In January 1983, I flew to Brazil with $1,000 in Traveler’s Cheques, my Brazilian friend Marcos’ parents’ phone number, and an Independent learning contract with my college so I could travel and get credits! I boarded my plane excited for a true adventure.
Exploring a new country was filled with moments: some beautiful, some strange, and some terrifying. Brazil was still under a military dictatorship when I arrived. True, it was moving towards democracy, but the battle was not completely won. Many of my Brazilian friends told me horror stories of living through the 1970s. They explained that during protests, when the police arrived, the protesters would grab each other and say, “Remember my name. Remember me.”
This in case they ‘disappeared,’ taken away by military police and never seen again.
By 1983, things were improving. Not as many people ‘disappeared,’ but it still happened. That is why my Brazilian friends all stressed the importance of steering clear of the police. Plus, because they were Military Police, they all carried weapons that looked like small machine guns.
I was in the country on a standard Visa, but had managed to get a job teaching English in Rio de Janeiro. Which meant I was in this beautiful country, illegally teaching English. So, I was more than happy to stay the hell away from them.
One night, I was walking through Ipanema with Angelo, a Brazilian friend. I had finished teaching my evening conversational English classes and was ready to have a few beers. It was late, maybe eleven or so, but it was Rio. This beautiful, huge city is made of many different boroughs, each a mini city within the city. Rio is a place so full of life that the energy alone keeps you up late.
Along the streets, open-air bars rumbled full. From each place, a different type of loud music rolled out, hooked arms with the tune from the next nightclub, and created the soundtrack of the night. A bizarre score made of part samba, part rock, with jazz, melodically evading those simple rhythms, and leading the way into complex beats.
The smells in Brazil were as intricate as the music. Walk down one street and the soft salty touch of the sea floated on the breeze. Turn the corner, and the sharp smell of an open sewer launched into the nostrils. Hurry to the next block, where rich, deep flavors from an open-air restaurant assuaged the sewage-savaged sinuses. The pong of humanity wove through the heavy, humid heat, creating an intoxicating sauna of perfume, aftershave, and sweat.
I loved Rio. The towering jagged jungled hillside, the music, the humidity, I loved it all. But alongside this rich life was extreme poverty. This was my first encounter with street people. These were the people too poor to afford to live in favelas, Brazilian shanty towns. The people on the streets lived in actual cardboard boxes, duct taped together to provide some shelter from the night. Not just individuals or couples. I would see whole families living within an unused church doorway, hunkered down, trying to stay alive.
My Brazilian friends convinced me that I could not give money to all the homeless. I would go broke. Within a few months, I was mostly successful at building a wall around myself, not seeing the people on the street. I still broke down occasionally when a child came begging to me. For the children, I gave food, not money. I gave them something that would be for them. Something that couldn’t be stolen away.
Angelo and I walked along, chatting about life in Brazil versus the U.S.. when we passed by a large man seated on the ground. I kept my eyes forward, walking and chattering away. Angelo stopped, folded his arms, cocked his head to one side, and stared at the man. I stepped back and let myself look.
The man was probably in his thirties, leaning against the pillar of a building. His head lolled forward, mouth open. His eyes were open too, but they didn’t appear to see. He began to slump over on his side, so slowly it looked like fog rolling down a hillside. Once he was flat on the ground, he gave a twitch and rolled onto his back. He opened his eyes wider, almost as if he was wondering what had brought him to this moment.
“Yah,” Angelo nodded and tilted his head. “He’s going to die.”
I felt my stomach drop as I studied this man. His chest was rising and falling in an uneven pattern. As if he was trying to remember how to breathe. His right hand reached, grasping for something, until it finally fell back to the pavement.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “We should call the police!”
“Why?” Angelo looked at me, confused.
“Because this man needs help,” I said.
“We can’t call the police,” Angelo snorted a laugh, turned back, and studied the dying man.
“If you don’t, I will.” I turned.
“What you going to say?” Angelo grabbed my arm.
“That this...that this m-m-m-man needs...” I stuttered to a stop due to the harsh look on Angelo’s face.
His mouth was set in a hard line, his eyes had an almost malicious expression. He looked completely different from Angelo, my drinking buddy. “The police will say to you,” Angelo leaned closer, spoke low, holding my arm tighter. “They say ‘Why you care about this man?”
“I…” was all I got out before Angelo leaned in so close that I couldn’t make out his whole face.
“They say, ‘What you think, gringa? You think Brazilian police no good? Think we backwards? I think we take YOU in. We leave him here, but you come with us.’ Then they put you in their car, drive you way far out into the jungle. If you are lucky, they take only your money. Maybe they bring you back…maybe they leave you in the jungle. People disappear here. Even gringas. No, we don’t go to the police. Here you don’t see ANYTHING. You don’t SAY ANYTHING.”
I nodded, my eyes going back to the man. He lay motionless, his chest not moving, his eyes open, but glazed over.
“We better go,” Angelo said.
I walked away, but a piece of me stayed. It is a piece I never got back.
Angelo’s fierce lesson on surviving life in Brazil stayed with me. In the six months I lived there, I was drilled in the fine art of not looking at the police. Politely giving way if they were coming towards you, but never, NEVER calling attention to yourself. I had thought of it as a game. Now I realized it was much more serious, and the stakes could be deadly.
I lived in the hills of an area of Rio called Lapa. Each morning, I would walk to teach English. My earliest class was at 7:00AM in the heart of Rio. On those mornings, I would leave at 5:00 AM, going early to meet with fellow teachers for our traditional breakfast: cafe con leche and pao con manteige (coffee with milk, bread with butter).
I strolled, enjoying the quiet of the streets. Even Rio had to sleep. There was a shortcut I could take, but it went by the police station. During the day, I avoided that area, but it was so early that I figured it was safe. I turned the corner onto the square by the station. There lay a man in tattered clothes, barefoot, hair a tangled mane, and obviously dead. You’ve heard of fight or flight, but there is another component of that phrase that few remember: freeze.
I froze.
It wasn’t the body that caused me to stop. It was the four police officers, laughing and kicking the cadaver. Not nudging the body to see if this person was dead. Full out kicking it. Trying to see who could make the head move the farthest, or, perhaps, trying to see if they could kick the head OFF.
The sound was horrible. Have you ever dropped a cantaloupe? That same thick wet splat was heard with each kick the police delivered. I stood there, trying to figure out how to get away before they spotted me. Angelo’s words ricocheted through my brain, “You don’t see anything.”
Okay, I need to vanish. Ignore what’s happening. Just slip away.
I took a step backwards, praying that the corpse would keep the police busy. It must have been my movement, because one of the cops looked up. His eyes met mine. He looked surprised, then he stood up straight and glared. The other three followed his gaze; they too straightened and stared. The dead man was finally left in peace.
I made an almost military precision about-face and started walking. I tried to keep my pace steady, not too fast, but brisk. I did not look back. Even when I heard a car start up.
The four military police pulled up beside me in a large vehicle. They paced me, driving exactly the speed that I walked. They stared at me in a deafening silence.
I kept my eyes dead ahead, feeling the weight of the policemen’s scrutiny. I held my head high, letting my eyes range, trying to find an escape.
If I ran, I knew they would be on me. I walked faster. The car kept pace. I could feel the police getting excited. Just a half block ahead of me, I saw what I needed. A narrow alley. I picked up my pace. I pretended I would walk by the alley, but at the last second, I turned and sprinted down the passage that was too narrow for their car.
I heard the cops shouting and tires squealing. They were going to try to cut me off. I turned and ran back out the way I came. I darted across a street, into another narrow alley. I took two more turns, backtracking until I was sure I had lost the police. I hid in the entrance of a church, hoping that if there was a god, they would take pity on a terrified gringa in Rio.
After several minutes, when I was sure there were no police in sight, I ran from the church. I didn’t stop running until I reached the café, my friends, and safety. I walked in, dripping sweat and shaking. Yes, it was horrible to see another body, but being chased by Brazilian police? That was terror.
The teachers cheered my story, saluting my win by clinking our mugs of rich coffee, the customers, and the waitress joined in the celebration. In Brazil, you revel in so much of life. A major part was any win over the military police.
I went about the rest of my day, teaching my classes, talking with co-workers, and correcting businessmen’s grammar as they worked diligently to learn English. I had learned a lesson, too. I finally understood something about my time in Brazil. I would need to pay for all the beauty of the people, the music, the life, by also living with the ugliness: the military police, the poverty, and the helplessness. What I would do is what everyone else did. I would survive. I would be hypervigilant while enjoying this lush landscape of beauty and pain.
At the end of my day, I walked out of Feedback School of English and stood for a moment in the doorway. I took a deep breath in, gave myself a shake, and walked into my Brazilian life. Beginning with a very long, convoluted walk back to my home in Lapa, giving a wide berth to the police station.
Debz Briske (she/her) is a writer and storyteller whose work explores horror—both psychological and paranormal—as well as creative nonfiction and personal monologue. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she draws inspiration from its deep green forests, the dark blue-gray waters of Puget Sound, and the ever-present rain that seems to shroud the world in mystery. To her, the landscape has always felt alive with spirits—both benevolent and sinister. When she’s not writing, she works in health care, where she encounters her own blend of horror, humor, and the occasional cadaver.