There was a struggle
“Nicolau… the deal… that wasnt part of the…”
And a pistol handle struck the back of my head.

I fell… I believe…

But, I had that dream.
I had that weak moment.
It was similar to that time when mother saw me in the school yard, having a fist fight with an older, dangerous boy.
And how she scolded me. How she cried..

But, it seemed I fell forever…
for ever and ever and never hit the ground.

Not once.
I just fell and fell, and spun.
I screamed, I knew I did… continuously
I fell and spun like an airplane without a tail.
I fell endlessly.
I vomited and tasted it… or, believed I did.
And stars shattered in front of my eyes.
And I fell faster and faster and faster…

I must have been there for days.

I had arrived in New York City, during the summer, for an ultimate meeting to complete the deal. One final transaction, one final shake.

Things had seemed to go to an elaborate, latent, multi-point plan. All the points had met in their proper course, the plot was systematic…covert and overt..
We all knew the outcome, and we didnt have to discuss much.
It had happened so openly, where needed. We had plotted the whole thing, used each tool to perfection.
It was engineering genius, a well oiled craft.
And we knew it…
A thing to be studied..

I arrived to the tallest office building in the lower part of Manhattan, and ascended to Mr. Frank’s office, that of the broadcasting mecca. I carefully slipped past a rather swarming press corp in the lobby. We were not to answer any questions, or even address the media. Not even to give our identities. Let them eat static. I passed without a question from anyone.

But I stopped, possessed.
And whispered quickly to a female journalist near the back of the throng. I was just another man in a tailored suit.
Until then

The broadcasting company had just completed a long, tense, arduous, but ultimately fruitful public hearing with the Federal Communications Commission. Something frivolous like anti-trust or defamation or something. That too, this public display, was part of our trajectory. But, we had put a piece or two strategically there. He’d been there since the 1980′s sometime, when we had purchased our first major piece. And when summoned, carried out his (their) part of the contingency without flaw, whether they were complicit or not.

Some had been, but it was far too late for that.

Mr. Frank and I laughed together as I arrived and made comfortable in his large executive office. He dismissed a group whom he had been meeting with, and made room for myself at a large, reflective desk for a more pressing matter.
He poured me a drink.

“Nicolau, when you own the road, you charge the toll. Its only fair. It keeps the balance. The sun never sets….”
Mr. Frank hadnt noticed, but I had lost the scent. Lost the plot. I had heard the same speech from Robert and countless henchmen, read from the same doctrine, the same script. The same delivery over and over again, from nearly the same pulpits, albeit different locales, as if that would make some profound difference to me. The script read about owning this and that. The new kings, the new giants. The new government. The new freedom. The new law. The new order. This, this and that.

But I remembered one thing, there and then, my small feet buried in warm sand, an ocean wave crashing beyond me, a laughter, some music somewhere, a smell of food.
I was a child..

“But, Mr. Frank sir, what is it that we really own now?”
And Mr. Frank smirked, sipped carefully from his drink, and continued the speech I had heard in so many tones, so many dialects, so many times implicit and explicitly.
“We must prepare for our enemies..” He said, gravely, then confidently, as this meant more investment, more capital, more to own and more to buy and sell.

I thought back to Vidigal.
And walking towards the beach, with her, the girl I would marry. We knew it since we were very young children, as neighbours.

I felt then as if I owned the entire universe, stars, planets, gods, the entire thing.
It did not feel like this ownership.
The ship, the machine, the script, the engineer, all began to sink off the coast of my childhood..

Frank could not possibly have noticed this, dear god…

He was talking still, and had turned his bulky leather chair towards a large panel of windows. His back was facing me. A position of strength in that, he knew he had complete control over the situation. And of course, the reinforcements in the video technology that lined every edge, every corner of this stronghold suite. I sat in a large comfortable chair at one side of a very large reflective desk, in a very large office, with very large windows. Frank spoke towards Manhattan, sprawling, ingesting his words as if he delivered the holy doctrine of the empire.

But I went back to the favela, and her…
I heard her voice, felt something touch my heart, grab it and take over the pumping of my blood.
for a moment
then relinquished … back under my own device..

I have regrets… but, perhaps the worst was leaving her there. Without notice, without warning. Swept away, to the undercurrent. She owned the heart that beats in this chest, the blood that travels north to south, east to west. She owned it all and never paid a real. Not a pound, no yen, or dollars, marks. Not one.
I dont think she ever got the chance to know it.
Owned me completely with no deal, no multi-point plan, no plots. No strikes or counter contingencies.

Now, it’s that Frank owns me, my heart, my blood, the blood that travels south without air, and returns north to get redeemed. The air that carries my voice, my duty, my purpose. We’ve talked about cars. He likes the Rolls Royce I’ve bought but left in Europe, enough to pay for it to be imported here and refurbished for himself.
I agreed then because I could care less.
I had lost the taste for blood.
And prayed that none of these bastards could smell it…

He was the man that I feared, that worried me the most.
He was the top of the pyramid, the point piece. Enlisted to mold, modify, and manipulate opinion. He was undoubtedly the part of the machine that cost our consortium the greatest amount to secure. But worth every dollar. He had built an empire, our empire, and was busy at disarming the most influential country in the history of the modern world, using their freedom as his weapon. Building a new nation within a nation. It had all happened so fast, approximately a quarter times faster than we had calculated. There were plans to use force to take what we deemed as rightfully ours, but none was ever needed. With the financial resources pooled in astronomical amounts, the proper pieces moved in, behind, or completely disappeared with little or no effort.

I thought of the school yard fight, when I was a young boy. And my mothers anger. Her disappointed at my violence. And I remembered my annoyance in her. My father, I never knew him,
but what I understood, he was a boxer.
I made him proud. I was a warrior.
Mother scolded, and spoke of examples. Examples I had set for the other children, the attention I had gotten from the older boys, who knew young men, who did bad things. Like smoke, and gamble, and steal, and murder.
How things would never change..

My mother never knew what became of me.
I had just disappeared one day during the summer and had not returned.

I was alarmed into the present.
Mr. Frank had received a call, an urgent one.
He had swiveled his chair, his face crumpled as if taking a punch. I should be listening, but I had lost it, my heart bled, my eyes shed, and my focus completely lost as if tossed from the window.

Mr. Frank had discovered the weak link right before his eyes, in a man entrusted with so much.

There was a pounding at one of the office doors and a group demanding entry, their questions like bullets.

And things became slow.
Mr. Frank became red.
Mashed his telephone onto his desk, and arose shouting and gesturing. Frothing, barking, like some possessed dog. He shouted but I heard nothing. Let him eat static. He slammed two fists onto his large desk, demanding, but I was deaf.

A secretary appeared from a side office door, having been summoned, shocked and concerned at the group being held at bay behind another office door. Mr. Frank, enraged, dispatched her with a slap, as if she was interrupting a private family matter. She disappeared blinking and sighing..

Two men shuttled in from a secret door behind me.
The questions like bullets now flying everywhere and more loud. I heard the air behind my head move and shiver..
And I began to fall

My eyes opened in an alleyway, thick New York City summer air penetrating my nose, my throat, my lungs, spoiled everything everywhere.

Two men loomed over me.
One had obtained my pistol from my jacket and pointed it directly between my eyes. I inched myself against a brick wall, the men loomed closer.

Suddenly the traffic of Manhattan becomes loud.

“Get up, leave.”
The armed man, turned his arm and pistol, and shot the other man, who crumbled next to him.

“Quando você ver sua mãe novamente, diga a ela que eu disse Olá.”

I jumped to my feet, ran as far and as fast as I could possibly, found a cab, and escaped.

My trip to London went very quickly, though I stayed in England for a very, very, very long time.
I had found him exactly where I knew he would be, but it took some time to approach him safely..

Afterwards..
At Heathrow, I sat in the terminal waiting for my next, and hopefully last flight for the foreseeable future.
The weather was terrible, so the delay would be long. I hid behind my very large printed copy of the Guardian, obtained in the Underground station.
I heard some music.. some old electric English pop song.

I thought of her..
and thought of home.