The only time I ever ran for my life , I ran with my friend Robert, I ran as fast as I had ran when I almost ran from my life and ended up in the icy waters, but the fastest I had ever ran , was without question the time with Robert. I have ran from trouble, and used my long legs to get away from a more than tricky situation, but never as tricky and dangerous as this one. Rio de Janeiro is not famous for track and field running events, , but If anyone had timed our run during the Christmas holiday in 1986, we would have made the beautiful city on the eastern coast of Brazil famous for more than Futbol, carnival, and sandy beaches with almost naked girls everywhere. I can guarantee that we ran faster than anyone has ever run in the streets of Rio as we did that late December night. Our hotel was located on the Northern part of Copacabana beach and unless we took one of the small Volkswagen Beetle taxis, we always had to walk a long way to get to the clubs and bars further south on the Av. Atlantica, This time we had decided to explore the streets further in from the beach, away from the tourist area along the avenue right off the beach, so we headed straight up a few blocks in from all the hustle and bustle of the main street. What makes young people, especially me in the early to mid-twenties seek out trouble the way that we do has been always been beyond a mystery for me. We had been in Rio a few days already and had of course been at most of the great spots, and really didn’t need anything else to have a perfectly good time. But the inner drive to seek out new opportunities must have kicked in again, and when we had started out the night we hadn’t even made any plans.
The other guys we were travelling with, it was six of us total, was, after a wet day hanging out at the beach, in the middle of a late afternoon nap. The trip to Rio during Christmas break had been decided from of a combination of my friend Tommy’s detailed recap of his trip there last winter, and the cheap package we had been offered from our buddy Petter that worked at his dads travelling agency. It was Robert and I plus two other of our colleagues and their two friends that had gone across the Atlantic on December 23rd for two weeks of vacation. This night, it was only Robert and I. We had gotten dressed for fun and had headed to the restaurant around the corner for a meal and a couple of beers. Our conversation consisted of what we had experienced in the few days after arriving on the night before Christmas Eve.
We had all met at the office for a pre-Christmas breakfast that consisted of food, beer and aquavit, and we decided to make a few phone calls to clients trying to get rid of the excess inventory of typewriters we had, and the alcohol had helped with a free talking and persuasive salesman, and I managed to peddle off twenty plus typewriters before we headed to the airport. The trip went through London and after an eight hour layover in London were we all preceded to get pretty loaded before sleeping it off on the flight across the ocean. We arrived pretty late on the 23rd, and went to the same place Robert and I was at this night, and had just had a few drinks and dinner before tuning in. We were shocked by the fact that in Rio, looking in to a woman’s eyes was an invitation for them to come over and join you, and after a few minutes gawking at the good looking girls, we found ourselves surrounded by beautiful women. The fact that we all had blond hair and were pretty talk didn’t hurt our chances either, and we felt like we had arrived in heaven. We had also heard that we needed to be careful because of the high crime rate in Brazil, but no one was going to mess with six young big guys so we hadn’t encountered anything, yet. After sitting down in the restaurant, that first night I had just glanced over at a girl a few tables over and she immediately came over and placed her nice body in the seat next to me at the table. I must have been very tired, there was no hiding that she wanted more than just sitting and chat with me, but all the booze on the trip over and lack of sleep made me less than interested. We turned in early for a big day on Christmas Eve.
The next night, on Christmas Eve, we had been out the entire day hanging out at the beach, drinking beer and taking all the beautiful girls in. At the café, across the Ave. Atlantica we had been approached by several girls that either of us had just looked at, and they must have either taken it as invitations, or just liked us Northerners, because after a few minutes we were surrounded by girls that somehow claimed us. I had looked at a gorgeous mulatto girl, she must have been somewhere between eighteen and twenty, and she immediately came over and sat down next or almost on top of me.
“They are not hookers, are they” I had asked the other guys, but it didn’t seem like they cared one way or the other.
“Guys, are they hookers?” I asked with a low voice in case one of them spoke any English
“No I doubt it, they are not asking for anything. From the look of it, it just looks like they want to hang out” They were not asking for anything, maybe the girls just didn’t have anything, and wanted a free meal or just a drink, but we found out pretty quickly that just about anything was just for fun.
“I am sure if we wanted to; these girls would come back to Norway with us” Harry, said, sitting flirting and making out right there in the café in the middle of the day. He always was a hopeless romantic, and every time after meeting a girl he wanted to move in with them or plan the rest of his life with them. Back home, in the liberal country of Norway he hadn’t much luck with the girls with that approach. Here however it didn’t take him long to make plans for himself with the beautiful young girl on his lap. Even if it was Christmas Eve we had made arrangements to meet the girls later that night. The only one that was a little apprehensive was Tom. Tom had worked as a Newspaper delivery driver, and went to the horse tracks every day after work. The morning schedule of the newspaper deliveries was usually over at around 11:00am and this allowed him to spend time around the tracks to get the inside information on the horses for the races that evening. Even if he lived off the horse race gambling, he was a very calculated man, and made a constant nice profit at the tracks. He had the same approach with the ladies as he had with the horses, and always wanted to check out what he was getting in to before making a move. It was Christmas Eve, but we didn’t care about any celebrations, we just wanted to go out and have fun, and there were ladies involved.
We all had gone back to the hotel , relaxed a bit before we all took a quick afternoon shower and started to get dressed up for a the night. This is when I received a call from the front lobby, that there was a woman that was waiting for me there.
“What? Who the hell could that be? I don’t expect anyone here, I said” Robert can you check it out?” Robert was already dressed and went out in to the hallway and took the elevator down. A few minutes later he was back with a big smile on his face
“Remember the girl from last night? The one at the restaurant?”
“Yeah …” my voice was a tad low and I was talking in a slower pace than usual. “What about her?”
“Well, she is all dressed up in white, and is sitting waiting for you to take her on a date”
“What the fuck makes her think that I am talking her on a date? “
“The concierge told me that she told him that she had asked you if you would take her out on a date tonight and you had agreed. She is sitting waiting for you downstairs.”
“What the hell are you talking about? She doesn’t speak English. She might have said something, but I didn’t know any Portuguese, and I certainly didn’t agree to any date tonight. “So what do you want me to do?” Robert was dying laughing and just shook his shoulders.
“Hey man, you got to go down and tell her that I am sick or something. I ain’t going on no date tonight, with all the other girls we are meeting and all. I am not spending my first day out in Rio holding hands with some stranger girl –that tricked me I might add- while you guys are having fun with the princesses of Copacabana. Actually I am not spending any night in fucking Rio de Janeiro on a date- period. She’s even dressed in white, maybe she is planning to marry me, who knows, she doesn’t speak any English either, god knows what she is saying. Help a man out her ok?” Robert has always been the savior of every situation, and is the most outstanding “consiglieri” extraordinaire in the toughest of all situations. This one needed his expertise and he left for the downstairs to explain the misunderstanding.
“You guys sleep with half of the girls in town, and I am the one who gets the fucking clap”. Tom looks at us and can’t believe that he, of all people actually have caught something he doesn’t deserve at all.
“I bring one girl back to the hotel, and you have to admit she was very nice and innocent looking, and I get this shit? What do I do I do? I gotta get a doctor or something. This is killing me” We were almost rolling in our chair at the café as Tom can’t believe that he actually had been so unlucky. He had stayed behind when the Swedish travel agent three days earlier took us to the “Aeroporto”, or massage institute, or as Harry had officially called it, The best place on earth. We had been laying around dressed in just a robe and been treated by amazon goddesses en entire afternoon, but Tom had quickly proclaimed that he didn’t think it sounded mush like a massage institute “I am not going to a whorehouse, ever , especially with all these beauties are swarming over us all day”
“Well, I am sure I already have AIDS already, So I have nothing more to worry about” The always nervous, yet pragmatic Robert had spent the night with a black girl the night before and was sure he was infected with something, if not the worst.
“I saw her come out of the hotel this morning; we were walking behind her on our way to the beach. She was skipping and singing and from the look on her face, she was a satisfied customer, if you know what I mean” Robert just smiled “yeah, it as a good time”
“ Hello-can we get back to me again? Can someone tell me where the hell I can get a doctor?”
At that time, Lakkie, walked up to the table. Lakkie, the musician from my small hometown, the Lakkie that used to date my sister back ten year earlier had just walked up in the middle of the street, in Rio-in Brazil, and said hi. I hadn’t believed it, but he was trying to make it as a musician and had stayed there for a while. He spoke fluently Portuguese and knew his way around. The other day we had taken him out to a club. He didn’t have any decent clothes to wear, so we had dressed him up in one of Roberts suits and with his tan and natural good looks looked like Don Johnson out of Miami Vice.
“Hey Lakkie, Tom has gotten gonorrhea, any idea where he can get some antibiotics”
We were all laughing as Andy basically screamed it for everyone in the restaurant to hear, because half the folks there looked over towards our table. Tom was just looking at him shaking his head, knowing that gonorrhea probably is the same word in most languages.
“Hey, no problem,” Lakkie smiled. “Go to the pharmacy two streets up and to the left and tell them what the problem is. They speak English, as you are not the first tourist here that has gotten a venereal disease. The stuff is really good; it will kill anything you have in a day. It is illegal just about anywhere in Europe, but the regulations are slack here so they sell it over the counter.”
“Hey, pay my bill here Jessie. It’s just two beers and a sandwich. I’ll get you later. ” I nodded as Tom grabbed Harry, and the two of them took off for the Pharmacy. He usually won money at the tracks, but it wasn’t luck. He used calculated chances with inside information, and never gambled with anything. The “Nice” and beautiful young girl that he had gambled on here in Rio was not calculated, and if he had indeed done research regarding diseases among girls in Rio, at least at the Copacabana, I am sure that he wouldn’t have taken the bet. The only time he had taken an uncalculated bet., he had lost, and he certainly knew this as he was heading for the pharmacy looking for medicines to ease the pain in his crotch. As Harry and Tom rounds the corner, the rest of us catch a young Brazilian boy and trust him with some money to go and buy us cigarettes from a tobacco kiosk. It’s a lot of money for the young street boy, but not much at all for us. We trust him with the cash, give him instructions and send him on his way with the little fortune. We make bets on whether he will come back or not, but within fifteen minutes he is back with all the cigarettes, gum and all the change. We all cheer and give him a pat on the back, and we all love the fact that we could trust the little boy.
At the small restaurant around the corner from our hotel, Robert and I enjoyed talking about the events that had followed after arriving a few days earlier.
“How does this Mickey Mouse money work again? I’m still not getting the whole conversion rates system again? How much is a Cruzeiro?” I had a roll of thousands of a combination of Cruzeiros and Cruzados, and looked down at the big bills. ”I know that they changed to Cruzados just recently, but how much is it worth?”
“Well, it’s pretty simple, but yet pretty complicated” Robert lighted up a cigarette that he had characteristically hanging on the side of his mouth to avoid getting any smoke from the Prince Light in his eyes.
“I get that, but I got a better rate from that guy at the café yesterday”
“Listen. So all the conversation rates are from the US dollar, therefore you have to think in dollars, not in Kroners. One dollar is approximately seven Kroners, right? Well, there has been such a high inflation in Brazil.”
“I know, I read the government financed its operation and development projects not from taxes, but just started printing money. I believe it’s around 2900 percent now.” I thought I sounded really knowledgeable and impressive, but I had just read it in an American newspaper the other day. I really had no idea of how inflation worked.
“Well, the inflation caused the Cruzeiro to be worth less, and this last year the inflation has skyrocketed to over 2000 percent. “
“Kind of like back in the thirties right?”
“Yeah, remember the pictures of Germans having to get a wheel barrow full of money to buy a piece of bread?”
“Ridiculous, or course it all collapsed”
“Well, last year they implemented the Cruzados, basically they took three zeros off the Cruzeiro, and there you have the difference.”
“So why did I get more Cruzados for the dollars yesterday at the café, than I did at the hotel reception this morning?
“There are different exchange rates, depending on where you get it exchanged. We couldn’t even get any Cruzeiros or Cruzados in Norway remember, no one would even dare to do any currency exchange with Brazil with this inflation rate”
“Yeah, I remember trying to get some in London, They just laughed at us”
Robert lights up another Prince Light, and I do the same. We order another beer, and ask for the bill.
“There is a bank rate that is the worst rate you get here, except if you use a credit card. Don’t use your Amex car, it’s the worst. Then there is a “hotel rate” where you get a better rate than in the banks. I am sure the banks take a bigger commission, but we should use the hotel rate. Then of course it is the street rate. The Indians run the currency exchange on the streets. I read somewhere that they are using the exchange of money to wash their illegitimate business money, that’s why you get the best rate in the streets. Of course it is illegal, and therefore risky, but it’s probably worth it as well, because the police are so corrupt and they look the other way. I think the Indians, “India” Indians, not American Indians, run the currency exchange in most of the places around the world”
“So let me get this straight. I have to think in Dollars, not Kroners. One dollar is seven kroners, and then there is the Cruzeiro that in essence has the same as the Cruzeiro rate, minus the three zeros. We’re not sure how much either a Cruzeiro and a Cruzados is worth, in either dollars or kroners, because it is changing every day”
“Exactly” Robert replies, feeling like an international finance guru, still smoking in his peculiar way, he takes a puff and blows the smoke out of the other side of his mouth and laughs at me.
“Then there are different exchange rates, the credit card rate is the worst, the official bank rate follows right behind, then the rate we get at the hotel. Of course we have the Indians in the streets rate that is the best rate for us, but a little scarier, as it is illegal. We should just use the hotel to do the exchanges. “I look down at the roll of bills with hundreds of thousands of Cruzeiro.
“It doesn’t matter whether we get our money changed in the hotel or on the streets, we can’t spend it all anyway. It’s so damn cheap and it’s just a few dollars for just about anything anyway. “
We both make a toast and gulp down the beer. I look at the bill the waiter has just handed me.
“Look, two steaks, a shot of Cachaca and eight beers. It’s like two dollars or something.” I take out a few of the bills that I still don’t understand how much is worth, and put them on the little silver tray the handwritten bill is on.
“I have a feeling well be using wheel barrels by the end of our vacation next week.”
Why would good looking educated young men from good families leave a perfectly good setup and seek out the dangers of a back alley? Where does the drive to challenge the established rules and go in the opposite direction to where the unknown lies, come from? Why would young men look at something they know are risky , have an intuition that this is not the place to be, yet still being drawn towards that same place everyone have said not to go. Our conscience tells us that the right turn is the correct direction, but we are drawn to taking left turn where danger with potentially devastating results lures behind every step we take. Is it the same seek of adventure that drives the modern man to take a left turn, as took the ancient explorers to set out in tiny vessels across brutal waters to the unknown? We don’t have any ships to take across oceans, and we cannot attack an unknown enemy in search of riches, but nevertheless .the search of excitement lies within us all, and we continue to push the limits of what can be ruled as reckless. Through times many me has gone towards the unknown and found excitement, and today we all continue to try to challenge ourselves. We jump out of airplanes, climb mountains, and walk across Greenland or raft down a ferocious river with life on the line. We get flown in a helicopter to the top of a mountain to ski down where no one has been before. Is it to satisfy our manly egos, and prove to ourselves that we are adventurous, or the need to fill some inner drive to try challenge ourselves?
That night at the café’, Robert and I did not plan what we were going to do that night in Rio. We didn’t talk about the night that lied ahead of us, yet we knew that we wanted to have fun. We simply paid for our food and drinks, said thank you to the waiter, and headed out of the small restaurant. We just looked straight out at the beautiful beach that was nicely lit up from a combination of the lights from the hotels and tall buildings that was lined up all down the avenue, and a beautiful moonlight from out in the ocean, and looked at each other. We were both dressed in suits with t-shirts underneath, and Miami Vice style and with the tan from the days on the beach we knew that looked like we had more money than anyone else in the big city.
“Let’s go up here and see if there are any cool places a few streets up”
“Sounds great” I said and we immediately headed left out of the restaurant. No discussion, no mention on what or where we need to head, but just a quick left turn and up the streets directly away from the safety of the beach area. We both stopped briefly and each lit up a cigarette before continuing up the street. We looked ahead, and saw the lights from the favela up on the hill that appeared way closer than we could have realized. This was an area where you did not want to be even close to, and an area where if we went in, we would not come out alive, or at least not with our health intact. The Portuguese exported more slaves from their colonies in Africa to the Americas than all other countries combined, and Rio de Janeiro was the main arrival place for the arriving slaves, before they were sent along on the new continent for a brutal life on the sugar plantations and in the many mines deep down in the. When the country got its independence from Portugal and freedom was given there were so many homeless and people without work, and they gathered in the areas up on the hills around the city. There are several large favelas, and the closest one to the beach area, was the one we saw up on the hill , not far from where we were heading that December night in 86.
“Shit, is that the favela?” I said, puffing on the Prince Light, but not slowing down.
“Looks like it man, we gotta make sure we don’t get to close to that area”
We continued our walk, and the streets got a little darker, and there were not many people around. A homeless person on the corner a couple of blocks away from the avenue looked at us and said something in Portuguese that we didn’t understand, but we just ignored him and continued across the intersection, keeping our fast pace. Three more blocks and we were alone, but finally saw a place on the left corner with the entrance three steps up from the street level. There was a large, dark black woman with a lit cigarette in her mouth, she stood on the top step, and glanced at us with an almost fake smile on her face.
“Hey boys, you want to come in to have drink” She said with a big smile revealing a row of white teeth in her mouth. An almost perfect row of teeth, as she was missing the second or third tooth on her left side of her mouth, and the fact that her teeth probably looked whiter than they actually were, as her skin was dark as coal and the teeth worked almost like a florescent light in the dark night. We didn’t discuss the matter and don’t answer her question, we just took the stairs in two quick steps, and as I we passed her and go in through the tight entrance door, I smell a combination of cheap perfume, sweat from her big body and the lit cigarette that dangling in the corner of her mouth.
The scene is something we all have observed through numerous movies and that this particular bar probably have done many times. We act just like many young men have done before us, and that many young men will surely do in the future.
-In our typical way, Robert and I go in through the door, like in an old western movie we are the cowboys in town to raise hell after a few weeks on the ranch, and we head straight for the bar that is located to the left in the small room. Just like in any old town there is a dark smoky air with just a few tables, and I quickly realize that we are the only ones there that don’t belong there. It is almost like they have been waiting for a couple of idiots to walk through door, and we are their paycheck that they normally don’t get. I am sure that now and then there is a tourist or two like us that gets drunk and lose track of where they are, but the surprise and smiles on the faces in the few people in the bar shows that they all think they have just won the lottery. I am wearing a gold necklace that belonged to my father, but that I received after he died just a few months earlier. I am also wearing the gold watch that he gave me when I was hired in my new job that summer, and I feel that the gold is almost shining in the dark room. Shit what an idiot I was I think to myself, wearing a gold necklace and a gold watch in Brazil, what idiot does that? Without many words we stand at the bar, look at the bartender and nod at the cooler on the side of the beer and half way say Cerveja, like he wouldn’t know what we meant if we said it in English and each light up a cigarette and take the already miserable place in. There are five round tables scattered around the room, with a circular stairway going up to the second floor in the corner. There are a couple of dark haired guts, dressed in t-shirt and jeans, sitting and playing with one of the girls at one of the tables. The bartender with his mustache , unshaven face and sweaty greasy hair looks like a Mexican serving a whiskey to a tough looking John Wayne, and he almost backs off after giving us a couple of Skol beers. Everyone is staring at us and I can almost feel their eyes in the back of my head. We don’t feel very tough, but both Robert and I can give anyone a fight, it if comes to that. We put our bottles together and say Skol, almost like to prove that we know what the word means to the folks there. I smell the same nasty cheap perfume that the toothless mama at the door had been wearing, but to leaning in to my left shoulder there is a young woman dressed in very little rubbing up against me; “Hey big man, You want to go fucky fucky?” I look over my left shoulder and in to a beautiful brown face. “I just want to have a beer” is all I can say, but at the same time I can feel her hand up against my crotch. I look at Robert and there is a girl on his right apparently asking the same question, and I see that he already is in a heavy discussion.
“Robert, not so sure if we should be doing this” I say to him in a low Norwegian voice, so that I will not raise any suspicion or any misunderstandings in the bar. As I look a little behind me I see the large black woman that was a few minutes earlier standing in the door, and she is observing what is going on in the bar.
“Obviously they want us upstairs, but if we don’t get the hell out of here quickly we will be in deep shit, if you ask me” I am a little nervous, and let Robert know that this is not really on my agenda. “It’s ok man, let’s hang out for a while, and see what happens.” The girl has a leg wrapped around his, and is feeling his chest with her one hand as she is trying to kiss his neck. He is laughing and saying something and is not paying attention to what I have to say. I turn around to get a good look at the bar, and see that everyone is watching us. There are a few younger women around a table having a drink of some sorts, and then the two big black guys that are now at one of the tables together with the big one from the door and I can see that they are watching us closely. Then suddenly the black woman abruptly gets up and walks come straight to me at the bar. “Hey man, you want to fucky fucky with your girl, it is only cost $50 American dollar, special price for you. Come upstairs with your girlfriend. Extra special price if I come with you” I look at her, and as I suspected, this was a fuck for pay place, and a place that we don’t need to be at. The last thing in the world I would want to do is go anywhere else than out of this bar and I smile at her: “I don’t think so mam, I just want to have a beer and get going. No offense to the beautiful girl here, but my friend and me here just wants to have a beer and get on our way”
“You no like me?” I have special pussy, and i can fuck you all night for only fifty dollar American with your special Portuguese girlfriend, come up and fuck Blondie”
She is standing right in front of my face and I can smell the stench of the smoke and bad breath ooze at me. The girl on my side, she is actually is very good looking, is still trying to kiss me, and as I look over the big woman’s shoulder I see that the two big guys are watching carefully.
“Maybe your friend and you all want to come fuck upstairs with all us here, he handsome you friend”
“Robert, Let’s get out of here now” I say, still speaking Norwegian, and he looks back at me:
” What do you mean?”
“Unless you want to end up in a dumpster with a sliced throat tonight, I say we skip out of here, before it gets ugly. Don’t look, but the two guys over there at the table are watching us; I am pretty sure they will do whatever to get out wallets and our watches etc., but I am not really interested in a fight, and if we go upstairs or even hang here for any longer, I think it will get pretty bad”
“OK, what do you think , they’ll do if we leave” We are both still smiling, and pretending that we are contemplating going upstairs with the big breasted bad smelling whore house manager, and it looks like we are just discussing if we should go upstairs both of us with them individually or together. “Well, the sooner the better, I will put some money on the bar and we’ll just go straight outside and take a right down the street. If they follow us, well just get the fuck out of here as soon as we can.”
“You got it” he says, as he gets a little elbow room from the girl on his side.”
“You no want to go with me? You don’t like?” The girl hang ing on to my left arm is becoming quite annoying, and the toothless mama, now standing behind us with more of an angry look, is looking more and more threatening. In the corner on the bar further in towards the back I see a cook that is observing the scene, and with him, the bar tender and the two guys at the table looking at us, I am sure they have it all planned out. I have a roll of money in my right pocket, a combination of dollars, Cruzados and Cruzeiros, but I don’t want to take it out as this will make the patrons even hungrier for an interaction with us two Northerners. Robert is waiting for me, as I have taken charge of the escape plans, and he’s just looking at me, still with the young girl hanging on to him, but waiting to see what I am doing. I manage to finagle a couple of bills out from the rubber band that is holding the large sum of money together in my pocket, and I nod slightly to Robert as I place the two bills on the bar.
“Here you go sir, we must be going” I slightly move away from the girl on my side, and see that Robert is doing the same. I know that both Robert and I will not give in easy if it comes to a scuffle, but surely there are weapons in the bar and I don’t want to end my young life in a pathetic whorehouse on the foothills of one of Rio’s favelas.
“No come with me!” I hear from the girl, and then I feel the large black woman’s arm hand on my left arm as we are heading towards the door.
“You pay first, and you go nowhere “I hear from the mama, and see that the two guys from the table is getting up from the table and staring at us.
“We have to go, and thank you” I hear Robert say and we don’t stop. The cook from the kitchen is quickly coming around the bar, with something that looks like a cleaver his hand, and the bar tender is sliding like a cat over the old wooden bar, also with something in his hand. The two guys from the table is also coming towards us, but is momentarily blocked by the black woman. They have made a mistake, as they surely didn’t expect us to head out of there so quickly, they must have thought that they would get us upstairs away from the bar area and therefore also having to deal with an easier target.
“Just walk slowly out of here, and when we get down the street, lets run like we have ever ran before” I say, calmly, but determined to my friend and wingman.
I open the door, and we manage to slide out with everyone coming behind us. We turn right, but across the street, on the opposite corner, there are a gang of fifteen or twenty young boys, probably between sixteen and eighteen years old, and they are looking at us. As we turn right, they all start coming towards us crossing the street in the process. I hear the black toothless woman in a high pitched voice say something and when she does I see that the boys are starting to run. “These guys are all in on this” I hear Robert say, a little worried now, but still calm.
We are still just walking in a fast pace, but the two guys from the bar is right behind us, and the gang of youngsters are closing in, and I look over my shoulder.
“Let’s run”
I grab the roll of money out of my pocket, and we start sprinting. Robert is right with me, but I have longer legs than him and he is having a hard time keeping up with me. “Come on man? No time to slack off” I yell at him, and I can see that they are coming closer. When a couple of the guys are getting closer, , I see look over my shoulder is almost like Robert have been given an adrenalin shot, because he picks up the pace in to what can only be characterized as a long sprint. We are in the Olympics now, and we are running for not only our gold around our necks and wrists, but for our lives. In our suits and dancing shows, we run the fastest sprint ever to have been ran in Rio de Janeiro that night and we are like two wheels on the Bullet train in Japan. We could not have run any faster, but it isn’t needed. We are pulling away from the mob behind us, and even if they are poor and want our money, we are running for our lives and have more skin in the game. Motivation is a mysterious drug, and the motivation to survive proves to push our bodies down the back alley of the dark city.
“Right here” I say and we turn the corner, Down one more block, and then a left turn. We keep our pace and see that the guys have rounded the corner, but they are stopping as we turn the next street down towards the main avenue and the beach area, they stop and look after us, but we don’t slow down. It’s a straight line from the corner we have rounded and its only three blocks, but we keep the sprint. It is starting to appear some more people as we get closer to the hotels and bars, but we don’t stop. We must be quite the spectacle as we are running, full speed, long-legged and with our suit coats flapping in the wind. There is nothing stopping g us, and we cross the final street and are on the last block. I can hear the crowd from the imaginary stadium as they are cheering us on for the final stretch of the race. I have no breath, and hear that Robert also is puffing right behind me, and we finally round the corner and out on to the Ave de Atlantica and safety. We don’t stop immediately, like a train coming in to a station we slow down but keep going for a while. We don’t say anything, but keep moving as we try to catch our breath.
‘What do you want to do now?’ I hear Robert say as we quickly put the whole incident behind us. Let’s see if we can’t find the other guys and have some fun.
“Shit, that was close “I say, but I am having a hard time talking as I am totally exhausted from the mile of my life.
Both Robert and I had just ran from what surely was a life threatening situation, but we don’t say much about it as we sit down at the first café’ we hit on the large street.
“Wonder what the other guys are up to?” was all Robert said and we looked at each other. We knew that we had just escaped a very dangerous situation, but we just ordered a beer and looked ahead for some more adventures and fun, but this time on the safer side of town.
