17

Just two symbols, 1 and 7 that feed the dullness in my gut. Months later, walls around the city still bear the numbers.

I remember sitting in a taxi on Rua do Futuro and the driver said ‘hey, look’ and pointed out the window. He was smiling. Through the glass I saw a man dangling from a balcony, about 50 metres up from the ground. He clung to the metal rail of the terrace on one of the hundreds of new, high-rise blocks dominating the city; all tiled white like bathrooms in the sky. When I think about that moment, the image in my mind is of a man’s dark silhouette in the shade of the tower. The shape stands clear against the backdrop of a bright blue sky - only observed by us people of the Tropics - his black profile looks like the number 17. I watched him, acknowledging my helplessness and the absurdity of the moment. I don’t know if he fell.

A few years ago, it had been money falling from the balconies of an apartment block in the centre. Some Koreans were being raided, and it was said that they had emptied bags of notes into the wind as police broke down their apartment door. Millions of Reis fluttered in the warm saline air; caught in the sea breeze they took minutes to reach the streets of terracotta roofs and collapsed pavements below.

I dreamt that I was at a bar alone, watching football and drinking beer. It was on the corner of Dezessete de Agosto where the cobbled streets of Poço meet the main concrete road. My team were playing in their home strip of black and red; on the screen a substitution was being made, the official prepared the electronic board and the number 8 flashed up. I hear a car door slam. Supporters of him arrive, they wear those black t-shirts, with the pale face of that dark-eyed man, an image that has evoked fear since his army days. I taste exhaust fumes and think of Stuart Angel.

When I awoke, I was sweating, it was dark, the air-conditioning had turned itself off. My wet shoulder stuck to the bare mattress where the sheet had slipped from the bed. I could not get back to sleep and after turning on the light I reached for a book. I read a few lines of Carpentier’s The Chase: ‘Sleep: The first thing is sleep’ and then noticed the page number: 17. I put the book down slowly, walk to the window and slide it open; the cool night breeze blows on my bare chest. I hear the faint hum and random clicks of the electric fence. The street is dead quiet. The TV is on in the Porteiro’s box, the bright colours flash through the dark, tinted glass of his cramped observation tower. He is probably asleep, sweating into the foam of the cheap office chair. Down the road I see the house that had blasted the national anthem seconds after the results were announced, the owner’s green and yellow dick swinging in triumph. Days later a car had hit the giant, ancient Baobab tree outside his house. An old lady emerged from the wreckage stumbling about, confused - I watched her from my apartment as passers-by went to her aid.

I pore myself some Pitanga juice from the fridge. Maria had made it earlier in afternoon, she has a sweet tooth. I put the cold glass to my forehead and held it there. The kitchen window was open, down in the favela a few dogs barked and the light wind moved the trees below. It was a quirk of these blocks that the living room and bedroom windows looked westwards towards the Atlantic and Europe, whilst Maria looked out onto the familiar corrugated roofs and beyond that the anarchic Interior.

In the morning I look out my bedroom window and see the clown in the street again; he is juggling at the traffic lights. Despite the heat, his face paint never seems to run. I drink a strong coffee hoping to shake my feelings of interrupted sleep. My phone rings from an unknown number, I answer but there is silence on the other end. There is an urban myth that prisoners call random numbers from inside jails as part of some sort of scam, but I’ve never understood how it works.

My mouth is dry after the coffee so I leave the house in search of coconut water. There is a stall nearer my place, but I always go to one a little further away where the coconuts are 50c less. The owner is a woman and it’s rare to see a female wielding a machete; I like the strong femininity of the act as she violently slices the nut open. Her domain is a dirty rusting metal box, surrounded by stacked green coconuts and a large block of scarred wood. She is separated by a few metres from the other sheds that hug the corner of the busy road, the others talk amongst themselves but she doesn’t seem to be welcome.

I can feel my phone vibrating in my pocket but make a rule of never answering in the street. Above me a family of Sagui monkeys bounce along the electrical wires. I am jealous of their sense of movement embodied with play and feel a strong urge to place a bet in the ‘Joga do Bicho’.

I cross the road into the market. The cast iron structure evokes a sense of industrial Europe. Inside are plastic goods from China and cuts of meat from the countryside. I approach the old man sitting at a small desk, he has a kind, leathery face typical of Sertanejos. I’ve always betted no more than R$50 on the Lion, the mascot of my team but, after seeing the Saguis earlier, I feel lucky and place 200 on the Monkey; only remembering as the vendor passes me my ticket, that it is 17th in the table.

*

I dreamt I was a drone, hovering over the man who hanged off the balcony. Every time I manoeuvred to try and see his face, he shifted it to the other side.

I awoke to the sound of a barking. It was dark outside, I felt that sense of unease one experiences when falling asleep in light and waking in darkness. On the side table was my Joga do Bicho ticket and phone; it was only 6:38 pm. The barking continued and I knew I had chosen the wrong animal. I needed to change it for the dog: 1017. The Sertanejo would be there until at least 8 pm, if not later.

Leaving my house, I buzz out the electronic gate and continue past the sushi restaurant where only weeks ago diners had been held up at gunpoint as they ate. Business had resumed as normal. The iron doors of the market were padlocked and inside was dark and still. At a food stall embedded in the outside wall of the building, one of the few places in the city to get a late night plate of rice and beans, I ask the lady tipping macaxeira into a pan of oil, ‘Have you seen the Sertanejo who runs the lottery?’

‘In the new building, second floor’.

I thanked her and stepped off the curb into a pool of sticky liquid, its strong overripe smell makes me wretch. A torn black bag had burst into the street, its entrails had cooked in the daytime sun. A car passes at speed and I feel the flesh in my body, its softness, just water, blood and matter – so delicate.

The building was hardly new, but less old than the market; a gesture to tropical modernism without fully committing to its principals. The cobogó bricks, native to this city, were blocked from fulfilling their role by old fridges and freezers. Air conditioning units stuck out from the outer walls like teeth and greenery sprouted from the concrete canopy above the doorway.

I enter the dark entrance and climb a flight of stairs, first 8 steps, then 6, then 3. Reaching the second floor I pass through an open grilled door and enter a corridor with gated cages on either side. I look into the semi-dark rooms of a seamstress and then a record collector, beyond that a sign-making workshop and then a room full of religious pamphlets. At the end of the corridor I come to a sort of modernist oriel, a jutting out section of glass from where I could see the whole junction. On that corner, in the day time, moto-boys wait by fruit stalls. Under the heat of the blue tarpaulin the sugars of bright produce bubble. I hear a loud pop and look to the sky for the illuminations, our people use fireworks for celebration and caution. I see no colourful sparks in the sky. A second loud pop.

The Sertanejo adjusts his vaqueiro hat and looks down into the street. In the light of the food stall lies a crumpled mass of black.

***

Kaspar Loftin is a writer and journalist from London, UK. He is working on his first novel “Falling”.