Christmas Eve

I stretch my palms wide
Opening the spaces between finger and thumb
Finger and finger
Stretching the webbing taught
Until I can see the reflected light of the street lamps
Shining red through my flesh
I can feel the slow evaporation of sweat off my skin
The gentle cooling sensation
Even as the sweat reformulates
In the dense humidity of high Brazilian summer.

The night is alive
Even as we sit
Waiting for the bus which will take us back home
The tambores, e berimbau, e agogo ring heavily in my ears
Reminding me that the celebration has begun
That from this Christmas Eve
Through the new year
And even up through the rise and fall of carnaval
This city will be alive and throbbing

Beautiful descendent bodies
Pulsating to the rhythms of their blood and their profits
The dark bodies waving in giant masses
To the sound of Portuguese lyrics and African rhythms
Guzzling down beer and cachasa
Whizzing through the air on their own brand of magic dragon
Ahhh, Salvador, minha Bahia!

I pull my belongings closer
Figures are running towards the bus stop
A man pursued by two armed guards
A policia
They catch him on the curb in front of the bus stop
He is being held with his arms behind his back
He is dark and defiant
The sweat runs off his brow
Like most of Bahia, he is small, but muscular
In his defiance, his muscles seem to bulge from tattered clothing
He did not take the woman’s things
He was afraid and ran
But another boy had taken them
He saw them go
The guard does not buy it
The boy’s arm is twisted backwards
He hunches
Disfigured by the force of the guard’s hold
His indignation rises as he is drarwfed
He struggles
He did not take it
His mouth filled with spit
Spit intended for the face of his oppressor
If he could only struggle free enough to turn so far as to take aim
His struggle is only met with more force
Pain flashes across his face
In a moment he remembers his younger brother
How will he work with a malformed arm
How will he set it if it should break
His eyes cloud
“Naooooooooo, ja vai quebrar meu brazo, vai quebrar!”
He screams in anguish
His arm creating an acute angle
No longer with his back but now with his neck
Screaming
Kneeling
Doubled in pain
His face transformed
He looks about wildly
Broken
The officer kneels into his back
My teeth grind as I can hear the tissue tearing his arm
And in his face is the face of a child
12 or 13
Hungry
Impoverished
Perhaps having wanted to take the said woman’s purse to feed himself
But not having done it
Tears run down his cheek
He lies crushed at the foot of the pigmentocracy
That is the Brazilian social structure
That is this capitalist social structure
A dark man in the wrong place
A dark man who feeds himself off the tourists
Who gorge themselves on his culture
And his way of life
Leaving him to steal from their mouthes what is rightfully his
To steal from their mouths what is rightfully his
Suddenly the police realize the presence of the tourist spectator
The scene is removed from sight
Excused by a sudden change of heart
They “believe” the boy and all is well
The music swells around us again
The tourists steal the vacant seats of the bus stop
With their cultural bounty
Sarongs, post cards, and feathered headdresses
It is once again Christmas Eve
Mas ja quebro
It is already broken.