XXXIV - Walking the City

As he walked through the city, Leonardo couldn’t help but notice how little had changed since he had last been there. Lisbon was like always, like it had always been, at least to his knowledge; Big avenues clashed against narrow streets, uneven and dirty. Modern buildings contrasted inelegantly with old, late nineteenth and early twentieth century classic constructions. Historical monuments, nearly glued to ugly, modern, giant malls. Luxurious condominiums built in poor neighbourhoods. The concept of urbanism in the Portuguese capital appeared to have been masticated by a triturating machine and sputtered all over the city’s famous seven hills. 

Walking around in the midst of the chaos, Leonardo notices that the whole thing sports an uncanny resemblance to school portraits, the kind you will find in any regular school year book – every student has a unique expression; most of them smile, some of them choose to make funny faces instead, some just look up or down and in some cases, the class rebel or rebels might discretely slip an obscene gesture into the otherwise civilized picture.  The evoqued nostalgic picture puts a slight smile on his face, there was something comforting about yearbook portraits. Maybe it reminded him of simpler times, or maybe it just reminded him of some old friends that he hadn’t send in a long time and maybe would never see again. Or maybe, it was the thought of a time when he truly belonged to a group what had made him smile.   

            But every once in a while, a few gems shine through the confusion of the city, shedding a special class of raw urban beauty into the metropolis, conferring it that sort of charm that you can’t quite describe. Those rare, hidden places are where the essence of the city can still be truly experienced; Viewpoints form which you can admire the splendour of the river Tagus. Or green gardens, carefully groomed, where it’s almost impossible not stop for a while and take in the beauty and tranquillity transpired by the bushes and flowers. Sometimes it’s an old church that has been there for so long that the city just grew around it, engulfing it, and ended up forgetting it’s there. Or a lovely café, the like of which Pessoa would write his poetries at. Traditional shops frequented by nice people. Restaurants where you can taste traditional dishes from Lisbon. Those places, relics of a bygone era protect Lisbon against its own psychosis, a city that is a thousand years old and yet pretends to be modern, wants to be something it’s not.

            Curiously, Leonardo’s destination that day was precisely the opposite of those places that he so much revered in Lisbon. It was instead, one could say, one of the many new accessories the old city decided to acquire in its desperate quest to feel young; a Planet Starbucks, located in the “baixa”, one of Lisbon’s most traditional and touristic neighbourhoods. He could have taken a cab, or the subway, but he preferred to walk that day. This was a Sunday after all, a day to rest, to take your time doing things.

            He also liked walking, whenever he had the time to do so, because walking helped him to think. That day, not unlike many other days, he was thinking about the direction his life was taking. From an objective point of view, things seemed to be going in the right direction, thanks to Manuel who had been able and kind enough to find him a good job or internship in any case. And yet there just wasn’t something that wasn’t right about it. The proof of it was that he was starting to entertain the thought of not going back to work the next day. Realistically, he wouldn’t do that. It would be embarrassing to Manuel, and it would get him into a whole lot of trouble with his family. His mom would even maybe kick him out, after telling him for the hundredth time that she didn’t want a bum for a son. No, he would go back to work and he knew it, but the thought of not going back was a nice one to entertain nevertheless.

            As he walked down the Avenida da Liberdade, the most expensive and majestic part of town, Leonardo passes by a big group of northern European tourists, deeply concentrated whilst looking at their maps, probably trying to figure out the location of some nearby monument or famous square.  As he walked pasted them, one of them looked at him and for a second Leonardo though he was going to ask him directions, but then, probably because he was a little bit shy, he turned his sight back to his map and tried to figure it out by himself.

            A few meters ahead, Leonardo came across a bunch of posters, advertising Toni Carreira´s new concert. Toni Carreira is basically the Portuguese Julio Iglesias, only much worse; more pathetic, more depressing, more painful when you have no place to run to and you’re forced to listen to his agonizing music. As he looks at his pseudo Don Juan face, and sees the fake smile, Leonardo almost feels sick.

            ‘I can’t believe this guy is still around’, Leonardo whispers to himself, genuinely surprised.

            Leonardo starts to think about all his fans; desperate housewives and housekeepers, in their forties, fifties and sixties, turned fatter and uglier by uninteresting or hard lives, neglected by their husbands, abused by their estranged sons who became drug addicts, or otherwise victims of depressing events. Life has taken its toll. There they are, eager to scream and jump and sweat, all together at the concert of the great Tony Carreira. They sport fifty-euro-perms and wear five euro fake shirts and blouses and they all sing hysterically, in unison, the most famous chorus produced by the great Tony. There he is, on the stage, the suburban Portuguese pop star, in flesh and bones, clapping and singing along with his most dedicated fans. The choir of house wives is in flames, they can hardly believe it! They’re going crazy now. Some of them can’t resist the emotion and end up fainting, while others reach the ultimate ecstasy and you can see how vaginal fluids run down their varix-ridden, celluloid-dominated white legs as they jump and dance and shake with pleasure… This mental, deprived suburban fable is getting too graphic, so Leonardo forces himself to push the eject button, and continues to walk towards the low part of town (“baixa” in Portuguese).

            As kept walking forward, the buildings and streets started to become progressively less familiar to him.  Leonardo had no sense of direction to speak of and his memory had always been terrible for most useful things in life, so in his life getting lost was pretty much a very common occurrence. As he now looked around, he assumed that that was the case once again.

            The Avenida da Liberdade now laid more than 250 meters behind him. Starbucks, if David’s instructions were correct, was supposed to be right there. Leonardo took a good look around. He was now in the middle of a square and, looking at the buildings attentively, he was happy to recognize one of them. He’s been there a couple of time before. It’s the theater D. Maria II. Right next to him he notices a fountain, gushing water all around it, sprinkling a group of tourists that were busy taking pictures. On his left side there was a subway stop. Leonardo thought it was probably “Rossio”, although he wasn’t sure. Right behind the station he saw the big yellow M: a Mc Donald’s fast food restaurant. He takes a few steps in its direction, planning on asking the employees for directions, since one of them would surely know where the Starbucks café was located. He changed his mind almost immediately though when he realized that the two companies probably competed for clients in this are of town. If he took their word for certain would probably end up in the river Tagus, he thought.

            Meanwhile, a dodgy looking chap walked by him and whispered ‘You wan’t Haxixe? Marihuana? I have coke too if you wanna?’

            Leonardo stared at him in bewilderment. Not because he was selling him drugs – anyone would quickly realize after looking at the guy that he was up to no good – what shocked him was how the dude thought that just by whispering he would somehow go by unnoticed, as if by miracle the act of whispering could make him invisible. Before answering, Leonardo couldn’t help but wonder how that guy hadn’t been arrested yet, with so many policemen patrolling that part of town.

            ‘No thanks,’ but uh… do you by any chance know where the Stabucks café is?’

            The drug dealer looked at his quite surprised, although not more surprised than Leonardo himself, who wasn’t quite sure why he had asked the drug dealer, out of all people, for directions. Maybe his job was starting to melt his brain or something.

            ‘Bro, you see that old building with the big clock? That one there made by fucking Arabs or some shit like that’, he said, pointing at the building. As he did so, Leonardo looked horrified at the collection of needle marks and wounds displayed.

            ‘Yeah… I see it’, answered Leonardo, trying as hard as he could to disguise the repulsion that he felt.

            ‘Right. Bro that’s the Rossio station. The ‘Tarbucks is inside. Now, are you gonna buy something or not?’ the petty drug dealer asked, smiling slightly, showing all his rotten and missing teeth.

            ‘Thank you, but I think I’m okay. Thanks for the directions’, answered Leonardo darting away from the little man as fast as he could.



* Written by my good friend Goncalo Barbosa as a favor to me.