7 other people, and we got there first.
The village was Cumarú, and we were to play their first team, and their second team was to play São Louis. Our team was better, and we always won, but this time it was different. They had brought in a professional player from Barcelos to play on their team, and it was he who scored the first goal, but we scored the second. I’ve never seen out team play better, and it would have been terrible if we hadn’t. The ref was one of my guides from São Louis named Guilherme, and when he called time, we were tied.
They were first to shoot, and of course they chose the professional to go first who made it effortlessly in the top left corner. Wilson, our best shooter, aimed for the bottom right, but hit the post. Their second also made his. Our next 2 made theirs with their 3rd having his shot blocked, so we were still in the game. Their 4th shooter, one of their worst, made his, and our fourth hit the top of the goal bouncing out.
We should have won, but we didn’t, and they played a good game even apart from the professional. It just wasn’t our day, and we left before the second match because we needed to get back for dinner. Our boat ran out of gas on the way home because it was new, and we didn’t know its limitations, so the people mover towed us in, and we ate dinner as soon as we got back.
Finally after 7, the generator was turned on for the night, and the tanks were filled, so I could finally take a shower, and a shower has never felt so good.

As Promised: The Ungraceful Money and the one that Purrs

Some of you have pictures in your heads of monkeys swinging gracefully through the trees, a perfection of balance, but that’s most monkeys, and then there’s Konge (pronounced: congee). Konge is a monkey of action, a monkey a few words, and fewer thoughts. Konge jumps first and thinks later, if at all. Konge, a wooly monkey, is the only monkey I’ve ever seen jump for a branch, and miss. Konge has electrocuted himself 3 times because he forgets he can’t swing on the power lines when the generator is on, though every other monkey in camp seems to have figured this out. Konge is definitely a male, you could tell even if you couldn’t see his fairly large monkey balls dangling as he swings furiously from tree to tree. He’s always hanging around the mess hall at meal times, except for breakfast because he doesn’t like to get up early, looking for someone to play fight with. He’ll have his tail wrapped around a branch, hang down, and take a swing at you waiting for you to swing back sometimes grabbing your hand pretending to bite it. He’s a bit of a bully too. He knows the women in camp are afraid of him, so he likes to chase them, though the men he only tries to play fight with. He also likes to pick on Nicolau. He’ll chase him through a tree until he catches him, and they dangle in the air wrestling only attached to the tree by their tails. Konge is twice Nicolau’s size, but in another year or two, Nicolau will be bigger than Konge. I’d like to see how the tables turn then. Konge likes to dangle Nicolau, so he can’t get away while they’re wrestling. Now I would intervene, but most of the time Nicolau isn’t that innocent. To get back at Konge, he sneaks up behind him, and pulls his tail, and of course Konge chases him half of the time catching him.
Like all bullies, Konge is not as brave as he would have you think. While he’ll taunt you from a tree trying to get you to fight, if you catch him by surprise taking a run at him, he lets out a loud monkey wail like you were trying to kill him. It’s really quite funny because he acts so fearless the rest of the time, and even right after an episode like that.
Back to Nicolau, I found out something the other day I had forgotten. He’s the only monkey I’ve known to do this, which is purr. The other day I was sitting at my desk and I thought I heard one of the waiters come into the outer office as they were cleaning the main lodge before the fishermen arrive next week, but the noise stopped and I thought nothing of it until 30 seconds later I heard that familiar cry as Nicolau crawled under my desk and up my chair. I was surprised because he had remembered where to find me. It was quite a trek for him to have come from my father’s house where he sleeps, and to the main lodge into my office. He’s never done that before on his own.
He crawled into my lap and I scratched him, and after a while, he started purring. I had to laugh because it’s funny to think of a monkey purring, and he only does this when he’s sitting in my lap and no one else is around. Well I think that’s enough for now. Back to work again.

The Village Kids

Why they decided this I don’t know, but yesterday all the kids from the employee village took to following me around as I was moving fishing equipment. Maybe it was the combination of a shirtless man who is whiter than anyone else there (I’m still working on my tan) with many tattoos, maybe it was that I was using the Kawasaki mule (the only one at the lodge), maybe they find me curious because I run every evening, which no one else does, or maybe they wanted to ask about my ex-girlfriend who used to run the daycare. Whatever I was, it made me feel uneasy to have 18 little eyes watching whatever I did. One of the little girls rode her bicycle after me as I drove along, and one of the older boys ran after me even following me into the tackle shed as I was stacking rods. Now I have nothing against kids, but I’d rather them not surround me in large numbers, 2 is about my limit, and also, since I didn’t have any of them, I don’t feel like I should have to deal with them or entertain them in any fashion. If by some chance adventure, I do have kids, I will take care of them, but don’t ask me to take care of yours. Sorry about the rant. Tomorrow I will tell more monkey stories. I promise.

The Idiot (quite possibly me)

If you ever pick up The Idiot, don’t do it when your heart is in turmoil. It’s not a good recovery book. No one recovers in that book. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a damn good book, but I have to wonder, was that man, ever happy? Was his Russian sadness so deep that he almost drowned each night to get up each morning to write not quite recovered?
I made that mistake, but now I’m as far from Dostoyevsky as one can get. I brought down The Trial, but I think I’ll pass for now. Kafka’s another one of those you only read a certain times.
Right now I’m reading a fluff book for the first time in years, one that I picked up off the take a book leave a book wall, and I’m getting lost in simple violence and intrigue, nothing complex at all, at least not for a few days. Maybe I’ll read Behan or Forster next, and leave the Russians off for a month.

The Marriage of the Fox

That’s what they call it here when it’s raining and the sun is shining like it was today. It makes me laugh because Raposa, which means fox in Portuguese, is the last name of the mayor up for re-election in Barcelos, the town closest to me where I pick up the fishermen when they start coming in. with a last name like that, you’d expect him to be cunning and sly, a perfect name for a politician, but from what I know of him and my own dealings with him, the name doesn’t quite suit him because he seems to be a fairly honest man, as honest as a man can be in his position, though his son is quite a different matter.
If anyone in town can be considered my rival, it would be he, though I spend more time in his father’s town than he does. He spends a good deal of his time in the city where he can spend a good portion of his father’s money more freely. Only on two occasions have I made his acquaintance, and instinctively I had a dislike for him. I year after our first meeting, I was to know why.
Many would have thought us quite similar, but only in costume are we alike, that and our fathers are both well known in the area. He is of the privileged sort that have never worked a real job, and once he is out of school, his father’s influence will find him a good position that would be hard to fuck up. For this I have no reason to dislike him, but the ground on which my instinctual dislike turned into hate, are too much. If ever I make his acquaintance for a third time, I may have to flee town for I doubt the mayor, if he still is the mayor at such a time, would take kindly to me laying his son out on the sidewalk. Even knowing the consequence would not be enough to keep myself in check.
But why such violence? Well, it happened while I was away for Christmas. The mayor’s son was back in town visiting his father, and became reacquainted with the girl I was with at the time, and had been with for a year and a half, and of course he fucked her. If he had been a serious rival, I wouldn’t have minded as much, but rather it was a caprice. He had a girlfriend at the time, one he is still with, so of course it meant nothing to him.
On the second time of our acquaintance, six months from the first, had I known this, I would have done more than just knock him down, as my tempered desire for satisfaction now requires. No, I only found out several months ago from a friend I thoroughly trust.
And the girl? I do not hate her, as some think I should, for her weakness. She’s still a child at twenty, though she imagines herself more mature. No, I don’t hate her, but am indifferent to her. She closed that door, that will never be opened again.
I saw her last weekend briefly. She found me because I sure as hell wasn’t going after her, and it’s easy to tell when I’m in town, everyone seems to know within half an hour. She held my hand with a certain tenderness like there was still something between us and maybe…
And I? Hardly looked at her, and didn’t say goodbye when she left twenty seconds later. As I write this, a box of her stuff, that she left in my room when we were still making plans together over 6 months ago, lies across the room, the things I packed up yesterday to send to her. That’s it. The end. I’ll have someone drop off the box, and let it end at that.

A Monkey Story (9/18/08-9/19/08)

Nicolau climbed through the hyacinth bushes by the bench outside the employee mess hall, and I wanted to know, did he remember? I called him, and he kept climbing. I went towards him, and he climbed away. Sitting on the bench by the bushes drinking my after dinner coffee some of the guides asked me if he remembered, and I said that I thought not. As I sat listening to how the guides had passed the off-season, he climbed closer. I stuck out my hand, and he grabbed it playfully then retreated. I watched him continue to climb eating flowers and leaves as he went. Then he climbed on the bench, and gave a little monkey squawk. I scratched his head, and he sprawled out on the bench. I scratched his belly, and he put his head in my lap.
Quite different from 6 months ago when he had ridden on my shoulders behind my neck like I was some sort of parent, but now it seemed we were just friends, and I was fine with that. I didn’t need a monkey to raise, but I was glad he hadn’t forgotten.
Today as I was putting my office in order, I heard the caretaker with his leaf blower, and I knew Nico would be following him. At first I couldn’t see him, but then I heard the tree to my left rustle, and I saw him. I called to him, and he looked at me both curious and shy, and finally climbing closer out of the tree, he let out a cry. I stuck out my hand to him, and he climbed on my shoulder, though now he was twice the size of the last time he had been on my shoulders.
I walked inside, and he didn’t run off, so I continued to put my office in order with him on my back until I heard the leaf blower move farther off. Knowing I couldn’t keep him on my back all day and get my work done, I took him out to where the caretaker was blowing cut grass off the walkway. He resisted as I pulled him off my shoulders, but did not bite me as he had used to. He cried like a little baby does imploring its mother to pick it up, but he did not run after me as I walked away like he used to. I turned around to see if I was being followed expecting him to be running on all fours in my shadow hoping I wouldn’t see him, but he was gone somewhere into a tree where I couldn’t see him.
I saw him again after lunch in the bushed by the bench, and he came and sat in my lap as I scratched him. This time he did not cry as I walked away.

In the City (9/14/08-9/16/08)

The streets I walked were the ones where the homeless stretched themselves out on cardboard mats to sleep on benchs, in doorways, or on the sidewalk itself. They hardly stirred as I passed wanting sleep over the R$1 coin I might give them, but probably not, and they were right. While I could give to one, I couldn’t give to 30 or 40. Instead I walked on as if I didn’t see them, yet taking each one in as I passed some reading discarded newspapers before sleep, some already lain out on the sidewalk, some covered in cardboard underneath and on top, some with dogs as wretched as they were sleeping next to them, and others sitting up on their cardboard drinking beer out of old water bottles, though who knows where they got that beer.
There was one old woman who slept in the doorway next to my hotel. She had some bundle under her shirt that she clamped her arms across as she slept with her back propped against the door. Never once did she look up as I passed, though I had passed her many times.
As I walked through them to meet a friend for a drink, I wondered who they were and what they did. If they worked during the day and this was the only place they had to come back to. Some were young, some were old, but most were middle-aged sleeping as the streets were swept around them, and they would be up before the street turned into a market with people buying things and walked over where they had slept, and would sleep again.
The next night I was going to meet a girl, it was raining, so I tried a shortcut, and I thought about them. Where did they go when it rained? The house of the thinker was the café where we met. I chose a table by the window and ordered a Bohemia. As usual, she was late and ordered a coke, she didn’t drink anymore, and for awhile, we both stared out at the rain. It was strange being there with her who had been my ex-girlfriend’s best friend, but it was comfortable. We talked like never before because we had never been alone like this before. There was something else there, but neither of us was ready for anything else.
It had stopped raining and the stars were out as I walked her to the bus stop. She took my arm like she always did when we walked, and in 5 minutes we were at the stop, and we parted as friends. The street I took back to my hotel was the one where they all slept, and I wondered, would I see them?

Getting Started

O.K. I decided to move my blog to here so more people have access to it without joining some site. What follows will mostly be the happenings in the Jungle, while I'm here, and where ever else I end up. Also to be included you may find pictures, thoughts, maybe a dash a writing, but on the latter I'm not yet sure about sharing that on here. Most of the stuff on here will be minimally edited at best because it's just my notes and such, not a finished product, and mostly for those of you who have some curiosity into what happens when I am away.
P.S. This blog is pg-13, so don't read it if you get easily offended. In the next few days I'll try to get up what I wrote about last week.