Once, during an extended stay to Sao Paulo, Brazil, I had an experience so controversial I consider it a blessing it hasn’t scarred this brotha for life.

After a night spent off the heezay at the hottest clubs in town, my cousin Thiago, my little bro and I were on our drive back to his pad. If there’s another compliment I can give to Brazil, and I definitely don’t think there will ever be enough, is that the bars don’t close until every last man or woman has left the building. No 2am rules or all that shit. So it’s close to half-past four in the AM, fresh out from a club, and we’re driving back along the winding roads of Sao Paulo in what seems to be the only time in the day that the streets aren’t crowded sickeningly with traffic. Although there was more traffic in the middle of the night than I see here at home during the daytime, it was definitely a sight to behold. With 17 million citizens, and an even more crooked, crowded, convoluted street and highway system, Sao Paulo commuting reaches the adrenaline-pumping levels of of a rollercoaster ride.

If you can imagine driving along your daily expressway or highway, shrink the lanes by a foot or two until your side mirrors are never more than ten inches apart, and add a healthy dose of extra speed, and a clutch of redundant side-streets and shitty highway planning, and you’ll get an idea of what it’s like driving at any time from six in the AM till about nine or ten at night. Driving’s just a bitch at any time there’s light out. Period.

Moreover, if you’re not careful, you could easily kill one or four motorpedists if you’re not constantly checking your mirrors. The white lines separating lanes they have called their “express lane". These pizza delivery boys, urban couriers, and errand boys (read: suicidal motormaniacs) somehow squeeze through the ten inch gaps between mirrors at an extra ten kilometers per hour (or is that centipedes?). You can tell when they’ve eaten a mirror before, because they’re missing fingers. And if you lane change and you don’t check your shit, chances are you’ll run one over. They all form a sort of underground scooter mafia, and may the Holy Lord have mercy upon your soul when they witness you perform a two-tire bunnyhop over the kid’s head with your Renault. Cause they’ll chase your ass across town, pull you out of your car, and beat your ass to death right on the curb. I shit you not. And the bystanders lean over and tell each other, poor fucker ran a motorbiker over.

Back to four thirty in the madrugada. After witnessing and dancing with some crazy fresh Brazilian goddesses all night, and not knowing the language very well, I had me no lady companion to take home. I know, I know, not very like old Dick, but sometimes a man just ain’t in his element, naw mean? Bumpin’ and grindin’ south of the border is considered rude, and pretty tasteless. There’s some pretty fresh dance moves they got down there. It’s like country line dancing, except that the music doesn’t suck, each song has its own dance, the Brazilian goddesses are the mythical sum of beautiful faces and perfect, tan, fit bodies, and furthermore, the moves are downright funktastic and sexy. So it’s nothing like country dancing.

So Lil’ Dick’s feeling antsy, and I spit out the only logical course of action left to do: where da hookers at? He looks at me with a face and says, going back home at this time of the morning, man. Fuck that, there’s gotta be some hoes about this bitch. So with a little soul-searching, my cuz Thiago flips a biatch and off we go happily bumping down the road violently evading crater-sized potholes towards the worst neighborhoods in town.

We ain’t gonna find much, I’m telling you now, man. Daz alright, keep your eyes peeled. How much you think we can get a girl to climb in here with us for? Fifty reals (read: 20 bucks). Hellsyea!

…which immediately turned into an awkward silence as we passed our first batch of transvestites.

The “ladies” who hadn’t been picked up because they offer a quite a bit more than you care to bargain for, naw mean? Corner after corner, we see burly, hairy legs, broad shoulders, and five-oclock shadows. In miniskirts.
If there was one time the whole night where we could hear each other swallow in the car, this would have been it. Well, almost.

We circle the street once more trying to discern any real ladies among the throng of low-pitched call-outs to our car, but it wasn’t any use. Let’s just go, man.

I got an idea. Hold on. Screech. And we’re in the other lane heading off towards another red light district, although this one was probably going to be like a wildcard.

Tranny. Tranny. Tranny. Same old, same old, same ol– holy shit what was that? TURN AROUND. Some blonde bitch flashed us her huge-ass boobs! And they were real! Turn around, before some other lucky car picks her ass up before us! Go go go go!

And as cool as we could be, we roll to a stop next to the hottie fitted in this tight white number. Our blinkers were flashing. Thiago automatically lowered my passenger window. And she struts up and leans into my window, mouthful of gum, and says:

How you boys doin tonight. Right about the time I start noticing the stubble growing around the huge jugular.

My little bro had been hangin out in the back, and he starts choking on his gum. Coughing, with intermittent bursts of restrained laughter. And here I am, trying to act as cool as a brotha can while unwillingly soliciting a transvestite prostitute who’s four inches away from my shit in a language I suck at in a country I’m foreign to at a moment I wish I could just curl up and go to my happy place. And Thiago, being the smartass he is, asks him how much for a ride.

He looks and scopes out the the three of us, and I could hear by brother’s nerves tighten. Fuck you too, man. 40 reals, for you sexy boys.

Five bucks each for a good time, that ain’t bad, right? Seriously, what the fuck, Thiago? Heeeyll no. So I sit still acting out like I’m pondering the question deeply, as if my main concern right then was trying not to sucka punch that dude in the grill and take off. And Thiago, sitting happy and comfortably four feet away from the dude, starts pleasantly asking him all sorts of personal questions and chatting the dude up to make me start feeling really uncomfortable, while here I am looking STRAIGHT AHEAD four inches away from his jugular, and I can honestly say I’ve never looked as straight ahead in my entire life as that moment. And probably never will again, either. Checkin my shit out, calling me big boy. The cheap perfume sticking to my clothes. This shouldn’t be happening to me right now. Oh God.

I swallowed down my last morsel of sanity, and nervously whispered in English over to Thiago. Let’s go, man. Let’s go.

And with that I yelled punch it!, slammed the stick into first, and we smoked our tires off the tranny Starsky-style as he yelled and shook his muscular arms in anger in our rearview.

Fuck. It was a pretty intensely silent ride back home.

I don’t know, Thiago smiled, in his smug retrospective tone. The dude coulda probably sucked a golfball through a garden hose, man. The backseat produced a chuckle.

Not funny, man.

Wanna look for some more hookers?

I think I’ll pass. Fucker.

Gorillamask | ChokeyChicken | Dooce

By Robert Shagwell | Jun 23, 2004 | Permalink |