"Clarke of the Favela"

Clarke of the Favela

By Nic Patrie

The favela… Though it is a sight that is hard to ignore in Brazil, people often overlook and misunderstand it. A place that is legendarily notorious but equally celebrated as part of Brazilian culture. It  is a densely populated maze of dusty paths and trails that meander around the steep and treacherous hillside. It is full of crime and derelict shacks but it is filled with good people as well, poor and downtrodden but making the best out of the blessings they have been given. There are people who will never accept the favela as their home, they are angry because they see the prosperity that hustles and bustles about at the base of the hill and know that those people fear to tread among the poor. There are people who seem to love their hillside shanty-town; there is a culture of survival here that is as much a facet of life in Brasil as it is of Rio de Janeiro herself.

Clarke lives here, in this favela. Clarke is ten years old and on his own for most of the week. His mother cleans the ladies restroom at the bus station. She has to charge people one real to use the facilities and she gets to take home some of what she brings in plus a meager wage. Clarke’s mother keeps a clean home in the favela. She only works, prays and makes sure that there is food in the icebox. She also manages to keep electricity in her shack thanks to a long-time friend who smuggles power in. Clarke’s father died before he was born. He was killed in an accident in the city where he was a courier on a motorbike; he used to give rides when he didn’t have a package to deliver and shared a cut with his boss to keep his job, but riding passengers on a little motorbike in Rio’s traffic can be a dangerous proposition and it proved deadly in the case of Clarke’s father.

His father gave Clarke his name, he was named after Supeman’s alter-ego Clark Kent. However, Brazilians have a hard time with words that end in hard consonants, so “Clark” became “Clark-ie” and thus it was on his birth certificate. Clarke knew of his namesake, though relatively obscure in Brazil, he managed to erect a small shrine to Superman with clippings, movie posters and comics from American newspapers like the New York Times. It was pasted and taped to the low ceiling over his bed. He internalized Superman… more importantly, he internalized Clark Kent as part of himself. Clarke saw himself as a good boy, mild mannered and morally upstanding. 

He had only a few friends because he didn’t want to be a beggar in the city. Clarke knew that inside of him was honesty and a desire to do well and thought that it was Superman living in him though his mother always called it “his father’s good spirit.” Clarke thought he could save himself and his mother from the favela. He saw them living on a farm with chickens and cows, just like Clark Kent’s family, leading a good honest humble life away from the crime ridden city of Rio.

Clarke saw the favela as a forsaken place. It was a slum filled with so many faithful people who seemed destined to suffer extreme poverty as well as wicked people who deserved to suffer. From the top of the hill which the favela was built on, Clarke could see “Christ the Redemer” keeping vigil over Rio on the top of Corcovado. His open arms and loving gaze were focused on the beaches and not on his home. He thought that, even with all of his goodness, Jesus had forgotten the good people of his home and got lost in his appreciation of beautiful, coastal vista that is Rio De Janeiro… which would be understandable if you saw the good side of town. Even with all of his resentment for his life in Rio, he never passed up a chance to go down to the beaches a symbolic equalizer as things went there.  Where everybody wore the same thing and occupied the same space, where no judgments about backgrounds could be presumed… especially during Carnival; a festival which Clark could never resent .

  

Clarke had a plan that would free him and his mother from the favela though. This morning he was on his way to the base of the hill to work towards achieving this goal. He could see the colorful gateway that marked the start of his favela, the dust from the dusty dirt roads met the pavement of streets of Rio in a gradient of sepia earth and asphalt grey. It seemed to imply that, though they were separate from Rio’s middle class in the slum, they were also part of Rio as a whole and cannot truly be segregated. He could see the gates and he suddenly froze. A horrid realization left his black skin pallid and felt a cold sweat crest on his brow despite the warm morning sun that was baking the hill…he looked at his two hands. In one hand he held a stick that he used to bang on the various corrugated metallic surfaces along the road like drums in the samba…his other hand was empty. He had forgotten it. Clarke had forgotten it and he can’t be late.

He chided himself out loud. He cursed his existence but quickly pulled himself together. If he ran, he could get home and get it and still make it on time. His mind raced frantically as he looked up the steep hill. Within seconds he started to plan his route. Unintentionally aloud he called on the Superman inside of him to guide his way. He called on Superman because Jesus always seemed so distant and infatuated with the ocean. He looked up the main road and saw that the Policia Federal had been making rounds up the main street of the favela. To Clarke they were not so much police as they were soldiers; they had armor, carried big guns and lots of bullets when most of the people here would be quicker to sell a gun for food than use it in a crime. Moreover, the soldiers would definitely react suspiciously to a little black boy running frantically up the hill with suspicion and they could pose a threat to the timeliness of this unscheduled task.

Clarke decided to calmly walk to the peripheral paths and alleys of the favela and make a run for it under cover of the shanties, away from people. It may take a bit longer but the plan seemed to hold less risk for delay than a chance encounter with the Policia Federal.  Clarke tried to act casual, like he saw in spy movies on the televisions at the bus station when he visited his mother. He went to stick his hands in his pockets when he remembered he had no pockets...so he hooked his thumbs over the elastic waistband of his shorts and tried to look natural about it as he strolled off the road and into the first side path he could. Though sure he didn’t have to put on the ruse, he could never be sure who was watching. Better safe than sorry. Once he was sufficiently concealed he bolted.

He wasn’t very athletic so running this fast uphill was quite a feat. He wasn’t surprised at his swiftness but he was channeling Superman after all. His body didn’t protest this exertion like it normally did, he wasn’t too winded considering his lack of athletic prowess. Soon there was a multitude of little stones that had already found their way from the dirt paths into his slightly over-sized slip-on shoes. The stones bounced around in his shoe with every heavy footfall and reminded him of a little shaker as he focused his running rhythm into a samba in his head. His mind was soon taken from his arduous race up the hill to a rhythm game that made him smile a juvenile gap toothed grin. Superman had taken control.

No sooner than the smile crossed his lips that he whipped around the corner of a shack and almost landed on a pack of stray dogs. He came quickly to a halt and started to back away, one foot behind the other. There were six males that seemed to be interested in mating one female, which seemed to have no interest in anything but finding food in piles of garbage. As one or two dogs took turns in unsuccessfully molesting the female the other four stared Clarke down, he tried to move past them but a little one started to snarl at him which prompted the others to growl. For Clarke, he would have to double back too far to make it home and back to his destination on time…he was blocked but had to make it through the pack of horny mongrels somehow. With his back against a shanty wall, he started to slide by the dogs, maintaining eye contact with a grizzled looking little one who seemed especially uncharacteristically scrappy and tough.

Clarke was caught by surprise when his foot kicked over a discarded plastic butter tub where a rat had been hiding. The rat took off up the hill past the dogs which suddenly lost interest in their mating prize. The female lost interest in ignoring them and all of the dogs took off in pursuit of the rat that led them far enough away from Clarke’s path for him to continue on his mission.  He lost contact with Superman when the dogs broke his focus. His chest hurt and he was breathing heavy, there was a pain from the dryness in the back of this throat and his saliva was thick and gritty with dust. He tried to run but found himself jogging and whimpering a bit as Superman seemed to have abandoned him and left the shell of a frightened ten year old black boy scrambling around the favela.  He pressed on and found his focus but the tempting odor of roasting chickens temporarily swayed his consciousness for a brief moment. The recollection that he hadn’t had fresh chicken in days dominated his mind for a second or two but it did not impede on his progress. He was almost home when another smell took hold of his olfactory senses.

He thought that these paths would be devoid of people because the main street up the hill is so busy with shoppers and sometimes tourists that lingering in the back alleys means missing good opportunities to make some money, honestly or dishonestly. Today there was a gang of boys in the back alleys. Clarke recognized them, they were older and he called them “The Bad Boys”. He called them this because they liked to harass, rob and beat the younger kids. There were a couple white boys and one or two dark skinned boys that weren’t from this favela, they likely came from the neighborhood at the base of the hill and liked to hang out and score drugs here. People who lived on Clarke’s hillside rarely made trouble so young people from the city tended to hang out there to do things that could get them in trouble in the city. Some favelas were really rough places, so he heard, but his was only rough when outsiders came in to start trouble…outsiders like the Bad Boys and the Policia Federal who think that poverty reduces people to punching bags. Superman would be furious and solve these problems but Jesus on Corcovado still won’t look their way.

Thankfully the bad boys had not noticed him. They were smoking some grass that they had smuggled into the slum. They brought it in to sell it but they usually smoked it all away before they could make a profit…that is why they robbed people. Today they were up to their usual trouble and were more interested in not getting caught by the policia soldiers than starting anything with Clarke today. Clarke just followed a path that concealed him from them and ran for home.

For all that he had gone through in his run up the hill; Clarke had made pretty good time. Time enough to change his filthy clothes that were caked with dust though actually he just changed his shirt from the filthy and sweaty one he put on this morning to the slightly less dirty shirt he wore the previous day. There was a covered plastic pitcher of water on the table where he dined with his mother every evening. Tonight she would get her weekly pay and she usually brings pizza on payday and although Clarke really wanted pizza, he really craved some of that roasted Chicken that was cooking slowly halfway down the hill. The water was warm but no less refreshing as his dusty run left him parched. He grabbed his objective from the table. A big old book filled with various loose papers spaced in between the pages. The book was secured with a leather belt that was cinched tightly around its binding, holding the contents in.

The leather belt belonged to Clarke’s father; it had a souvenir belt buckle from Uraguay, though Clarke silently doubts his father ever went there. Regardless, it was not very useful as a belt for himself, but it was good at keeping things tightly bound which is good enough reason not to sell it. Considering the size of the book, he wondered how he even forgot it in the first place. This book, that is so vital in his escape from the slum life, is not something he would soon forget again. 

The instant he left his shack the young boy pulled off his slip-on shoes and emptied the sandy contents along with all of the pleasantly percussive pebbles back to their home in the street and stuffed his feet back into the shoes. He had plenty of time to make it down the hill without the need for such a rush. He slung the book over his back and walked briskly down the hill. He was too tired to run anymore today so the easier brisk walk downhill suited him well.

The sun had slunk itself behind one of the thicker cumulus clouds in the sky which granted the baking hillside a brief moment of shade. Clarke made a point to look around when this happened because he liked to see when the people took the moment to stop squinting and look to the sky. People in his favela were constantly bombarded by the sun and hardly looked up, they looked down to the coastal city to take in a view, they looked down toward the ground when they walked… and when they were in church they look down at the floor to pray as if hell was their final destination. When the hill had its moments of shade, Clarke looked around to see the people look up, if even momentarily. It made the people look stronger and lighter than the burdens of poverty. He could see a faint glimmer of potential in the Favela in the brief moment of shade. If he could one day fly like Superman, he would use his super breath to blow clouds in front of the oppressive sun much more often so that the people could look up more.   

When the sun poked out again the rays caught a shiny coin on the ground which snatched up Clarke’s attention. Fifty centavos were just lying in the street a few feet away from him. He quickly snatched up the coin and looked around. He saw baskets of fresh orange-like bergamotas stacked up on a horse cart. The horse looked tired and frail, the cart had seen better days as well. Clarke wondered if the horse could appreciate the delicious oranges it had to haul up the hill, and if it could would it look any happier. Of course, Superman could haul this cart no problem…every day…but the sickly old horse was no superman. He found the owner of the cart and offered him the coin for some fruit. The old man was familiar to Clarke. He came up here once a week to peddle fruit; sometime bananas, sometimes papaya or, like today, bergamotas. He was a kindly man and always nice to Clarke’s mother and today his smile acknowledged a fond recognition of Clarke. He was just about to speak when the gang of dogs from earlier, miraculously still in pursuit of its elusive meal (which now has grown to three rats), barreled out of the alleys.

This moment in time froze for him. He could observe all of the details; the spark of fright in the eyes of the man and the horse alike, the fact that there were only five dogs bearing down on the rats of the original seven…the female was missing as well as the grizzzled little one… a presumably successful suitor.  The moment unfroze. The horse panicked and reared onto its hind legs and wound up falling over along with the cart. This knocked over the kindly old man who was almost instantly weeping as he watched hundreds of bergamotas, his livelihood, rolling quickly down the steep hill. Superman could have prevented this but Clarke stood alone, arm outstretched, with the appearance of offering payment for some fruit though, in reality, he is petrified with fear. As the dust clears and the horse is still trying to writhe free of its harness and the predicament. The incident has drawn the attention of the Policia Federal out of their trance-like patrol. They spotted Clarke and they have assumed Clarke to be at fault for the mess.

Instinct took over as Clarke darted into the alleys. The owner of the cart yelling to the soldiers but they have presumably ignored him and have already given chase. By this point the only thought that consumes Clarke’s mind is stories that he’s heard of children getting beaten within inches of their lives just for minor crimes. These are just stories, of course, because the news doesn’t care about kids getting beaten in the favelas. He is running faster now then when he started up the hill but the affect of gravity has made his stride a bit more clumsy. Some more hitchhiking stones have found their way into his shoes but this time they are not playing a rhythm, instead they are plain and bothersome for Clarke as he runs for his life. He can hear the kindly man yelling on the other sides of the shack: “Run Boy! Don’t Stop!” The kind support of the old man suggests that the horse cart disaster was clearly not his fault. The old man’s encouragement gives some ease to his flight but he was also in the zone, channeling the Superman within himself and easily navigating the maze of pathways and alleys a step ahead of his pursuers. The encouragement helps, but both Clarke and the kindly fruit vendor know that the minds of the soldiers are set just like the pack of dogs and, now that they have been chasing him for a little bit, are definitely going to make him pay with pain and blood.

Clarke felt like he had turned into the caped son of Krypton at this point. He ran at a pace where his feet are barely touching the dirt like he was flying. He was making decisions as if he had x-ray vision and could see around the walls and his super sense of smell kicked in. this triggered an idea for the perfect way to end this pursuit; Give the soldiers bigger fish to fry! Clarke picked up a whiff of the grass that the Bad Boys had been smoking earlier. The smell was sweet and pungent at the same time and so distinctively “illegal” that the Policia could not ignore it. He recognized where he was and ran toward where he saw the boys smoking before. Sure enough, the boys were still there and this time he had their attention.

“You Little Shit!” One of the boys exclaimed in an accusatory tone, he was aware that Clarke was being chased by someone and this could not fare well for his gang. The boys started to approach him and Clarke took two steps back only to find that he had hit a wall. One of the boys who had a smoldering loint hanging off of his lips pulled out a small steak knife from his jeans pocket and brandished it right up against Clarke’s upper lip. Clarke could swear that the two soldiers were right behind him but where were they?…did they give up? If so he was in for a worse fate at the end of this punk’s knife. The boys laughed with each other talking about what they would do with their new found piggy. Clarke lost control of his legs, his knees trembled and eventually gave way until he found himself sitting in the dust with his back against the corrugated steel siding of the chicken roasting booth…he didn’t smell chicken though just the smoke from the joint that the guy with the knife just passed to his brother-in-arms.

Superman abandoned Clarke yet again; he was a scared shell of a boy again. He started to pray to the Christ statue that refuses to look into his slums in hope that he will be spared and not left victim to the horrible injustices of this dusty maze.  Suddenly, he heard commotion in the alley…It was the soldiers!  They had finally caught up with him. Calling out taunts along the lines of what they were going to do with him when they found him. Many things sounded familiar to what the bad boys were saying and they weren’t particularly appropriate for ten-year-old ears, but poverty did not deserve professional restraint. He found that his dire predicament could gain a positive little boost in confidence knowing that his plan was so close to fruition. He found his legs again and he used them to kick against the sheet metal wall that he was cornered against. The noise was enough to attract the attention of the soldiers and when they finally caught up their attention was instantly swayed by the boys smoking grass and brandishing a knife. Just like the pack of dogs, they just as instantly gave up chasing Clarke as they made the decision to chase him in the first place.

Clarke got up and took to flight again without looking back. He could hear the metallic clank of the soldiers clubs making dull contact on bones through skin. The painful cries of the boys receiving the injuries until he got far enough away that the sounds were residual in his ear. Sounds that were vaguely reminiscent to of his idea of justice. A new slightly renewed faith in a certain iconic watcher of Rio de Janeiro came from a plan that was crazy enough to work. Mildly pleased with himself and thoroughly exhausted by his ordeal Clarke continued on his way.

 He made it out to the main dirt road right near the colorful gates, many of the bergamotas had found their way to the base of the hill, a reminder of the chaos that almost cost Clarke his life. He stood at the gate and looked in one hand…he had clung tightly to the shiny coin. He looked at his other hand, it was empty. He dropped the book in the commotion, now it could be totally lost. He looked down at the ground and observed the dusty bergamotas and meditated on his suffering. He understood why the people of the favela tended to look at the ground; it felt natural at the moment. Some of the bergamotas were squished and he found a cluster of some good ones that were whole and just a little dirty. He felt a large, coarse hand land on his shoulder that stopped him cold, he turned and looked to see the kindly old fruit vendor looking down and smiling at him. One of the old man’s hands held his book cinched in his father’s belt, dusty but unharmed. The man placed it into Clarke’s empty hand. Clarke, without delay and involuntarily revealed his big gap-toothed grin, and felt compelled to give the old man the coin as he picked up three of the undamaged fruits from the dirt. The old man chuckled in spite of himself.

 “ You are a good boy Clarke… Go on, now… don’t be late for school” he said.

The End