Champs at Public Bar, Feb 26th - 2026.
#######
###
They had taken the Blue Line to the San Ysidro Transit Center, then walked to the pedestrian crossing, and were soon through El Chaparral. From there they walked into Zona Centro and found themselves at Avenida Revolución and Flores Magón. It was warm but not hot, and very crowded for the holiday. The air smelled of grilled carne asada, spilled beer, and smoke drifting out of open doorways. The sound was a hard mix of norteño horns, bass thumping from bars, vendors calling out, and traffic idling.
The police did not seem to be in a hurry. The first arrived in what appeared to be a white pickup truck. They got out, gazed at what the couple were staring at, then leaned against the truck, and one pulled a pack of Delicados from a pocket and lit one. More important officers would be arriving soon, and there was no need to rush. Everyone else was having a good time. ###########
#######
In the restroom of the club, Rowan had laid his leather jacket across one of the sinks and was on all fours, doing pushups near the towel dispenser. Every tenth pushup or so he’d take a sip of his vodka Red Bull and start again. The music was still loud in the room and the restroom attendant seemed unimpressed. His name was Mo and he worked Thursdays through Sundays until close and he’d seen this many times. Not just Rowan, but others too. He stood ready with cologne and a hand towel and he’d smile the way he always did for the type of people was friendly to but secretly imagined various painful ways for them to die.
################################# … ########## .. #####
#######... ##########. #######.... ##############
###############......##############
At night she would lay on her side and press her hand into the cool of the other pillow. Her fingers were restless and caressed the empty texture of the cotton-polyester fabric in slow calculated rhythms. It was nearly entirely dark in the room except for the seepage of liminal glow from behind the window curtain and she realized at this moment the color had gone from everything around her and yet color had been one of the things that they had fought over recently. Stupid shit. Stupid, stupid shit. Always stupid shit. The window was slightly ajar, maybe two inches, and it was enough to allow a stale pungent effluvium of the street three floors below enter through the mesh. A hot dog and pretzel cart, marijuana, piss, trash day, diesel exhaust, northeastern wind. Tomorrow would be a huge day, a closure, recourse, an action, a statement, an ending. Tomorrow would be a new chapter. Tomorrow she could change the colors of the pillowcases.
##### … ## …….. ###################
Mr. Bass, low end rumble, sonic frequencies of 80-1000hz, primarily.
In Rio de Janeiro the days emerge sleepily and quietly with light flickering against the ocean waves in coquettish little glimmers the way fading stars sometimes twinkle like cheap jewelry. At dawn the beaches are empty and the hills of the Tijuca are quiet. Rainwater patters off the leaves of the jungle as Sorvete Brasil ice cream drips off abandoned tables along the Avenue Atlantica. Bicycles rest against trees, green lights of the pharmacies flicker, red beach umbrellas are folded away, sand sculptures collapse. No one dares move at this time in Rio. It goes against the nature of things. It’s as if for a few precious moments the city itself: the buildings, the jungle, the favelas … everything and everyone needs to admit for just a few minutes that they did way too much the night before and for fuck’s sake, let’s catnap for just a little while.
But then that samba of Sun, that dance of illumination, that brilliance of naked light emerges from the broken pattern of clouds and from hidden cracks in the cement something that exists beyond dawn begins. Energy ebbs forth. Hotels and apartments of aging concrete slowly unfurl like molting Amazonian birds, taking wing, fluttering to life. Asphalt and concrete grope toward the heat like bodies slowly regaining consciousness from the world’s hardest hangover, swelling and aching. Veins of consciousness take shape. Alleys expand, mopeds are revved, crosswalks serve function.
The days come this way in Rio de Janeiro, unlike the nights, which never come this way at all.
For nothing is quiet or slow or tranquil in the nights of Rio de Janeiro. The nights burst outward in explosions of noise, cacophonies of cadence, and orgies of sweat. They glisten like naked bodies in that club in Batafogo where the kids spill out and dance and gyrate through the streets. They envelop the vertebrae of alleys and the narrow spines of the city all the way up to Sugarloaf mountain, thrusting from the water like a massive conga drum. Humidity becomes perspiration and pores become fountains that fill armpits and thighs and collect in the inseams of clothing. Gutters become torrents of spilled beer and piss and magical discarded shit in a confluence of used condoms, cocaine, prostitutes’ stockings and spilled plastic cachaça containers. Street corners erupt in loud marches and cadences, steels drums clang as impromptu samba parades stretch from Ipanema, to the Lapa, to the Sambadrome, and to your heart.
########### ……..##..##…..#####…#.