Every day the scene comes to me on my cell phone, and it should come to yours too, a new cliche classic from the urban jungle. And suddenly, one moonlit night, when I was out for a walk, I was there, no longer as a spectator, but an active figure in it. I was about to become the next victim in the most iconic scene of Rio’s current crime scene, the cliché of urban violence – I was surrounded by the infamous duo of bikers.
Rio is the beginning of fads, hence the foreign delight of rubber sandals with a strap between the toes (perhaps the biggest weight on the export scale today), as well as the chain gang tricks, the Paco story, the bank robbery – and now the sketch of bikers attacking in double, and sometimes quadruple, doses, that is, with two criminals on each of the bikes. That was my case.
It was a moonlit night and I was out for a walk with my friend, more precisely to go to the Knight’s to see Marisa Monti with the orchestra. In the first scene of the movie you reluctantly entered, and quite possibly playing on your cell phone, there I am next to the bud. Both of them, at that moment, were still wearing their “I’m Connected” shirts. They followed the updated Citizen’s Guide, taking into account the need to protect themselves from recent forms of violence.
From inside the gates of the apartment complex, surrounded by electrified fences and green-light cameras, the couple waits for the taxi, knowing that they should only leave this comfort zone when the car is already parked on the sidewalk and the license plate is checked with the one on the app. It’s late at night, Marissa’s song goes, when an Uber arrives and the couple, after another chapter of their jungle survival guide, set off at a brisk pace to enter it.
However, and putting the “but” in it, the precautionary guide when walking down the sidewalk, the episode in which it will be everything God intended it to be, is enormous. When the couple stepped on it, they failed to meet one of the requirements, and they were still holding lighted mobile phones in their hands, through which they monitored the taxi’s arrival and traffic conditions at the show site. In contrast, the motorcycle train was moving fast and could only stop 100 meters from the couple – and the couple had already regained the wisdom needed for anyone who wants to survive in Rio.
– Run, boy, run – the two shouted in unison to the taxi driver as they threw themselves into the back seat, closed the door and looked terrified at the motorcyclists who were now climbing the 100 meters that separated them from the victims – or… the alleged victims.
Could it actually be an attempted robbery? The scene drawing, similar to hundreds already posted, looked like yes, and this was definitely not the time to ask questions. The taxi driver sped off, and the motorcyclists rode in the wrong direction, perhaps to watch for other victims in the street, or, so Rio!, for the scoundrels’ free daily exercise in traffic. I don’t know. Perhaps it was a panic attack given the general expectation that your motorcycle and the time on the sidewalk of life in Rio are about to arrive at any moment. I’m sure Marisa Monte sings better and better.
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