This was originally published on my old blog BackpackBook (Livro de Mochila), a project that blended literature and travel, sometimes just traveling in my lucid dreams. It ran as “Na estrada para Três de Maio” on October 31, 2010. His line rhymes in Portuguese, Maio with saio, and there’s no way to keep that in English.
I don’t know his name, or I’ve forgotten it, but he was no older than 16 and he was hitchhiking on a high speed motorway, 2 lanes each way, or was it 3? That’s the least of it. With the calm coming off him there could have been 16 lanes and it still wouldn’t have been a problem. A country kid, short, looking up at me while he talked, giving off that unbothered air of a child mixed with the experience of a European explorer.
It didn’t look like his first time out there. Honestly it looked like his whole life had gone that way. His best companion was a rubber football, and nobody forgets being hit by one of those, the sound echoes with every kick.
Boinnnng….
Of the few words we traded, I can’t give back the ones I got:
When I see a car showing up on the horizon I get myself ready, I hold the 3 fingers in position, and when it comes closer I point and say:
I’m going to 3 de Maio, my life is there and I’m not leaving it.
And it was like that every time. He started his little verse well before the car went past, fingers curled in, concentrating, sometimes with his eyes closed, and when he thought the moment was right he stretched out his arm and showed the 3 fingers (Index, Middle and Ring). He got everything he needed across in one gesture.
While no car was coming he played with that lopsided ball, and every bounce of it put a knot in my stomach. I never saw anybody stop for the boy, I left before that. One of the last things I saw was his ball bouncing away out of control towards the lanes, or did I just imagine it?
I don’t even know where I was, where I was going, or what I’m doing here. I don’t know why I lost sight of him any more than I know what part I played in his life. Maybe on the third of May I’ll find out, either the day or the town.
Does the dream come true?
Years later, I drove out to Três de Maio in Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) to see what would happen. It turned out the way it did; have a look. (It’s all in Portuguese :p)
