Rodrigo Leao - All Dogs are Blue

Break everything. Show them you’re a man.

I didn’t become more of a man for smashing up my house. Sometimes that Rimbaud lets me down. I’ll go for days without seeing him, but he always comes back.

I stopped getting bayoneted. I started oral medication. Oral medication is easy to trick your way out of. I know which drugs I take. I always spit the ones I don’t want down the sink. The ideal way to deter that would be effervescent drugs. Of course the feebleminded are totally out of it and take their drugs properly.

Time to watch television. Time for the Addams family to get together. All the nutters would get together to watch the soap opera. A sergeant, a street cleaner, other dimwits and one guy who beats his head against the wall every two minutes.

I’ve already told that little doctor that he’s going to do his head in. He’s going to have a serious stroke. I blsjdsomdkm0ooooeeirrrriruuuuruuiirrriiirii.

No one understands what you’re saying. Mad fool. I’m going to Paracambi. If you die, you’ll go to Caju.

I want to get out of this ‌place, I’m leaving for Pasargadae 6.

You know Ana? She’s going to kill Marcos. Olivier is coming back for Marcos. Pereira is breaking up with Maju. Lina is going to end things with Maciel. Ernesto’s going to punch Parado.

It was the TV, talking about soap operas.

I’m samba. I’m Jesus Christ. I’m everything and nothing. I’m a cool ‌kind of crazy. Epahei, Iansan! 7 Ogum bolum ai iê .

Rimbaud was dancing to the city rubbish collector’s rap. He was there detoxing.

See, son. You’re here to detox. Your son won’t want to see you this way.

I drooled.

I went inside myself, cut myself off. While everyone watched TV, I played solitaire with Rimbaud in the empty room. Rimbaud stared at me. He tried to distract me.

I looked at the horizon. The sky was opening up. Why is the sky so blue here in the asylum? Why are the days bluer?

Nature is so beautiful and reminds me of a cemetery.

The Attorney General came in for the first time on a stretcher and went to a room.

Sir, there are a number of KGB agents surrounding the site.

He’s old, seventy-five. Already a bit senile.

My brother came to see me and reminded him of his youngest son, Erbert!

Is that you, Erbert? Come talk to your dad! CIA agents are surrounding the building. We’re all being monitored.

Why do all crazy people have the same paranoias? They’re always being followed by a secret agent. The CIA is nearly always involved. My own case (swallowing a chip) was only possible thanks to the CIA and the KGB.

The chip had a strange effect inside me and gradually I came to understand how it worked. Rimbaud was the one who helped me with this.

He checked my blood pressure with a machine he himself had invented. They were strange ways to check blood pressure.

He had a medicine that was entirely his own. He was some kind of witch doctor. Rimbaud told me it was him who cured the problem with my leg. And yet Rimbaud was a cripple. When I voiced my doubts, he used to say that his powers were for others and couldn’t be used on himself.

The boy stopped, looked at his dad.

Dad, where are you living? Do you live here at home?

My dad was a doctor. Days and nights on end he’d be on duty. After I said that to him, he started doing fewer shifts. My dad was always a good man, very calm and quiet.

I caused a lot of trouble at school. I’d been expelled from four schools. I was sixteen. They warned me that I’d have to go to night school, with adults. My dad cried so hard.

That was the story of my life: making my dad cry.

An American guy was committed. The guy had been a combatant in Vietnam.

Motherfucker. Fire in the line zone, he shouted.

Fire, he shouted.

The sergeant soon fell in with the American.

Rimbaud used to do a dance called the Dance of the Blue Pelican. It was one hell of a wiggly dance, using all parts of his body. He learnt it in Africa, he says. But were there pelicans in Africa? He was free to say whatever he wanted. Actually we all are, but whether it’s true or not is another matter. The truth can be such a sloppy invention and still convince everyone. You just have to be forceful. Or take advantage of people’s natural gullibility.

I’ve defecated on myself on occasion. I wet the bed on my first day in the asylum so they wouldn’t take me away from where I was. This is a life full of abject acts. A life full of fears.

I never eat shit. Nor am I given to macabre rituals. I’m loco-lite, the diet version. Even though my problem with the chip is pretty hardcore.

When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a fireman. I had the outfit, little engine and everything. I had such a happy smile back then. A smile that’s gotten grimy over time, like those big family portraits. I was always happy like Rimbaud. Nowadays I think about everything I do and I know when I screw up: when I’m made to swallow a chip and I wreck the whole house. God, I messed things up. How old do you have to be, to be happy? You’re only happy in the past. I’m alone in the room. No one’s been to visit me for a while. I didn’t get locked up because I’d harmed anybody. The only person affected by my behaviour is me.

Liar! Your mother picks up the tab for the things you broke.

All that damn jewellery.

And even your grandmother’s china cabinet.

Why did I do it? The guilt won’t go away … Tear down a door. A rickety door. Why did they call the police? Nowadays it’s the police who come to get you. I had a row with the cops, made them understand it was a chip. One of them didn’t even know what a chip was.

What he wanted to do was slip the handcuffs on.

I had my first attack at fifteen. At thirty-six I’ve still got problems. Wonder what the next problem will be? I’m a walking problem.

It rains and I cry. I cry and it rains. The sounds of Rio funk raping my eardrums.

Go Serginho.

I imagine being out of this place. I’d throw a huge party at my house. Rimbaud showed up: Where am I in your thoughts?

You’re playing with Baudelaire.

I hate Baudelaire. He acts like an old man. He’s very formal. I want to be with you.

Don’t tell me you’re in love.

I was always distant. When I was a teenager I took the bus by myself from Campos to São João da Barra. I took the wrong bus. Alone. By myself. And so I wound up walking for three hours in the middle of some scrubland. I wasn’t allowed to travel because I’d screw up. One time I went to Rio Grande do Sul and slept outside my friend’s house. I ended up at the police station, accusing my friend of nothing. The police didn’t take me seriously. He’s just another nutcase. His poor parents. Get a load of this story, what a pile of crap! You should walk around a bit. Walk over there and back again.

A banana bar. Who wants a banana bar? A banana bar. Who wants a banana bar? Who wants to buy a banana bar?

The sun was a ball of mango ice cream. It was beach weather. And there was everyone burning like sardines in a frying pan. On drips. Dripping with sweat.

I heard a scream from inside. I ran to see. Fearsome was upside down in a corner of his room. Who killed Fearsome Madman? It was you. He was afraid of you. You’re going to be crucified. Fearsome had had a heart attack. No one saw. But there was a lunatic who kept saying I was guilty. Detectives — A detectives and B detectives — had gone undercover among us to see who killed Fearsome. I was smart and had already figured out that the cops had infiltrated us.

The days went by and the nights were calm. Everyone slept peacefully. Just me and Rimbaud were awake. Had somebody killed Fearsome? There’s a lot of people here. He didn’t get along with anyone. He was off his rocker, as Mum would say.