Carioca Fletch

Thirteen

After lunch, it rained.

The five young men sat in their muddy towels at a round table on the back porch of the old plantation house playing poker.

The humidity was complete, and even in the rain Fletch and Orlando and Tito had been in and out of the pool between hands. They would be either wet with sweat or wet with water, and the rain water, the pool water, seemed cooler. The only reason they sat under the roof to play was to keep the cards reasonably dry. Near them, their shorts were still piled on a small table, but the pile was messed up, as Norival had gone to his shorts and swallowed two pills from its pockets. They drank beer. There were many crushed cans near Norival’s feet.

From under the porch roof, as he played, Fletch watched the rain fall on the pool and make mud puddles in the dead garden. He watched the flower-kissing birds sustain themselves with wings which beat so fast they were almost invisible, like auras on either side of their bodies, as they sucked sugar water from small vessels in the rafters.

Kick-dancing and flower-kissing birds.

After two or three hours of poker playing, it was clear who the winner was. Norival was careless, concerned more with his next chope than the cards. He seemed keyed-up anyway—for someone who had had so much to drink, even though properly evacuated before lunch. Fletch yawned. Tito, Orlando, and Toninho played cards in a way odd to Fletch. They did not seem to see the cards as they were, but as something else, something more. Always they believed in the next card too much. They believed in what the cards might be instead of what they were.

Fletch was collecting all the chips.

At one point, Toninho said, “of course you cannot understand Brazil, Fletch. Three of us—all but Norival—have been to school in the United States. We cannot say we understand the United States, either. Everyone there is so anxious.”

“Very nervous,” Orlando said.

“Worried,” Tito said. “Do I drink too much, smoke too much, make love too much, too little? Is my hair all right? Might someone see that my ankles are fat?”

“Does everyone like me?” Orlando guffawed.

“I’m so pretty!” Toninho said in falsetto. “Don’t touch me!”

Fletch strummed the table with his fingers. “Bum, bum, paticum bum, prugurundum.”

The noise of the rain pounding on the tin roof increased.

Eva came through the back door and stood, watching them.

She stood behind Norival and watched his last chips disappear in careless play.

She took his feverish head in her hands and turned it sideways, and leaned his cheek against her bare stomach. “Ah, Norival,” she said in Portuguese. “You are getting drunk again.”

“Arigó,” Toninho said, clearly hoping for a picture card and playing as if he had one.

Eva rotated Norival’s head so that he was slipping off the chair. The front of his face was against her stomach. He breathed deeply a few times through his nose.

In a moment, Eva led Norival indoors.

Tito, Orlando, Fletch, and Toninho played silently.

Occasionally, concentrating, Toninho’s lips would move as if he were talking, but no sound came out.

When Orlando won anything, no matter how much he had lost, his face would break into a marvelous grin. He would be ready to lose more.

At one point, when Fletch was raking in chips again, Tito murmured, “Your peri-spirit is with you.”

“Is he telling you what cards we have?” Toninho asked.

“Doesn’t need to,” Fletch said. “I play with what I see I have against what I see you have.”

From inside there was a short scream.

Toninho chuckled. “I guess Norival has a few surprises in him yet.”

“We know he cannot hurt Eva,” Tito said. “He is only a stick in her fire.”

Then there was another, horrible, long drawn-out scream. It pierced the sound of the rain.

“They are playing,” Orlando said.

“Norival!” Toninho called in Portuguese. “Mind your manners!”

Naked, Eva fell through the back door. “Norival!”

Her hair was messed up. Her eyes were wild.

She sucked in breath and spoke in a rush.

Toninho said, “She says Norival has stopped moving. That he has stopped breathing.”

Eva was shouting Portuguese over the sound of the rain.

“He has passed out,” Tito said.

“No.” Alarmed, Toninho stood up. “She says he has stopped breathing!”

They all rushed inside.

More slowly, Fletch went with them, suspecting some new trick.

In the little room on the first floor, Norival lay on the rumpled, dirty sheets of an extra long bed. He was partly on his side, as if rolled into that position. He was naked and his stomach was slack. There was still a streak of mud on his leg.

Norival was grinning.

There was a happy, wicked gleam in his eye.

From the door, Fletch watched Norival’s grin remain idiotic.

Norival’s eyes did not blink.

Fletch joined the Tap Dancers at the side of the bed. With his fingertips he felt for a pulse in Norival’s neck. There was none. Norival’s pleaded eyes did not blink.

As Fletch watched, slowly the grin disappeared from Norival’s face. The lips became straight.

The happy gleam remained in his eyes.

A few inches in front of Norival’s penis, the bed sheet was wet and stained.

“He is dead!” Orlando said in Portuguese.

Under his breath, Tito whistled.

Standing, his back straight, Toninho said, “Norival. You died arigó.”

“What do we do?” Orlando asked. “Norival is dead!”

“How did he die?” Tito asked. “Surely he has done this before. It hasn’t been fatal.”

Orlando said, “He can’t be dead. Wake up, Norival! You’ll miss Carnival!”

“He is dead,” Toninho said. “Norival is dead!”

Eva filled the door of the small, dark room. Talking rapidly but more quietly now, she kept gasping, imitating a belch, grabbing her huge left breast with both hands.

“Died of a heart attack while copulating, I guess,” Fletch said.

Orlando said, “Way to go, Norival!”

“No wonder he was smiling!” Tito said.

“You saw him smiling?” Toninho asked.

“Definitely he was smiling,” Tito said.

Orlando nodded. “When we came into the room, he was smiling!”

“He is not smiling now,” Tito said.

“But look at his eyes,” Toninho said.

“His eyes are still happy,” Tito said.

“And why not?” Orlando asked. “Why not happy?”

At the door, Eva was beginning to look pleased with herself.

“But he’s dead!” Tito said.

“But how he died!” Orlando said. He looked ready to shake Norival’s hand. “Well done, Norival!”

“A death in ten million,” Toninho said. “Arigó!”