English. I noticed an old lady in a chair who bore a striking resemblance to Susan Sontag, whose obituary I’d read shortly before leaving for Rio. She had Sontag’s striking good looks and the same streak of white in her otherwise jet black hair. I could see that she had once been an attractive Tiffany, just the kind of sexloving Rio girl I was after. I was thinking about how I could ask her where I could find a girl who looked like her, only younger, without insulting her sexuality. I had heard that Brazilian women remain sexually active until very late in life, and one of the sex-tourism sites even advertised that you could have sex with retired Tiffanys for free. The Guinness Book of World Records documents the oldest woman to have had sex as a Brazilian who remained sexually active until she died at 124. She was still having orgasms at 110. Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, but Rio was home to the world’s oldest prostitutes.
An intimation of the moon was beginning to appear in the darkening sky, and a solitary street lamp created a scene of desolation that reminded me of an Edward Hopper painting. My mother always told me I was artistic, but she had forced me to choose a secure profession characterized by deadening and repetitive work (her favorite line was, “It’s rewarding to work for remuneration”). Apparently, she wanted me to have the kind of steady income that allowed me to take trips to Rio to run after prostitutes. If I had been a struggling artist, I would never have known as many Tiffanys as I had, and I probably would not have found myself staring up at a sign that read “31 Março Revolução.” With a start, I realized I was on a street that commemorated one of Rio’s most notorious uprisings. Perhaps out of fear, or a need to make a firmer connection with someone who could help me out of the morass I found myself in, I blurted out to the old whore, “Are you by any chance related to Susan Sontag.”
“You mean the one who wrote Against Interpretation?”
“Yes! And Styles of Radical Will, Illness as Metaphor, and Regarding the Pain of Others, not to mention the novel, The Death Kit, and also the movie, Duet for Cannibals. Did you know that she directed Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo during the bombings?” I knew I was just trying to show off my knowledge, which had never gotten me anywhere and often inspired resentment.
Just as she said, “I lived in the States for many years, but I never became a Sontag fan. I’m a simple woman. I like the kind of art that’s about life. I don’t buy her whole idea about the autonomy of art,” it hit me that I needed more reality. I asked her if there was a cash machine nearby. She told me there was one around the corner, but that I should be careful of the banditos, who kidnapped American tourists and held them for ransom. I had read a gruesome story about an American who had gotten drunk in a Rio brothel and had been kidnapped by a gang. Though he had finally been released, his penis had been cut off because his wife had refused to pay the ransom.
Though it had probably been a long time since she’d earned the name, I knew this old Tiffany was someone I could talk to. One of the tourist guides indicated that the older Tiffanys often gave good hand jobs when they experienced the kind of vaginal dryness that made repeated sexual intercourse too painful. I could ask her for a hand and even pay her for the trouble.
“I’m a traveler who’s become waylaid,” I said holding out a real. “I’m a little like Odysseus. I started out my journey looking for beautiful prostitutes, but I have been experiencing famine amongst plenty. Now I feel like Robinson Crusoe. Except I haven’t been washed up on an island, and consequently have found no Man Friday to show me the way.”
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