Little trains don’t go together. Small trains are not planned. A little train is arriving. Or not. It depends on the music, how busy the dance floor is and how much you drink. (The train is the only mode of transportation in which “if you drink, don’t drive” does not apply and in which the true straight line is the zigzag).
Not all trails are suitable for trains. I’ve never seen thirty-seven people, some with their hands on their shoulders, wandering around the room to the sounds of the Rolling Stones, Olivia Rodrigo or K-pop. It must be Brazilian music and of a specific type: linked, in some way, to the June festival.
The ideal little train, the perfect little train, the one that sits immaculately in the intelligible world of Plato, is to the sound of Balancê, in the voice of Gal Costa. But here on Earth, where everything is not perfect, but we can get there, you can pull a train to the sound of “Lança parfum”, Rita Lee, “Doces Bárbaros” or even “Carimbador Maluco” (Pluct Plact Zuuum) by Raul Seixas. There are recorded cases of successful toy trains pulled by samba-enredo and the occasional mention, in literature, of a train powered by Bella Ciao – although some say these are just rumors.
I admit, embarrassed, that I have never started a small train. I don’t have this locomotive motivation in me. I cannot wear on my chest the coat of arms of São Paulo, “non ducor, duco” – “I am not led, I lead”. When I see him, there are already six or seven cars passing in front of me, someone is pulling me, I wrap my hands around the last shoulders “and time passes and I get exhausted/ in Balancê, Balancê”.
I said that I had never started a little train and I realize: I haven’t seen a little train born either, so now I have doubts. This leader of the partygoers, this enlightened being who, on the dance floor, decides to start the little train, places his hands on the shoulders of the character in front of him and says “go ahead!” or, on the contrary, turn your back on a trusted person, say “hands on my shoulder! The train is leaving!” ? Both hypotheses seem strange, boring and bureaucratic to me. I imagine that in the ideal little train, this little Platonic train mentioned above, locomotive and wagons connect simultaneously, without words, in a spontaneous and collective generation.
The little train is undoubtedly the highlight of the track and therefore of the party. That’s where your bad side is. After the train there is nowhere to go. Although it is not written in the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Buddhist Tripitaca, the Sutras, our Constitution or the Junior Scout Handbook, everyone knows: it is a little train only for a party, like a host only for a mass. (The sacred has strict rules).
Once the train finishes, the DJ starts playing “My way”, “A cold day/a good place to read a book”, “The man who says I’m going, don’t go, because the ones who go really don’t say so”. The next moment, out of nowhere, soup and jugs of water appeared. In a corner, a woman puts on her high heels. A man sleeps on the chair, his mouth open, three buttons open on his wine-spattered shirt. Someone behind you comments “Uber offers 12 minutes, try 99”. Another voice, a little soft: “Holy project! Marcão is here! Ju too! It’s like you! I’ll call you on Monday!”
Once home, a liter of water later, head on the pillow, we feel a little seasick. It’s strange, he hasn’t even drunk much. Know then that the swing is the effect of the little train. Smile, sleep and dream of odalisques, vineyards and steamboats.
PS. I dedicate this column to the newlyweds Conrado and Maria Eugênia
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