autobiography

On Adventure

Morro Azul. A little town hidden in the middle of hills and pastures with a population of say 2,000 people. I have no clue why our biggest house would be located in the middle of no where, but grams says her father liked horses and well you don't find horses strolling down Rio de Janeiro's main cities. Five bedrooms, a living room, two bathrooms, a dining room (with a ridiculous collection of imperial furniture we are barely allowed to touch), a pointless game room, a kitchen, a veranda with a built in breakfast area in the back and of course the maid's small bedroom with her private bath. Let us not forget the horses. We do not have any. Apparently there was one before I was born, great-grandpa's favorite possession, after the dining set that has been in our family since Dom Pedro I was Emperor of Brazil.
I moved there with grandma and my little sister and I absolutely hated it. The house was too big and boring. My best friend Sofia and I spent hours in the Guest house playing with my ouija board while construction workers drilled and broke a different part of the Sitio (grams was obsessed with making the house bigger or modifying the land completely). One day she left Sofia and I alone, she locked the front gate and left with the workers to pick out granite. We didn't think twice, in a matter of five minutes we had a book bag packed with flash lights, ropes, candy, our phones and one umbrella. Since we couldn't access the gate, we climbed over the 7 foot wall and ran towards the neighbors house. I never really spoke to them, they were an older grumpy couple that lived in Copacabana and came to Morro Azul on weekends. I guess living in a penthouse is too stressful for them.
I remember it was cloudy out, which explains why I would stuff an oversized umbrella in an already heavy book bag. The neighbors Sitio (a piece of land smaller than a ranch) almost covered the entrance to the hidden trail that my friends found months before. We walked for about 20 minutes. It is beautiful up there, you can see all of Morro Azul and it's surrounding hills and streams. One might occasionally bump into semi domesticated animals along their way to the "Caixa d'Agua". On the highest point of that hill, there is a huge white container of water that provides the town's water dispersal (clearly I forgot what it is called). Anyways, Morro Azul's caixa d'agua is known to be haunted. Since the town is "upgraded", that water way is no longer used, now we have an empty oversized white thing on top of a hill that is clearly visible through out the whole town.
I barely had cell phone service yet we continued up the hill. Sofia wanted to go back but miss adventure over here was too curious to stop. Don't get me wrong, we have gone there before but with several adults. At this point it was starting to get dark though it was early in the afternoon. We finally see the haunted container with some cows and bulls on the side. There was two different paths to reach the box and making our way through the short cut, an overweight bull confronts us. "Don't move" "What?! Why!" Sofia screams and cries, I ran. The bull decides to follow me, and I realized I chose the wrong day to be in-style with that season's fashion must: "red is the new pink". Without looking back I run as fast as humanly possible only to "bump into" my lovely bull's friends. Sofia was hysterical sitting on top of the caixa d'agua yelling at me to run to her. Easy said then done. I ran down the longer path followed by 5 or 6 cows and bulls and I ripped off my red shirt. I might be crazy but I'm pretty sure the cows where only in it for the fun. I reach the caixa and Sofia tries to pull me up.
Half an hour later. You would think Sofia ran out of tears but she some how managed to soak up mine. We sat there for another hour looking down at Morro Azul. "Look! My house!" Sofia cried even louder. It started to rain and we had to squeeze under the umbrella. Our cattle friends were walking around the caixa calmly and almost triumphantly. Grams wasn't picking up her phone. Now I started to panic. We never realized we were sitting on a haunted place.





Lesson Learned

My mother always taught me to be alert when roaming the streets at night. She also repeated several times that the train at night was a bad idea. I was a senior, what did I care. Paulina lives off the 52nd train station on the 7 train. Getting to her house is a mere 20 minutes, sometimes less. Coming home depends on the time, being that the N takes for-fucking-ever. As part of our weekly routine, all 16 of us would meet in Paulina's cousin Stephanie's house and well, get drunk. We spent hours every weekend increasing our alcoholic tolerance and stumbling home around 4 am.
It was just another Saturday at Steph's house and I had broken up with my boyfriend after he cheated on me with my former best friend. Therefore, I drank an unhealthy amount of alcoholic substances and once the "party" was over, I headed towards the train with my friend Allan. All he really did was walk me to the train since he lived in it's complete opposite direction. I bought my metro card (after 10 minutes trying to read the screen) and took the 7 to Queensboro Plaza where I would wait for the N. I checked my phone, it was around 3:30. I looked around and the freezing cold made me nauseous. I sat on the middle of the three wooden seats and waited for the train. Unexpectedly, I leaned over right seat and threw up everything I had over the last hour. There was a guy who spoke to me, though I cannot recall what he said, I remember he gave me his coat to wear until the train arrived. I wiped my mouth on the sleeve. The train finally came at 4:35 and got up and handed him his coat, only he thought it was best to grab my arm. The alcohol didn't allow me to react much, so I simply released my arm and started to walk down towards the last car while the train was still trying to pull into the station. He followed me, grabbed my right arm and whispered for me to hand him my cell phone. This might sound like a huge scene, but it was remarkably subtle. The other 7 or so people waiting for the train didn't notice a thing. The man took my phone out of my left hand and walked away. I got on the train and watched him go down the stairs towards the street exit, holding what, 2 hours before, I called my "life".