Rodrigo Leao - All Dogs are Blue

When I told Rimbaud that story about Roberto Carlos and the one about my numbers, he recommended two books of poetry ‌to me: Trilce and Quaderna 15. One for three, another for four.

For God’s sake, Rimbaud, don’t put me in a bind. I’d rather use numbers for Kabbalah, not for poetry.

Unfortunately he only taught me what he knew, and he didn’t know much. That was when he told me about maybe going back to Africa, for his leg to get better.

Let’s get back to the hotel.

My friend told me that I had to vacate one of the rooms and stay where the staff sleep.

Tonight you’re going to sleep here in the same room as Stallion. He’s going to hang you up by your little tits. Stallion was a big black man standing over six and a half feet tall. Rumour had it that Stallion had a dick so big he could have been a porn star. I just dabbled in sex with my little 15-cm-edition, PG-rated knob. I trembled the first time I saw Stallion. I wasn’t going to sleep next to that guy. He could easily rape me. When I saw Stallion again, I thought about getting out of there. I told myself: I’m not waiting for the third time, or else I won’t see anything ever again, just the spirit of the god of evil moving upon the face of the waters of Lake Guaíba.

I left the hotel and went to the bus station. I was possessed by a fertile spirit of modern madness, one that had helped twentieth-century poetry many times and had put contemporary literature in its rightful place. My persecution complex had reached the pinnacle of its glory. I ran through the streets of Porto Alegre. The police saw me running. Police are automatons. They’re like scarecrows. Scarecrows with no eyes. And ravens peck at scarecrows. I was a solitary raven that night. Cops are the same all over the world. They shot at me. Mint bullets, peanut bullets, soft bullets. And rubber bullets.

Stop, for fuck’s sake!

I stopped. There was a police station close to the bus station.

Own up, you piece of shit. You got drugs on you?

What’s the problem? None. I was embarrassed to tell the police about the god of evil. I was embarrassed to tell them the truth about the fertile spirit of modern madness, the one that had already written a very important chapter in that century’s literature. I still had a drop of discretion at that point.

You’re not from around here. I’m from Rio, but I’m a big fan of Getúlio Vargas’ southern accent.

Are you a poet? For fuck’s sake! Out with it! Or are you too delicate to talk?

Sir, I was going to be raped at the love hotel.

The police called the hotel. They quickly saw that it was unfounded. A delicate flower, said one. Anyway, they told me to go back there.

I couldn’t do it. I spent the night at the police station and went back home the next day by plane.

My first and only plane trip. The trips to China, Japan and Korea were all by television. Now I’m here to stay, I told myself.

Rimbaud appeared out of the crowd. There was a crowd behind me. I hugged Rimbaud for the first time. I hugged the world and kept quiet.

Yes.

No.

I walked on and on. Wandering. Singing. Rimbaud by my side. He missed Verlaine. I missed Marina. People often miss when the match gets tight. He tripped me up. Rimbaud really was a bastard. I couldn’t deny that he was one of my own.

The party was still going strong.

I ate black coconut sweets. Black things are so pretty, except for Stallion. There weren’t any black pills. Black is just a lot of things. The black morning that devours me as I write my obituary. It’s better to leave everything ready. Someone might forget I died. On a rainy day, I died like Vallejo. As a matter of fact, Rimbaud really insisted that I read Trilce. On a sunny day, a Thursday I think, I woke up in a bad mood. Every goal is a medal on your breast. The general has lots of medals and no wars. In São Paulo one time, a really powerful woman told me I’d been a soldier in another life. Many wars to be won. A kid who loved the Beatles and the Rolling Stones like me. Vietnam. It was in his blood. Helicopters all around. Napalm. Mustard gas. Bayonets stuck into bodies. Injecting some ferocious chemical.

Onward, the Maltese Falcon says to Charles.

Attack on the left flank. It was my chance to turn into Humphrey Bogart. Troops ready. Acugêlê banzai!

Crazy Nerd and Silver Alky were playing Battleship . What do I know about war? Guerrilla tactics. Silence. Who’s afraid? Surging adrenaline and the smell of manure attack me as I blink. Strobe light. Black light. Spots. Thunderclaps. Lightning and rain. It’s raining now. It always rains when I want it to. Rain? There’s no rain falling … So how do I feel one day when the sound of rain attracts my useless agony? Where does it rain, where is it sad? Tell me, clear sky. I make it rain. I’m strong enough. But I’m fragile and delicate like anyone who feels life. Not everybody knows what they want out of life. If you do know, you live life. If you don’t, you feel life.

I miss Rimbaud. I guess I’m going to lose a friend. He’s not been around. Baudelaire never was much for having a chat. I think he really does think I’m Charles Laughton, Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

I never knew when he was close by.

The stars are up there, Baudelaire.

They’ve gone now.

I hope that when the Big Bang happens, a spaceship full of earthlings will be shot into outer space, taking at least one Van Gogh painting with it.

He chewed on his ear until the end of his days. He’d been through hell. He was born to be wild and a hero.

From white to black. Let’s be realistic.

The things we invent are all Carnival costumes. Some costumes might be better than others. Sometimes they might even be tragic. Being tragic is worse than being crazy. Only Fearsome Madman is both tragic and crazy. Could I have been the one who killed Fearsome?

I want to be promoted to someone’s hallucination, please!

To fly in a helicopter. I’m going to be a pilot, Dad. Being delicate cost me my life.

Everything goes out. The candles go out. The matches go out. I don’t even know if it’s sunny outside. I smoke a cigarette that doesn’t go out. I drink a smoothie from back when they didn’t make me fat. She tells me I’m cute. I leave myself behind two hundred times a day and I come back. Each time I go out a little bit less. Countdown. Five, four, three, two, one. I went from infinity to infamy. From infamy to infinity. There was the smell of Mum’s orange cake in the air. Friday.

When I got home I’d never heard so much silence in my room. I’d been released just a few hours earlier. This time no one had tailed our car. I hadn’t seen Rimbaud or Baudelaire for a few days. When you have such strong ties and you shared a life together, you miss your friends. My blue dog was there, grubby with age, with lots of stories to tell.

I walked around my house and felt free. Freedom was in the small things: reading emails, opening the fridge. Now I needed to get healthier. Open things. I opened the box of matches. I opened the gas valve and lit the flame. I opened the box of incense. I went along opening, opening, opening, as if I were opening up and discovering things for the first time. It felt like I’d spent a century away from home. Everything was the same, but different.

I was a butterfly butterflying around the minefield, the power zone, the place where all my scandals had played out. I was back to my life.

I put a pizza in the oven. Finally I could eat something that appealed to me. I devoured the pizza like a Viking eating roast quail. Then I lay down to sleep.

The meds made me shiver and drool.

Night came quickly. I put away a plate of veg and salad, for a snack. I went to my room and slept.