Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [49]
“Is that crack?” I asked, using the word derived from the English.
Agnaldo looked at me blankly, then used a slang term I didn’t know. “It’s good. You’ll like it.”
Many people I knew in Salvador used marijuana, and cocaine also seemed popular. People on the streets sniffed glue to dull hunger pains and to give themselves a brain-killing high. Prescription drugs were also readily available and, I knew, used widely by street workers of all kinds. But crack was new. From my observations, it had come into Salvador in a one-month period in January 1996 on a well-organized distribution plan. I never learned who was behind this organized move—I considered direct questions on this topic dangerous enough to be foolhardy, and besides, the people I knew clearly only knew how they bought it, not the larger infrastructure.
From street conversations, I heard only vague rumors, but the change had been dramatic. Because of his close association with the transvestite prostitutes, Don saw the effects of crack more quickly than I did. One month, no one had it; the next, every prostitute had it for sale or knew someone who did. People sold it cheap and, Don was told, cut it with talc or speed (or whatever cheap white powder substance they could find).
Agnaldo’s girlfriend rose to a kneeling position and snorted some of the white powder, then the man nearby. Agnaldo then offered the straw to me.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I have a capoeira roda later.”
“But it will be good for our talk,” Agnaldo said.
“That’s fine.”
Agnaldo snorted a pile of the white substance and quickly slumped against the wall.
I sat confused as I watched the three of them zone out. This was too strong. Could it be some heroin-crack mix? As I stood, I realized I was shaking.
“I’ll see you later, Agnaldo,” I said. He stared at me, his eyes vacant. I stumbled to the outer room, and one of the women grabbed my hand. “Are you Dutch?” she asked.
“No,” I said, trying to disengage my hand.
“I am going to Holland,” she said. “I can dance. They like dancers there, I hear. I am going there, and I can make a lot of money there. Are you Dutch? You look Dutch.”
“No,” I said, “no, I am not Dutch.” I heard my voice break.
I ran from the house and stumbled up the path. The man with the tattered shirt sat under a nearby tree. As I passed, he fell in step behind me. “I’ll walk with you,” he said. “It isn’t safe here to walk alone.”
“I’m fine.”
“No,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”
I was almost running now. The man stayed close behind. I rushed to the tunnel, seeing Agnaldo’s ravaged face in the shadows, racing across the damp cobblestone.
Suddenly the man shoved me hard from behind. I stumbled and hit the side of the tunnel. He pushed me against it, my back to the wall. I felt the drip of slimy water seeping from the ancient building above. He shoved his face close to mine, and I felt his foul breath.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “I want to kiss you.”
“Fuck off,” I said.
“Then I’ll rape you.”
I smashed him in the groin with my knee. Then I picked him up under the armpits and tossed him against the far side of the tunnel. He slammed against the wall and hit his head. He began to slide down the wall, seemingly unconscious.
I ran from the tunnel. “Fuck,” I said, “Fuck. Fuck.”
I tried to breathe, but my lungs had shut down. Blinding sunlight hit me. I tripped on a stone and fell into the street. A car honked, and nearly hit me. I knocked into two tourists looking at a basket for sale.
“Oi gringa, you want something?” the vendor asked. I ignored him and fled up the street toward the main praça.
“Hey, capoeira friend!” someone shouted to me across the street.
I looked up to see Marcos, the fellow who’d been beaten by the policeman years before. He still defiantly wore bright loose Africanist clothes and dreadlocks to his waist. He gave me a wide smile and waved his crutch. Since leaving the hospital, one leg had shriveled to a long hanging