He couldn’t contain himself; he wanted to tell the whole world. He was having a new affair. For years he dated the most beautiful blonde in the slum nearby his house. He told everyone: there was nothing in the world better to him than when that girl rings his apartment doorbell and walks down to the corner, just waiting to give him a kiss or two. Then she would run off and squeeze through an alleyway, disappearing in the middle of the Vila or the slums as he liked to call that muddle of a place. But it was Janina’s friend, Patricia, who ended up staying with him for keeps and who had always tagged along and rooted for her on her little game.
One day while managing a campaign for his job in social mobilization for the community, he caught wind from his fellow Urban Cleaning Communitarian Agent colleagues the reason why Janaina had fallen out of his swan boat. They told him about how she had fallen hopelessly in love with a big black fellow from the Vila and that her parents forbade her from even stepping foot outside of her home until she forgot about the guy completely. While aware of the girl’s passion, our mobilizer still chased after her for a few more days. But, the blue eyed blond would much less say hi to him anymore.
On one of those wanderings through the Villa he met Marizete. What a woman! When he tried to home in on her, someone discretely leaned over to inform him that she was married. They gave the name of the husband too: Elias. He had no recollection of any one by that name around there in old Felix’s Bar, where many a time he sat down for a beer, and even after he stopped drinking, he would still stop by and enjoy a Kronnebier, an occasion which the regulars would use to make fun of him by suggesting that he drink mate tea with no sugar and it would be the same thing.
Now he had another reason to sit down at the bar right down the street from him, especially on Fridays. His new temptation was called Marizete. He was more careful this time and discretely asked about the so called Elias. Everyone in the bar broke a smile and started gagging between themselves. – You might just bump into him one of these days, they all laughed.
Marizete walked by with her two beautiful daughters; like mother, like daughter. The mother had the best sculpted lips he had ever seen. Her rear end allowed him to refer to her in outside conversations as Venus Callipyge.
Before long he couldn’t last a single day without going down to Felix’s Bar. Rogério, a long time downtown acquaintance, always presented him to the crowd as a great intellectual. Rogeirio complained about the absence of our friend’s “self-help,” messages that he would always print out and leave a copy or two with the lottery newsstand owner who had become an ardent admirer.
It really was just vanity, his co-workers confessed, him being a regular at that bar which was part of the Vila and be treated as if he were one of them. Now the longing for Marizete made his presence more constant and his voice more open-mouthed. He declared that as soon as he retired that he would help set up the Resident’s Rights Defense Association of the Vila. And he spoke with enthusiasm of the standup people with whom he coexisted in these past fifteen years ever since he started renting his apartment.
Marizete greeted him on rare occasion, always very sternly. But his fertile imagination created a secret love, and to him, her way of keeping a serious face was praise-worthy. He was sure that in the near future he would take her to get to know his apartment in an air of total zeal and assurance.
That night, he came back earlier from the bar because he was expecting a car to take him to a social mobilization event in faraway Venda Nova borough, north of the capital. The driver called by phone and arranged to meet him before the steep uphill climb from the street that runs from the corner up to the front gate of his building.
When he reached the corner, the driver was already parked and waiting with the engine running. He had just slipped into the car when a hand the size of a basketball held him by the shoulder and offered him an open mouth smile as big as his wrists.
-Look here, I know your whole story here with our people of the Vila. I don’t show my face around much, but I’ve closely followed the consideration that you have with our fine Vila. My wife is called Marizete and she always praises your name to me. I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time now but it had to be like this, so we can talk separately about a subject which has to stay between us.
Coach, the driver, turned off the engine. The passenger gulped down his saliva and couldn’t utter another word. That misshapen hand held him with strength, but without hurting his shoulder. In a glimpse, he remembered that Marizete came by a few minutes ago through the Bar door, wearing pretty little shorts and accompanied by the two little princesses.
With his head leaning back outside the window, he noticed that his newest friend carried a chrome pistol gleaming under the corner streetlight. He said, in a trembling voice which he dissimulated as a disguise, that he would have to rush off to a meeting, on the job in Vila Apolônia, Venda Nova area.
The smile of the citizen that had just addressed him there at the corner of his house exuded power and strength. He didn’t ask. He gave orders.
Elias pulled him firmly out of the car, embraced him and said:
– From now on, you have a friend who you can count on in all circumstances. I’m going to call my colleagues in the Vilas of Venda Nova and vouch total support to you. I know all the vilas and all the commanders. Because, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m the boss man of the drug racket here in the Vila and as far as the eye can see. My name is Elias.
-With his voice choked by fear, our friend asked Coach to start the car, got in and said goodbye to his powerful, smiling and loudmouth friend, Marizete’s husband.
Ever since then, he goes to the Bar and only, and I mean only, for a Kronnebier and, if they’re all out, he’ll drink a Liber which is also a good non-alcoholic beer.
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