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A Bright White Sunrise, Part 1

It’s all a little hazy in my memory, but I remember that the sound system at the kiosk we favored began playing "New Year’s Day." Ordinarily, that song wouldn’t encapsulate the joys of a night in Rio, but the apocalyptic message spoke to me. It said: “Enjoy yourself now because tomorrow may be too late.” So there I was dancing to U2 on the esplanade in Rio, and other 24-hour party people were dancing as well, and somehow we merged into a large group. The newcomers were Finnish, and we chatted and got to know each other over beers and cigarettes. I didn’t smoke, but I did drink, and since I’d been rolling when we arrived at the beach, the beers made me pretty loopy.

When the summer sun rises in Rio the day instantly becomes scorching. It must have been 90 Fahrenheit by 8 a.m. Guanabara Bay had been fogged over earlier, and as the light came up the water steamed like the coriander soup served in local restaurants. The sky was pure white, as was the sun, the sand, and the façades of the Copa high rises. I’d never seen a pure white sunrise, and haven’t seen one since. I wanted the others to take notice. I cried, “Ladies and gentlemen—our Sun, a four-billion year-old nuclear explosion!”

My friends are nothing if not indulgent of my enthusiasms.

Doug and a Finnish lad named Sami decided to cool off. They traversed the wide beach, stripped off their clothes at the shoreline and dove into the bay. Meanwhile the rest of us compared notes about the samba parade, our lodgings, and what we had done during the week. The waiters at the kiosk kept rounds of Skol coming our way. The sound system blasted "Sandstorm" by Darude, who is Finnish. It seemed providential, so there was more dancing. Afterward, I went on a quick photo excursion and got the shot at the top of this post. Walking back I came across a kid standing on the edge of the esplanade pissing. He was probably about ten. As I neared I saw that he was pissing on the face of another kid who had passed out on the sand below.

It was a devastating buzzkill—but as I said in an earlier post, in Rio your ecstasy is always somehow tempered.

I went back to the kiosk and rejoined my friends. I had more beer. They chainsmoked more cigarettes. At some point, Doug and Sami returned from the water and Sami was naked. We stared at him, and he said simply, “The sea took my shorts.” Matter-of-fact, like the bay had a will and had made a conscious decision. Or like it had been decreed by the gods of Corcovado.

At this point, I should mention a little known fact about Rio: full nudity in public is prohibited. I know, I know—seems unlikely, considering that the country spawned Brazilian-cut bikinis and other fashion innovations barely deserving of the term ‘clothing’, but it’s true. The Avenida Atlantica is the main throughfare through Copacabana, which meant there were substantial numbers of drivers getting eyefuls of Sami's white ass, and the early morning joggers and skaters seemed surprised, as well. The waiters flipped out. They cried, “No, no, no,” and, “Policia, policia, policia.” Sami wrapped a shirt around his waist. It didn’t really cover him (as you can see in the photo above), but as long as he remained seated it looked like he was at least wearing shorts, and that got the waiters to calm down. One of them was even kind enough to hose Sami clean.

One of the other Finns—Niko—suggested that perhaps the lost shorts would return. It made sense—the sea taketh and the sea giveth back. He sauntered down to the beach.

At some point either just before or just after this, an English bloke arrived at our table with a prostitute in tow. He and the girl just plopped down without an invitation. This fella looked like a coal miner—he was gigantic, ruddy, and ugly. If he was drunk at all he was sweating most of the effects away in the incredible heat. About then I felt a hand on my arm. The hand was encrusted with filth, and was attached to a kid begging for money. He was also severely beaten up. He had two black eyes and numerous scrapes. I reached for my cash when recognition dawned—this was the kid who’d been pissing off the esplanade. I hadn’t gotten a good look at his face before, but it was him—same clothes, same hair, same kid.

Suddenly the whole situation was morally complex. I am the type who gives money if I have it. I consider it my obligation as a human being. And I don’t think about it beyond the concept of duty—which is to say, I don’t expect a reward in gratitude or karma, and I don’t feel any pride about my deeds. Giving what I don’t need is just what I do. But this was different somehow—so I said no. In porteñol I told him, “I saw what you did to that other boy and I will never give you money. I will never give money to someone who does that.” And then I made certain nobody else at the table gave him money either, and I even made Ari explain to the kid why in Portuguese.

But I could see that the lesson was completely lost on him, and as he wandered off in search of other tourists I immediately regretted my decision. Who was I to judge? I said as much to Doug: “Maybe the kid he pissed on is the same kid who gave him two black eyes. How the fuck do I know? I should have just given him some money.” Doug said something like, “An adult gave him those black eyes—trust me, I know what I’m talking about. You did right. He shouldn’t be pissing on kids’ faces and he needed to be told even if he didn’t listen.”

So we come full circle to the original question: What is Rio? And as the immortal Frankie Beverly once sang, it is joy and pain—but while we can immerse ourselves fully in the former, we can only bear mute witness to the latter. What does it mean? What lesson do we learn? The answer to those questions consists of another question: What kind of person are you?

I glanced bayward and noticed that Niko was headed back to us. It looked like he’d found Sami’s shorts, so at least the waiters wouldn’t give us any more grief. I was sitting with my back to the beach, so I didn’t actually see Niko approach. Everyone else was too busy socializing to notice him. When I sensed him drawing near I glanced over my shoulder again and discovered that he had not found Sami’s shorts—he had found a dead fish. It looked like it was once some kind of catfish, but now it was a reeking carcass, its head rotted to the bone, two ghastly black sockets where its eyes had been. As casually as you please, Niko said something like: “Didn’t find your shorts, Sami, but I brought you this.”

Sami rose from his chair and took the fish. The shirt he’d wrapped around his waist was gone. He placed the carcass over his cock like some horrible fig leaf and launched into a jig. I’m sorry to say I was too stunned through all this to take a photograph. Even the waiters looked too shocked to protest. These Finns really knew how to cut loose.

Again, things are mixed up in my memory, but sometime after this the English bloke—I do have a photo of him, just below—got hostile. He had been mean to his hooker all along, which did not sit well with us, but now he focused his attention on Doug. I probed the man, to find out what his problem might be, and he explained that he didn’t like blackfellas. He said that he’d never met one he liked and was willing to fight about it if we had something to say.

Doug rose wordlessly, walked the few steps to the beach and traced a square in the sand. It was about eight feet on a side. It was boxing ring or, if you prefer, a wrestling ring. When he was done he gestured to the English bloke with both hands: bring it on. I nudged the Englishman, “He’s waiting for you—go ahead.” And this giant coalminer-looking dude backed down, and not very gracefully. He sputtered, “Wot, 'e’d run bloody circles around me!” I didn’t bother to point out that running around in circles didn’t seem to be part of Doug’s agenda at the moment. Doug returned to the table and the Englishman nodded at him respectfully. “You’re alright, mate. Anyway, it wasn’t you I had a problem with—it was him.”

He was talking about me. I said, “I’ll beat your ass too—right now.”

And he said, “Well, it wasn’t you either, really, it was him.”

He was talking about Ari now. So I understood that this was some sort of test, some kind of barnyard confrontation to establish pecking order. I think the presence of the Finnish girls had something to do with his behavior. But what I didn’t understand was why he felt the need. He’d bought himself a woman—she was sitting right there next to him, a done deal, his for the taking, and she would do virtually anything he wished the moment he snapped his fingers. I was still rolling, so I was predisposed to see the good in this ogre, but that feeling was rapidly giving way to something else. I could almost hear Homer Simpson in my ear: "Urge to kill . . . riiising."

posted by Egan Ehlers @ 4:45 PM