City of God (55 page)

‘It was Antunes! It was Antunes! Where's his body? Where is it?'

‘Over at the petrol station past the Wella building.'

‘It was Tiny, wasn't it?'

‘No, it was Altar Boy and Screw.'

Without a word, he pulled on clothes and headed for the door, his hatred giving him the strength to walk. His friends tried to hold him back, but he jerked away, shook them off, reached the yard, went through the gate and crossed the threshold of his fate, the fate of being punished for not having prayed enough. His wounds bled and left a trail through the alleys, through the streets now full of people. His eyes stung, but that's all – the tears did not come, and what good were tears anyway? Crying didn't change a thing. All he could do was allow his desire for revenge to well up. He had flashbacks of the sheet covering Grandpa Nel stained red, Steak-and-Chips with his head blown off, his darling being abused, the wall of his house riddled with bullet holes, his dog full of lead, and now the image of a blood-stained Antunes was about to be embedded in his memory. He reached Miguel Salazar Street, where the morning breeze was stronger, but fuck the breeze and the sun burning his face! What he really wanted was for it all to be an illusion, for his brother to be alive. He
caught sight of the crowd. Blood ran down his trouser legs and made the inside of his trainers slippery.

He approached the body. Even the police were silenced by his arrival. Just like his brother, no one seemed to move in his presence. He embraced the dead man's body, brothers' blood mingling, kissed his cheeks, and whispered something in his ear. Then he carefully let go of his body, backed away, looked around, grabbed a stump of wood he found nearby, took it to the petrol pump, doused half of it with fuel and held it to the flame of one of the candles around his brother's corpse, raised the torch and ran, his heart pounding like the Devil, towards Altar Boy's house, without even noticing the two bullet holes in his body. Physical pain was nothing – hatred could supplant any debility. He turned down an alley, where he found some gang members, who followed him. He arrived at Altar Boy's house, took the machine gun from Carrots, handed him the flaming piece of wood to hold, and fired a spray of bullets at the door and windows. He went back to Carrots, handed him the gun, took the torch, went into the house and set fire to the curtains, asking someone to get some cleaning alcohol to splash on the doors and the roof beams. In no time at all, the small house was in flames. He stood there for a few minutes, then went to do the same to Screw's house.

At Antunes' funeral, Carrots ordered his entire gang to stand outside the graveyard holding their guns. Knockout had insisted on going, even though most of his friends thought it was a bad idea.

‘If the police or any no-goods show up, let 'em have it till Knockout can get out. He can't run.'

But not one policeman or villain appeared.

*     *     *

Two days after Antunes' funeral the combat between the gangs gained new momentum; when Tiny heard Knockout was back in the
favela
he decided not to give him any peace. Sometimes the fighting went on for three or four days at a time. Tiny always swore at the top of his lungs. When the battles were taking place, the police thought it best not to interfere. It was better to let them kill one another.

School classes were cancelled and no one went to work. There were deaths, especially among the pawns in Knockout's gang who became easy prey in the ambushes – they hadn't been brought up among villains and weren't skilled in fleeing from the police. When the parents – always the last to know their kids were involved in the war – eventually found out, they started taking preventive measures: they moved house, sent their kids to stay with relatives far from the
favela
and even took them to work when they had no other choice.

After a while, a desperate Knockout banned the pawns from going to the front line. He took away their weapons and went to their homes to tell their families. He only wanted real villains with him. Tiny, on the other hand, even forced workers to fight. When they didn't go into combat, they got a bullet in the backside.

Tiny's dog reminded him of Sparrow, and he carried it everywhere he went. It ate top-quality food, no leftovers, and he only allowed Black Stump, whom he treated as if he were his own son, to take care of the dog. It was Black Stump who fed the animal, bathed it with special shampoo to protect it from fleas and ticks, and took it for obedience lessons. When the dog was bigger it also went into battle: Tiny set it loose and followed its steps.

*     *     *

The families of the dead pawns called the newspapers in an attempt to get the media to pressurise the government into putting an end to the war, which had been going on for two years. Complaints to the police had no effect, because most of the gangsters had been arrested at some stage, but almost all had been released in exchange for bribes from Tiny. Only the pawns were taken down to the Thirty-Second Police Station, where charges were pressed against them, because Tiny refused to spend money on weak soldiers.

When he heard classes were about to start again, Groover began to miss the days when he used to study. He remembered teaching his school friends to dance, the potluck parties and girlfriends. Granted, he hadn't been the best of students, but he'd been sure he'd finish primary school, go on to secondary school and try to get in to do PE at university. But that bastard Tiny had spoiled his dream when he killed his younger brother in one of his attacks, just for the sport of it.

When he thought about Tiny his face twisted once again into a scowl. He got up, opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, drank half of it in three gulps and ran his eyes over the two-bedroom Short-Stay House: his mother sleeping, the empty place where his brother used to sleep. The hatred he felt at that moment gave way to compassion. He looked on top of the wardrobe and decided to have a read through his old school-books.

He flicked through them slowly, went over lessons, notes from test days, messages from girlfriends forgotten between the pages, a heart with an arrow through it dripping blood into a chalice. He picked up another textbook which contained only questions:

What song has marked your life?
Who would you take to a desert island?
Who was the first person you ever kissed?
Do you have a weakness?
What kind of girl are you attracted to?

He found a pen and set about answering the questions. He wrote something down, scratched it out … He tried in every way possible to pass that test; yes, it was a test, perhaps the most difficult he'd ever taken. If he managed to answer the questions he could imagine he was still a person who had something healthy about him, but absolutely nothing came to mind; his eyes just welled with tears. He threw himself onto the bed, on top of the book, and cried himself softly to sleep.

He woke up early, thinking himself the biggest idiot on the face of the earth for having joined the war, because if he'd asked to change schools and disappeared from the street, Earthquake and his friends would surely have forgotten him. He'd been stupid. If there hadn't already been a war he would never have got involved in one of his own accord. He walked through his tiny house to the stove, where he found a piece of buttered bread, a cup of white coffee and a note, saying: ‘Son, take the money from the top drawer in the wardrobe and go somewhere far from here.'

All of a sudden it occurred to him to go to his school. He'd ask his teacher to get him a place somewhere else. He'd get out of there, study every day and, who knows, he might even get a job. He washed, dressed and headed for his school just as Slick and Night Owl were leaving Block Thirteen, intending to kill enemies.

Groover crossed the Rec without noticing anything unusual. Not even his friends were in the street. Poking half his face around a corner, Night Owl watched his footsteps, cocked his gun, and hid as Groover crossed the bridge. He assumed he was
going to take the street along the left branch of the river to attack Block Thirteen alone, which he'd been doing of late. He waited long enough for Groover to come close and stepped out into full view, ready to fire. He didn't see him and, thinking he'd gone around the block, ran to wait on the next corner.

‘I heard what's been going on with you, son … How awful! I was even thinking about coming to talk to you, but your own friends said it'd be dangerous.'

‘Just as well you didn't come, what with the stray bullets and all …'

‘Why haven't you got out of here? This business of taking justice into your own hands is nonsense.'

‘It's only just sunk in and I've come to see if you could help get me into another school!'

‘That's no problem, but how're you going to live here now with all these enemies?'

‘I'll leave … I'm even thinkin' about gettin' a job …'

‘Why don't you try getting into technical school? They've got technical courses and the students study all day long. I'll talk to a friend of mine. Come back and see me and I'll let you know what she said.'

They talked a little longer, then Paulo Groover left, taking care not to let his teacher see the .38 in the back of his waistband.

Groover decided to head back past Leão supermarket, cross Middle Street, cut through Blonde Square to Penguin's bar and head up through the alleys.

His enemies followed his steps with their eyes and this time didn't wait for Groover to come closer before firing at him again and again. One bullet grazed his leg, and another went through his abdomen. Even so, Groover had the strength to draw his gun,
shoot Night Owl in the arm and Slick in the leg, and run back into the school.

Slick and Night Owl followed him: they continued the chase despite the fact that they'd been shot and tried to break into the school, but Groover's teacher confronted her fear and nervousness, and the gangsters themselves. She argued that the school was official government grounds and as such the police wouldn't give them peace until they'd caught them. Slick called her every swear word under the sun and fired his gun into the air. The principal called the police while the argument grew heated outside. In the toilets, Groover's bladder emptied itself when he heard the sound of the sirens.

The teacher, calmer now, talked to the police, but only told them that the gangsters had tried to invade the school. Then, with the help of other teachers, she hid Groover in her car and drove him to a hospital.

A rumour went around that Knockout had gone off the deep end since Antunes' death. He didn't eat, didn't sleep and had taken to snorting too much cocaine. His determination to kill Tiny grew with every passing second. When he heard that another pawn had been shot by Night Owl, he had a nervous breakdown and was taken to a clinic, where he spent three days before escaping from his room. When he got back to City of God, he was immediately involved in a shootout with several gangsters from Block Thirteen, who had gone Up Top to launch an attack. He killed one and was hit by a bullet in almost the same place where Tiny had hit him before.

The day Knockout got out of hospital, his enemies were still hopeful that he might die, so Tiny's gang relaxed a little. They were gathered behind The Hill, now inhabited by hundreds of
new residents, indulging in beer, whisky and cocaine. Joking around in a loud voice, Tiny said that Night Owl's game was to kill loads of pawns so he could call himself a killer. This riled Slick, who was actually the one who did the killing; Night Owl only covered him and put his victims out of their misery. Tiny wanted to put Slick down in front of his men because he'd noticed that most of the gangsters had been hanging around him lately, which made him afraid that he might lose his leadership.

Bicky stayed quiet, watching Slick's every move, thinking that Tiny might have ordered Slick to kill him. Slick, equally quiet, expected Tiny to betray him at any moment. Russian Mouse was sitting in a corner, laughing at everything Tiny said. Marcelo was giving Beep-Beep the full rundown of the sex he'd had with some slut the day before. He gesticulated and made faces. Good Life motioned to Leonardo, then told Tiny he was going to meet a supplier to receive a load of cocaine. Leonardo went with him and Good Life suggested they go for a swim at the beach. Alone in another corner, Otávio was flicking through a pocket Bible his mother had given him the last time he'd gone home. Tiny got tired of joking around with Night Owl, looked at a pawn known as Marine – he'd earned this nickname for deserting the Marine Corps to join the war and snort coke to his heart's content – and, with a serious expression on his face, asked:

‘You're goin' out with that hot piece of arse from Block Eight, ain't ya?'

‘Yeah.'

‘She's really hot, ain't she? When you're about to fuck her, d'you kiss her snatch?'

‘Yeah,' he answered, embarrassed.

‘Do you really? So you're kissin' cocks and all, then,' he finished and laughed wildly. His men joined him.

*     *     *

Knockout arrived Up Top at around midday, to the joy of his men. There was much celebrating, with several rounds of shots fired into the air by the addict who said he'd been given a hard time by Tiny. He was now living in the
favela
in the house of a gangster who'd been arrested, and his job was to look after the guns and ammunition. On the corner of Block Fifteen, Knockout shook the hand of each soldier with a sad smile on his tired face. Thin and anaemic, he moved with difficulty. He went to Carrots' house, where fifty of his men were milling about.

The news that Knockout was back in the
favela
spread quickly Up Top. Several residents sent him food and juices to help his recovery. His parents were taken to Carrots' house for a short visit, but they kneeled on the living-room floor and prayed for almost two hours without even touching their son. In silence, Knockout looked at his mother all in black and thin as a rake; he'd never seen a greater expression of bitterness. Tears spilled from his eyes, his body shook. The gangsters were also silent outside, with that sad, mute prayer inside.