Stolen Wallet

When a man thinks on anything whatsoever His next thought after, is not altogether so casuall as it seems to be. Not every Thought to every Thought succeeds indifferently. But as wee have no imagination where of we have not formerly had sense, in whole or in parts, so we have not Transition from one Imagination to another, whereof we never had the like before in our sense. All fancies are motions within us, reliques of those made in the sense; Hobbes’ Leviathan, Chapter III page 9. On the Consequence of Train of Imagination As all of this sense pours over me, getting in the very pits of my skin, Hobbes inspires me to continue the deluged. When Marcia finishes work, Marcia, David and I walk home. I offer to teach an English class. They laugh. The street is still growded. The house is onely a block away.

When we arrive at the house two of Marica’s housemates walk up behind us and meet us at the gate. It will be a good night. Será uma boa noite.

Eu / sou/ estou pronounced like stow

Tu/ és/ Estás

Ele, ela / é/ Está

Nós/ somos/ estamos

Vós/ sois/ estais pronounced like steiss

Eles/ são/ estão

We go into her house. She takes me upstairs and shows me a bed on her floor. She tells me I will be staying on her floor. I move my bags up from the kitchen to her fairly small room.

The two roommates are Elisa, and OIlvia. It turns out they both are etymologists. Olivia studies a type of cicada. Elisa had studies house flies, but needed a change, now she has moved on to the “moe interesante subject des fruit flees.” Olivia has bouncing brown eyes and a ready made square smile. She punctuates her words with turns of her body, and most helpfully she speaks excellent English.

Elisa is a shy girl, from de sud de Braziliero. As such, she is more European looking. I still haven’t said more than hello with her. After a shower and a change of clothes, I came out of the Bathroom and talked with the three roommates. Standing awkwardly in Olivia and Elisa’s doorway I smiled and laughed at the least consequential of remarks in an attempt to gain acceptants. All of the sleeping rooms are upstairs. I hesitated to speak, fearful of flubbing with the only engaging English speaker I had met. But it was such a relief when I opened my mouth and could speak as I wished that I really couldn’t contain myself. In the course of twenty mintoes had told of my large family and East Africa where I grew up. I told her I had seven brothers and sisters three of one and four of the other, also I mentioned that my parents put back together languages that earlier missionaries had fucked up. In the course of the English speaking we all decided to go out to a Pizzaria. A very local treat. There we decided that, if I liked, I should come to the field with her and her colleagues to hunt for ants why she did for cicadas. She mentioned a trip next week with her colleagues, and the fact she had been to a very good sight for her, that she would like to go back to, but hadn’t her colleagues did not find the site so good. I agreed going to the field would be a good idea. Marcia and her also discusses my situation in Portuguese and assessed how easy it would be for me to use INPA, the massive Environmental Research station that they, and it seemed everyone in Manaus, worked for. They insisted that, as I had a Tourist visa I could not collect. Further, they decided my first step would be to get an INPA I.D card so I could participate in all trips to the field. I agreed in English once they translated this deliberation.

The Pizza came in rounds, and it was all you can eat. The waiter would bring a tray with different types. You could say Pour favor, or Náo Obrigado. The pizzas were topped with Fish, locally caught in the Negro River–which surrounds Manaus–, Stroganoff, Banna, Chocolate, Ala Cart, Pepperoni, an orange gourd with a bitter taste a bit like papaya and pineapple with ham and cinnamon that tasted like apple pie.

The following four days were the weekend. Weeekends here don’t have time. The house’s jobs stopped. The internet went black. As only at offices does information flow. We went to a bar. I drank Cervantes, and Skol–local beers, and vodka and lime. I spoke to two of Marcia’s friends both who didn’t speak English. The woman insistted she didn’t speak English and stopped me when she didn’t understand. We spoke of our likes for different musics. Our understanding of different foods, and whether dance was something enjoyable or not. She didn’t like “Fumes, ooh, des cigerretes… Marlboros.” The man pretended to speak English perfectly, I spoke about how good Portuguese sounds. He spoke of how good Brazilian women look. Then we discussed The meaning of the word defenestrate. “Huhuha, to put out of a window, why, WHY would you need that word? I’m glad its uselessness is as obvious in any language.

The following day we swam, and ate and sat. Marcia went to work, but I believe it was to use her E-mail, as that’s when I used mine. Plus work is air-conditioned.

This morning. Monday morning, the fourth day I am here, I didn’t want to get up. I had told Marcia to wake me before she left, as she had asked me how to say last night, “at ten before eight, and nothing more complicated.” I woke up when she stood up peeking at her with eye’s half shut. I was undecided if I wanted to make my consciousness known. She left the room with al her things and shut the door. Then I just lay there. Thoughts mingled with an indelible inability to do more than turn to my side and tuck a pillow under my head. On my left side I lay. I eventually rose, realizing that the interview I had asked Marica to wake me for was in less than an hour.

I stole the bathroom from one of the house members. The light was on when I went in, but I figured someone had forgotten. While I shat, a swear in Portuguese highlighted my crime. I had stepped on another person’s toe. Living in a room with a stranger, in a house of strangers, in a country of strangers, makes social foibles unavoidable. And though I know I make them, I don’t know what they are. Further, no one can tell me because I don’t know the language. Though I guessed I had stolen the bathroom, I took a shower. It was guilty, moist and hot. My Tension evaporated under steam.

When I got dressed, I couldn’t find my wallet. It was not where I had left it. M backpack is a Labyrinth of pockets. I couldn’t find it and it hadn’t left a trail of coins, or breadcrumbs, or anything else to follow.

I started to worry. Yesterday I had been very open with David and Marcia about how much money I had. I had told them cause my MasterCard wasn’t working at the Bank. I couldn’t withdraw money. They had looked at me as if I had no money. Without notes I felt less of a man. When David bought me coffee, I was defeated. I was broke, without an ATM to withdraw at; in this state I bragged and assured them that I was financially soluble with good credit. They could lend me pocket money with ease. After an hour, we found an ATM I could withdraw at. When I got my money I danced. In the aircontioned narthex of the fourth bank we tried, I stuck my car into the machine, slipped it out, selected English for its sense of home and withdrew $R100. At an exchange rate of $41.4 to $1.00, the machine dispensed a hundred Brazilian Riles with a clicking purrrr.

I took my money and danced in the barren white bank, vestibule. I Waved the money around like a fool. Marcia said, “lets wait here a while,” as she pointed to the air-conditioner. It was 35c outside. David said, “ We could go buy lunch with your new well,” pointing to my fist of bills, “and bring it back here to enjoy.” After a minute, I put the money away and we left the building. As such, sitting there this morning, when I couldn’t find my wallet, worried I had made the money too obvious.

David is an itinerant traveler. He has spent the pas lifetime traveling and seeing. He has tattoos from all over the world and he did not say good night to me last night. As I searched for my wallet, I freaked out. It has all my credit cards. All my Cash, besides a few American dollars, without it, I would have no way o call my bank and cancel my cards. I imagined how clever David was, to have taken my only means of paying my way. I saw every moment that I had mentioned money, and I vetted they added up to his judgment that I was weak, that he could take advantage of me. I realized, I had no one to go to. If he had taken my wallet, it was while he was alone in my room with Marcia. They had been making him a facebook account. For some reason their internet worked that night, not mine. As such, if he had taken it, my thoughts raged, it was with her permission, She is my hostess here and my only place to stay. I searched my bags, but realized I had to get to the interview.

Marcia had set up this interview through her boss. I was to meet Febrizio, a Myrmecologist at Nine. I had no more time and the wallet still was gone. Without a centos to my name, I went to meet Fabrizio. I had to meet Marcia in her office for her secretary to call his secretary to arrange when to meet. The two women decided that it would happen that day. Though as they did not set a time on the phone, when Marcia’s secretary hung up, she was immediately told to call back and set a time. Thus, it was arranged that I would walk over with Marcia immediately to meet Fabrizio. At his doro standing in the way, was a middle-aged man with E.O. Wilson’s Naturalista tucked under his arm. E.O. Wilson is the guru of modern Myrmecology. As such, I knew I was in the right place.

I met Fabrizio. He was wearing a band t-shirt and Hawaiian print knee length shorts. He had a scruffy go-tee and long surfer hair. Still nervous at being robbed that morning, I told him about my project. Thankfully he had lived in Manhattan for a year, and spoke English. He offered me to sit down. As we spoke it became clear he needed someone to photograph most of the images for a new catalogue of Amazonian Formicidae, ants. He showed me a gorgeous glossy book done for frogs, and his pinned ant collection. Their tiny carcasses, each with minutely inscribed taxonomic tags, floated above the Styrofoam. The ants were gorgeous. After descending to collaborate on an ant guide, we went to the etymology lab where I met his main assistant, gorge.

He is a tall man, with flobby curls, and a passion for ants. He has boxes of them on his lab’s wall, each one describing a small piece of his heart. After talking with him for forty-five minutes, I left to arrange my papers for the necessary forms, and to print and I.D. image. When I got back to Marcia’s Casa, the man of the house, a large guy who never wears a shirt and his doing his PH.D one climatology, told me, “David come quick.” I went through the kitchen where I came in, into the dining room ad out the back door, which leaves the house through the living room. “A large animal just jumped out of that tree,” he said walking down the back steps towards the pool. He went down the ramp and around the pool house corner. “Then it went around this corner to the left and WOOOSh, into the pool,” and “Look there it is.” I looked into the blue chlorinated water, and at the bottom on the far side was a foot and a half long Lizard. It lay at the bottom not moving. Its skin a tropical green. “We call it Iguana” he said, “Yeah us the same,” I reply “do you think it will be okay with the chlorine? “I don’t know” he shrugged. “Do we have a stick to poke it,” I wondered. I walked over to grab the pool cleaning stick. I poked it with the un-netted end. The iguana gracefully swam three feet. Its form perfectly made to glide through the water with rhythmic back and forth motions of its entire body. “Its alive. Do you think it can get out? I asked, “Yeah probably, wanna get it out?” he inquired. I passed him the pool cleaner as he was standing closer to it. He put the netted side under the lizard, tried twice to scoop it out, the Iguana didn’t cooperate. The third time, the Iguana understood what was happening and seemed to climb unto the netted end. His reptilian limbs and tail flapping, he flew out of the water into the air, and unto the hard concrete of the pool edge with a fwap.

I said, “See you later”, still terrified I didn’t have my wallet, I went upstairs dogged through my backpack. I found my wallet at the bottom of my bag. David was not a thief.