We worked our way up from the beach, fighting through the crowd. It turned out she was a twenty-eight-year-old schoolteacher from the slums outside São Paulo. She taught Portuguese grammar and composition to 150 fifth-graders who cycled through her classroom in batches of about forty. They were mostly favela kids, poor and tough, with hard lives. Many had drugged-out parents or were on drugs themselves. To teach them, she said, she'd had to learn to be tough. "Tough enough to teach me?" I asked. (I know, gag, right? But it was all I could manage with my Portuguese.) Ana smiled. "If you want." I nodded. "Eu quero." She shook her head. "Nao, it's not 'key-er-o.' That's Spanish. KYER-o." And so it began. I led her away through the crowd, down along the street and back to the beach. We walked out on the rocks and sat down, looking into the water. A crab was skittering along the bottom of one of the tidal pools. "How do you call that?" I asked, pointing. I had my arm around her, and she was snuggling into my side. "Caranguejo," she said. "Kar-ahn-GWAY-joo. A good word to learn proper pronunciation. Say it." You have got to be kidding me, I thought, but I repeated it. She shook her head. "No. Again."
I started to apologize, but she put her hand over my mouth. She thought for a second. "I didn't say bad. Just different. I like it." We made out for a while longer, until the tide had come up over the rocks and was lapping at our feet. "Let's go," she said. "Where?" She shrugged. "Anywhere." We walked off, still talking. I referred to her as my profesor, which I instantly realized was masculine. She laughed and said, "Profesora. I'm a woman." She touched her crotch. "There won't be any surprises there, when . . ." She looked at me as though realizing what she'd just said, then started giggling. Somewhere in the far recesses of my brain, my friends were yelling, "Dude! You're in!" I was not in that night. The next, as I walked with her away from a free concert, Ana said, "This is all just bread and circuses. We have nothing, so we celebrate, we sing, we dance to forget that we have no food on the table." "Bread and circuses?" I said. "Yes. If we can't comer, we comer." She laughed. "Oh, another one of my piadas pornagraficas, my pornographic jokes . . ." I frowned. "If we can't eat, we eat?" She shook her head. "No. It's also the same as transar, to have sex. Like, yesterday I ate the most tasty pizza, or yesterday I . . ." She colored slightly. "Ate the most tasty girl?" I suggested. "Tá," she said. "That's it. But you don't pronounce the 'r' at the end of the infinitive. Come-gh."
79 Comments LS commented on 06/04 jj commented on 06/04 JCF commented on 06/04 TP commented on 06/04 nn commented on 06/04 HS commented on 06/04 phm commented on 06/04 Jcr commented on 06/04 dj commented on 06/04 MJQ commented on 06/04 BH commented on 06/04 AMM commented on 06/05 JD commented on 06/05 dwp commented on 06/06 BB1 commented on 06/06 fje commented on 06/06 LL commented on 06/07 LLB commented on 06/07 LMD commented on 06/08 jtr commented on 06/08 AG commented on 06/08 DMR commented on 06/09 s.v. commented on 06/10 GW commented on 06/12 SI commented on 06/15 BS commented on 06/17 JN commented on 07/29 DC commented on 07/31 RM commented on 11/01 AS commented on 11/11 MM commented on 11/15 SAA commented on 11/15 SAG commented on 11/15 MeM commented on 11/15 Rc commented on 11/15 JH commented on 11/15 LD commented on 11/16 LS commented on 11/16 CC commented on 11/16 EOR commented on 11/16 j commented on 11/16 AT commented on 11/16 JG commented on 11/17 cb commented on 11/17 ddd commented on 11/17 adsf commented on 11/17 MT commented on 11/18 luv commented on 11/18 k commented on 11/18 GLO commented on 11/19 ALX commented on 11/19 Bia commented on 11/19 A.C. commented on 11/19 CAS commented on 11/19 Dri commented on 11/19 DPZ commented on 11/19 OC commented on 11/19 Naty commented on 11/19 Devi commented on 11/19 ELR commented on 11/19 Paty commented on 11/19 Paty commented on 11/19 tmp commented on 11/19 PF commented on 11/19 VHL commented on 11/20 MV commented on 11/20 Ntx commented on 11/20 AISL commented on 11/20 UHX commented on 11/20 CFT commented on 11/20 HFD commented on 11/21 DD commented on 11/21 MM commented on 11/22 medq commented on 11/23 PMF commented on 11/23 PMF commented on 11/23 UGAY commented on 11/23 lala commented on 11/24 ccb commented on 11/26
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
| Scarred by Stacia J. N. Decker My husband's heart surgery made him a new man. |
| The Nerve Date with Jacqueline by Jessica Yatrofsky 'Tis the season to be daring. |
| The Road by Scott Von Doviak Looking to celebrate your holiday with two hours of solid despair? /entertainment/ |
| Sex Advice From . . . Turkey Farmers by Kristen Gangwer Q: What can turkeys teach us about sex? A: Absolutely nothing. With barnyard birds it's business, not pleasure. |
| Watch Your Back by Susan Barnett What can you tell about a person from their t-shirt? |
| Dealbreaker: The Self-Help Book by Jen Kirkman How DIY therapy can ruin dating. |
| Savage Love by Dan Savage How do I tell my girlfriend that I'm pregnant? /advice/ |
| Pop Culture We're Thankful For by the Nerve Editors Toasts from around the Nerve family table. /entertainment/ |