“No, you’re an idiot not a dope,” he bellowed as he grabbed a small plastic bag off the counter and said, “I was referring to this; what the fuck is it?” “You know Sweet that’s a one hell of coincidence because that’s exactly what that guy at customs said as he was motioning over two Military Policemen. It was sort of funny but…,” I was trying to explain as he cut me off in mid sentence. “Jag, if it’s not marijuana then what is it?” he said with more than the normal irritation in his voice. “The cops asked the same question,” I replied. “What did you tell them?” he yelled at me. “Oh, that’s a bag of spices, it contains marjoram, basil, and thyme; it’s for my spaghetti sauce. I brought it just in case I couldn’t find any in Brazil. I know they have oregano in the supermar……” “Shut up,” was all he said, bring this twisted exchange to a close. As he left our apartment in a huff, Sweet mentions that he has the flu right after he gave Lucy a big wet kiss on the cheek. “Then why are you kissing her?” I shout. “Cause I really like her,” was his short reply. “See you later,” was all he said as he slowly went downstairs.
Before we left the apartment, I beckoned Lucy over to the window to observe the awakening band of banditos. We watched with fascination the dynamics of the feral tribe of banditos living right across the street. The view is fantastic, we have a “look down view” of the entire compound. This is like watching Desperate Housewives meets Survivor. These idiots wake up, do their drug of choice, have fights and then scrounge for food. Then they have sex (primarily blow jobs) and once again end with doing drugs. In other words, they have the exact same life as a college sophomore.
View from apartment
Bandito hideout
Sleeping accommodations
Upscale sleeping accommodations
From my distant vantage point, it appeared as though their primary drug of choice was glue which they huff. One day one of them demonstrated the proper huffing technique for me. Yup, I was stupid enough to go over there one morning to investigate. Looking back on it, that wasn’t one of my smartest moves, but I survived it so I guess it wasn’t too bad. Where was I? Oh yeah, huffing. Unfortunately, after he huffed it, he passed the can over to me as if he expected me to partake. I respectfully declined his generous offer which I think offended him. He shouted something in Portuguese, and suddenly I was surrounded by eight banditos. Reluctantly, I brought the soda can up to my upper lip and caught the strong scent of sweet smelling chemicals. I took a deep breath, but, honest, I didn’t inhale!
Shortly after my little huffing experiment, Lucy and I decided to go to the supermarket and we asked Sweet if he needed anything. “No, I don’t want anything but if you buy wine, you need to know that there isn’t a corkscrew in your apartment,” he said in a helpful way. “How the fuck do you expect me to open them?” I asked. “Just come downstairs to my apartment and use my corkscrew. Or you can buy a shitty one at Zona Sul for R$27,” he offered. “Can I take yours upstairs?” I asked. “No,” was his concise reply to that stupid question. “You mean that I have to come down here each and every time I need to open a bottle of wine?” I snidely asked. “Yup,” was all he said.
After shopping for all the necessary ingredients to make my famous spaghetti sauce, which including wine cost just over R$300, we wandered over to Don’s office, Amerioca Tours, to see what he was up to. As soon as I sat down, Lucy started talking to Don in Portuguese. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but within seconds I’m signed up to go on a tour of Tropical Islands at 8:00 AM the next day. Yeah, I know what you’re all thinking—we use Don to schedule termas trips while Jag goes to some fucking island. Ha, ha, ha, that’s what I get for dating a non-pro, but more on that later.
Have you ever tried to awaken a Brazilian girl before noon? I can tell you that getting Lucy up at 7:00 AM the next morning was a real chore, but I finally got her moving. We had signed up for a nine hour package, which included a one and a half hour motor coach ride, followed by a boat trip to three Tropical islands. Now I know you guys drop about R$250 for a couple of hours in a termas and in comparison this trip was quite reasonable. It cost only R$200 for the both of us and was well worth it. Of course, if you’re looking for sex, I’d pass on this trip. Come to think of it, since I usually don’t have sex when I go to termas, this trip was a real bargain for me. Just after we got on the bus, Lucy started getting chills and a fever. Ah fuck, now she has Sweet’s flu, too. Within minutes of saying, “What else can go wrong?”, my foot swelled up and hurt like the dickens. That fucking splinter I picked up on the plane was now infected. All, I can say is thank God I had my SOG knife with me or else I would still have that splinter in me.
About an hour outside of Rio, we passed a Brazilian Military installation next to the highway. It’s huge with a three meter high cement wall topped with razor wire all around it’s perimeter. Obviously it’s an important, sensitive site because the wall is painted in a camouflage scheme in an effort to disguise it’s appearance. What was truly unusually about this place was the fact that the Brazilian Government went to so much effort to camouflage the wall and then about every thirty feet painted in large white letters MILITIA AREA. Why the fuck did they do that?
When we get back to the apartment, Lucy sends me to the pharmacy to get something for her flu. By the time I return with Resfenol, her fever is approaching 103 degrees F and she’s shaking uncontrollably. This is where dating a non-pro works against you. If she was a GDP all you would have to do is tell her to leave or you won’t pay her. With Lucy I didn’t have that leverage. Fortunately, the medicine worked, breaking her fever and then she started to rapidly fall asleep. My brain needed alcohol after such a long day, so I went down to Sweet’s with a bottle of wine. He was already several bottles ahead of me by this point. Always the gentleman, he opened my bottle and we sat down in front of the TV to discuss world events. Politically Sweet was somewhere to the right of Bill O’Reilly. I consider myself a moderate which Sweet calls a “fucking Pussy.” I wasn’t really watching his set but all of a sudden he started shouting at the announcers on TV. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Oh nothing, I just hate the announcers on CNN International,” he replied . That was Sweet; he hated that channel but would put it on all the time.
The next morning I started cooking and whenever possible went to the window to watch the banditos across the street. Today they’re practicing knife throwing. The target, which was a piece of wood about a meter square, was propped up against a large rock. Five of these idiots took turns throwing an 8 inch carving knife at the target from about ten feet away. I have one word of advice to anyone if you’re ever accosted by a bandito with a knife—RUN. I watched these guys for over ten minutes and they never even hit the stationary target. Now, if the can’t hit a stationary target, how accurate do you think they would be with someone running away? Anyway, I stopped counting when they reached 50 misses and then went back to something more exciting—cooking.
Later on I went back to watch the banditos in hopes that one of them would cut themselves with the knife, but it was not to be. Anyway, while I was at the window, I couldn’t help but notice that the eighth floor apartment directly across the street had a metal mesh netting over all its windows. I pointed this out to Lucy and told her that whoever lives there is fucking paranoid. Then added, probably a skitzo, too! She asked me what I meant by that and I explained that they’re on the eighth floor and the likelihood that someone could get up to their apartment and rob it is somewhat remote. Lucy looked at me, smiled, gave me a big wet kiss and said, “You are, too!” as she left for the salon. What the fuck did she mean by that?
Let me take a break here and discuss some of the pleasures and perils of going out with a non-pro. Dating a non-pro is quite different and more strenuous than dating full-fledged GDP. First of all, a non-pro isn’t real keen on sun bathing at Hooker beach with all the other working girls. Fernando picked up on this within days and realized his income stream would be severely impacted by this sudden turn of events. Despite that fact, he treated her well and even limited his never-ending scams and taxes.
Unfortunately, one day when we arrived at the beach Fernando wasn’t there. All the other vendors knew it and were ready to take advantage of this opportunity as they rapidly approached us. Big George and Louis shouted that Fernando had left both of them in charge and that we should chose them. Josey just shouted like usual. Nestor claimed that Fernando was sick and left him in charge while Washington just stood by and smiled. In addition to the guys I already named, about eight more jumped into the fray.
Big George
Louis with butt crack
To avoid any hint of favoritism, I let Lucy select our “chair guy” from the ever growing pack of semi-criminals vying for our business. Unfortunately, she chose poorly. It’s not that she made a bad selection, it’s just that she chose the wrong cartel. Simply put, there are several competing cartels for chairs on Hooker beach. Fernando belongs to one and the guy Lucy selected was from another. Everything would have been fine, but Fernando showed up at 11:30 AM and fucked up everything. One of those loud, frantic Brazilian verbal battles ensued. Since I had seen Fernando in action, I decided to time this argument. He didn’t disappoint me. It went on for 19 minutes! Lucy was fascinated by the whole thing and kept giving me a running commentary on what was said. At times, both guys would say something and then point at me. Each time this happened, I would ask Lucy what was said and she always replied, “You don’t need to know.” Funny, but I think MBL used that same phrase with me.
Apparently certain factions of each cartel won’t do business directly with other factions of competing cartels, which complicated things enormously. According to Lucy, for us to get back under Fernando’s control, we had to pass through three intermediaries with each getting a reais or two for their effort. Within minutes, we were back in Fernando’s portfolio, but that wasn’t the end of it. Fernando decided to sit down and chastise us because although we were back with him, he wasn’t making any money off of us. Mind you, this whole episode started because Fernando wasn’t where he was supposed to be, but he somehow turned it around, making me the culprit. I looked at Lucy and said, “I don’t have a fucking clue about what’s going on here, but I’d like you to set Fernando straight. Tell him in your own words that he caused this entire mess and that if he gives me anymore shit, I’ll never rent another chair from him.” Lucy smiled and ripped into Fernando for the next eleven minutes. Like I said at the start of this report—How Sweet it is!
One of the most wonderful thing about a real Brazilian girl (meaning non-pro) is that she wants to show you different parts of Rio, not just the inside of Help. Sweet was particularly interested in where Lucy was taking me and often made helpful suggestions. For example, one day he suggested we go to the Botanical Gardens, which turned out to be one of our more memorable trips. He wasn’t too keen on her taking me to Lapa after dark, but after she brought me home in one piece, he gave his tacit approval. One night we went to see a concert at Canecao, which is located right next to the Rio Sul Mall. We had a great time and we got to meet “Virna,” a famous female volleyball player and Roberta Foster, the star of a hit comedy show. Although Bubble Lips was a wonderful woman and I enjoyed our two years together, she couldn’t plan a trip to the supermarket without fucking up. Consequently, she never planned anything and our typical day consisted if going to the beach, TA for dinner and then Help.
Botanical Gardens
Lapa
Cancecao concert hall
It’s Friday night, which means we’re having our big spaghetti dinner. We invited Sweet, his personal assistant ,Marianne, and Kjtrav over to join us. While I slaved over a stove all day, Lucy spent the entire day at the salon getting her hair and nails done. I figure that dinner cost me R$300 to buy all the ingredients, then throw in R$200 for Lucy’s salon visit—oh yeah, this dinner was a real bargain. We opened a bottle of wine, had some cheese and crackers all ready when Sweet walked into the apartment. He shouted, “What the fuck are you doing?” as he turned off the overhead light. “Sweet, what’s wrong?” He screeched back, “You got the window wide open and all the lights on in here—you make perfect targets,” as he turned off every light in the room. Luckily, we convinced him that one or two lights on low wouldn’t draw undue attention or else we would have eaten in the dark.
Before dinner Sweet was talking about getting a 9 mm. Glock for protection. He went on and on about it and explained that recently he had a run-in with a bandito in front of Help and that the guy pulled a knife and cut his left hand. I asked him why he didn’t spray the guy with his Spitfire before things got out of hand. He told me it was in his pocket. I gave him one of those “roll your eyes” looks that he always gave me and said ,“What was it doing in your pocket?” I was so happy because I finally nailed him. Remember, always have it in your hand—no excuses.
Anyway, Kjtrav turns to me and whispers, “We don’t want a “tanked up” Sweet out on the street with a Glock in his pocket, do we? He listens to you, so you better convince him that he shouldn’t get a Glock.” “You think?” I replied “Yeah, talk him out of it.” I sat there silent for a few minutes thinking of the best approach. Ten minutes later the perfect solution came to me as I told Sweet, “Look, you don’t want or need a Glock in Brazil.” “Kjtrav smiled and nodded in agreement as I continued. “Well, I’ve been sitting here thinking it over and I suggest that you forget about the Glock. Get a .40 Caliber Smith & Wesson automatic instead. It has better safety features and more stopping power. You know these wily, skinny banditos are pretty durable and a .40 calib……” Kjtrav interrupted, “Jag, can I talk to you for a minute?” I gave him that look of mine that asks—what the fuck did I do wrong—but it didn’t do any good. He suggested we go into the kitchen to check on the spaghetti sauce. “Why the fuck did you tell him to get a .40 caliber gun? “Because it’s better, why?” Kjtrav looked at me, shook his head, and said, “Just stir the fucking sauce!” By the way, my sauce was a big hit.
This next story is one that Sweet wanted me to ghost write for him, but before I could agree, he placed one onerous condition on me. He insisted that I leave him out of it, replacing him with some fictional character of my choice. I tried to explain to him that one of the most humorous components of the story was the fact that it happened to him, our resident curmudgeon, and not someone else. Never the less, he continued to make suggestions about how to develop the fictional character, and I continued to refuse to ghost write it. He said the whole horrible episode was my fault and I disagree, but I’ll let you decide. I guess you could say that I was indirectly involved in this fiasco, but only to the extent that I convinced Sweet to buy and carry something that could save his life.
Many of you may not know that late last year Sweet became seriously ill while in Rio and was hospitalized in critical condition. A friend of his was staying in his apartment and from all indications this guy was an absolute idiot. Let me explain. Although he was well acquainted with Sweet’s medical problems, he chose to overlook the most obvious symptoms and dragged Sweet from termas to termas where Sweet consumed copious quantities of wine, as his health rapidly deteriorated. By the time Buddha and Gcl visited his apartment, Sweet was literally on death’s doorstep. As soon as they saw how sick he was they rushed him to the hospital where he was placed in Intensive Care. Since it was touch and go for a few days, Buddha called me in the states and suggested that I get my ass down to Rio pronto. When I arrived the next day, Sweet was still in intensive care and able to receive visitors.
I don’t need to tell you guys that with my track record, I’m the last person anyone would want visiting them in the hospital. I’m well aware of this phenomenon and always respect the patient’s wishes. Sweet’s wishes were in the same category as most everyone else, he didn’t want me anywhere near his hospital bed. Like I’ve said many time before, Sweet was one smart bastard. Instead he allowed his friend, Buddha and Gcl to make regular visits. On one occasion the three of them visited Sweet and shortly after they arrived in his room, everyone’s eyes and noses started burning.
It was apparent to everyone that there was either a severe toxic gas leak in the building, or they were in the midst of a terrorist gas attack. Alarms were sounded and the entire hospital was evacuated as police and emergency personnel searched for the source. After they were separated from the patients, Buddha, Gcl and the idiot decided to leave as it was readily apparent that the search was going to take some time. After spending several hours in the parking lot, Sweet and the rest of the patients were returned to the building. The officials never found the source but cleaver detective work on my part lead me to the culprit. Okay, so what if the someone told me that he did it—I still found out, didn’t I?
Before I tell you who did it, I need to give you a little background on the perils of pepper spray and Spitfire in particular. What separates Spitfire from all the others is the fact that it is refillable. All you do is replace the empty capsaicin cartridge with a new one. The cartridge is about the same length as a tube of lipstick, but about half the diameter. It slides into the Spitfire unit and when pressure is applied in the proper manner, a strong dose of capsaicin is dispensed. Essentially the cartridge operates in the same fashion as does a can of “Reddi Wip” whipped cream. You know what I mean; you take off the cap, push that nozzle to one side, and out comes the whipped cream.
Now, no one would ever dream of putting an uncapped can of Reddi Wip in their pocket, would they? Of course not, because as soon as they sat down their pocket would fill up with whipped cream. Well, that’s exactly what this individual did. He thought the Spitfire was too bulky (it isn’t) so he removed the cartridge, left it uncapped, and put it in his pocket. Guess what happened when he sat down? You got it, the fucking capsaicin cartridge discharged in his pocket and within minutes contaminated the entire hospital.
I agreed to meet them at Alcazar and within seconds of them arriving, my eyes started to burn, too. I recognized the subtle capsaicin smell from that time my daughter accidentally got it in her eyes, so I knew someone was fucking with a Spitfire. I started my interrogation by shouting, “Who’s fucking with pepper spray?” I first looked at Buddha, then Gcl and ruled both of them out of the line-up because they’re both too intelligent. That left only the idiot and me as suspects. Which one was it? Hey wait a second, I’m not a suspect! Okay, I figured the idiot did it and as soon as I focused and narrowed my beady little eyes on him, he caved in and confessed. “I didn’t realize that I was at fault until my leg started to burn as they were evacuating the hospital,” he said as he showed us the bright red burn on his right leg. Although everyone disliked this guy, I enjoyed having him around because he made me look intelligent in comparison.
I had hoped to finish this report before leaving for the airport today, but I fucked up like usual. I should be able to post the final part within a week.