One Surreal Morning

A Sketch By Judson Vereen

Photograph by Yasmin Vereen. Editing and alterations by Author.

I went out this morning. I would say “nothing unusual”, because taking a morning stroll is the height of banality. Particularly in the big city. And if not in the morning, then certainly in the afternoon, where, for the artists at least, there is a lull in the work. You’ve said all you could this morning, you have thought long and hard on your work, given up and started back at it several times, questioned your grandiose existence or your puny, mediocre, corporeality, become pleased with what little you have said or done in comparison, and then back again, questioned, debated, scrutinized every molecule on this buzzing, combustible, tremulous planet.

But of course, that is work. So, when you decide to go for a stroll, you then decide to live. And isn’t it true how small we become in the face of life itself. Even more so, in the shadow of that looming, obligatory death. The final act that all drama precedes.

Don’t forget to live!

I have made a small habit of my living walks. I have done this in enormous cities, small rural towns. The best of the of the former was probably San Francisco, for its beautiful farmer’s markets. Of the latter, a suburban neighborhood of hills, designated walkways, trimmed gardens, a small park with a lake in my birth state of Georgia. Nothing to it, really. I don’t miss those walks at all, which is why they are still so perfect.

Now I walk in Brasil. A new continent, a sprawling green country. Today’s objective: I simply needed a new pair of headphones for my wife and I. You see, I do the treadmill in the evenings and I cannot think of a more boring activity. I must have my music while on that machine. No exceptions.

Music is the life blood. The source of all physical and mental inspiration. I say we are damned lucky to have it. Even bad music—I tell you! If the world were suddenly deprived of all music I would want to know:

Where did the music go?

And that is surely where I would be heading…

So much so that if I don’t have my music to treadmill to, I won’t even bother. Cannot waste one minute jogging in silence. Music is atmospheric, universal, ethereal, abstract. It is the language of the spirit, of the will to live, to make love, to drink and to dance. Only the strangest poems come near what music does. A poem would have to be awfully strange—no knock against poetry— music needs it. On my walk this morning to get headphones, I was deprived of music, however. It could not be helped. It was still a good morning—the type of morning where one tends to notice everything. To get to the street, just a short elevator ride down, a quick stroll through the small lobby and out to the promenade, where gated doors glide open in a single, graceful motion. Upon doing so, enter yourself into heaven. Heaven of a kind—I mean, a city. There are some that will understand…

There are two black eagles, circling in the sky like buzzards over a carcass. They are always there. Fixed in the sky like two shadows suspended in the tranquility of crosswinds, sun rays. Tim and Tom. They converse of wind directionals, the morning, afternoon and evening meals. They hunt for scent, death, betrayal, accident. The clouds are stretched thin, lie protracted in form—motionless, lingering, ribbons. The mountains, far back beyond the city limits reveal themselves through hazy, shrunken, intermittent forms. The city itself is not dead, nor lethargic nor languid, but vigorous, kinetic, spry. The sun rays beat down on every windshield, every flat plane of warmed metal, every square of glittering glass. Each ray splices, shimmers like daggers or diamonds upon sleepy eyes.

The long avenue, Avenida Independência—Independence! Not to be underestimated, the avenue goes on for miles, years, millennia, epochs of forever. On its golden walkways are the naked footprints of nurses, politicians, saints, children, angels, bespeckled by blood, broken cars, graffiti dreams, newly formed fossils. Palm trees sway in the outlying view; abstracted, isolated, naturally dancing like hula girls on a beach. You can almost see them wearing skirts, swaying in unison, impeccable, sinless, beckoning. Motorcycles like bombs are everywhere, delivering food, piercing the days limits, like small electrical currents zipping through the hot grid, darting in imperceptible flashes of combustion, radiation, rocket fuel, stardust.

The day is an upbeat tempo, but inexplicably, nobody is in a hurry to do anything. You can call it a metropolis; I would liken it to jazz. Miles Davis, 1960. It is only a Tuesday, sounds about right. The wind on the street is a cool handshake, no gusts or squalls or uproars to protect against, it is greeted like a friend. In my mind, you see, there exists almost nothing of any consequence. Nothing internal. No struggle, you see?

In my mind there is no war. That’s right—no wars, no starvation, no diseases to speak of, therefore no vaccines to fight off the sickness. There is no imperious government, therefore no government overreach, no laws, no taxes. Even so, there is no distance, no border, no real line demarcating myself and the city. I am not “in the city”. I am the city, part of it, it part of me. There is no distinction. There is no me without the city, no city without me. We flow through one another like the ancient rivers and streams have flowed through all of humanity since our very own birth.

Also, there is nothingness—only the bare elements of my own excited wonderment. Everything or anything could be a curious non sequitur. There are no bureaucracies, no bureaucratic speech, no elections nor votes. We have given all the politicians the day off. Hell, take the whole week! Nobody even notices…

Every undergrowth of greenery, every trill of every birdsong, every bird, gust of wind by car is a monumental occasion. The birds flit and flutter like a saxophone solo, right in the pocket, no wrong notes, no discernible, fluid melody. Straight from the gut, the hip, the nursery, the funeral parlor, the pastel stand. Everything is a gut punch to the solar plexus.

Down the road, the street prostitutes begin their shift in high heels and lace. The drunks begin their zombified benders. Their eyes tinged with agony, skin sand-blasted away, their bodies wrinkles in time, stretched to pale thinness, blighted by the second hand of a wristwatch, stomachs on fire from rot-gut cachaça and gutter-stink pinga. Bodies of withered dreariness, faces like ashtrays. An aura of death swirls around their glasses and mouths this morning. Neon red lipstick stains still kiss the edges of each unwashed glass, from the drunk prostitutes of the night before. From the lips of the whores to the mouths of the barfly’s, a silent agreement is made. Can’t say for sure what it is, but I know it is there.

There is no need to ask “why?”, about anything—it is a mindset, a mood, a disposition that can grow into a lifestyle, a mode of personal operation, a philosophy, you see. Even just with the pockets stuffed with a couple of bucks, or bank card holding a modest amount, one can at least get a cup of coffee. It seems trivial, it seems banal, bathetic, bromidic. But with the smallest amount of dough, you can. And so, with the smallest amount of dough, you do. I don’t particularly crave coffee as much as others, but damnit—it is available! Service—it’s wonderful!

The buildings in Piracicaba, soar and hover with grandiose shadows, the cool hues of mint, lime green, oceanic blues. For once, they have stripped themselves bare for me. I see them as they are meant to be. I see them as close to my own body, my own hand. I could reach out and touch the tops of them. I could wrap my hands around the bases of them and give them a good squeeze. On the outside, a desperate soundless façade. Inside, limitless lives, limitless problems, a limited number of solutions, lovers, kitchens of boiling fat, laundry soaked to the bone, televisions blare. But keep no worry in mind—every problem today, of mine or of man, of public or private will be solved before nightfall. In fact, the falling of night is the solution. But for a moment, I try to plan my day—it is a useless undertaking. There is no plan. The city is a vast but compact organism. The traffic weaves through the streets of Quinze de Novembro, Dom Pedro the first and second, all the way down to the waterfront and back again…

The waterfront. Where red water and white crests wrestle in the ceaseless current of debris and rain. Where the rats are flooded, thrashed on the rocks, beaten tirelessly, drown in the muck and wash up on the shore by the dozens. Suddenly, for a moment, I am in North Africa, in Oran, I am Dr. Rieux! Resisting the temptation, resisting all ugliness, never giving in. I have found the inner resolve, I have rescued a people! Ah, but just as the rats have returned to take their vengeance, to once again come up from the gutters and ash and die in a free city! And just across the bridge over the water, there is the old bombed out looking armory with its rusty copper façade and broken plates of jagged windows, dirt floors, factory smell, dead iron lungs, broken flower decrepitude.

As I walk on the Ave Independencia, on the adjacent street a grandmother waters her garden of herbs, hortelã, oregano, flowers bursting in their brilliance at the pace of sunlight. A man is fixing the gate of his house, he paints with his shirt off while half-listening to samba music, fuzz comes in and out of the radio. He is barefoot, grey haired. The houses of avocado, burnt peach, antique flooring, bare lightbulbs dangling, pungent smells of garlic and tomato line the grid, perfectly in sync with the entire operatic enterprise. In one glimpse, at the right angle, one can see every facet of earth enveloping the scene; clouds at the top of the canvas, slightly skin toned and partially grey inside the celeste blue backdrop. Midrange, buildings stack up from the back. Closer now, houses, walkways, blades of grass. The city of Piracicaba contains multitudes. Like San Francisco, it is a town of fiction. Everything seems boutique, miniaturized, toy like, playful, even tranquil, even animated like an old cartoon.

I stroll past several conveniences; two small shops selling furniture. There is another old man sitting out front. He wears clothes from the seventies. He is not being ironic. He looks exactly how an old man with a junk furniture shop should look. He reads the newspaper, sips coffee from a copo americano, puffs on a cigar. I would say he plays his role to perfection. And I love these types. Clichés and such are underrated, underappreciated in this way. I say there are certain roles to fill and those parts ought to be played by the best. There are wicker chairs, scratched up furniture from every decade. Some plastic and modern, look like hell, immediately disposable. Others, carved from solid wood, ornate, stout, built for the last generation on earth. Next, one block away, appears to be the exact same store. Another old man, another cigar, another newspaper, another coffee in a copo americano. Another scattering of furniture.

All my life, the most disorganized places in the world either belong to junk shops and furniture stores or shoe repairs. I have hardly seen a shoe repair shop that had any inkling of organization. It’s as if there was some society of shoe repairman that decided organization was intolerable.¹

Anyways, conveniences. On one side of me, the cemetery. An old cemetery of broken concrete, cracks as wide as your feet, weeds burrowing in and out of every crevice, tombs worn to roundness, the titles of which, through time and circumstance, have been rendered anonymous. Headstones sway in every possible direction, like broken, unattended teeth slowly rising from the mouth of the salty, tranquil dirt. The decay rises up in the stillness of the air, displaces itself, molds itself into the shape of you, tattoos itself to your flesh, finds an opening, slithers in like a knife, produces horripilation, angst, uneasiness. At night, one can imagine the bodies of the cemetery rising up in solid unison, stripping themselves of the tatters and ribbons, shoes and ties they were buried in. Bursting from the ground like rockets, each body soars across the cityscapes and mountainsides to profess their love to those who they are survived by. Across any measurement of space and time, their red eyes, tearful but hot, brave but terrified, jostling in loose orbital-bone settings, vibrate with the luster of fresh pearls. In their reflection—moonbeams, initials, memories, erotic cloud forms. Buried for decades, inexplicably, each skeleton emits the aura of blue ocean water. What is left of their tattered clothes resembles soggy kelp, flapping in the wind, snapping back and forth like the flag of a brigantine in a typhoon.

Never mind though, the soccer field is just across the street from the funeral. With wide arena walls, towering bundles of fixed lights, angled, sturdy. On one side of the street, the death that is the cemetery, on the other, a venue of entertainment, scrimmage, athleticism, spectatorship. Life, let us say. In the middle, Avenida Independência, an artery of Piracicaba, pumping life blood into the organs and kidneys, spleen and lungs of a living, breathing metropolitan body. In the café just nestled between a thin strip of houses, apartment buildings, I order café com leite. It is exquisite, I believe. I know next to nothing about coffee. I know just enough Portuguese to cause confusion. I try to speak,

“Tudo bem? Bom dia, por favor, você tem um cafe com leite médio?”

“Sim, amigo, claro”

“Perfeito, amigo!”

Anything more out of me will cause confusion in the language. Sometimes it would be better off if I knew no Portuguese at all. Less confusion. They spot me as a gringo, right away. They love Americans, the Brasileiros. They are infinitely curious…

“Novo York, eh?…E Califórnia? Eu tenho uma irmã em Montana”

“Bom, amigo, muito bom”

Moments later, coffee down the hatch, bill is paid. R$7.50. Now, with my headphones, I blast music and everything else becomes silent. But it is a Tuesday. The city is in full sweep, nothing, truly, can ever stop it. I would say glorious, or transcendent to describe it. Heavenly, robust, prospering, decaying, life affirming, death giving. In the wilderness of it all, in the morning, flashes of the day are rapacious, bombastic, repetitive, striking at every apex of every one of the senses. In the gushing, overflowing strike of violin sways, uproarious applause, criminal networks, napping alcoholics, all fear of survival vanishes in the stream light of the morning sun.

In the surreal nature of a citified existence, it is 9 AM. As the pulse of all things life affirming grips every vein, artery and swirls inside a body of expanding lungs, a galloping mind, a sturdy gait, a lively, unfixed physicality, as these things rise up in the morning, I say that I too shall rise. That in the scenery of the morning, at 9 AM, finally, with my new headphones, finally with my music now, I have shaken off the somnolent residue of sleep. Yes, the morning has rushed through me like a tidal wave and finally, finally—I am fully awake.

Centro, Piracicaba. Photo by Yasmin Vereen.

1. (However, I think the more disorganized a shoe repair shop is, the better the repair. In Portland, I got my boots resoled. Cost half a fortune. What a place. Spotless. Decorated with a talented hand, floors glistening, the clean smell of a bakery, the immaculate, glassy, squeaky atmosphere of a hotel lobby. The place was all on the up and up. My shoes fell apart in two weeks.)