Jackpot, Son
The lost sheep in Iran are about to be announced, hurry up and switch to the news and let me see all the victims who lost their lives yesterday. It took a cruel disaster like this in another country for me to realize what my brain failed to understand all these years. São Paulo is a gray city bathed in red, as if the flag were faithfully the representation of a bloodthirsty and polluted state. How nice, I’ve reached a conclusion I don’t even deserve, after all everyone I know must already know this.
My parents, mouths agape, stared at me frozen while a siren began to echo in the neighborhood giving that melodic and confusing tone that something bad was approaching. All I could hear was the sound I’d known since the bottle-feeding days: gunshots everywhere.
What a wonderful night for picking lice, that’s what I call the magical ritual of family bonding where we throw ourselves on the floor with our hands on our heads and wait in silence punctuated by crying and screaming. JACKPOT!, will someone from this house die from a stray bullet this time?
When it was all over I stood up and we were all fine, except Mrs. Mariana from apartment 23. She was shaken as hell. Holy shit, they killed her son. He was a dealer, knew his way around guns and showed them off whenever he had the chance, he stole a girl from me like that… oh, those girls who dig a gun in the waistband, only laments for you.
She was lucky, she didn’t get pregnant before the father died so the cycle was broken, one less poor boy without a father or proper sense of right and wrong growing up in crime watching flashy displays and wanting more, even if it means spreading drugs of all kinds.
Yeah, who cares if I’m selfish, my family is safe and nobody died. At least this time, but the roulette will spin again, it never stops… it just rests for them to collect the dividends, because profit inside the favela doesn’t exist, you understand?
JACKPOT for me, son, I’m alive one more day. While mine doesn’t come, it’s keep going in this life betting that tomorrow will be better than today. Stay strong Mrs. Mariana, I think I’ll go downstairs and give you a hug. When my brother died nobody gave me a hug, my parents were too busy being devastated and having to give too many explanations at the police station.
JACKPOT, how long is luck going to be on my side?
