After lunch, Luis drives us
around in the rain. We cruise around his old hood where he grew
up and some shantytowns in the outskirts of Sao Paulo. Like “The
City Of God”, they’re all controlled by drug lords and a little
suicidal to walk around. An investigative reporter doing a piece
on a local drug lord got whacked just the other day while we
were still in the Amazon.
We eventually end up back at Jun’s bachelor pad. Jun has a few
more days before his Malaysian chinese bride shows up. Tonight will be
like a stag with the guys for Jun, his last hurrah before his
wife stakes her claims to make an honest dude outta him. After
we leave, there will be no more carousing into wee hours of the
night at exotic Brazilian strip joints for this brother.
Jun’s
working overtime convincing our “goodie two shoe” friend Luis
into coming out tonight. My innocent student assistant Mark is
cheering him on. Mark’s dying to feast his virgin eyes on some
Brazilian G-strings before we head home. I promise I won’t tell
his mom when we get back even though she did ask us to keep the
lad outta trouble. I don’t make a good babysitter.
After dinner, Cheuk retires to the hotel leaving us to a night
of bar hop debauchery. Jun takes us on a Brazilian “Striparama”.
He and Mark are like kids at Christmas. Most of the joints Jun
took us seem to be Asian hangouts so they weren’t that different
from places in Asia, nothing much to write home about. Our last
pit stop was more local and colourful… but extremely seedy.
Black Vanilla and her beer are both sitting on my lap again.
It’s my birthday nightmare in Tamatave coming back to haunt me.
This time around, she tells me she fancies cute little Asian
compacts and wants to bear my children. I’m not sure if I should
take that as an insult or was she talking about a Honda
hatchback. But I keep my cool and continue to humour her. You
never know if one of them “Pistol-Pete’s” leaning against the
bar happens to be her pimp.
Endless rounds of booze come throughout the evening without
asking. Those gals can really put away the booze! I got slapped
with a bill like this once in Shanghai. I kept my mouth shut
since this is Jun’s and Luis’ town and they should know what
they’re doing, but I’m having my doubts. Needless to say the
bill came for the night and I’m cleaned out of Brazilian reals.
It was either that… get pistol-whipped or join the dead
journalist from last week’s headlines. Pick your poison. The
girls, of course, move on to the next suckers once they realize
we’ve been sucked dry… so much for bearing my children.
On our last day, I wake up horny, sexless… broke and hung over.
The sun has set and it’s time to say goodbye. On our way to the
airport I stop to shoot the streaming evening traffic and catch
one final shot of ghetto kids playing soccer underneath a
derelict highway overpass, a bit cliché but a typical Brazilian
image. We bid our goodbyes to the gals from Ipanema and caught
our long flight home.
Previous