Belo Horizonte
It’s a gorgeous day to touch the sky.
The gig is in an enormous field where they fly kites across the road from the lucky people’s houses. You can tell they are the lucky people because of the broken glass lining the edge of their fences.
In Brazil we put the contents of a small flower shop in our wigs so we can toss pretty relics for grandmothers to turn over in their hands after we have gone.
The show is muscular and it’s a sensual crowd and we speak to a thousand strangers with our bodies. Our imprint is left, written on the wind.
When we descend, they are upon us. It is as if we can heal the sick. The little boys crowd around us especially close. One boy is learning English. He can say, ‘My name is…’ He places a hand on his chest and says, ‘My name is Sabastiao Fernando.’ I write lots of love to Sabastiao Fernando and he introduces each kid holding out a scrap of paper in an unwashed hand. Sabastiao Fernando points to a tall boy in short shorts.
‘My name is Miguel Campos Santos.’ I draw a picture for Miguel Campos Santos. Sabastiao Fernando points to another little fellow.
‘My name is Jose Eduardo Taveres Melo Silva.’
I get Sabastiao to spell out his name. Jose has no paper so I use his arm. The letters appearing along his delicate limb transfixes Jose Eduardo Taveres Melo Silva. I draw a love heart to dot the i. The kids walk back with us to the dressing room. Men pat us on the back and women say, ‘Obrigada, muito obrigada.’ We pause the procession to pose for pictures with pretty families who put their arms around us. And everyone’s looking at me. Everyone loves me. This piece of me, this projection of me, this smallest part of me projected like a shadow puppet on the back wall of people’s souls. This drug, this addiction, this distraction from my stillborn life, this is what I do. The kites dance in the empyrean and I can smell popcorn.
I don’t want to take the costume off. I want to be a deity forever. I want to bask in the love of a thousand faces. I spin around like a small girl. My skirt spirals in the vortex. Beloved. I catch myself in the mirror and suddenly I’m Miss Havisham in a long velour dress and a fright wig. I see the old lady in the maiden’s dress caught in a single moment, calcifying in the best of times until it becomes the worst of times meanwhile missing all of the other times; the unsurprising of times, the fair-to-middling of times, and the times when nothing much seems to be happening at all. Everything you love discards you in the end. Even gorgeous days slip away through the horizon. All I can be sure of is that I am running out of time.
I take off the wig and I’m just left a woman with flat hair and a smudged face.
Nicole Smith 