Greetings from a dead man

Logically, the owner of the ServeWell To Serve For Life grocery store said he had no car to deliver my purchase for that moment. At least he separated and packed the things for me based on a list sent by me through the Internet. I lacked some staples at home, just could not be held in waiting. I asked Duílio to go there with me and Meire. I was dog-tired and depressed from yesterday; refused to talk to Meire about what had happened on the top of the mountain. The figure of "Jacques DeMolay" refused to be erased from my memory (for want of a real name, the man had to have a name, but now what was he called anyhow?). Wish I could erase the memory of him, like the man himself was erased from existence by Renan and Anderson. The figure of none of those three men would leave my memory, but chiefly the leader of them two, the last to be killed off by the young blacksmith. How to forget his words? His fine irony, the last words of curse towards Renan.

"Yesterday, almost at the time of the sunset I felt so strange", said Meire, waking me up from my personal deliria, "I thought it was something that had remained from the day before yesterday, you know? But Aparecida and Duílio said they were feeling the same. We stepped outside for a while for a stroll and night was falling. At least it was what we thought was happening. Then we ran into this eclipse of the Sun; did you see it from the top of the mountain? Then there was a flash of light like a lightning and the sun went all red again…"

"Oh, yes I did see it", I was quick to reply, "odd, wasn't it?"

Duílio confirmed her words about what they had felt. He seemed to know well what had caused the "eclipse", but limited himself to giving me a knowing look.

"Funny thing is, don't they forecast this kind of astronomic event on TV? I mean, these things usually appear on TV news one day before they happen, don't they?"

"You see, our journalists are weaker and weaker every day", I laughed weakly as to settle the issue.

We put my purchase away in Duílio's car's trunk. He was willing to show Meire around. She was in love with the colonial architecture of the little town as was already in love with what she had seen on the farm Taurinos. The houses covered in Portuguese tiles, the rooftops in tiles all made on thighs. We decided to stop at Zé of the Depths for some pastries before we went back to the farm.

On the way to the main square, Duílio took notice of a car he had not seen before. He never said a word, but I took notice of his interest and the license plate from the city of Ribeirão Preto. And I thought of the dexterity people in Taurinos had to recognize something out of their fishbowl so quickly.

We got a table outside Zé's bar. While we waited for the pastries, we talked about astronomy, motivated by the subject of yesterday's "eclipse". Meire, much like me, didn't understand a lot about the subject, but showed great pleasure in listening in to what I knew about it. Duílio didn't have astronomy as one of his favorite subjects, but was interested too in the figures and curiosities of our Solar System and beyond.

Sounds of horses at the main square, a group of old drovers passing us by. The bucolism of things in town. Nothing that distracted me for long, however. I had my mind set on the top of that mountain and the things I had seen up there. "Jacques DeMolay", Anderson's fierce look every time he faced me. I have definitely made a little enemy. A tiny enemy, but a mighty one.

Speak of the devil and he doth appear. More horse sounds but this time it was not the drovers any more. It was the Obscure Police. Now in double dose, the boys in black. Double trouble, judging by Anderson's Initiation. The two dismounted in front of the bar, tied their horses to a trough nearby, and walked in. Renan greeted us all and went in the bar. Anderson came next, greeted Duílio politely, asked about Aparecida and the two Conselheiro brothers and disappeared in to the bar. Duílio motioned to stand up and go there remind him Meire and I were there too and I held him back by the arm, asking him not to do so. That moment I learned how it felt to be the invisible woman. I had always wanted to be invisible and now that I had managed to, didn't know why, but didn't feel so happy as I thought I'd be when I managed to.

"But the kid has to respect his elders", the big man protested.

"What's going on? What an impolite boy, ignoring people… I can understand him ignoring me, since he doesn't know me, but hasn't he known you for some time now, Stella?", protested Meire, echoing Duílio's complaint.

"Yes, he is a very naughty boy, but weren't it for him, and for our friend Duílio right here, who had the brilliant idea of fetching him, you wouldn't be more than a piece of charcoal in the fireplace of time right now", I defended Anderson.

I reminded her that the kid had submitted to the hardest of the initiations to save her life. Weren't it for the distraction he offered Renan promising to go through the initiation and the later talk he had with the policeman to convince him she was my friend not just any invader, the policeman would have burned her alive. She looked astonished at Duílio and he confirmed what I said word by word.

"So this boy was the one you talked to me about… My goodness… What childhood will these two children have, Stella? Duílio?"

"One of a permanent kind", said the big man, with a strange smile, lost somewhere between a sorry and an amused kind.

The two policemen got out of the bar with a bucket, gave their horses some water. Anderson threw the rest of the water on his horse's face and on Renan's too and went back into the bar to return the bucket. They got a table somewhere nearby. Renan cast some looks at us; he was strangely ashamed of taking a separate table as though he had wanted to sit down with us but could not for some special reason. The reason why had an "A" as an initial, I was dead sure of it.

Zé of the Depths appeared with two bottles of Coke and two chicken snacks for the little agents of the Law. I think of how cliché it is for policemen to ask for chicken snacks in the southeast of Brazil. Even the nickname "chicken snacks" has been derived for policemen from this custom that seems to affect most of them if not all, a common nickname in São Paulo for instance.

"Zé, please cancel the first order and bring us another of the same kind", Duílio seemed hungry and annoyed for the fact that the policemen had arrived later and been served before us.

"O "sêo" Duílio, my wife will see to it", the man was quick to apologize.

The policemen had hardly finished their snack when a car turned at the square. Duílio paid attention to the car. Renan and Anderson did too. It was the same car with a license plate of Ribeirão Preto that had passed us by on one of the downtown streets. In the car a young couple traveled, with a young man as the driver and what seemed to be his girlfriend at his side. Renan, calmly picking his teeth, nodded to his patrol partner. Anderson stood up, mounted his horse and went to meet the outsiders and blocked their way using his huge black horse.

"Good morning, friends", he said politely, "where is the delivery going to happen? Maybe I can guide you there."

"Maybe you can get outta our way", said the young driver, laughing, "or the only delivery you'll get is your body's to a funeral parlor", and the driver withdrew an automatic pistol from his jacket. Before he could even aim, Anderson whipped the pistol off his hand so fast no eyes could follow his move. The whip pulled the pistol to Anderson's hand. In a second movement he rolled one of the ends of the whip around the lad's neck and God knows how dismounted from his horse and rolled the other end on the front wheel kingpin at a physically impossible speed. Impossible to tell how he did it, but he had the car advance, rolling the whip some more and choking the lad's neck with the pressure.

"So…? What about making a U-turn and getting outta town?"

"Go fuck yourself, cop!", the lad tried to say, even while choking.

Anderson shook his head, looked up to the skies and made the car accelerate. The whip rolled more and more to the turning kingpin and simply beheaded the lad, whose head fell in the car amid the desperate cries of his girlfriend. I thanked God Meire could not see what was going on from her position at the table, though she couldn't help but hearing the din and getting all startled. Duílio and I caught sight of it all. Though I thought he should be used to these things, he appeared to share the same level of astonishment with me. Passers-by quickly fled the main square at their first sight of trouble, as if they had already received specialized training.

"Do you know how to drive, young lady?", inquired Anderson, addressing the survivor.

"No… No…", she was beside herself in such horror.

"Well, I think you'd better learn and you'd better learn it right now. Swap places with the frigging corpse and go, before I lose my frigging patience, you hear me?"

She still tried to get rid of the corpse, but was prevented from doing so by the policeman, "you brought in the trash, you take out the trash. Keep the city clean and your citizenship polished", and he smiled at her.

I had never seen a person learn how to drive so fast, not even in courses offered by crooks. If Anderson had told her so, she'd have obtained even a driver's license on the spot. The car took a hurried U-turn around the square and disappeared to the city limits beyond the rows of houses in less than five minutes. Anderson came back to their table and had Meire staring at him, trying to figure out what she had missed. Duílio and I exchanged the same astonished look as minutes before. Renan kept on picking his teeth as calmly as before.

"Shall we go?", the elder policeman said.

"Time to", replied Renan, standing up from his chair. The two mounted their horses and departed, after Renan had greeted us three and Anderson had greeted Duílio, apparently leaving their check unpaid. Maybe they had an account at Zé's, maybe they didn't. I was not one to investigate on these things.

Zé came from inside the bar with the same bucket he lent the boys, to clean the blood-stained street in front of his bar. When he returned to the bar, he came to our table to let us know he had run out of pastries. Duílio asked him how many hours he needed to have come to that conclusion. He ordered chicken snacks only to find that the policemen has eaten the two last ones in stock. And we went away as hungry as we had gone in, after witnessing the more than magnificent first mission of Anderson for the Obscure Police.

Black sun | Anywhere out of that hell

Radio Universal: Obscure Police