ACarnaval Night in Bahia, Brazil

Last night, with a young male friend of the United States, I went to an big all-night Carnaval celebration in a little town half an hour from here. During the bus ride, four tall and leggy transvestites taunted the Brazilian men on the bus, saying that although the men claimed to be heterosexual, yet the transvestites could sense, “I know you want me!”

The kidding was all in good fun and one man even seemed about to unbutton his fly for some action, until one of the transvestites taunted a man who wasn’t able to take the challenge to his heterosexuality playfully. He slapped the transvestite, and her feelings were clearly hurt, but she played it off gamely. She apologized for any feelings hurt as we got off the bus and everyone went into the party, bleached blonde and red-headed transvestites, and heteros of ever hue.

As we walked into the town square, my very forward friend locked eyes with a buxom mocha colored girl of about eighteen years old, whose smile was as brilliant as the lumen on a lighthouse. Passing one another, they turned to lock eyes again, the buxom beauty now sharing some words with a girlfriend before returning to meet my pal halfway. They exchanged some words I couldn’t hear and then their lips locked together in a passionate kiss during which she lifted his hand to rest flatly upon the top of upper breast.

They talked and they kissed and exchanged telephone numbers at a capeta (fruit/alcohol juice drink) stand, and then the mocha beauty was gone.

Music filled the space, with a “Brega” (Brazilian pop music) band playing on stage, while thousands on people, from the ages of ten years old to sixty, danced and grinded, laughed and flirted, drank beer and sought partners. Initially, I just watched everyone, remembering that I’m supposed to be depressed. But then I dispensed with all loyalty to depression, loneliness and misery, and I danced and played with everyone else, momentarily freeing my mind from all concern and cogitation.

At some point, after an hour or so, I found myself wanting to go home. At three in the morning, it was long past my bedtime, and I knew I should be at my computer, clacking out another tome on the misery of life or the presidential race seven thousand miles away. Instead of leaving this Carnaval celebration, I decided to pretend that I sitting in my living room, was watching it on television. There I was no longer obliged to dance or engage with others and could just watch the teenagers enjoying themselves, watching this scene on a big screen in surround sound.

Now, my friend had found two more women, one beige with blonde hair and the other mocha again, with bountiful breasts in a revealing yellow bikini top. If my friend was to make his way with the beige girl, I would have to entertain and distract the mocha woman meanwhile. They certainly drank a lot of beer ( I don’t drink at all), but I did my part until some men next to us began a horseplay that easily turns into fighting when men are drunk at four in the morning.

We felt the stink of tear gas, and I was ready to go home, yet my friend and his girl attractions, I now learned, were determined to stay at this party until the sun came up. Who knows what might happen with the girls, the fights, the tear gas . . .

Not me. I’m a married man with a loving wife who needed loving, plus three children and a big dog waiting for me at home.

As I rode back home, chatting in English with an eighteen year-old blonde girl from Germany, I saw just one transvestite, tall and black, with orange hair on her legs.

I could spend more time at Carnaval festivities, particularly if my friend comes with me so that I’m shouldering the immense weight of going alone to enjoy myself. But I do have some qualms:

What if my life passes me by more quickly while I’m out enjoying myself?

What will my wife think if I repeatedly come home at four in the morning?

It’s nine in the morning now. The sun is full up and the dizzying music about sex that is audible from a block away – a staple in Bahia – means that another day has begun.