The Adam Boy

CHAPTER 35 - ANOTHER MOMENT ONLY MY

I apologize again to the reader with my outbreaks of thoughts and attitudes, but in this chapter I will add one more. As much as on Saturday I had a great company from Milla, John, Yo and Will, on Sunday I wanted to be alone and again and the crisis of the necessary loneliness had come to me.

That Sunday I woke up late, because it is a rule that I imposed for myself, which on weekends if I don't work, or have the need to wake up early, I should only wake up after one in the afternoon, and as I had come home almost five in the morning, because I was in the simple square with the staff, I had one more reason to wake up at that time.

I went to the very center of Burma, and as always there was not much to do, especially on a weekend where almost everything is closed. The city is silent on a Sunday, looking like a ghost town.

The sun was strong and I was walking through the dirty streets with no destination. Passing a place where I was selling Milk Shakes, I saw Yo, sitting alone at a table, probably having her moment just like I was having mine. She was thoughtful and on her table was a 500 ml blue-colored milkshake. She was slowly drinking the thick liquid and at that angle where I was, across the street, but it looked like it was the Milk Shake that she was drinking, than vice versa.

In my list of things I must do this year, is joining an NGO or group of intellectuals. Well, I went after it and I confess that it was not easy. I learned that that Sunday there was going to be a French film festival and nothing better than a French film to bring together intellectuals or people who think they are intellectuals. However, before taking the train that would take me to the capital, I stopped at one of the shops that sell snacks to be able to eat something. I ordered a coxinha, without drink, because as always I was broke. Halfway through the eaten coxinha, a boy approaches me, wearing very dirty shorts, slippers and a blouse. He asked me to pay him something. I stared at him, wondering if I looked like a person with money so much that they approached me asking. I put my hand in my pocket and took out crumpled coins and bills. I did a quick account and realized that I would have money to go to the film festival, I would have the money to return and I would have the one left on the bus to go home. I looked at him again; he looked like a rascal and was already losing patience with my delay in answering whether or not I was going to pay him something.

- I only have money to buy you a drumstick - I said, still looking at him, very seriously; I felt no pity, disgust, anger, or any other feeling for him there in front of me.

- Damn it! - he exclaimed - I don't like coxinha, brother.

I bit down on one end of my mouth because I didn't believe what I had just heard; he was a person who, without a doubt, lived on the street, and who, also without a doubt and like me, was hungry, had asked me to pay something, and when I say I can give him a drumstick he says he doesn't like it ?

- Girl, do you sell any other salty for that price? - I asked the clerk and threw the coins on the counter. When she said yes, I went out and gave the boy the dirty clothes and the attendant my back. I left with the certainty that when I came back I would be tired and even then I would have to walk home for twenty minutes, because I had just paid for food for a hungry person, but who didn't want coxinha because he didn't like it.

I arrived at the festival, which took place in an open-air cinema in one of the many parks in São Paulo. The opening film was, as I expected, Amèlie Poualin's Fabulous Destiny. Everyone watched the movie very concentrated, some nodded, others stared intently at the screen. At first I thought it was really cool, but soon after, it was just a big cliché and I realized that that wonderful film, like Woody Alen, became the darling of people who think they're smart.

I watched just one more movie and left. I stayed in the park sitting on the bench; people walked their dogs, partners, family ... There, at the exit of the cinema, I met a friend named Daise Linhaves. She was still one of the few people you talk to without getting tired and that conversation is always very interesting. She wore a white blouse with black stripes and some details where those stripes turned into cat faces with very yellow eyes. He also wore short denim shorts that rested on a black pantyhose and a black sandal with button details. On his shoulder was a black bag with several designs of cherries on the print. Her hair was tied up and she wore red lipstick, on her thighs she had a tattoo with an inscription that I haven't figured out yet.

- Adam! - she shouted when she saw me sitting on the bench in the square - I'm glad I found you here.

She was slightly shaking. I asked what had happened.

- Oh, good to see you here. You do not know what happenned.

I was waiting for her to speak.

- Were you there at the cinema too?

- Yes, it was. Because?

- Man - she was still very excited - I was there watching the movie, and there was a man by my side ... he was moving ... you don't know what he was doing.

My curiosity and patience was running out and she didn't immediately speak what had left her in that state.

- He was masturbating! she almost shouted at the last word.

I let out a light laugh without meaning to.

"You are not supposed to laugh, Adam," she said, surprised by my reaction.

- There! sorry, Daise. I couldn't help but laugh. After all: was the movie showing Frances or porn? - and laugh a little more.

"How insensitive you are, Adam," she said, sitting next to me. - Man, I'm in shock.

Daise was one of those people who knows a person's intentions, I understand, she knew that when I laughed at her story, it was not mean, but that she knew that from the angle I saw things it was a little funny. She was really a little nervous.

- But do you know why he was masturbating? Was he really on your side?

- Because he's a pervert. He was on my right. I saw.

- Ah, don't be like that, Daise.

- And he was still horrible. Dear pig.

I was laughing again.

"Let's have something to calm you down," I suggested.

She got up with me and we went to one of the restaurants in the park. Still on the way I said:

- But you will have to pay, because I helped a homeless person who did not eat coxinha.

After trying to explain the situation she paid for my lunch and hers.

Daise was the only person who kept me company every day on the trip going home after college. During the whole first year we took the train at 11:20 pm and went together to hellish Burma, and it was no different in the second year.

I told her why I would be there and looking for some NGO or intellectual group that I intended to be part of. She liked the idea. But he said that it wasn't at that festival that we were going to find anything, because there was a lot of cliché there.

She accompanied me in an attempt to find that NGO that day. We went to a lecture that I would have in a bookstore. There, the two speakers spoke of mass culture, of books that had no support, spoke ill of Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code and of books that were mega-sellers. Always speaking ill of these books and never proposing ideas for a solution for the books that are not very well sold. We left it because we thought they spoke very badly and gave few ideas and I also left for talking so much about Harry Potter in a negative way.

We moved on to an NGO that was meeting that day to talk about rodeos and animal abuse. Like the other, he just spoke badly of businessmen, events, a restaurant that sold meat, people who abandoned animals ... and giving solutions, nothing! That bored us. We got out of this too

We went to a meeting of a group of artists who were gathered to talk about the future of culture and art in the city. The ideas were good, but a little utopian. But, as in the others, this meeting served to criticize everything.

It seemed that we were not going to find any NGO or group of people that really wanted to do something for culture and social welfare so easy. The meetings were made only for criticism and more criticism, and everyone only spoke what we already knew. We can't find any concrete solutions.

We returned to Burma slightly sad.

- It's Daise, apparently we have to make our own NGO.

- I agree!

And we laughed.

I think that this item on the list of objectives for the year I would have to exclude and give for an item that was not achieved.

I went back to Burma and went home. I hadn't done anything that day, but at least I had met Daise Linhaves, who always has good conversations.