Francis Levy - Seven Days in Rio

I should have been working through my issues with China instead of dallying with a mutant creature whose attributes were better consigned to the x-rated exhibits at the Museum of Sex. I had justified my little deviation as an attempt to deal with one of my psychosexual idiosyncrasies, and also as research into an unfamiliar realm, the ignorance of which I felt was an ellipsis in my sexual education. But it was now clear to me that it was time to return to my primary objective.

I had written the exact address of The Gringo down on a torn piece of hotel stationary—32A Via Revolução Outubro 13. When I came out of the Brazilian equivalent of a SRO that Tiffany had led me to, I was on Via Revolução Março 5. Soon, I spotted another small alley, Via Revolução Abril 15, where a number of beautiful Tiffanys were rhythmically beckoning. I figured this must be the right place to turn, since April was closer to October and, of course, being an accountant, April 15 has mystical associations for me. I could have engaged the services of any of the Tiffanys on Via Revolução Abril 15—one was more beautiful than the next, and as I walked by they all picked up their skirts. After my most recent experience, I began to realize why the whores in Rio were so free about displaying their merchandise. This way there was no doubt about their gender.

As the red light turned to green on the crosswalk of the large thoroughfare marked Boulevard Revolução, the frenzied traffic came to a reluctant stop. I couldn’t believe my eyes when, off of another small street in the distance, I saw a huge sign with a pulsating neon arrow and a silhouette of a shapely woman that read “The Café Gringo.” I wondered what had happened to the Vias de la Revolução May, June, July, August, and September, but on the whole I was just glad to be there.

But what was I looking for? Did I want to see naked bodies, did I want to achieve orgasm, or was I looking for some sort of love, and hopefully companionship, in my older years? Was I going to The Gringo to find a prostitute I could spend my life with? Was I looking for a true partner, a true relationship? Or was I simply hoping to achieve an explosive, mind-blowing fuck, a fuck of such intensity that it would elevate my consciousness, like an acid trip?

What is pleasure? It’s a question I had never addressed during my analysis with China. But I knew there was plenty of time left, by Lacanian standards. If nothing else, I’d learned from China that a lot could be accomplished in a minute, and this observation extended to lovemaking. There is no such thing as premature ejaculation in Lacanian analysis. In fact, what some people call premature ejaculation would be for the average Lacanian analyst a long, intense session of lovemaking.

As I approached The Gringo, I saw Klieg lights and trucks, and could hear the sound of a jackhammer. It reminded me of Manhattan, where Con Ed is always opening up the street to fix steam pipes, although in this case I presumed all the jacking and hammering had to do with intense sexual activity. I’d heard there were all kinds of strange happenings at the club, and that many of the evenings took on the raucous, Dionysian qualities characteristic of radical theater in the ’60s, when actors in groups like the Living Theater actually ran naked in the streets, shattering taboos and eventually initiating group sex on a mass scale. In fact, Rio’s Carnival, in which thousands of people caroused in the streets for days, had something in common with some of the revolutionary performances I had seen as a student at Columbia, including some memorable experiments in free love. Unfortunately, when I got closer to the club, I saw that all the noise was connected to a far more mundane purpose. It looked like a water main had broken. When I tried to ask what was going on, I encountered the same sphinx-like glare that was popular among Con Ed workers in Manhattan. I went so far as to think that in our cross-cultural era there might even be some sort of exchange program between utility workers from New York and Rio in an attempt to foster mutual understanding. Perhaps I was receiving a bona fide Con Ed brush-off in the middle of Rio.

My heart sunk as I looked through the opened doors of the club to see electrical wires dangling over puddles of water. The lighting system, replete with a classic disco ball, had been disconnected. The only inkling of the club’s former splendor was a number of Tiffanys wearing overalls and hardhats who had obviously been hired to help out with the utility work. Their ample bosoms were hanging outside the straps of their overalls, and several were sporting work boots with high heels.

I wasn’t sure which way to turn. I could have simply gone back to the Copacabana, but something told me that a whole swath of Rio’s sexual life couldn’t be short-circuited by a few plumbing and electrical problems. As I prepared to walk back to the Boulevard Revolução, I noticed a short white-haired gentleman in a grubby tee shirt, the stub of a cigar hanging out of the side of his mouth. He looked like the kind of guy who had spent his life as a night watchman and now, in retirement, just watched over things on a recreational basis.

“Do you know if The Gringo moved to temporary quarters?” I bellowed.

He made a sign that he didn’t understand what I was talking about, but he also held out a palm to indicate that he would try harder if I gave him money. I placed some reality in his palm.

He held his finger to his lips and then said something in Portuguese that I gathered meant that I should follow him. We walked away from the utility trucks and lights and into a warren of side streets, each one seemingly smaller than the last. None of these streets, which were hardly more than cobblestoned footpaths, was large enough to accommodate a car, and I started to notice piles of droppings that I supposed were from horses or donkeys. Rio is an odd series of contrasts; it is an ultra-modern city that at the same time is filled with areas that resonate with the poverty and backwardness of the country’s interior. It is a place of hope for rural peasants who come to seek their fortunes. But the ever-present poverty is a reminder of the fact that, for some, the promise of a new life is not that easily attainable.

To be a Tiffany requires a certain degree of sophistication, and many of the women from the small backwaters of the Amazon know little about how to please a man in the way that is necessary to become a real Tiffany. Many of them have never seen a garter belt, black stockings, or a sexy French brassiere. For these peasant women, sex is simply a matter of child bearing. They often have large broods of children who become street urchins and beggars. If only they knew how, these women could be using their bodies to make the kind of big bucks that could get their kids into decent private schools.

Some of the streets were becoming so narrow that the buildings on either side practically touched, so that someone could almost reach out a window to shake the hand of his neighbor across the way. Yes, the hardscrabble existence of the poor had some benefits, not the least of which was a sense of community forged by forced proximity. But I was starting to wonder where my tight-lipped friend was leading me. This didn’t look like the kind of area where I was going to find a sex club, although the narrow alleyway reminded me of the crack between a woman’s legs. I couldn’t help noting that Rio’s ubiquitous sexuality was reflected not only in its sleek, shiny hotels and phallic skyscrapers, but also in the architecture of its most impoverished neighborhoods.

As we walked along, I noticed what looked like a hurricane cellar up ahead. My aunt had had one of those at the back of her house on Long Island, and I used to love to sneak down into the basement, which was filled with canned goods and bottled water. She kept these goods in store for the end of the summer season, when storms periodically made their way up the coast, hitting her little town of Long Beach with great fury. I didn’t think much of it, nor of the little Revolução decal that I noticed affixed to the cellar door as we approached. With all the streets named for one revolution or another, it didn’t strike me as unusual to see generic advertisements for revolution on a door. Then I noticed the steady flow of beautiful Tiffanys and tanned Brazilian men in tight, crotch-hugging slacks and open shirts disappearing through the narrow, unlit space into which my friend was now urging me.