He liked flowers. Sometimes we girded ourselves with flowers. Sometimes we walked around naked. Me fat and him all skinny. We were like Laurel and Hardy.
One day I saved a house from its wicked termites. It was supernatural. The termites were encrusted in everything. I only left termites on the devil’s horns. Everywhere else was freed of termites. At fifteen, I already showed powers. I truly emanated transcendental powers. I’d swallowed a cricket that was wriggling around in my lung.
Like hell you swallowed a cricket!
You’re crazy. Good heavens, you need treatment.
He’s just fine. What he needs is a good beating.
They beat me with a stool.
That was the last time I took a beating, after I arrived in Rio. They beat me out of shame.
Do you think that’s manly, thinking a cricket got you? You’re a talking cricket.
I wasn’t friends with Rimbaud yet. If he had been my friend, he wouldn’t have let them beat me so much.
I had another friend, Baudelaire, who only came round every once in a while. But with him it was another story. Baudelaire never picked up, not even with me begging and calling him, leaving messages. Moody git. But that afternoon they were both there, Rimbaud and Baudelaire, talking about poetry and modern life. And all of a sudden she walked past me. She came in white, all in white, pretty and smelling of perfume. Porcelain white. I was invaded by the song,
she comes all in white, all wet and dishevelled
how wonderful is my love
Jorge Ben took me by the hand. And I watched the woman in a lab coat walk by. Rimbaud and Baudelaire disappeared. But then Rimbaud came back with a daisy behind his left ear, and danced and danced. I laughed with him and laughed at him. Rimbaud was a lot of fun. Many people must be wondering if it was Rimbaud’s fault that I smashed up the whole house. Of course it was Rimbaud who gave me the idea.
Break everything. Show them you’re a man.
I didn’t become more of a man for smashing up my house. Sometimes that Rimbaud lets me down. I’ll go for days without seeing him, but he always comes back.
I stopped getting bayoneted. I started oral medication. Oral medication is easy to trick your way out of. I know which drugs I take. I always spit the ones I don’t want down the sink. The ideal way to deter that would be effervescent drugs. Of course the feebleminded are totally out of it and take their drugs properly.
Time to watch television. Time for the Addams family to get together. All the nutters would get together to watch the soap opera. A sergeant, a street cleaner, other dimwits and one guy who beats his head against the wall every two minutes.
I’ve already told that little doctor that he’s going to do his head in. He’s going to have a serious stroke. I blsjdsomdkm0ooooeeirrrriruuuuruuiirrriiirii.
No one understands what you’re saying. Mad fool. I’m going to Paracambi. If you die, you’ll go to Caju.
I want to get out of this place, I’m leaving for Pasargadae6.
You know Ana? She’s going to kill Marcos. Olivier is coming back for Marcos. Pereira is breaking up with Maju. Lina is going to end things with Maciel. Ernesto’s going to punch Parado.
It was the TV, talking about soap operas.
I’m samba. I’m Jesus Christ. I’m everything and nothing. I’m a cool kind of crazy. Epahei, Iansan!7 Ogum bolum ai iê.
Rimbaud was dancing to the city rubbish collector’s rap. He was there detoxing.
See, son. You’re here to detox. Your son won’t want to see you this way.
I drooled.
I went inside myself, cut myself off. While everyone watched TV, I played solitaire with Rimbaud in the empty room. Rimbaud stared at me. He tried to distract me.
I looked at the horizon. The sky was opening up. Why is the sky so blue here in the asylum? Why are the days bluer?
Nature is so beautiful and reminds me of a cemetery.
The Attorney General came in for the first time on a stretcher and went to a room.
Sir, there are a number of KGB agents surrounding the site.
He’s old, seventy-five. Already a bit senile.
My brother came to see me and reminded him of his youngest son, Erbert!
Is that you, Erbert? Come talk to your dad! CIA agents are surrounding the building. We’re all being monitored.
Why do all crazy people have the same paranoias? They’re always being followed by a secret agent. The CIA is nearly always involved. My own case (swallowing a chip) was only possible thanks to the CIA and the KGB.
The chip had a strange effect inside me and gradually I came to understand how it worked. Rimbaud was the one who helped me with this.
He checked my blood pressure with a machine he himself had invented. They were strange ways to check blood pressure.
He had a medicine that was entirely his own. He was some kind of witch doctor. Rimbaud told me it was him who cured the problem with my leg. And yet Rimbaud was a cripple. When I voiced my doubts, he used to say that his powers were for others and couldn’t be used on himself.
The boy stopped, looked at his dad.
Dad, where are you living? Do you live here at home?
My dad was a doctor. Days and nights on end he’d be on duty. After I said that to him, he started doing fewer shifts. My dad was always a good man, very calm and quiet.
I caused a lot of trouble at school. I’d been expelled from four schools. I was sixteen. They warned me that I’d have to go to night school, with adults. My dad cried so hard.
That was the story of my life: making my dad cry.
An American guy was committed. The guy had been a combatant in Vietnam.
Motherfucker. Fire in the line zone, he shouted.
Fire, he shouted.
The sergeant soon fell in with the American.
Rimbaud used to do a dance called the Dance of the Blue Pelican. It was one hell of a wiggly dance, using all parts of his body. He learnt it in Africa, he says. But were there pelicans in Africa? He was free to say whatever he wanted. Actually we all are, but whether it’s true or not is another matter. The truth can be such a sloppy invention and still convince everyone. You just have to be forceful. Or take advantage of people’s natural gullibility.
I’ve defecated on myself on occasion. I wet the bed on my first day in the asylum so they wouldn’t take me away from where I was. This is a life full of abject acts. A life full of fears.
I never eat shit. Nor am I given to macabre rituals. I’m loco-lite, the diet version. Even though my problem with the chip is pretty hardcore.
When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a fireman. I had the outfit, little engine and everything. I had such a happy smile back then. A smile that’s gotten grimy over time, like those big family portraits. I was always happy like Rimbaud. Nowadays I think about everything I do and I know when I screw up: when I’m made to swallow a chip and I wreck the whole house. God, I messed things up. How old do you have to be, to be happy? You’re only happy in the past. I’m alone in the room. No one’s been to visit me for a while. I didn’t get locked up because I’d harmed anybody. The only person affected by my behaviour is me.
Liar! Your mother picks up the tab for the things you broke.
All that damn jewellery.
And even your grandmother’s china cabinet.
Why did I do it? The guilt won’t go away … Tear down a door. A rickety door. Why did they call the police? Nowadays it’s the police who come to get you. I had a row with the cops, made them understand it was a chip. One of them didn’t even know what a chip was.