Restricted to adults and readers 18 or above for extreme graphic violence, psychological conflicts and obscene language.
Because once again the fault's all mine. I'm relieved to know I have at least spared Adriano a hard time under the Police's nightly influence. It was not his fault I had used Renan's moniker to start questioning him about his "work". Wasn't it enough to ask about things Adriano and master Danilo had told me? Why use the moniker Renan hated so dearly? And why so much hatred for a name that is not derrogatory at all? After all, a poetic moniker, even too beautiful for the nature of the "work" he does in town.
Perhaps because he suffers from what he does as a strange curse. I, Stella Freitas-Grisam, would see it like this. A kind of curse, that's exactly what it is. Something that makes him see the nickname that should be poetic as a kind of mockery for hunting down outsiders, entities, foreign bodies to the town as automatically as it was described by the others. His compulsion was his sufferance and source of pride. Such mixed, confused feelings. No one could live divided like this. But he did. A ten-year-old boy divided as he was, a legend choking on a prosaic piece of bread in my kitchen for not being able to stand the weight of his own nickname. "So I'm fucked up every night while the city sleeps and they come with nicknames like that? Well, I'm going to fuck them all for that", seemed to be his thought. If he was going to spend Eternity doing it I think I could help the boy out at least by removing from his psyche the negative context he seemed to give such strange yet beautiful name in my opinion.
I have to make it clear: I have never been a fan of the police. By far. The now late Lopes gave me a show of their force in 1994 that almost drove me crazy. But I had to admit that in that case the nick had a lot to do with the function Renan carried out in the city. The lad was not, in this sense, different from any other police force in the world. And, I was going to find out, maybe in no other sense, really.
My eyelids grew heavier and heavier in time. Aprehensive, I turned the TV on for watching a bit of Minas Network that re-transmited the Brazilian Educational TV; I tried to take my mind off all of that watching a documentary on the Mineiro sculptor and architect Aleijadinho de Vila Rica and his monumental works in Congonhas do Campo, MG. The documentary didn't seem to be enough. The sounds of a frog percussion ensemble outside, mingled with that of the crickets and curiangos on the road distracted me, but hipnotized me more and more. As though they tried to send me on a state of sleepiness I know I can't afford today. Or I could let myself fall asleep and check out all Obscure Police's firepower tonight. Who would win, curiosity and sleep or the fear of what could be awaiting me in the dreaming world right now? Renan had been assertive, categorical: horrifying things would happen to me in case I dared to sleep a wink tonight. Probably things would be back to their normal at six in the morning. When Mithra's car started its ascension in the sky, I'd be safe, if what I understood from his words was real.
In my anxiety, I called the farm Teixeira. A sleepy Guilherme, as slow as a snail, got the call. I asked about his younger brother. Said he was sleeping. I asked him to go to Renan's bedroom and see for himself. He protested, asked me whether I believed his word or not, keen on going back to bed, but he ended up going there. He got the phone again and told he was there sleeping like an angel. Only if he was an angel of death.
I dismissed the poor boy and hung up. Guilherme's affirmation relieved me. There'd be no time for Renan to come over and turn my world upside down as he had promised. As I hung up the phone, the sound of the lion-shaped knocker on my front door froze me deep inside. Definite, strong knocks on my door. I rose from the armchair in a state of mind not described by Psychology yet and slowly got to the door.
"Who's out there?", I asked shaking from head to toes.
"Miss Grisam, open the door, it's me, Andrés", said the plump one's familiar voice.
Still terrified, I opened the door. What would Andrés be doing here at this time of the night when everyone in town seemed to go to bed at ten at the latest? I looked out. It was really Andrés. He asked me in. Was staring at me. With no further delay, asked me why I had to call Renan that name when all I wanted to know were things about what he did. I'm still not used to the omniscient view Andrés had of Taurinos (that is himself), but I know he "saw" and "heard" all of our talk.
"Miss Grisam. There's someone else in here."
"What do you mean???"
"Let's turn all the house's lights on. The porch light too."
A chill came down my spine, strong, taking Andrés' attention to my goose-pimply skin. We walked the whole of the house turning all lights on while the chills walked slowly up and down my spine.
Andrés then told me very clearly that Renan was in the room with us. I argued I had seen him leave. That I had called the Teixeiras and talked to Guilherme. That his elder brother had gone to his bedroom to check it out and found Renan to be actually sleeping.
"I know you called. I "saw" it. Still, the Obscure Police is here in the room right now. Believe in me. He is only waiting for you to sleep. And he is in his bedroom of the farm Teixeira sleeping soundly. Exactly as "Guilherme", and he signalled quotes upon his friend's name, just told you. Or even wide awake, planning what to do with you. He must be having fun alone in his room if he should be awake."
I swallowed hard. He asked me if I wanted him to spend the night in my house. Said we could talk and drive sleep away. I asked him whether it was so complicated he had to come and watch over me. He nodded. again, he said the Obscure Police was inside my house. Repeated that some more times. My fear grew up to turn into petrified horror.
"Have you ever heard of Jurupari?"
"The one that comes to our bed?"
He nodded again.
"You know, it's not very pleasant to be visited by him in the night. Here, Jurupari is best known as the Obscure Police. The same lil' plump kid with a cute cub-like face that had breakfast with you in the morning. You wouldn't believe how he manifestates. It's not an experiment that you can carry out as a test, like, to see what happens when you press this button or something."
"Like what we call nocturnal terror in Psychology. A sensation of iminent death. The sensation the room you are in has been possessed by a fearsome being at night."
"Yup. And the being that comes to our bed is already here. On your bed. On the couch. In that armchair. Wherever you lie. Wherever you fall asleep, he is going to be there. It starts little by little, but doubles in intensity until it comes to a peak. It grows for six hours, from midnight to six."
"How come he is sleeping and here at once, Andrés", I seemed to be unable to think of reasonable questions to ask under so much pressure.
"To think you got us working for so long with the body… what's its name? Astral body, that's it. To think you got us working for so long with the astral body business and now you come with these questions. Besides, you don't know all aspects of Renan. The Obscure Police is one of his aspects. We all got different aspects during the day, no? At school, we seven are different from what we are when we are at Horns Falls or downtown for instance. The Renan that had breakfast with you here is another aspect of the same Renan that handled the bull on the arena at the ceremony in early March. Weren't it like this all would be mixed and it would be a helluva confusion. You'd try to kill a bull while the teacher would try to explain Geometry to you. See what I mean? The Obscure Police is yet another aspect of him. Get it?"
"I understand. Gods too are presented in different aspects within the same mythology. Aspect even gets to be a technical term in mythology, like passion. Exactly like you said."
He was astonished to learn that passion could be a technical term, but went on.
"Yup, the gods and stuff, yes, like this. It's good to speak to scholars, they understand it fine the moment you explain things."
"Renan knows all of that, but does he remember he causes these things to happen in people whom he crosses on the road at night?"
"No, the Obscure Police is much like a werewolf in this sense. When Renan goes back home, changes clothes and sleeps he remembers nothing on the following day, only that he did what he had gone out to. This he remembers completely and with details you wouldn't deem possible. Because like what happened to you twice, he did it consciously. But when he goes out at night he doesn't remember what went on while he was riding, because he is all focused on his target and nothing else. This thing of only riding at night is one of the reasons why he was named Obscure Police. You know there is no police here in Taurinos. When people say police here, what they really mean is Obscure Police."
Andrés went to the window with a view to the porch to look at the night outside. At least it was what I thought was going on. He looked outside, looked at me and called me at the window.
"Well, I have now found Renan. Look outside and tell me what you see."
I stood up and walked up to the window. When I was next to him and looked I almost couldn't supress a scream of horror: a black horse was tied to one of the columns of my porch. The horse looked me directly in the eyes. A cold, fixed stare as the one of a horse possessed. The figure of the horse slightly cut out from the jet-black background outside the porch, even illuminated by the porch lamp (or even on account of that) formed a sinister and weird spectacle that disturbed me deeply.
"I wouldn't look the horse directly in the eyes if I were you", advised Andrés as he noticed my astonishment, "it was bad enough that you saw it; I asked you to do it so you could understand better what I was trying to say. Did you hear this horse approaching your house?"
"No, I heard nothing at all… My goodness…"
Though I thought the sound of the television could have disguised that of the horses hooves on the ground (a horse that could have brought Andrés here), I thought that people that don't believe in God start believing in moments like this. Just to be on the safe side. The lad looked serious at me and didn't take long to get me away from that window. Much to my astonishment, he opened the porch door and called me outside the house. Said I didn't have to worry.
"There's nothing out here, Miss Grisam. Come and see for yourself."
And it turned out that the horse was not there. He told me I could only see the black horse through the window. when we stepped back in the goddamned animal could again be seen through the window!
"This is a normal horse from our farm. All the black horses born are given away to Renan. No one else in town has horses that color. As one is born, Renan is called to take it away. It's a normal horse but is in the same aspect of the Obscure Police we just talked about. Fuck, don't look the horse in the eyes, Miss Grisam!"
The fixed stare of the animal outside in the jet-black night hipnotized, disturbed fascinated terrified me all at once. Andrés had to pull the curtains shut to divert my eyes' attention and was quick to get me away from the window again.
"That's what goes on, he seems to want to hipnotize us. Now don't ask me these things happen. They happen because they happen. I know this all because I know this all. Things are this way because they are this way."
When we walked back in, a rhythmic noise came from the coffee table. My mp3 player. I put on the headphones to see if it was the player on and it was playing a random song. How long has it been on playing?
"Go, go, go! Push him away! No, no, no! Don't let him stay! He gets inside to stare at her; the seeping mouth, the mouth that knows the secret you. Always you. A smile to hide the fear away. Oh smear this man across the walls. Like strawberries and cream. Its the only way to be. Exactly the same clean room, exactly the same clean bed. But I've stayed away too long this time. And I've got too big to fit this time…"
Push, written by The Cure
Turned off the mp3 player. I took a deep breath. Didn't know what to say, what to ask him next. Andrés sat on the sofa. After a short pause, said we'd have a long journey until the morning. Asked me if there was coffee. We went to the kitchen and I made a pot of coffee with a lot of powder so it could be strong enough to get us going through the night. I put some soft music to play and went back to the kitchen. We were in silence for some time, drinking coffee and milk and eating corn cakes without a word, until Andrés broke the silence.
"I have told you many times that Adriano speaks too much. But you didn't need to have used that nickname to call Renan. You could have talked to him without using that name and learned many interesting things instead. There was no need for you to be in this situation today."
"Why does Renan hate his nickname so much? It's not like calling someone a moron, right?"
"I guess he sees it as a joke of the townspeople with the important work it is to free Taurinos from the outsiders. But I can't read people's minds, can I? Also, my relationship with Renan is the worst possible, so I'm not the one to ask him. He's never swallowed that fight at school as you know well. I can't say he was wrong, but did it for the town and for myself since I'm the whole of the town. I did it and, were it necessary again, would do it again and again."
And all of a sudden, his expression turned to one of attention. I was going to say something, but Andrés signalled to me, telling me to stay quiet. Asked me if I could hear a horse. I was going to tell him I couldn't when I started hearing a very light sound of a horse approaching my house.
"Who can it be now? Renan?", I asked, already a bit more startled.
Andrés smiled. Said it was master Danilo. That he was coming from town, he said. We heard the horse stop in front of the house. Heard the knocker on the door and opened. He walked in, excusing himself for intruding as was his habit. Said he saw all the lights on in my house from a good distance and decided to stop by on his way home to see if I was needing something. Andrés told him to look through the window. He pulled the curtains apart and looked. Then pulled them back closed in a rush and looked at us startled. Seemed to understand everything by only looking through the window.
"But, "sá" Stella… What have you been doing? Why is the Police here?"
"I don't know, but I guess I didn't take good advantage of your advice and Adriano's…"
He seemed not to know what to say to me at that moment, was just standing there staring at me, probably trying to figure out how I'd get in that mess.
00:15
I was nervous and could hardly disguise my anxiety. If it's half what they said, I can't allow myself drift away tonight. I glanced at the laptop. Fifteen past midnight.
"If you look through any window of the house, the horse will be there, "sá" Stella", said the country man, worried about my situation.
He took me through all of the parts of the house and the black horse was there. He appeared in the field of vision left by every one of the windows that looked out to the external yard of the house. Never seemed to be moving to or from anywhere, was just standing there. The most bizarre and sinister view was from the perspective of the upper floor window, the one in my bedroom. The horse had its neck twisted upwards, staring at my eyes. As if he bore a silent reproach for what I did. The sensation is hard to describe if you've never lived through it (and I doubt if any day you'll live through this), but it almost diabolically weird.
We went down to the living room and Andrés was sleeping on the couch. Lying on his back, even snoring! Great help he turned out to be. When I shook him, he was embarrassed. Master Danilo just had to laugh at the weird situation and the three of us just walked back to the kitchen.
"My Grandpa used to tell me Jurupari visited him in the night", said master Danilo, "his sensation and many others' was that he was falling into an endless abyss. He said it was a horrible sensation to fall and to never stop falling. A sinister presence all around his bed, he wanted to scream and the presence was like strangling him with a lot of force. He wanted to scream with horror but never could.", he added in a murky tone of voice.
I'm fascinated by nocturnal terror descriptions. Another person could ask them to change subjects to nuclear physics, agronomy, astronomy or cooking in an atmosphere of horror as the one installed in my house. The more frightened I felt, the more fascinated I was for the stories. But I couldn't forget I was in the center of all of this story. There was an ubiquitous black horse at the external yard of my house that seemed to be seen through every window of this house and that stared at my eyes whenever I looked at him with the weirdest look ever.
I spoke of my talk to Adriano and how what he described me reminded me of so many legends like the headless mule; Andrés laughed and said the conversation had to be entre nous. and he joked, "if Obscure Police is being that trouble you can imagine the hell it's going to be if people start calling him a headless mule". I didn't find it funny. Told him it was not my problem or his problem. Mithra knows how many people were to be found in Taurinos with the same or worse problems of identity. I cited the case of the secret societies in Nigeria and master Danilo was really interested in the subject.
"But do they die like that, out of the blue?" was his and Andrés' question at once.
"Yep, because they are so sure they are going to die that they simply do. Their bodies react to the crescent pressure and stress and simply fail."
"Yes, it might be that actually", said the oldest Mineiro.
01:35
Mortal silence feel upon us. I normally don't like these silences, at the moment they were more terrible than ever. I wanted to escape them as I wanted to escape death, famine, diseases and wars. then we started talking about all kinds of subject. We talked until the telephone rang, frightening me. I hate this shit. This is what I have a telephone for. Bad news and scary tasks. I opened the telephone audio so they could hear what we talked about.
"Turn Adriano in to me, Miss Grisam. That simple. And I'll be there in a moment to take my horse to the farm Taurinos. There, Adriano is already sleeping and it'll be easier for me to rock his socks", said a tiny voice happily, sounding high in the audio.
"Your brother told me you were sleeping", I said, puzzled.
"But it's my brother who was and still is sleeping", said the tiny voice.
"Two to zero for you. Have you thought of working with imitations?", I had to have my laugh, maybe a nervous laughter from the day I was lured to the farm Teixeira at dusk.
The weird neigh outside, followed by an angry sound of horseshoes clashing against the porch column made me sure that if I was willing to joke I was alone in my intentions. At least for that moment.
"Turn Adriano in to me, Miss Grisam. You'll just have to call me anytime", said the tiny voice sounding a bit angry on the other side.
He hang up, only the busy signal was left. The men were surprised by the dialogue. Renan was trading a tranquil sleep night with me and it seemed like a rupture of a pattern for them. A rupture after all in a millennial three-month tradition?
"If he is here like you say, why do I have to turn Adriano in? He has already heard me saying that to you, no?"
"I have no clue. Maybe his aspect cannot", declared Andrés. Master Danilo was silent, trying to think of something and eventually said "those are really different aspects. His aspect that is here cannot hear what we say. Because he is tied to one of your porch columns outside. Were he to hear us he wouldn't need to make us a phone call."
02:25
We had some more coffee. I didn't know how much I'd be able to stand without sleeping. My eyelids already refused to obey me. The two kept me awake telling me tales of the region. When I looked around, the two were already sleeping. We were waking each other up for some time and I thought I'd ask them about the Obscure Police action that was not restricted to crossing people on the roads. Andrés said it was true.
"He manipulates the dreams and is getting better and better at it. Or worse, depending on your viewpoint", and he giggled, "remember when I, you and Anderson had dreams he passed us by as a shadow? He said he didn't have a lot of power then, but did want to know who you really were. And he found out how to get this power."
"Really? where from?", I asked, on the top of my interest.
"From the anger he feels for everything that moves, walks, breathes in this world. Cute, no?"
I remembered John Lydon, PiL's psychopathic crooner, saying that anger is an energy, "cute, very cute", I had to agree with Andrés even knowing it was his bullshit and nothing else. I didn't want to be further distressed with futile arguments.
02:45
And the telephone rang again. I went to get the call, stopping Andrés with a gesture.
"Turn the man in, Miss Grisam. You know you want to. Sooner or later.", said the strident voice of the young lad.
"This way you won't let me sleep, brat. I have time until six to get rid of your little curse."
"Hahaha, sez who?", and he said the sentence I had feared the most. Apparently the limits we had judged existing simply didn't exist. The fences are falling fast among us. He told me, "are you really going to suffer for Adriano? It's going to be worse for you than it would ever be for him, much worse." and I was naive enough to ask him, "doesn't it end at six?" and he was all "it ends when you sleep and wake up. If you think you have to suffer for what he did, just go ahead. And I'm being sincere, I'm not like certain people around here who spend their lives lying and hiding the truth from the others, Miss Grisam. You slept, you woke up, it's enough. I'll be satisfied.", the tiny Mineiro country boy stopped talking and the other at my side was all defensive.
"I did it and I'd do it again, Renan. You know this is what this city is made of, so don't come round with your frills of sensitive country boy. Stop being that touchy. Don't give me that curse bullshit because you knew how it was going to be since the beginning. You knew what kind of life you were choosing. Bruno himself was in desperation when he already could not be anymore. We chose life! Life, with all of its troubles, warts and all. Yes, you are the Police. What other police do we have in here?", said Andrés calmly under master Danilo's tense yet wide awake eyes.
I thought Andrés was getting even with what he himself did. Something sooner or later Renan would have to deal with as well. But I also found that it was easy for Andrés to speak from the top of his wisdom on the Master Plan. He had to remind the others they would have to go through the same, but he also had to find the best way to do it. Using moments of emotional outbursts like this to talk some sense into the others wouldn't suffice by itself. Especially because Taurinos was in need of all sense, chiefly the common sense.
03:05
There was silence in the telephone audio while Andrés talked. When he stopped, Renan's voice broke into the room calmly. He accused Andrés of speaking wise words (the lil' devil seemed to read my mind) while he, Renan, had been trapped into an activity he didn't choose but found necessary to protect me at some time throughout Taurinos' history. He knew it was Andrés he was defending after all, because Andrés was the town and he knew he hated Andrés with all of his forces while he loved the town that gave birth to him. And this was like loving Andrés, because no one in town, me included, knew exactly where the town ended and Andrés started or where Andrés ended and the town started. I said this to the three listening in to me in the room. Said it was too much contradiction for a ten-year-old boy (not questioning the millennia of history I might have created for him from that weird comatose state of mine). There was silence on the side of the Police. On this side, Andrés' silence too. And when Renan finally talked he incredibly said he thought I was right.
"That's it mo' o less", he declared in a heavy mountaineer accent.
Before hanging up, the Police heard me say goodbye to Andrés and master Danilo. If I have to live through this anyhow, if there's definitely no escaping it let it all come down. He whistled on the other side, said he did admire my courage.
"My goddess and her usual nobleness. That a brave woman! Good night and good luck!"
The sound of the telephone being hung up was something of note. The two asked me if I was sure I wanted to sleep alone. I told them to stay if they wanted to, but not for me. The two stayed. I went to my room knowing I was marching to the unknown. Literally.
04:30
I couldn't get to sleep. How ironic. Now who knows how much more I'll have to suffer as Tim Maia once said. I rose from the bed. I'm going out no matter what happens to me. I passed by the rooms where Andrés and master Danilo were sleeping and got downstairs. I intend to take a bit of a stroll around, see the night sky. If there's nothing outside on the external yard, I can calmly wander through the night. Without mysteries or fear.
I am distracted by the Southern Cross and the distance I always find to be smaller than it really is between the Cross and Orion's belt, formed by the stars we here call Três Marias. The observation of the space is divided with strange sounds coming from somewhere I can't precise. When I managed to tell what the sounds are, I wished I was ignorant again. Those are screams and shouts coming from the farm Taurinos. Adriano.
It couldn't be anyone else. I ran to the farm Taurinos hoping to wake Andrés up to help me when I remember he is sleeping in my house There's nothing more bizarre I can think of.
And how to help Adriano anyhow? What can I, a humble psychologist, do in moments like these? How to tame the power of dreams, especially the dreams of the others? It would be no good to try to wake Adriano up. Even if he could be woken, it might enfuriate the Police even more and therefore be more tribulation for him. I now say the Police, because I think I must keep up to date with the events here. I'm definitively part of things in this town now. Until I get totally disillusioned, I'll try to bring something different to oppose to the fatalist and misguided approach of the natives to life that is rife here in Taurinos.
I could only follow what was going on by the window of the living room, covered by veils of curtains. Adriano was hanging from the ceiling upside down. Blood was oozing from his hair probably coming from his mouth, nose or from both. His body shook in awful spastic movements inside a sickening light. What was not shadow was penumbra, what was not penumbra not was shadow. Outside, around the main house of the farm Taurinos, weird phantoms of a dark past and of a murky future.
"You told her, didn't you, you fucker? Answer, you piece of shit! You piece of trash! I knew it had to be you! I wanted to hear it from her, but it's alright, I know you well, you big fat moron" and the more he spoke, the more Adriano's body shook, hanging from the ceiling as a sausage hanging from a beam. I clearly understood the body shaking as it was. I couldn't see the one shaking Adriano, but I knew who it was and knew what all that shaking meant. In this atmosphere of horror, screaming and not being heard, seeing all of that shit happen to someone who wouldn't do anyone harm and pasted to this window by some obnoxious and weird seizure of cramps I closed my eyes disgusted and started throwing up thick as bricks were coming out of me.
09:30
Opened my eyes just after. At least it was what I thought was happening. As a matter of fact, it was well past nine when I looked on the laptop by the nightstand. I looked at the blue sky outside. I was in my bed once again. Not a sign of having thrown up or anything else. Only the memory of the weird dream I ended up having, a dream of unparalleled horror that directly spoke to my impotence in face of some episodes of human psychopathy. I got up and went to the farm Taurinos. I didn't go past my house's porch door. A message on the door, "we're in Varginha, we'll be back at the end of the afternoon should you need something", signed by the couple living on the farm.
16:45
I saw them returning nearly at dusk. Only Andrés and Duílio. To think I guessed Andrés was still sleeping in my house when I left. I asked about Adriano and Aparecida; she had stayed with him at the hospital in Varginha. Their physician said it was a severe anemia, strange and fulminant. That he had never seen that in his living memory. Well, who knows he ends up seeing something similar after the end of his life? Adriano was going to stay in hospital for two weeks. If he reacted well, of course.
The men called me inside. They had brought junk food from the big town to eat. A great quantity. Men here ate like there was no tomorrow. Overweight people were rife here. Not obesity, but a constant and annoying uniform weight pattern.
The two spoke to me of what they thought had happened and I told them that what happened to me was awful, but it was nothing compared to what went on with Adriano. In an internal note, the second time he got in deep trouble just for sitting round and talking to me. This being in a time in which, I believed, there was nothing left to hide in town. Judging by the apearance of things he would end up not talking to me any longer for fear of being assassinated. I questioned father and son about how the nickname spread like wild fire and how we had to show this to the Police.
"The Police is going to turn out to be a parallel power in Taurinos", stated Duílio, showing clearly how out-of-date his information was. I told him, "It's already a parallel power in Taurinos. From here, without ever leaving town, he was able to kill two people in Santos. Listen in, without ever leaving town. but his father will only worry whether or not the poor fellas' bones (in this case, not so poor) have been buried…"
"Yup, people are complicated up there. They have to wait until the shotgun is against their head so they can take any measure…", said Andrés incurring a fulminant look from his father.
Yet Duílio could not hide his anguish towards the report of the deaths happening in Santos. He couldn't figure out how what was done here could affect life outside so much. I gave him the example of Rompun® that was brought here when the Law of the Bulls was still in effect.
"I recall he was the only outsider I ever saw here in Taurinos. The guy who came to bring in the tranquilizers and the dart guns, remember? I even received the material for you since you were sleeping, because he didn't want to stay and couldn't come back later on."
"Sometimes this is not the case, Miss Grisam; sometimes he's met the Police in plain clothes and must have been told off like hell", clarified Andrés.
"Anyway the discussion is: he's come from Varginha, no? Deliver the damn goods here. Is this guy from the physical world?"
"I believe not from the world you came from. But whatever world you come from, sometimes you might cross the Police on the road. And he is bad, too wicked for outsiders to handle."
"Yes, but if we cannot hold back his tendency of thinking all that comes from the outside is evil, it might happen no one wants to deliver things here anymore, for instance. And one city cannot treat citizens of other localities like this lest their citizens might be treated like that when they go to Varginha; a good neighborhood policy, can you catch the spirit?"
"You misunderstand things", reacted Andrés. I was looking at him, me and Duílio on the top of our surprise.
"It's rare that he catches real people. They are usually ideas."
"What the hell is this talk of ideas?", Duílio asked, astonished, "why weren't they all people?"
"Two were. Those Miss Grisam knew and just mentioned, that were from Santos. The Police said it to her, I "saw" it happen some time ago. The Police don't lie."
"At least not to you. I bet you "watch" his work at night", I commented, slightly amused at all of it.
"A wide open sky at night and I'll waste my time following the Police around town? Not me!", he said mischievously and winked at me, "we need to come out at night some day and watch the night sky."
I didn't disagree or refuse the invitation, only said there were more urgent things calling us in Taurinos.
"The Police is going to take over our souls, muahahahaha", joked he, already being slapped strong on the left leg for the discontentment caused in his father and quickly returning to the subject, "I was talking about the ideas. They are shaped like people but are no people, only their ideas. When people have the idea of coming to Taurinos or crossing its borders, ideas are formed that the Police kills the moment he finds out they are ideas. He kills the idea of coming here, not the person that had this idea on the city limits."
"But how can he tell ideas and people apart?"
"He can't. But the Police thinks coming into Taurinos is already bad enough so he warns both people and ideas without any difference. The only two people who entered town were the two ones you knew."
"And the guy who delivered Rompun®…"
"And the other guys delivering goods", added Duílio.
"Yes, the others, only people delivering goods in the end, because they leave town as soon as they finish their task."
"But it can too fail, can't it? If real people came in here you have something that deviated from this pattern. What if other people come here that do not intend to do anyone any harm?"
"The Police seems to think there's no such thing", said Duílio, clarifying the point a bit further.
"Yes, that's it, what if a person without bad intentions comes, will he eliminate this person even in the physical world without them being guilty of more than just coming into town?"
The men were thoughtful. To a certain extent, they seemed to share some points of view with the Police, especially the theory according to which whoever daring to come into town was loaded with nothing else than bad intentions. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that if the indigenous populations in the Americas had done the same they wouldn't have suffered a tenth of what they actually suffered under white man's colonization. But Duílio seemed to want to talk about what was going on with the natives here, not with the outsiders.
"Today I'm going to talk to Octávio and Donana. This will not do. Renan is taking this obssession with this nickname to extremes; in time we'll have no more control over him. Later, he'll do that to anyone looking different to him. Later, everyone that thinks different. I myself have gotten at Adriano so many times and told him off for saying that Renan is derranged. I don't want him to treat anyone like this and have never wanted him to, but it was not what went on this time. I know my son speaks too much at times, but the Police didn't have to have done this to him. Even Andrés seems to agree with his punishment. But I don't."
I must stay here for some days, while Aparecida is away. Make food, tidy up the kitchen at least. I offered to do it, they did accept that so promptly that it made me worried about what they make of their house every day. I'd stay and help them lest they drown in the very chaos men usually cause a house to be.
Roll the bones | Thermus
Radio Universal: Obscure Police
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