The Prologue

Here's the piece that I read at last night's sold out and fabulous As Was Written show in Alexandria, VA. This is why I'm ending up in Brazil.

“Are you nervous?” Daniela asked.

“A little bit,” I answered.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said.

“I know. Everything’s going to be fine.”

I took another shirt from my closet and folded it into a tight square. The February weather outside my bedroom was cold, but everything going in the suitcase had short sleeves. In Rio de Janeiro, Summer lived on.

“I wish I could go with you,” she said.

Technically you can, I thought. She just couldn’t come back afterwards. As a Brazilian citizen living temporarily in America, my girlfriend’s visa was like a concert ticket after you step out the door. Her hand was not stamped for reentry. I tucked the shirt into my bag and started on another.

It was my first vacation to Rio, and while I had been mostly successful at focusing on all the super awesome parts of going, I still had some lingering fears. The fact of the matter was, Brazil’s not the safest place. Sure, every American city has it’s good parts and its bad, but in Rio it’s kind of like avoiding the slums of Southeast DC for the peaceful serenity that is Oxon Hill.

Many a late night, lying in bed, I scoured YouTube, seeing the city from all angles. There was Sugarloaf Mountain, Copacabana Beach, Ipanema, samba music, hang gliding. But it was only a matter of time before curiosity got the best of me. My fingers added a few antisocial words to the search and moments later I’m watching a gang shoot down a police helicopter. It’s an image that doesn’t leave your mind afterwards, regardless of how much beach volleyball you watch.

Dani’s Brazilian friends were happy to prep me for the trip. They recommended plenty of sights and restaurants, but in terms of safety, they kept coming back to one main point: “Try not to look so American.”

“What?” I replied.

“You know,” they said, moving their hands in quick circles, “just...try not to be so...you know...American.”

I attempted to explain that, “Okay, it’s easy enough for me to leave the Duck Dynasty t-shirt at home, but I’ve got premature gray hair, an aggressive 401k plan and the gold status on US Air. It doesn’t get much more American than this.”

Whenever I expressed some doubt, Dani bit her lip and looked away. She was worried. She wanted to be there to help me navigate the English-less streets. To be my insider into this new world. I always kissed her and reassured her I was fine, even if I had laid awake the night before entertaining all the violent what ifs.

It was easy for us to stack up our worries about crime. In reality, there was a bigger fear between us. A greater test that we weren’t discussing as I packed my bags. After a blissful year of dating, and with her visa winding down, this trip was not just a vacation. I loved Dani and I had told her I wanted us to be together forever. But that’s an easy thing to say when the government isn't knocking on your door telling you to move it. Did I love this girl enough to stay with her, no matter what country we ended up in, even Brazil?

Landing in Rio, I walked confidently out of the airport and up to a waiting cab driver. My shirt had an extra open button and my dark sunglasses reflected the hot sun. I had a Brazilian accent chambered and a few Portuguese expressions ready that I had rehearsed in my head going through customs. I acted like I had never step foot in America.

“Oi, meu amigo,” I smiled, “Todo bem? Por favor, preciso uma taxista ao meu casa na Copacabana, sim? Quantos reais? Vente? Quarante? Hm?”

The driver squinted at me, not saying anything at first. When he responded, he unfortunately said neither “What is your name?” or “Where is the library?” The only two followups I was prepared for. Instead, he rattled off a short paragraph that sounded much Portuguesier than my attempt. I smiled a big embarrassed smile of red, white and blue.

He and I made small talk on the way to the hotel. We drove past million-dollar condos on one side of the street and crime-riddled shantytowns known as favelas on the other. My Portuguese was as broken as his English, but we still managed a few laughs. Then he turned onto a side street and asked me to roll up my window. I knew something was up. I had heard of street thugs preying on drivers stuck in traffic, going car to car and putting guns in windows. “Muito perigoso aqui?” I asked him. “Is it dangerous here?” He shrugged and pointed at his dashboard. “Air…” he struggled to say, “air conditioning.”

After a few months of dating someone you learn things about each other: who’s funnier, nicer, more reasonable, better with money, patient, etc. You also learn who’s more badass. Compared to Daniela, I unfortunately fail to rank. You can’t tell it at first, but under her sweet smile and fragile voice is a rock of a woman that, when she shows it, makes me feel like a lightweight.

Recently, we were spending a weekend with friends in an old rented house down south. Dani and I got the top-floor bedroom. We clicked off the lights and snuggled in. Just as I was almost asleep, my eyes opened to a sound in the ceiling. It was, I hoped, the natural sounds of an old house: rusted pipes or something. But as it continued, reality set in that it was definitely footsteps. They were small--maybe a rat--but they sounded heavier than that. It had to a raccoon. I pictured a pair of beady eyes scurrying about. Then with that one set of feet I heard two more, three more, six more. The house was infested and we were sleeping on the front lines.

"Hey," I nudged Dani’s sleeping head.

“Hmmh?” she grogged.

“Listen. Listen. Something is in this ceiling. This is not cool.”

Dani entertained my fear and listened. The rodents tumbled over each other some more. Their paws scratched around randomly before coming to a stop directly above our heads. One scurried down inside the wall beside us.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I think we should go downstairs,” I responded.

“Nah, I’m good right here.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m comfortable,” she answered.

Two minutes later, I pulled a blanket up to my chin on the couch. Dani enjoyed a full night’s sleep alone.

This was the same girl who two years before had left her family, friends and life behind to move to a country where she had never been, to live with a host family she had never met. A choice I don't think I could ever make. It was easy to forget sometimes.

In Rio, I strolled the beaches and city sidewalks. I took a train to the peak of foggy Corcovado and a cable car up Sugarloaf Mountain. The city views were indescribable. The people were warm. The food was relentlessly delicious. Staring out at the oceans and mountains married together, a four-dollar caipirinha in my hand, Brazil felt like a great next step in life.

My last afternoon there I stepped to the curb of Avenida Atlantica to cross to the beach one last time. As I started across, a motorcycle cop skidded to a stop in front of me. He got off his bike and halted all traffic and pedestrians to a stop. A second cop whipped by him. Then another, and another and another. The final vehicle was an armored SUV, full of police in combat gear. One of them hung out the passenger window holding an AK-47. The YouTube videos replayed in my mind. My foot stepped back onto the curb.

We don't have to move just yet, I thought. She could live in America. We both could to start. She knows the language. Her English is flawless. We could get legally married first and get her a green card. The waiting period these days is only like a month. We could have the wedding in Brazil, sure. Maybe the honeymoon. But we don’t have to move here. It doesn’t have to be right now.

Dani wanted to hear everything about the trip. Driving through my familiar American streets, my hand on her knee, I talked about my favorite meals and sights. And that was about it. I didn’t want to discuss the bad. The fear. I wasn’t ready to begin my campaign to have her stay.

After a few more weeks, we could no longer ignore the issue. The time was approaching where we had to make a choice. Either we started the process of me moving there or we started the process of her staying. The stress from the choice bled over into the day-to-day of our relationship. We decided that we would only discuss the issue on Wednesdays. Without that boundary, the choice was ready to consume every conversation we had.

Another Wednesday night found us sitting across from one another in a restaurant booth. Our playful chit chat waned, leaving the silence of the waiting question.

“You’ve been distant,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I responded.

“I can tell when you’re not sharing things with me.”

I denied it again and continued this path for a few more minutes, a move I should have known was futile because she is a woman.

“Tell me,” she said.

I looked away from her to the floor, to the other couples dining all around us. Tears collected at the bottom of my eyes. I clinched them back. It made me angry that they were there. That I was afraid to let her see them. More than that, I was angry they were there in the first place. Because I was afraid again.

I sat there in front of her, the 8-year-old boy who grew up terrified of the dark. The 14-year-old who lied about the girl he liked just because she didn’t fit in with the class. The 20-year-old who didn’t have the guts to study abroad because he was “having too much fun here,” when really, he was just chicken.

Fear has always had a hand on my shoulder my entire life. Your grades won’t be good enough, you won’t make friends, you won’t have enough money, you won’t be happy. I always thought I would shake it before the serious part of life started. I would have this problem under control before it really mattered. And there I sat across from the woman I was completely in love with, making one of the biggest decisions of my life, and I had failed. I hadn’t shaken it. It was still there. It leaned into my ear, ready to make another choice for me.

“I’m just so scared of this,” I said.

Dani smiled and took my hand. I looked up and saw the tears in her eyes now. She told me everything was okay.

And that was one face I wasn't going to let fear take away. I sat up and said the things I thought a hero would say. I made myself say them. Even if they scared me, I knew it was right.

We held both hands together and choked our way through the rest of the conversation. I made promises to her. They were effortless because I meant them. And she made all of them right back to me. We started the process of gathering and filling out documents to get my visa in Brazil. It would take eight months, she was my fiance by then, but we would get that visa. After that night, we had dozens more of the kind of honest conversations that started in that restaurant booth. The kind that you only have with one person in a lifetime.

It’s enough to keep us together in any country, in any circumstance. Unless there’s a raccoon in the ceiling. That’s where I draw the line. I still don't know how she can sleep like that. I’m just not okay with a pair of beady eyes looking down through a cracked ceiling at me--a scared man, gathering his strength, clinging, as all husbands do, to the one woman, he prays, will finally save him, from himself.