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.