Terry Neale - Jo-el

“Whoever you’re speaking to won’t notice, especially if they’re not looking for it. It will seem as if you just thought more before you answered.”

That is so cool. I just decimated the foreign language education industry.

I slept like a log during the night and woke feeling like a new man. It was six a.m. and my mind began turning over the ‘end-of-world’ thing. It was such a long way off, which made it hard to feel any urgency. I could see that if I was to suddenly appear in the media, flying around like superman and bouncing to distant parts of the globe it would solicit a tremendous amount of interest. I reckoned there would be a decent percentage of people that would believe what I said, end-of-the-world predictions were common in history. I think I’d read a few years ago that Nostradamus had predicted the end of the world. But would that cause the governments of the world, specifically the US, to take it seriously? They’d probably want to imprison me, then dice me up to see how I ticked. The idea that they would allocate vast sums of money to study such a wild notion seemed unlikely. Maybe one of those billionaire guys would fund it, a bunch of them were fascinated in space travel. Perhaps that was the solution. Which reminded me of the pills and then it dawned on me why I felt so damn great this morning. It was an idea, bait the rich guy with the life pill and use the cash to figure out how to save the world. It all seems nuts but this last week was right up there with the nuttiest.

I decided to forget it for a while. Sally had said I needed to get used to the technology and it certainly seemed like a great way to spent the day.

Showered and feeling like a million dollars I considered my alternatives for breakfast. I always thought of Rio as south, same time zone give or take. Wrong! Six hours ahead. It’s way east. Seven a.m. now, so one p.m. in Rio, I guess I could grab some lunchtime street fare and call it breakfast. Weather was hot down there, eighty-five degrees, that would be nice. I’d never been to South America, let’s do it.

I changed into shorts and T-shirt with sandals, took on the same persona as the Bahamas surfer-dude and fired up the display to look for a good place to touch down. There was a park right on one end of Ipanema beach with dense trees. Parque Garota de Ipanema. I told the computer to put me down behind a tree, out of sight.

Bounce.

I was there, this time on both feet, that was a first. It took a few seconds to get used to my new environment. The temperature was overwhelming. A middle-aged couple came into view; they took no notice of me. I walked out of the park toward the beach, the sun was bright and an east wind blew strongly off the ocean. The vista along the beach was spectacular. I could see thousands of people enjoying themselves, swimming and sun-bathing, chatting and eating. The beach was lined with high-rise buildings as far as the eye could see. Hotels, no doubt. Breakfast I thought and headed along the sand. It was then that I realized I didn’t have any local currency. Damn. I looked at the cash I’d picked up, forty-five US bucks. What was the currency here? I had no idea. I would have to get help from Sally. Maybe they took US dollars? It was worth a try. I was trying so hard to do this alone.

I carried on walking along the beach, none of the street vendors selling tacos and fried chicken enticed me. I turned inland, where there were copious signs of eateries and found a café plugged into the basement of a high-rise on the corner of a busy street. It had outside seating with Samba music playing quietly in the background. There were a few young people enjoying the ambiance, drinking coffee and eating what looked like rolls with cheese and ham. Perfect. The excitement of being so far away from my home pushed me forward. I asked a waiter if they took US dollars, he shook his head and pointed at an ATM across the street. Dang, that’s no good. I wasn’t carrying a cash-card and couldn’t use one anyway, it would leave an electronic trail of my travels and probably get canceled. Banks were very careful these days. Two guys, who looked like tourists, were sitting at a table by the door watching me. I asked the nearest one where I could change some US dollars and showed him the cash I had. They were English, the accent easy to spot.

“Sit down, we’ll work it out,” he said. “I’m Ian, he put out a fist.” Fist bump, not my age group but I can go with it. Very hygienic. “Dave,” I said and quickly regretted it. Then thought, why the hell not.

“Run out?”

“What?”

“Money.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

“Where you staying?”

Oh crap! Where am I staying? “Around the corner,” I said and Ian didn’t seem to care.

“This is Simon, we’re from London.”

“San Fran,” I said, going with the flow. “What’s good, here?” I was hungry.

“Pizza is good.”

“I just need coffee and maybe a roll.”

Ian waved over the waiter and I ordered the executive breakfast, which came with ham and cheese. Whatever. No need for translation, everybody spoke English.

The two guys were chatty; they were taking a one-week trip to escape the cold. Easter break from college, leaving tomorrow. Ian was tall, with a mop of brown hair that covered his face down to his eyes. Simon looked unwashed, his t-shirt grubby and shoes old. Both were wearing shorts festooned with pockets. I didn’t want to appear stupid so I asked Sally for the exchange rate. My breakfast was about fifteen dollars, that was fine. I made a mental note to carry more cash and get some local currency before travelling.

The coffee was excellent and the rolls fresh. I needed to use the bathroom, which is casa de bahno in Portuguese, so headed to the back of the café. When I returned the two Brits were gone. At first I didn’t think anything untoward had happened, so I sat down and looked around the café and outside to find them. Five minutes passed and I wasn’t so sure. I beckoned the waiter over, the same one who’d said they don’t take US dollars and asked if they’d paid? No, he said. Fuck! I’d been stiffed. Son of a bitch! I don’t believe it. That’s 0 for 2. Now what?

The waiter called over another guy, broad shoulders and a face like a bull-mastiff. He was very clear.

“You have to pay for all, senior.”

“They ran out, it’s not my fault. I’d only just met them,” I pleaded. But now their command of the English language was deteriorating. They began speaking to each other in Portuguese. I told Sally to translate. The gist was they knew exactly what had happened, the waiter had seen everything. He also told the bull-mastiff I only had US dollars. I saw the look on his face deepen into a nasty frown, his eyebrows meeting in the middle. They wanted their money and I was their only source. A bill for all the food appeared suddenly, two hundred and thirty Brazilian Reals, which Sally told me was about fifty-eight bucks, I didn’t have enough.

Sally’s voice echoed in my ear. “ They are discussing calling the police.”

Not again, I thought, remembering my failure at being a poor black guy.

I reached into my pocket and brought out my forty-five dollars, perhaps they would take that as better than nothing. It was only thirteen dollars short.

I saw the bull-mastiff pull a cell-phone from his back pocket, an I-phone six, these guys did well. Shit! What now? I began running scenarios. I could run, I liked that, I felt good and as soon as I was out of site, I’d disappear, literally. Or, I would be hauled off to the police station. This is Brazil, I’m sure they treated tourists okay but I didn’t want to find out. Option one got my vote.

The scene was generating the attention of other customers. Two young girls, at a table outside by the window were showing a lot of interest.