Kitty Gomez

The Linger Loco!

Chapter 19: Kitty Gomez

The ferry terminal in Bom Despacho is a hive of activity,

as we wait to board a ferry to the Bahian City of Salvador

da Bahia. I feel wide-awake after a comfortable nights

sleep on the bus from Porto Seguro. The gates swing open

and I follow Chris aboard the large vessel. Finding an

empty bench on the top deck, we shield our faces from the

burning sun and relax as we set sail towards the city skyline.

I’m aware that many of the passengers onboard are of

African descent, and I smile at an attractive girl sitting

close by with short braids who is wrapped in a blue

sarong. Populated by the descendants of African slaves

brought to Brazil by the Portuguese, Salvador is a city

famous for its wild festivals fuelled by African soul. This

was the Brazil I had longed to experience, and I feel grateful

to Chris for pushing us to come here.

Sailing into the port, we head through the Terminal

Maritimo Turistico and jump in a taxi that’s parked up outside.

The friendly driver welcomes us to Salvador, and

speeds through the streets pointing out historic buildings

as we zoom by. We climb a steep hill and pass through a

poor crumbling district of the city, and peer down narrow

side streets and through open doorways that lead into dark

unfurnished rooms. The majority of the people are

stripped down to shorts and T-shirts, and grubby-faced

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kids run barefoot along the pavement. I begin to feel a little

nervous having heard about the extreme poverty in the

North of Brazil, but I remind myself that we’re not the first

tourists to visit this city, and will certainly not be the last.

We arrive in the Pelourinho (Pelo) the heart of the historic

Cidade Alta, and pull up outside a large apartment building

on Praca da Se. As we pay the driver a scruffy kid wearing a

yellow baseball cap runs over to us in the street. He wants

us to buy powdered milk for his baby and, feeling momentarily

guilty, I hand him a few coins and try to ignore him

as he dances around. We make it through the entrance of

the building and wait for the elevator.

‘Are you sure the hostel is here?’ Chris sighs, looking a

little hot and stressed.

‘Yeah, I think so. It’s supposed to be on the top floor of

this building.’

The doors slide open and we squeeze inside the caged

elevator. We’re transported swiftly to the 7th floor and step

out into a reception area. A guy wearing an Italian football

shirt, with long hair that’s thinning on the top, shouts at

someone down the phone. He sees us and waves us over

to the reception desk. While we’re waiting for the guy to

finish his phone call, we admire a large terrace overlooking

the ocean and historic centre. The hostel seems like a nice

place with a cosy lounge room with a big TV and walls

that have been painted bright colours.

The stressed hostel manager suddenly screams at the

person on the other end of the line and slams the phone

down.

‘Why can’t I find the fucking staff in this fucking country?’

he cries, slapping his forehead. ‘I never had this problem

with my hotel in Roma.’

‘What’s the problem?’ I cautiously ask.

The guy scratches his thick facial hair, and sighs. ‘The

hostel is busy and my receptionist decides she wants to

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spend the day on the beach. It is fucking Carnival – I need

staff!’

We both smile and watch as he waves his arms around

and freaks out in front of us. I’ve never seen anything like

it. He’ll have a huge heart attack if he’s not careful, and

considering he’s the boss he’s not exactly making this joint

feel very welcoming. He needs to either go to anger management

classes or start smoking weed.

‘You want a job?’ he asks, shuffling through a pile of

paper work. ‘I pay you?’ He picks up the pile of paper and

throws it onto a chair. ‘I need help!’

Despite being desperate for cash, we politely decline -

preferring to eat grass and head home early, rather than

work for this monster.

‘We’d love to help, but we’re going to the beach in a

minute,’ Chris smiles.

The guy looks at us, and shakes his head. ‘The whole of

Salvador is down the fucking beach! You don’t see me

down the beach, do you? No, this is because I am trying to

run a fucking hostel here. It’s fucking Carnival, I have to

work!’

This guy is starting to stress me out, and I almost suggest

to Chris we go and look for somewhere else to stay.

‘You want a room?’ he spits, wiping sweat from his forehead.

‘Uh, that would be nice,’ Chris replies. ‘What have you

got?’

‘I have one room left, but prices go double tomorrow.’

‘Double?’

‘It’s fucking Carnival!’ he shouts, clutching his chest.

‘Read the notice on the wall.’

I look at the white piece of paper pinned to the wall next

to a postcard of the coliseum in Rome. It reads:

ROOM PRICES DOUBLE DURING CARNIVAL. MINIMUM

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FIVE NIGHTS. NO RESERVATION – NO ROOM.

• DO NOT BRING GIRLS BAK TO YOUR ROOM. GIRLS

OR PROSTITUES PROHIBITED FROM HOTEL.

• NO NOISE AFTER 22.00HR

IT’S CARNIVAL!

I turn to the guy, and frown. ‘No noise after ten o’clock?’

‘Yes, if you want to make noise go out into the street. No

prostitutes or girls back to your room. We had problems in

the past with girls causing damage and stealing.’

‘We don’t have a reservation.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I have one room free, but you must pay

for the full five days of Carnival now.’

‘But we only want to stay for a couple of nights,’ I reply.

‘Can you not read!’ the guy suddenly cries, jumping up

from his chair and prodding the notice. ‘MINIMUM FIVE

NIGHTS!’

‘Hey, chill out,’ Chris snaps, unimpressed with the guy’s

aggressive behaviour.

He slumps into his chair and rubs his face. ‘OK, look,

you can stay for one night, but you must clear the room by

nine o’clock in the morning.’

Chris laughs. ‘Nine?’

‘Yes, it is the rules of the hotel. I am the owner so I make

the rules.’

‘But that’s really early.’

‘There is nothing I can do, it’s…’

‘…fucking Carnival,’ Chris smiles, ‘…yeah, you said.’

‘Please, I am busy today and I need to find someone to

work on reception. You want room or not?’

‘Uh, yeah, we’d better take it,’ I reply.

He sighs and continues shuffling through the paper work

piled up on the chair. I only hope he’s disorganized like

this during the weeks of Carnival, otherwise he’ll be jumping

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off the balcony by Easter. Throwing our bags onto the floor

of our nice clean room, we chill out on the main terrace for

a while and look out over the turquoise ocean and at the

historic buildings that litter Pelourinho below. Unable to

resist the lure of the ocean, we grab our towels and sun

cream and head off for a day on the beach. We wave goodbye

to the owner, who continues to shout down the phone, and

dodge a group of street kids in the plaza below who try to

pin ribbons (regalo) onto our T-shirts and sell us bracelets.

We manage to escape and pass an extremely athletic guy

dressed in white practicing capoeira, a Brazilian martial art

developed by African slaves. He’s really good, and we watch

as he cartwheels on the spot with bare feet and acrobatically

dances across the pavement with precise movements.

Finding the bus stop we jump aboard a bus, which zips

through the city streets and carries us to one of the main

beaches called Praia Porto da Barra. The whole area is

absolutely packed with sun worshippers, who expose as

much flesh as physically possible without being naked. I

thought Rio was bare-all crazy, but here in Salvador everywhere

you look there are brown boobs and butt-cheeks.

Purchasing a green coconut from a thatched hut, we look

over a wall at the beach below. Crowds of people cover

every inch of the sand, and the tribal sound of drumming

floats through the air from the far end of the beach. We

weave between street sellers cooking up meat on barbecues,

and pass muscular guys posing in tiny swimming

trunks all the way along the beachfront. I suddenly feel

quite inadequate with my bowed, skinny legs protruding

from my surf shorts, and I try to compensate by walking

with a bit of a swagger. We find a small stretch of sand

that’s relatively empty, and sit close to the sea wall. This is

the life, I think to myself. It’s a beautiful sunny day in

Salvador, the sky is blue and the girls look great. Back

home in England it’s probably cold and dark. The birds

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have probably stopped singing and the grumpy folk are no

doubt wishing for summer. Whistling a little tune I reach

inside my bag for the sun cream and, just as I’m about to

take off my sweat drenched T-shirt, a scary looking individual

vaults over the high wall above our heads and lands

on the sand directly in front of us. He’s a stocky, incredibly

well built guy with enormous beaded dreads. His skin is

jet black, almost blue, and his eyes are wide and staring.

He pounds his chest like a crazed witch doctor in a trance,

his long beads rattling around his neck.

‘Where you from white chicken?’ he cries.

We look at each other, and frown.

‘England,’ Chris replies, looking quite frightened.

‘I gigolo!’ he shouts. ‘I speak five languages and make sex

with Italian women.’

From his enlarged pupils I can tell that he’s wired on

cocaine, or some kind of amphetamine.

‘Why you so white?’ he cries. ‘You come here to fuck

Brazilian girls? You want some marijuana, cocaine?’

Chris grins falsely and blinks in the bright sunlight. ‘No,

thank you.’

The guy suddenly cartwheels across the beach and

begins hassling a couple of girls sat on the sand close by.

They glance over their shoulders and shake their heads.

He suddenly leaps back over to us.

‘They say you too white. You come with me now, I sell

you marijuana.’

‘We haven’t got any money!’ Chris snaps, looking agitated.

A voice suddenly shouts from above our heads and our

friend hollers back, drawing the attention of the entire

beach. We shift uncomfortably in the sand and I can feel

the sun starting to burn my face.

‘Stay here, I come back,’ he snarls, and kicking sand in

our faces he sprints towards the high wall and scales it

with superhuman agility.

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Feeling a little self-conscious all of a sudden, we quickly

gather our things together and disappear further along the

beach. Dancing clumsily over the hot sand, I observe the

beach life all around me. A gang of kids display incredible

football skills, as they manipulate a football across the

sand and an attractive couple hit a rubber ball to one

another with plastic paddles. Everywhere we turn there

are half-naked women in the skimpiest bikinis I’ve ever

seen. One girl stands facing the ocean and catches maximum

rays, her thong disappearing between her pert butt

cheeks. We reach the end of the beach and ascend a flight

of concrete steps back onto the promenade. Dodging

between the traffic, we find a small café and decide to grab

some food. Ordering a couple of enormous X-burgers

loaded with ham and cheese, we observe the street life.

There’s a full on Carnival atmosphere in the air, and a

group of guys walk past wearing tiny bright coloured

Speedos. We laugh and watch them cross the road.

‘Can you believe I own a pair of those?’ a man sitting next

to us smiles. He’s mixed race with brown curly hair and a

young face.

I turn to the guy, and frown. ‘Do you?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Each to their own, I suppose.’

‘Where you guys from?’

‘England,’ I reply.

‘I’m from New York City.’

‘Wow,’ Chris smiles, moving closer to his table. ‘Were

you there when the towers came down?’

The guy nods and scratches his head. ‘I sure was.’

‘Did you see the planes hit?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Really?’

‘For sure.’

‘What was it like?’

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‘Well, I wasn’t actually there as such, but I watched it on

the TV while I was fucking my wife.’

Chris nods his head, and smiles. ‘Cool. I didn’t expect

them both to collapse like that, did you?’

‘Hell no! It was a dark day for the people of America, a

very dark day. But we New Yorkers are a tough bunch. We

just pick ourselves up and cruise on. Life is too short,

right? So, are you guys on vacation?’ he quickly asks,

changing the subject.

‘Yeah, we travelled here overland via Argentina, Chile

and Peru,’ I reply.

‘Wow, good going, guys. Are you crashing here for

Carnival?’

‘We’re not sure yet.’

The guy spits out his drink. ‘You’re kidding me? The best

Carnival in the world is right here – bomb everywhere else.

This is the place! Chiclete com Banana and Fat Boy Slim

are playing. I’m renting a room down the road. It’s costing

a ton, but it’s the shit, man. How about you?’

‘We’re staying at a hostel in the centre, but the prices go

double tomorrow.’

‘Yeah,’ Chris grins, ‘and the owner is a bit of a stressed

prick.’

‘Screw them. These assholes are making heaps of money

over Carnival. If they give you crap just raise your middle

finger. Trouble is, if you haven’t already booked a room

you may as well head home with your cock between your

legs.’

‘We’re going to Olinda. Do you know anything about it?’

‘Olinda? Nope, sorry, guys never heard of it. God I love it

out here,’ he smiles, smelling the burger scented air. ‘My

girlfriend’s from Salvador. These Brazilian chicks are awesome,

man.’

‘Your girlfriend, I thought you said you had a wife?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

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‘Doesn’t she mind?’

‘You think she knows? Jesus Christ, she’d cut off my

fucking balls if she knew I was banging some other chick.

But I guess what she doesn’t know doesn’t hurt her, right?

Besides, my girlfriend’s hot – thirty-four inch waist, fortyeight

inch ass…whoohaa, god damn doggy!’

We look at each other, and laugh. Mathematics was never

my strongest subject at school and Chris is practically

retarded when it comes to numbers, but it slowly sinks in

that this guy likes a girl with an enormous backside.

‘I’m here on vacation for ten days,’ he continues. ‘I’m a

luggage handler at Newark airport. I save all year and then

come out for three weeks and receive my dues.’

A large black woman suddenly approaches the table;

she’s dressed in a red thong bikini with a black net minidress

stretched over her rolls of fat. She looks like an enormous

walrus that’s been caught in a fisherman’s net. We

smile politely and look in stunned silence, as he turns her

around and spanks her enormous behind.

‘Hard as marble,’ he grins. ‘We’re off back to the room. I

can set you up with a couple of her friends if you like?

Let’s team up and have a party!’

‘Uh, no, you’re all right, we’ve got to get back,’ Chris grins

falsely.

‘OK, it’s been a blast chatting with you guys. Remember,

this is the best Carnival right here. Rent a room if you’re

lucky and have yourselves some fun.’

Giving her enormous dented ass one last squeeze, he

waves goodbye and heads up the street.

‘What the fuck!’ I laugh, wiping my fingers on a napkin.

‘That was totally surreal.’

‘Each to their own,’ Chris chuckles, ‘each to their own.’

‘My God, the world’s a dark place isn’t it, so much sex

and sin.’

‘It’s always been a dark place. At the end of the day we’re

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little more than breeding machines, permanently in need

of sexual pleasure and fantasy,’ Chris replies, taking a huge

bite out of his X-burger.

‘It all seems so wrong, though.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, how can that guy look his wife in the eyes knowing

that he’s deceiving her?’

‘Maybe she does the same. They might have some kind

of unspoken agreement.’

‘Do you think so?’

Chris shrugs. ‘Possibly not, but the fact is no single relationship

is perfect. We’re all too different.’

‘Yeah, I suppose the line between faithful and unfaithful

isn’t as clean cut as you might think. There’s a scale. You’ve

got your horny fools at one end of the spectrum and your

straight as a vicar, relatively asexual, live by the rulebook,

missionary position individuals at the other – but then

you’ve also got gradual grades of everything else in between.’

‘Exactly, there’s no certainty that one person is going to

be perfectly faithful, and the other a dirty cheater. We’re a

mixed bag. Life is like a bowl of chocolates, you never

know what you’re gonna get.’

‘Right, so, how can you ever be sure if you’re with the

right person?’

‘You can’t be sure. It’s a gamble at the end of the day. You

just have to enjoy the good times while they’re…uh, good.’

‘But what about trust?’

Chris laughs. ‘What about it? No, seriously, there’s a lot

of temptation and opportunity out there now, especially

with the internet.’

‘Maybe it’s better not to go into things so rigidly.’

‘Very true, always cover your exits, stay as independent

as possible and respect each other as friends. After all, it

would be foolish to think that a relationship will always

be perfect. Sometimes you just have to accept that things

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might change.’

Returning to the hotel in the late afternoon, we chill out in

the room for a while before heading for a night on the

town. Hiding behind a concrete pillar we manage to avoid

our ever-friendly piranha in the yellow baseball cap, and

watch with amusement as he sinks his teeth into a frightened

tourist. Heading across the plaza, we pass a water

fountain and a number of expensive bars and restaurants.

We continue further along and arrive at a second plaza

that’s a hive of activity. Food and drink vendors dominate

the centre of the square, as hoards of people devour fried

culinary delights and knock back cachaça. Capoeira circles

and drum corps, pounding out samba reggae, are dotted all

around, with crowds of people cranking their necks to

watch the thrilling entertainment. We find a small vendor

tucked on the corner of a busy cobbled side street and,

perching ourselves on a couple of small plastic stools, we

admire the large friendly woman serving the food who is

dressed from head-to-toe in white cotton, in the traditional

Bahian style. She smiles as she serves us acaraje, bean

dumplings fried in dende oil and filled with dried shrimps

and spiced manioc paste, which is sold on the streets of

Nigeria. We tuck into the delicious food and sip a cold can

of beer. As we watch the people walk by, a skinny black

guy dressed in a pair of stained shorts suddenly slides up

beside us. He rejects Chris’s offer of some food and whips

a clear plastic bag out of his pocket – it’s a small bag of

cocaine. We try to send him away, but he doesn’t seem to

get the message. We hand the woman a fifty-real note to

pay for the food, and she sends a young lad through the

streets to fetch some change. The guy sees this as an

opportunity to hassle us further, and he tries to stuff the

bag into the front pocket of my jeans. I push him away and

he starts firing numbers at me. He wants twenty reals,

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about ten dollars for the bag, and I consider buying it just

to get rid of him. Chris warns me it could be a set-up, and

that the penalty for being caught with drugs in Brazil is

severe. The kid returns with my change and the guy reaches

over and tries to help himself to a twenty-note. I wrestle with

him for a few seconds and try to hand him back his bag of

cocaine. All of a sudden, a guy in a bright orange T-shirt

marches over and gives the skinny dealer a hard shove. He

falls backwards onto the cobbles and quickly scrambles to

his feet. The large man snatches the bag out of my hand

and tears it open. Dipping his little finger into the white

powder, he rubs some onto his gums and smacks his lips

together and considers the taste. Shaking his head, he

turns the bag upside down and empties its contents onto

the cobbles. I can’t believe what he’s doing. We’re in the

middle of a busy street for Christ sake, and people look

over and stare as they pass by. The guy shouts at the dealer

and we watch him scurry away into the crowd.

‘No good,’ he cries, pointing to the powder. ‘He sell you

tablet for bad head.’

‘We didn’t want it in the first place,’ I tell the guy, darting

glances around the busy street.

‘My name is Ronaldo,’ he smiles, reaching out his hand.

‘I have good cocaine. You want?’

‘No!’ Chris snaps.

The woman cooking the food shouts at us and flicks her

wrist, indicating for us to piss off and move away from her

stall.

‘Please, you buy,’ the guy asks rather persistently.

‘No, we don’t want to,’ I reply.

The guy drops his smile and shakes his head. ‘You

tourist with money, you give me money for cocaine.’

Chris jabs his fingers into his pocket and pulls out some

cash. He hands it to the guy, who smiles and asks for us to

wait.

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‘What’s with all the fucking pressure?’ Chris shouts. ‘I’ve

got indigestion because of these cock suckers. Now

where’s he gone?’

‘To get the cocaine, I think. Either that or he’s just robbed

your money.’

The guy suddenly skids around the corner and runs over

to us.

‘We go drink now,’ he puffs, handing Chris a tiny plastic

bag. ‘We go to my bar, very close. I make you have cheap

drink and pretty girl dance on stage.’

Reluctantly following our new friend down the cobbled

street, we hesitantly make our way through a narrow alleyway.

* * *

A live band performs on stage and hundreds of smiley

Brazilians dance and drink beer around brightly coloured

plastic tables. A beautiful young girl with coffee-coloured

skin and an angelic smile appears on the stage in a white

dress, and begins to dance energetically to a samba beat.

She captivates the audience and I follow Ronaldo and Si

over to an empty table. We order bottles of super chilled

Skol and tell Ronaldo that we’ll pay the bill for helping us

out earlier on. He smiles and quickly invites two girls to

join our table, who immediately order themselves a couple

of expensive cocktails from the menu. The girls are

dressed up to the nines in colourful tight dresses that

would make even a glamour model’s eyes water. Daniela,

the taller of the two, looks slightly weird in a hard-faced

kind of way. She has bleached blonde hair and bright red

lips and broad shoulders like a man. I can’t quite put my

finger on it, but there’s definitely something not quite right

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about her. They waste little time in asking if we’re single

and, feeling suspicious of the way they seem to be less

interested in us and more interested in what we have

inside our wallets, we lie and tell them we have girlfriends

in England. The prettier brunette looks annoyed and starts

to become quite hostile. It seems pretty clear some of the

locals here have little respect for tourists. The brunette

demands another drink and asks us if we have good jobs and

a lot of money. We may as well have dollar signs printed on

our T-shirts. Si loses his cool and snaps at our uninvited

guests.

‘This city is no good!’ he suddenly cries.

They all look at him with blank faces.

‘Qual é o problema?’ Daniela replies in her husky voice.

‘No respecto aqui! We are not rich tourists.’

I nod my head in agreement. ‘Yeah, what’s with all the

bullshit?’

The brunette says something in Portuguese and looks at

us snootily before walking away with her free drink. I call

the waiter over and ask for the bill. Seizing the opportunity

while Si has got his wallet out, Ronaldo tries to sell us

another bag of cocaine.

‘You want more cocaine?’ he whispers, darting paranoid

glances around the bar.

‘No obrigado,’ Si smiles.

‘Good cocaine. You like?’

‘No obrigado!’

‘Good price for tourist. I give you good price.’

Si shakes his head and the guy looks disappointed. I start

to feel uncomfortable and notice people are looking at us.

We must look like a right couple of suckers sitting at a

table with a dodgy local drug dealer and a girl who is

dressed up like she’s on the movie set of Priscilla, Queen

of the Desert.

‘How long you stay in Salvador,’ Ronaldo asks, sipping

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his free beer.

‘A few days,’ Si replies, ‘but we leave tomorrow now.

There are too many bad people in Salvador.’

‘No darlings!’ Daniela protests, looking slightly offended.

‘Salvador is good city. You only see bad city because you

tourist.’

As she takes a delicate sip of her cocktail I notice her

large hands.

‘I go now,’ Ronaldo smiles disappearing into the crowd.

‘Where the fuck’s he going!’

‘Hey, Si, we need to chill out. I mean, we didn’t have to

come here. We should’ve said no. It’s partly our fault.’

Si ignores me, and turns to Daniela. ‘Don’t people from

Salvador like foreigners?’

‘Yes darling, but many poor people in Salvador.’

‘But there are many poor people all over Brazil. This is

the first place we’ve been to where we’ve been hassled in

the street like this.’

‘It is Carnival, darling. People make much money from

tourist. Not everyone bad,’ she replies, placing a hand on

his knee and squeezing her tits together.

‘But if the people are bad to the tourists, the tourists

won’t come here anymore.’

Daniela furrows her big man brow. ‘Tourist always come

to Salvador. It only here that it is bad, in Pelourinho. The

people of Salvador are good people. I show you. Vamos!’

After all the shit we’ve experienced today we feel unsure

whether to trust her.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

‘I take you to where the local people live – I show you the

real Salvador!’

Downing our drinks we head through the cobbled

streets. We pass our annoying friend with the yellow baseball

cap by the fountain, and Daniela shouts something at

him and he stands back and leaves us alone. We walk past

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a long line of taxis and meet a driver leaning against his

car.

‘This is my friend,’ she smiles, kissing him on the cheek.

‘He will give us good price for taxi.’

Jumping in the back, we shake hands with the driver and

watch as he powers up the engine and speeds off down the

road. We head deep into the suburbs, and eventually pull

up outside a scruffy café with the usual plastic tables and

chairs on the pavement. We all clamber out of the vehicle,

including the driver, and sit at a table. Music plays from

small speakers above our heads and we order a couple of

bottles of Skol and four glasses. Daniela translates for her

taxi driver friend, and we learn he has been a taxi driver

in Salvador for three years and likes his job very much.

Out here in the suburbs we don’t get any hassle and feel

completely safe. Two gay guys, with bleached blonde hair

and wearing tight T-shirts, pop over and say hi to Daniela.

She seems incredibly popular and invites them to join us

for a drink. They don’t speak English, but they are considerate

and try to include us in the conversation. The taxi

driver finishes his glass of beer before returning to work.

He offers to chip in for the beers, but we smile and thank

him for the ride. Suddenly, an eccentric woman with an

orange face, who’s cradling a small pink poodle in her

arms, approaches the table. She kisses Daniela’s hand and

we listen with fascination to her incredibly husky voice, as

she talks animatedly to Daniela and the gay guys.

Astounded by the incredible individuality of these people,

I get a strong sense of their bohemian style – and I’m

reminded a little of how I imagined people in San

Francisco to be during the 60′s and 70′s. I can’t stop looking

at the woman and her pink poodle, with her leathery skin,

bright blue pencil eyebrows that make her look incredibly

surprised and long red fingernails. Everyone sat around us

is wearing bright colours, as they relax in the warm

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evening with a little food, conversation and a cold beer. It’s

deeply civilized, and I quickly begin to change my opinion

of Salvador and remind myself that tourist areas of any

country are littered with sharks.

After a couple of caipirinhas, Daniela suggests we move

onto a club and hails a cab. We squeeze into the back with

our new gay chums and hurtle across the city to an underground

joint somewhere in central Salvador. We enter the

club and try to remain open-minded when we realise it’s a

gay venue complete with a drag show. Inching around

muscular men and scary looking transvestites, we find a

safe place to stand by the bar and watch the entertainment

on the stage. Daniela and the guys are unable to contain

their excitement, and leap into the middle of the dance

floor and begin shaking their booty to the sound of the

hardcore techno music.

‘So Si, what’s the deal with Daniela, then?’ I smile,

knocking back my vodka.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well…she’s a bloke, right?’

‘Do you reckon?’

‘I don’t know. That’s what I’m asking you.’

‘Well, she’s got big hands if that’s anything to go by!’ Si

laughs.

‘Yeah, I noticed that and she’s got stubble, too! I think

she’s a man in a friggin frock.’

Si scratches the back of his head. ‘But look at her breasts.

They look pretty real to me.’

‘Breasts can be deceiving, my friend. Maybe she’s had a

sex change.’

‘Ouch, do you think so…?’

‘Without a doubt,’ I nod, looking over at the dance floor.

‘Hey, why don’t you ask her?’

‘Fuck off, she’s your girlfriend.’

‘What do you mean?’

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‘Well, look at the way she keeps looking at you?’

Daniela spins around and blows Si a kiss.

‘There you go, I told you so!’ I laugh. ‘You’re in deep shit,

hippie boy.’

A spotlight suddenly hits the stage and the crowd erupts

in excited applause and screams, as an obese drag queen

named Kitty Gomez suddenly enters the stage. With a

wink and a smile she grabs the microphone from a dwarf

covered from head-to-toe in green paint, and begins to sing

and dance. Kitty’s brown tree trunk legs, enormous stiletto

heels and tight black corset that stretches over her bloated

stomach, don’t appear to prevent her from achieving almost

athletic maneuvers around the stage. It defies the abilities

and strength of the human body, as she leaps high into the

air and lands in the split’s position. To more wild

applause, four more eccentric drag queens spring out from

behind the wings. They skip across the stage, all dressed

up to the nines in bright yellow and orange hot pants with

pink dildo’s strapped around their waists and huge feather

bowers draped around their necks. They pair up and get

into the missionary position, simulating sex to the delightful,

rather deep and out of tune vocals of Kitty Gomez, who

leaps breathlessly into the air once again and proceeds to

do the splits. You can see the pain in her face, but I’m

impressed by the way she hides it and forces a smile. The

trendy well-dressed crowd explodes as hundreds of

colourful balloons fall from the sky and bounce peacefully

above the crazy sweaty bodies below. The orgy finishes

and is quickly replaced by a group of talented Hip-Hop

dudes in baseball caps, who proceed to take turns breakdancing

in a circle. It’s all very entertaining, and I find

myself clapping when one of them back-flips six times

across the stage. He looks about twelve years old and smiles

at the crowd, before breakdancing and back flipping around

like a wind-up toy monkey on acid.

248

Forgetting for a moment that we’re in a gay club somewhere

deep in northern Brazil, Si turns around to pick up

his drink off the bar and finds Daniela stood in front of

him. He jumps in surprise, as she kisses his cheek and

brushes her stubble against his face. Up close she definitely

looks like a man.

‘You have good time, Simon?’ she winks, peering down

at his lips.

‘Uh, yeah,’ he replies ‘but it’s not really my scene.’

‘You no like gays?’

‘Yes, of course. I like everybody,’ he grins falsely.

Daniela glares at me, and I get the impression she wants

some quiet time with Si. I feel a bit bad leaving him on his

own, but unfortunately nature calls and I make my excuses

and head for the toilet. Pushing through the crowd, I begin

to feel a bit freaked out by the hungry male eyes all around

me. I find the toilet and disappear inside. Waiting for a free

space at the urinal I bunch up between two huge guys, and

fix my stare firmly on the wall in front of me. Their presence

makes me feel anxious, and I suddenly suffer from a

bout of stage fright. Closing my eyes for a second I imagine

Niagara Falls thundering down, providing a temporary

moment of relief, but I jump in surprise when I catch the

dude stood next to me blatantly checking me out.

Shocked, I tuck myself away and return to the club feeling

dirty and used. Heading over to the bar, I immediately see

Si cornered by Daniela against a pillar. Finding this

incredibly amusing, I watch from a distance as she pushes

her large breasts into his chest. He looks terrified, like a

rabbit caught in the car headlights. I move closer.

‘Que problemo?’ I hear her cry as I approach from

behind. ‘You no like me, Simon?’

‘No, sorry, I’m not gay. I like girls!’ he replies in a panicked

tone.

Daniela looks shocked. ‘I am girl!’

249

Si laughs. ‘You could’ve fooled me. You’re a man! I’m not

stupid, I’ve been to Bangkok, you know.’

She frowns. ‘But I am girl.’

He glances down at her hairy arms and examines her

twelve o’clock shadow. ‘I don’t believe you!’ he shouts, trying

to move around her. ‘Leave me alone you hear, leave me

alone!’

She grabs him around the shoulders and slams him up

against the pillar. ‘I GIRL!’ she screams. ‘If you no believe

me, I show you.’

In a sudden moment of rage, she pulls her dress straps

over her shoulders and reveals her heaving bosoms that

are squashed inside a lacy black bra. My eyes nearly pop

out of their sockets, as she begins weighing them in her

hands and squeezing them together.

‘I am woman, not man!’ she cries psychotically. ‘You no

believe me?’

‘Holy shit, NO, I mean, yes, I do!’ Si cries, desperate to

calm the situation.

‘Look, I have pussy!’ she screams, hitching her dress

above her waist and whipping down her knickers.

All of the men stood around cover their mouths and

gasp, as she exposes her shaved pussy to the nightclub.

The gay guy’s from earlier jump to her rescue and scold

Si for being so insensitive. He looks desperately around for

my help, so I jump in between them and drag him towards

the exit to screams of abuse from Daniela and an angry

mob of homosexuals. Rushing over to a taxi I push Si

inside and we disappear into the night.

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