dear son taue...
dear son peter...
the summer vacations in teresopolis…
in spite of revealing… (for the first time in my life…)…
my difficulties to relate myself with a sophisticated group-of-people…
( like the one vitorino belonged to…)
in spite of that…
those vacations brought… in a certain way…
new horizons for me…
if I felt awkward when I first arrived in teresopolis…
feeling as if people were regarding me as a kind of a…
let’s say… “cowboy”…
(in the sense of a person who is not very used to the…
“sophistication” of a “refined-group-of-people”…)…
if… on one hand… I was feeling like that…
( at the beginning of such vacations…)
on the other hand… near the end of these vacations…
I was feeling a little bit more relaxed and “at home”…
there was one great thing about this group…
( among many other good things…) :
whenever a boy asked a girl to dance…
I never saw anyone of them refusing the request…
( they would always accept…
even if they didn’t “like” the guy too much…)
I think this was part of their education…
it was a group where almost everybody was jew…
the only exception was me…
so… during the chatting…
they… often… were referring to the fact that…
sooner or later… they would be going to be married…
among themselves…
so… that was the occasion where I learned (from them)…
that the jew only marries another jew…
I realized that… maybe… this could explain… ( in part )…
the reason why it was so difficult for me to relate with them…
it could be happening that… maybe…
they weren’t too much interested in knowing me deeper…
because… after all… I… was not a jew…
a delicate way to ask me if I was a jew or not…
was… simply… to ask me… what was my last name…
as I responded… “freire”… they realized that I wasn’t a jew…
but… that’s all right…
as I mentioned in a previous email…
this fact didn’t stop me to participate in the group’s activities…
… to go to the parties… etc…
( always with vitorino… of course…)
actually… vitorino was my “passport”…
to all this internal world of the jews…
I… used to go there… just because he used to stop by my house…
… and call me to go with him…
but… if he didn’t call me…
I would still be happy…
after all… there was always the option of going to the beach…
… to enjoy the “jacare” (boogie boarding)…
there at the sea…
I was free…
at arpoador beach…
with a pair of swimming fins…
… the little-board-made-of-wood…
riding big- beautiful- waves…
which were coming from the “pontao”…
there at the sea…
it wasn’t necessary to worry about…
the “superficialities” of some social conventions…
it wasn’t necessary to be dressed with those clothes…
especially made for the parties…
it wasn’t necessary to be dressed with trousers and a shirt…
which had to pass through the ironing process…
it wasn’t necessary to be worried about superficialities of the kind:
“ do you think my clothes are wrinkled..?.. ”
it wasn’t necessary to be worried about…
if someone was observing me… in the parties…
observing…
if I knew how to dance or not…
if I knew how to talk or not…
if I was or wasn’t…
behaving myself in accordance with the rules of good-etiquette…
there at the sea…
all that was needed…
was a bathing suit…
without prissiness…
me… and the sea…
and the waves from the “pontao”...
--- --- ---
end of vacations…
month of march…
time to go back to school…
back to “colegio-militar”…
the first thing we had to do…
was to go to the barbershop…
to get a haircut…
buzzing it on the sides…
leaving only that little-hair on the top…
and for me… this was… like a torture…
nowadays… to buzz the hair… is something normal…
but… at that time…
at the time of the beatles and rolling-stones…
at a time where everybody was using long-hair…
the fact of having no choice other then side-buzz our hair…
… within the military standards…
this was a torture for all of us… students of that school…
in spite of all these feelings…
at that age…
we end up doing things without thinking too much…
without too much questioning…
vacations are over…
back to school…
normal life…
no need for further discussions…
we simply re-adapt ourselves to the old routine…
to side-buzz our hair every week…
to catch the bus 433… barao-de-drummond__leblon…
to face the super-stressful traffic of copacabana…
botafogo… flamengo… lapa… riachuelo-street… etc…
cooped up inside that super-warm jacket…
buttoned to the neck…
ahh… yes… let it be…
--- --- ---
second year of middle-school…
now… I was feeling more comfortable at school…
the “colegio” was not scaring me that much…
the previous year was when things were really “tough”…
I had to struggle a lot in order to be able to overcome…
…the difficulties of adaptation…
…the contrasts between the school in recife to the one in rio…
the educational-system in rio was of a much higher level of difficulty…
…than the one in recife…
but now… attending the second-year “ginasial”…
I was feeling much more comfortable…
those “ghosts” of the previous year…
had practically disappeared…
I was much more prepared to follow the rhythm of the classes…
the high standard typical of schools like…
“colegio militar”… “colegio santo inacio”… etc…
wasn’t scaring me anymore…
because… as I struggled like crazy to survive…
to the challenges imposed by the sudden change…
on the difficulty-level from recife to rio…
I became… naturally… prepared to follow the rhythm-of-the-lessons…
in a more normal way… without too many “traumas”…
in short…
the lessons… the studies… weren’t belonging anymore…
to the list of my main worries…
but… since I was only 12 years old…
and since… at those days… parents didn’t have the habit…
of talking too much with their children…
about things like sex… etc…
… we had no other choice than to learn it…
in the streets…
through the chatting with my friends…
and… one of the main themes was… naturally…
sex…
that woman who got on the bus…
with such skirt… with such cleavage…
this was the type of “chat” which was often happening…
among us…
during the trip inside the 433…barao-de-drummond__leblon…
--- --- ---
rafael jose rocha pinto… or simply… rocha-pinto…
was one of my main friends…
who… at 11 a.m… together with me…
used to walk up the three steps…
of the bus: 433…barao-de-drummond__leblon….
later on… another friend showed up:
jorge peredia… or rather… peredia…
who enrolled himself in the middle of the school-year…
because his family was coming from rio-grande-do-sul…
my mind was still under the good influences…
of the tranquil environment of the little parties…
organized by vitorino’s group of friends…
a group which had… in a certain way… very good-manners…
high-standards… an educated… nice people…
by contrast… there… on the bus… heading to “colegio militar”…
in the company of peredia and rocha-pinto…
the chatting used to belong to another kind of “universe”…
the two were planning…
to go out on saturday-night… to one of those motels…
in downtown-area…
and pay prostitutes to make sex with them…
next monday…
the chatting going on inside the bus…
was about their adventure…
I listened… kind of distantly… to their stories…
despite the novelty of the chatting…
I didn’t feel too much attracted to that kind of adventure…
I was hoping…
they wouldn’t invite me to go with them next time…
because I wouldn’t feel much comfortable…
paying to a prostitute to have sex with me…
and… indeed… at this point… they realized…
that I was focused on other things… and so…
they didn’t even bother to invite me to go with them…
on saturday-night…
to the whore-houses in downtown area…
--- --- ---
if… on one hand… there was the super-refined and elegant…
group of vitorino’s friends…
and… if… on the other hand… there was the little-tough-guys…
from the bus barao-de-drummond__leblon…
there was also… as if in the middle-ground…
my friend ronaldo…
he used to live at vieira-souto avenue…
on the fourth floor…
in the living-room there was a panoramic-view-window…
… made of smoked-glass…
where we could see the whole view all the way…
from leblon to arpoador…
ronaldo’s family was pretty much alike mine…
his father was an engineer… like my father…
ronaldo’s mother… was also pretty much alike my mother…
both of them… very “extrovert”…
they were among the first ones to adopt the fashion of the mini-skirt…
which was emerging at that time…
( after all… it was the era of the beatles…)…
a family… which… like mine…
was always carefully concerned about giving the best…
to their children… in terms of education…
( ronaldo was studying at colegio-santo-inacio…)…
moreover… some tastes of the two families were nearly coincident…
I remember that… when they were still living at visconde-de-piraja…
I used to go there to visit and play with ronaldo…
assembling… airplanes of revell…
which was a brand of educational toys…
where we used to assemble those miniature models…
of little airplanes made of plastic…
moreover… the ages of their children…
were almost like ours…
marisa was the same age as ana emilia…
ronaldo… same age as mine…
andrea… same age as clarice…
and… romeu… same age as tuipe…
two families very alike…
they matched each other almost perfectly…
we had been together for a week during easter holidays…
in maua…
in a time when nobody knew maua…
in one of those fairy-tale little-lodgings…
by the cold waters of some rivers with crystal-clear-waters…
in a time when maua existed…
as if it was some sort of a brazilian swiss…
lost in those mountains of the border…
between the states of rio and minas…
this tour to maua happened some years before…
when I was still nine years old…
even before the period I spent in recife when I was ten years old…
immersed in the trees of my grand-mother’s yard…
this tour was something of the past…
the assemblage of the little airplanes with ronaldo… too…
now… I was a 12 years-old “young-man”…
already with the mind starting to be filled…
with the perplexities of life…
the huge-sea at arpoador-beach…
the craziness of the discipline of “colegio-militar”…
the new-world… revealed by vitorino’s sophisticated-group-of-friends…
the “underground” universe… (also new)…
from the “little-tough-guys” of the bus…
sunday afternoon…
I have nothing to do…
I’m going to “stop-by” ronaldo’s house…
chat a little bit with him…
ask if he wants to do something…
ask him if he wants to play…
( in spite of being already 12 years-old…)
I cross prudente-de-moraes street…
I keep walking through farme-de-amoedo…
as I reach the corner of farme with vieira-souto…
I turn right towards the recently-constructed building…
which his father… now…
…in the very-important position of superintendent of public-works…
had just built…
a brand-new-building…
with blue tiles…
coating its exterior walls…
I arrive there…
catch the elevator…
fourth floor…
as I get out of the elevator…
there’s no doubt…
the door of the apartment is just across the elevator door…
there’s no doubt…
( because the building is one of those…
…which has only one apartment per floor…)
I ring the bell…
a few seconds later marisa shows up…
ronaldo’s older sister…
13 years old…
I ask…
is ronaldo there…?
no…
but you may come in…
come in…
and I… on sunday afternoon…
with nothing else to do…
searching for ronaldo to play…
I just… step inside…
I go straight to the panoramic-view-window in the living-room…
… made of smoked-glass…
with the view from leblon all the way to arpoador…
I walk to the big window…
I watch the sea…
and… marisa…
starts talking to me…
a little bit laughing…
finding… a little bit funny… my haircut from “colegio militar”…
we guys from “colegio militar” had the “trauma” of side-buzzing our hair…
so… in order to balance things out…
we had the habit of letting the top to be very long…
(since there was no rule forcing us to cut the top part of the hair…)
so… what happened was that…
we used to have the side… zero-buzzed…
and… in contrast… the top used to remain really long…
in short… we had that thing kind of out-of-proportion…
the side of the hair… totally buzzed…
and the top… like a big wig…
despite the disproportionality…
we chose to let the top grow…
since it was the only way we could enjoy the little “freedom”…
of letting it grow… at least the top…
( after all… it was the era of the beatles…
…and the rolling stones…)
--- --- --
so… there we were… me and marisa…
by the big-window of the living room…
and… she… totally “crazy” to do something with me…
anything…
she didn’t know where to begin with…
she wanted to touch me…
anything…
she started to comb my hair…
she told me… my hair was funny…
she invited me to watch television…
in a small room… specially made for the television…
we sat there to watch television…
we stayed there for a little while…
suddenly… I stand up and say:
“well… since ronaldo is not here…
I should go now…”
then… she says:
stay a little bit more…
then… I say:
“but ronaldo is not here…
so I’d better go…”
so… she takes me to the door…
and… in order to see if I could still change my mind…
before she closes the door…
she looks at me… with that seduction expression…
but… while I wasn’t exactly realizing what was going on…
I press the elevator button…
( even under her regard through the semi-open door…)
I say “good-bye”… and… I… go away…
at the street…
realizing my falter…
I feel like going back there…
but… then… I think…
no… I already left…
so… let it go…
--- --- ---
about one year later…
(when I had already a fiberglass-long-surfboard…)
on the super-crowded beach of ipanema…
right in front of her building…
the sea almost flat…
with some tiny-little-waves about 10 centimeters high…
she swims towards me… (and the surfboard…)
and asks me to give her a ride…
we go paddling… way outside…
she goes in the front…
I go behind…
paddling…
feeling her thighs…
her perfect buttocks…
in that bikini…
at the moments when we were waiting for the waves…
(which didn’t exist on that day…)
we both sat on the board…
she… sitting in front of me…
and I… sitting behind her…
as if we were both… on a saddle of a horse…
but… even so…
my shyness…
my blockage…
didn’t allow me to sit in a way so that my body could touch hers…
but at the time of the paddling…
both laying down…
with her in front of me…
it was impossible…
to avoid my arms sliding through her thighs…
opened…
my nose…
inevitably touching her butt…
in a position sort of uncomfortable for the neck…
which had no other option other than to surrender…
to the irresistible desire of using her buttocks…
as a perfect pillow…
where… about twice…
I yielded to the temptation of… finally…
laying down my head… sideways…
on that buttocks so sensual…
followed by her thighs…
volume-wise perfect…
goldenly tanned through the cream “rayto-de-sol”…
directly imported from argentina…
--- --- ---
a very rare episode…
in that phase of my life…
like someone who is dying of thirst on the desert…
our lives were a total absence of women…
we used to be most of the time in the “colegio militar”…
where the enrollment for girls were not allowed…
( nowadays… the school has evolved… in this sense…
nowadays… it’s a school opened to both boys and girls…)
those two episodes that happened… (or rather… that didn’t happen…)
with marisa…
were two episodes… which…
days later… ( or months later…)
produced in myself… a deep feeling of regret…
(…”oh… what an idiot… what a fool…
didn’t I realized that she wanted to enjoy…
some sensual touches with me…?
especially in that episode when she was alone…
in the apartment crazy of desire…
to do some playful touches with me…?...”…)
I couldn’t forgive myself…
fool…
fool…
vacillant…
the lack of a sexual life…
the lack of a girl friend…
this… permeated my life…
throughout my adolescence…
I used to crave sex…
I used to long for having a girlfriend…
but I didn’t have anybody…
until the day that fabiana appeared…
when I was 18…
my first girlfriend…
(a true one… with sex… and all that…)
fabiana…
with whom a had a good relationship…
very tranquil…
very healthy…
but… this only happened when I was already 18 years old…
from 12 to 18… was that huge lack…
in terms of relationships… in terms of dating…
but… a lot of other things happened at that time…
a lot of study…
a lot of surf…
a lot of novelty…
a lot of others discoveries happened in that phase…
my piano teacher…
the sudden move from “colegio militar” to the school-of-bourgeois “andrews”…
( at age 14…)
the influences of my friend richard and his mother…
as they were introducing me to gandhi’s philosophy…
the group-of-friends of my sister clarice…
with her classmates whose ages were 12… while I was 16…
(the group which… caroline used to belong to…)
my trip of 7 months to the united states…
in order to study one semester in a high school…
as a sophomore..
at age 15…
studying a lot of physics…
and… learning a lot of english…
in a way that I never forgot…
--- --- ---
see you next time…?
see you next time…
a super-hug in you two…?
a super-hug in you two…
see you soon…
a big hug…
your father…
…luis antonio…