Bonobo comes back from the kitchen with two bottles of Heineken and says, Peace to all beings. They clink their green bottlenecks.
Isn’t that what the Buddhists say?
Yep, I’m a Buddhist.
He laughs.
What’s so funny?
You don’t strike me as a Buddhist.
What’s a Buddhist supposed to be like?
I don’t know. But you don’t strike me as one.
Don’t talk crap.
Don’t you have to take a vow of chastity, stop drinking, that kind of thing?
Not exactly.
Bonobo says he started becoming familiar with Buddhism in the late nineties, flirting on ICQ with a girl from Curitiba who followed the religion. Ideas such as compassion, nonattachment, and impermanence were new to him. It all made sense right from the start. His eyes light up as he tells the story. Sometimes he stops talking and meditates on what he has just said, nodding his head lightly. He is convinced that if that girl hadn’t been open to his silly online advances and spent night after night explaining samsara, karma, and the law of moral causation to him, he probably would have killed someone or been killed himself. Or both. Bonobo invited her to Porto Alegre, and she went. She traveled by bus and stayed in a dive near the bus station. She wanted to go to Garagem Hermética, a nightclub that other online friends of hers frequented. They went together. They saw a band from Esteio that played Smiths covers, and they had a hell of a night. The girl brought him several books as a present and convinced him to learn English. Eva was her name.
The girl studied physics, man. Physics. A nerdy weirdo and totally introverted but an angel in human form. A being of light. We visited the Três Coroas Temple together, and it became a second home to me. I worked as a laborer there and went on several retreats. I wanted to live there, but the lamas wouldn’t let me. They said I wasn’t ready. And they were right. I wasn’t ready for that. Eva never came back again, but we kept in touch online and used to send each other photocopies of philosophical and Buddhist texts in the post. She died of leukemia in 2003.
Sorry to hear it. That must have been hard to deal with.
A rooster crows once, twice, three times.
It was. But life goes on. Didn’t you like Liz?
She seemed nice. But there was no chemistry.
Chemistry? What sissy talk. Liz is a wild thing — all you had to do was make a move.
I’m tired as fuck.
Uncle Bonobo spoon-fed you, and you—
I’m really drunk.
— give me this shit about—
I stink. We’re revolting.
— chemistry. C’mon now. You left the girl high and dry.
She’ll get over it. What about Ju?
I was teaching her some stuff.
Did she achieve nirvana?
Actually, it’s serious. Ju’s in a really fucked-up cycle of suffering. Her marriage broke up, and she can’t accept it. She needed to talk a little. I think she’s starting to understand the question of impermanence, and it’s helping. I suggested that she visit Lama Palden over in Encantada. But come with me, I want to show you something.
He follows Bonobo into his room. There is a monstrous ball of pillows, sheets, blankets, and items of dirty clothing on the mattress of his double bed. The floor is hidden under a layer of underwear, towels, T-shirts, shorts, and a long black wetsuit. The reigning fragrance is one of rancid human secretions, incense, and wet clothes forgotten in a plastic bag. Two incense sticks are filling the room with a light haze. On one wall are posters of Led Zeppelin and a Buddhist divinity with writing in Tibetan. The desk is completely covered with a printer, an old laptop, a small LCD TV, a jumble of papers, bottles, cans, used glasses, a full bottle of tequila, and a picture frame with a black and white photograph of what looks like a Chinese man in suspenders pointing a revolver at his own head. A shelf on the wall is curved under the weight of a few dozen books.
See over there?
What?
Leaning against the wall.
The sandboard?
No, next to the cupboard.
The rifle?
Bonobo leaps over the bed and picks up a weapon.
It’s a spear gun. Come here.
How do I enter?
You can step on the clothes.
He walks around the bed and takes the spear gun. He has never held one before. Bonobo shows him how to load the galvanized steel spear in the bands of rubber and ready the spool.
You mentioned that your granddad used to go spearfishing here. I remembered that I had this spear gun and never use it. I tried to fish with it a few times, but I can’t stay underwater for long. You can have it.
Fuck, these things are expensive. I can’t accept it.
Stop being such a girl. It’s a present from a man to a man. Catch some groupers so we can cook up a moqueca.
They shake hands firmly, and Bonobo gives him a kind of sideways hug while patting him on the shoulder, staring seriously into his eyes. To escape the unexpected and slightly disturbing familiarity, he glances around for something to change the focus. A red T-shirt catches his attention among the dirty clothes.
Aren’t you a Grêmio supporter?
Obviously, says Bonobo.
So what’s that Internacional T-shirt doing on the floor there?
It takes Bonobo a moment to locate the item in the mess.
Ah, that’s for the chicks to wear.
You ask Inter supporters to wear that T-shirt?
Yep.
And do they?
Most do. Some Grêmio supporters do too if you know how to ask. There’s this humiliation thing that some of them like. An Inter chick with a mouth full of cock, nothing better.
They sit in the bedroom and continue drinking. It’s still dark out, but two little birds are engaged in a twittering duel.
I won’t even be able to sleep, says Bonobo. The girl who makes breakfast called in to say she’s not coming today. Shit. I forgot to buy fruit.
Since you’re religious, let me ask you something. Let’s say that a famous writer writes something that he never publishes, but he gives the manuscript to a trusted friend, his best friend, and asks him never to publish it. The writer dies. The friend reads the manuscript and discovers that it’s a masterpiece. So he shows it to an editor, the editor publishes it, and everyone agrees that it’s a masterpiece, and the writer becomes even more respected after his death.
Okay. What about it?
Is what his friend did wrong? Did he betray the writer?
I don’t follow. Do you have a writer friend?
No. Fuck. Hold on.