Promise of shadows

Went downtown, see if I managed to talk to Anderson. It's been eight days since he came to my house with issues to be solved. I want to give the talk a follow-up. See if I could fathom Anderson's intentions. Duílio left me at the main square where I stayed for some time, greeting countless passers-by. The first cultural shock of coming to Minas Gerais' countryside and especially to a tiny city like this city of Taurinos in that everyone greets you on the street. Something unimaginable in a five-hundred-thousand-inhabitant city as Santos.

I went to their hardware store that is just a bit out of the main square, but very close to all of its hubbub. He was waiting on a client, or costumer, as people still say here in Taurinos. When I leaned against the counter, he was checking a lock for the client. I noticed there was equipment to produce keys as well.

"Oh, in addition to being a blacksmith so you're a locksmith too?"

The lad smiled. Said that if it was made of metal, modesty apart, he would be perfectly able to make something out of it.

"Metal is my business. Even for music, I dig metal. From the lightest to the heaviest. Iron Maiden, My Dying Bride, Celtic Frost, Malasangre, Sad Sun, Sepultura, Vulcano, whatever."

I asked him if he knew Vulcano was a group from Santos. He said he did. Asked me if I knew the guys in the flesh. I said I knew Zhema II and Fernando Levine, respectively guitarist and bassist of the band and sent Anderson out in a trance. I didn't even know if Fernando still played in the act, but I thought it was still active.

"Extra cool, would you introduce me to the guys one day?", the boy's eyes glinted.

Funny thing is, most of the groups he named I had either listened to the music or at least heard about. The advantage of working so close to teenagers is that in time you learn about their tastes and everyday life. Many of my patients listened to this kind of music. I managed to approach lots of my patients only by speaking about music. I myself had run into acts like Malasangre and Sad Sun by researching about ambient music in file sharing applications on the Internet, only to find it was, according to the owner of the files, "atmospheric metal".

"Yes, you do like metal, I see. In all of its aspects" and I laughed.

Anderson wouldn't join me for the moment of laughter. A shadow crossed his face. Said he had heard a lot of that word "aspect" lately. I did figure it was the reason why he was so serious so suddenly. There was silence which I broke asking him about his father. Anderson answered he was upstairs.

"Sometimes, we sleep here in the hardware store in the week. I only stay there on the farm in the week if there are many horses to shoe."

Yet another pause, longer than the one preceding it. I didn't know if I was going to be able to start our delicate conversation in an ambient like that, prone to countless interruptions of clients. I was still studying what to say next when a horse broke into the square. It was not a gallop but a kind of steady rhythmic prance. Anderson and I glanced at the store's entrance door and saw people on the street making way for something as cars make way for an ambulance. We exchanged looks, wondering what was going on. Now, not a sound of the usual hubbub at the square was heard any longer. I knew that silence. A black horse stopped in the middle of the street in front of the store. The horseman was partially hidden by the store's awning, but the black horse, the black boots and spurs, the black clothing left no room for doubts.

"Anderson, won't you come here talk to me?", the tiny little voice broke into the store, metallic, sonorous.

"Come on inside", shouted Anderson from the counter.

Silence. Anderson looked at me, confused and upset. He definitely wasn't waiting for his friend's visit, let alone in those circumstances, "he's working, what does he want from me?"

"Anderson, I'm still waiting for you to come out here to talk to me. Please do come!", the tiny little voice sounded more impatient now.

I found it hard to work out why Anderson wouldn't step outside to talk to his friend. Would it be for fear of what Renan had to say to him? Or did Anderson just indulge in a war of power with him? Anderson seemed to indicate the second possibility to me when he said, "let him come, I got nothing to do with his business at all."

Yet another moment of silence. Heavy steps on the wooden staircase leading to the interior of the store revealed Alberto, "what does Renan want shouting like that outside? He'll end up driving all our clients away…"

Again the little voice was heard from the outside, more and more threatening, "I'm going to throw a stone at your shop window for every extra minute I have to wait if you don't come out. I'll do it even if it means I'll have to bring your store down to the ground. You were warned!"

Alberto turned his frightened eyes to his son, "but what the heck have you been doing, son" or something else to that effect and Anderson reminded him, "I've been lending arms so the town can get rid of some cattle thieves, remember it now?" The man let the air out of his lungs in sheer dismay. I wonder whether he had encouraged his son to lend Renan the arms at that time.

The first stone broke both the silence and the left shop window, the ear-piercing sound of enormous glass structure shattering our sacred pause. Alberto was appalled and went outside to stop Renan from destroying the house despite his son's attempts to keep him inside the store. I asked Anderson if he wasn't better off coming out to talk to his friend. Even offered to step out myself but he detained me, "this is between him and me, don't even know why my father walked out of the store…"

"I think that, considering that you don't want to walk out and Renan doesn't want to walk in, he went out to try and talk your friend out of destroying your store, no?"

We heard Alberto arguing with Renan outside and the tiny police officer tellling him he wanted to talk to Anderson, not with him, "no one here is getting hurt, "sêo" Alberto; I jus' came to talk to my friend…"

At last, Anderson walked out of his store. His father walked in enfuriated, "have you seen how deranged he's becoming, the brat just gets worse and worse every day!?" and I told him Renan was not going to better out of the blue. He looked at me interrogatively and I was going to step out when he stopped me, "see, isn't it better that the two talk alone without us interefering?"

I stayed in. In the meantime, Alberto looked feverishly for a broom with which to fix a bit of the havoc Renan had played in the store. He was so right. "There are certain things that can discredit a grown-up", I though, remembering Mineiro writer from Sacramento, Carolina Maria de Jesus. Through the huge hole on the shop window we could hear Renan say it was not his obligation to look for him or beg for a speck of his holy attention. He was using my very own speech yesterday in his bedroom, how fiendish! The rest of the talk happened in an apparently more civilized tone, fortunately. Anderson walked back in the store, nervous. I stepped out to the street still a bit stunned by the events, followed by Alberto, asking the horseman who was suppposed to pay for the damage.

"Afternoon, Miss Grisam!", the mini-horseman spoke loud and clear to me as he saw me loom at the front door amid the chaos of glass splinters everywhere, mess he had created himself. Turning to Alberto, he simply said ""sêo" Teixeira is going to pay for your damages, "sêo" Alberto."

"Good for you you have a father to pay for your things!", ironized Alberto.

Renan was already moving on, but stopped his horse. Turned around, looked Anderson's father in the eye and fiercely retorted, "it's me who pays in the end with my own ass. Weren't I on duty right now, I'd show you my sweet fiery-red ass, looking more like a tomato from all those marks of the belt blows I take from Dad!"

As if to give an example, he whipped the horse with such might that made me feel sorry for the poor animal. He departed in hallucinating gallop through the streets, disappearing at the edge of the town, heading for Taurinos' rural zone, while Alberto just shook his head, sweeping the splinters off the sidewalk in front of the store.

"There are certain things that can discredit a grown-up", I though, remembering Mineiro writer from Sacramento, Carolina Maria de Jesus. Townspeople still took a while to resume their normal afternoon after the officer was gone. Slowly they started to occupy the square again. No one would walk in the hardware store, but people gathered at the square and stared at the store from there, eyes full of astonishment and dread. Duílio brought his car to the square's curb, looked at the hardware store and at me with densely interrogative expression on his face, trying to figure out what the hell had happened there.

Language of fear |

Radio Universal: Obscure Police