Eshu on his work to work

Sun wrapped in haze over the farm Teixeira. I found Renan sitting under the sun as I had seen him so many times before. He enjoyed being under the sun more than I'd seen someone like to. Even being necessary, his time spent under the sunlight was much longer than the time people his age would normally spend. It was like a therapy to him. One of these days I thought I'd ask him why the ritual of the sun.

It was hard, in Taurinos, that the man on the street here said, "for heaven's sake", for instance. "For Mithra's sake" would be much more common and natural here in Taurinos. I thought people would say "God" or "Mithra" indistinctively but I was wrong.

"Are you coming here every day?", he asked me trying to simulate a brutal state of boredom.

"Don't you want me to come?"

He shrugged while he faced me with the strange forced smile of those looking against the sunlight.

"That's up to you. Come if you want to."

He dropped the talk and was looking at the strong bright blue sky on one side and fine clouds on the other, interrupting the passage of sunlight, filtering it into the earth in a hot haze, strangely hot for this beginning of May.

I sat down at his side. He was looking at me distrustfully. Not always did he do it, but he would sometimes look at me like this. As if he thought I was up to my neck in a conspiracy and what you may have. Children have such fertile imagination. Adding to this, the typical paranoia of his function within the community and voilá! A bag of problems. And what a heavy bag in someone's early life.

"What do you want?"

"I have come to talk about your job."

He took a deep breath and was letting the air out of his lungs for long. Asked me what I wanted to know.

"The black horses in Taurinos…"

"They're all mine."

"But I saw you on a palomino…"

"Anyone can have their horses any color they like, Miss Grisam, except for black; the black ones are passed on to me. Course I don't take anyone's horses away like that. Daddy buys them. But people do have to sell."

"Does your father buy all of the black horses born in town?"

"He does, yes, but it's rare to find black horses around here. Not so easy as you'd think", he changed his position to have his knees almost as high as his eyes and stared at me, "now you're asking me about when I ride at night to work, right?"

It was my turn to shrug.

"If you are alright with talking about it…"

"I don't see any trouble talking about it as long as it's you… Do you want to know about the work or people I cross on the road at night?", I told him I wanted to know about everything and he answered, "people say I am a huge black dog, a black horse or even a huge black drake as they see me pass them by on the road at night. As they see me from a distance they have to leave the road as soon as they can so they're not on the road when I pass. I never see anyone on the road at night, not any of these townspeople who say they've already seen me. Master Danilo, for instance, says he doesn't leave the road; he just sits by the shoulder of the road where curiangos sit and shuts his eyes. He will only open them again when the sound of the hooves is already far away. That's his way to handle the situation."

I was fascinated. Information coming directly from the source. The young lad seemed embarrassed, ashamed to reveal the details even after he asserted he would have no trouble talking as long as it was me.

"I saw a black horse that I could only see through the window."

"It was me surrounding your house. The horse was there in my place. Where you saw the horse, he stared at you and it was me all the time, but it's more like it is a part of me. The part people wouldn't like to meet. The other part that everyone knows and that you see right now stays home asleep" and after a pause he added, "I admire you for even asking these questions. Nobody has ever asked me these questions but if you want to know…"

Renan brought me in the eye halfway between curious and entertained. As though he really admired my curiosity about what the townspeople feared so much. I had somehow broken down the scene of boredom he had intended to make. The talk reminded me of a picture I saw, painted by Maria Helena Chartuni whose name was Eshu On His Way To Work. Renan was not by far what Afro-Brazilian cults know as Eshu, but watching the limits as Eshu would Renan was something of a very similar entity. The figure, the archetype of the doorkeeper is something universal. In every culture there must be a guardian for the limits. A watchman. In the animal kingdom, groups of animals keep watch for others to drink or feed. They keep the limits there must be between them and predators. You only use a bit of abstraction and the limits are there plain for everyone to see.

"Was that one of the Conselheiros' horses?"

"Yup, my father bought it from "sêo" Duílio. The father of the big fat moron and the other moron."

I remembered him calling Adriano a name like that during my macabre dream of torture and horror. Here I checked to see where the information given by Andrés match Renan's. There are things that do and things that are still shrouded in mystery, waiting for future investigation.

"Now I don't know whether you are a boy, a drake, a dog or a horse", I playfully joked with him.

He giggled amused, "I'm still just a country boy thanks to Mithra."

"Have your parents ever seen you on your way to work?"

"Mithra forbid! What about you, do you want to?"

I told him I had already seen so many weird things in my life. Maybe he was not as ugly on his way to work. He took it as an affirmative answer to his question. He seemed inspired by some eerie spirits when he said, "you're the bravest person I've seen come to Taurinos; no one has ever wanted to even pass me by them on the road, let alone see me on my way to work!", and he whistled non-stop out of sheer admiration.

And then in a rapture he was all, "do you really want to see me? I can drop by your house on my way to work tonight. I'll knock on your door five times and you'll know it's me. You don't need to look through the window, only open the door and look at the porch. I'll be there right beside my horse. You won't see much because I'll go away as soon as you can see me. But I'll drop by your house, it's a deal."

I agreed. Thought he was joking. With all people have told me about the Police, I even thought he was trying to psych me out. He was going to have me waiting like on that terror night he occupied the whole of the family Conselheiro, me and the wise man of the region, master Danilo that had nothing to do with all of that madness.

Midnight. I was home, back from the farm Taurinos where I made dinner for the huge Conselheiros. Andrés glanced at me in a weird way making evident he knew what the deal between the Police and me was for that night. He came after me as I made it to the outside of the main house.

"You're really going home to meet the Police?"

"Oh, I guess he's going to be really busy tonight, so he's not coming anyhow."

Andrés laughed, a nervous laughter but he did.

"Either you are innocent or you're playing games with me. Busy my ass! Why see him in uniform? Why this weird experiment in the dead of the night?"

I did go home. I had been in my living room for one hour since I said good-night to Andrés. Watching TV and already thinking about going to bed. As I said to Andrés. The little brat had tricked me into believing he was coming here at night. As on that goddamned night. As I turned off the TV, I heard a sound out there in the distance. A horse was coming on the road and by the direction of the sound I could tell it was coming from town. Master Danilo. He'd see the lights on and would stop by. The horse was coming closer now. A gallop. The louder the slower the horse got until it slowly approached my porch. I went to the door prepared to see master Danilo, but before my hand touched the door-knob, strong beats of the knocker outside my door added up to five when I counted them. Dead frozen silence all around. Not even the TV on to drive away the fucking silence. It was not really master Danilo.

Five more knocks, stronger than the ones before. I had to open. Mithra knew what could happen if I didn't. So I let it be what Mithra wanted it to. I opened the door and looked very carefully. I saw the black horse, tied to the column, staring at me. And fast, maybe too fast for my eyes to follow, I saw, blinking uncontrolably, the black and sinister shape of a… drake! A huge horrible figure of an eyeless duck with what looked a like a metallic beak of a nauseating color, one of the most unfavorable colors I've ever seen. Even without the eyes, it was hard to tell the amount of affliction at his very sighting just because he was facing you. On his forehead or what looked like was his forehead a proud eight turned 90 degrees stood as the symbol of the Infinite. I had seen that being before, in 1994, one of the most troublesome years in my living memory. The image could have stayed as a coarse imprint and come back now giving the law enforcer that appearance. He mounted on his horse and went away, even with the horse still tied to the porch's column, delivering what he said he would, leaving me terrified and making close the front door at a speed I had never registered before.

Retrospective | Automatic

Radio Universal: Obscure Police