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Home The Stories Kitchen Table Night Traffic Basement Pokhara Foucault's Nightmare Homophobia, Darling Cold Silence Los Feliz Judy Ten Million Years The Last Saturday in May Angel First and Fiftieth Ben and Joe's Sunset Buy Commentary Reviews The Author Biography Bibliography A View from the Edge God would be an atheist Contact The Publishers 
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A carioca* in her forties
Women respect you for keeping up standards. Especially around here. They know how tough it is. Joanna next door, the one with three kids and the husband that drinks, she always compliments me. So does Betinha, the one with the small shop. She’s had more than her share of life’s troubles. One man shot by the police, another doing time and problems with her health. Won’t say what, but you can tell it’s serious. She understands what I’ve been through. Men are a horse of a different colour, but at least they’re polite. Now. There were comments from a couple of young hoodlums when I moved in. I warned them they were playing with fire, but that didn’t stop them. Well, it wasn’t long before the whole neighbourhood heard who had been visiting that whore Isabel down on the main road - not to mention a few details that I don’t bring up in polite company. How times have changed. Years ago they would have worshipped me. I had it all. Top billing at the Alaska. An apartment in Copacabana. Money in the bank. Friends in high places. Men at my feet. Now, look at me. Look around. Bare walls, bare floor, cupboard bare. All my friends have gone. It’s enough to make you weep. I suppose it could be worse. I’ve survived. So many haven’t. Sometimes I look through my albums and remember the ones that have gone. Look, there’s Tico, one of the first to get AIDS. No-one would visit him. Even I didn’t, to my shame. We were all afraid we’d catch it from him. He died alone, God have mercy on his soul. That’s Jane Honda. She gave me my first break. An angel. She was strangled by some thug who probably didn’t know what he was getting into and didn’t like it when he found out. That was typical of her; she loved surprising people and look where it got her. That’s César. A beautiful dancer; AIDS got him too. Chico. Alfredo. Gone. It tears my heart out. I can’t complain. I get by. I live off what Edson and Valdemir pay me. They get the bedroom and I sleep out here. They’re good boys. Edson drives a bus. He has a sweetheart in Duque de Caxias he says he’s going to marry. He’ll break her heart if he does. He can never resist a pretty face. “Men were born to scatter their seed and that’s all there is to it, Dona Judy,” he says. He’s so goodlooking he gets to scatter it almost every day. It upsets me sometimes, all the women he deceives, but there’s nothing I can do. We all have to learn in our own way. Valdemir’s the quiet one. Works in a hardware store and goes to nightschool. He wants to be a teacher. Between you and me, I think he prefers men. It’s a pity if it’s true. He’ll never have much luck. He’s too skinny and serious. Gay men are like all men. It’s the body they go for, not the mind. So Valdemir sleeps alone, while Edson’s out half the night. Next story: Ten Million Years 
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"Sometimes you sit, watch the trains, the sunset, the rain. Sometimes you talk. Tell your story if you've a mind to. Trouble is, memory changes things. Things you want to forget. Things you want to remember that never happened. Happens to everybody. Gets so, nobody's story's true. Not yours, not mine. But it's all we've got." First and Fiftieth The inspiration for Judy came from three or four people whom I either knew when I was living in Rio in the 1980s or whom I saw on stage or television. E-BOOK: £3.50 
PAPERBACK: from £6.00 signed copy from the author from the publisher Paradise Press by the author 
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