Rio De Janeiro, 1973. I suddenly felt myself becoming perceptive to the unseen wave lengths around me, like a baby cockroach testing its antenna. It wasn’t a sense of immediate danger or even subtle menace that struck me, so much as a sense of a new kind of awareness that had suddenly sprung up inside […]
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Rio De Janeiro, 1973. I stood watching it cross the straight little bridge high up in the air and clatter off rhythmically around a corner up a windy street into the hills and on the other side, disappearing behind an ancient faded yellow building that emerged through a jungle of banana trees and billowing clotheslines. […]
read moreRio De Janeiro, 1973. Losing all track of time in my aimless wandering, I soon found myself on a series of winding labyrinthine narrow streets in picturesque Bohemian-looking quarter, bordered on one side by the looming shadows of imposing 1930’s style office buildings. A real old-time flavor… businesslike efficient shoeshine stands, snack bars with a […]
read moreRio De janeiro, 1973. At once I was at home here, somehow and without knowing why or even wanting to stop and contemplate the strange feeling I just knew that there was an inner sense of peace and belonging in my step that strange, quasi-mystical culture shock that I’d felt before, first stepping on that […]
read moreRio De Janeiro, 1973 Not knowing or really caring where I was, or having the slightest idea where to go, I simply chose a direction and started walking, instinctively choosing the shady side of the street, slowing down briefly here and there to glance in a shop window. One place in particular that caught my […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. Her mom had basically told her to bring home the bacon or not come home at all. And for a while she didn’t. She ran the streets and did what she wanted in a spell of adolescent rebellion, turning tricks for food and shelter and spending the rest on drugs, mostly pot […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. She didn’t ask me anything about me. None of the usual shit, where did I come from, where was I going. Why, what, where, when, who, all that shit. She didn’t care, I liked that. Maybe it was because I was just another trick. I just liked that she talked freely and […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. She snatched up the C-note like a baby alligator taking its prey in one quick hungry bite. She motioned for me to wait. I waited. I was her slave and maybe she knew it… or not, but a hundred pesos was a hundred pesos… She turned and walked a few steps down […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. She seemed to be thinking it over now. “Don’t worry about the money, nena” I repeated. “I got enough to cover the night. It’ll be worth it to ya… Vamos?” Her eyes rolled back like a cash register for the briefest tenth of a second… Like a cartoon character, rolling up twin […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. As the days wore on, I felt that even the giant roaches that patrolled the dark corridors of the hotel like kindred spirits, hiding furtive and sinister in dark corners, had abandoned me. One time I woke up sweaty and hungover to bring a bag of dirty clothes that had sat festering […]
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