by Augusto Cury
Helping Bartholomew was my first experience in contributing humbly to someone’s wellness. A difficult task for a selfish intellectual.
Getting Bartholomew admitted into the hospital was a struggle. We had to convince the night crew that our friend was in mortal danger. His raving alcohol-induced madness wasn’t enough to convince them immediately. General hospitals weren’t prepared for accidents involving the human psyche. The body they could deal with. But they either didn’t know or didn’t care about how to deal with an injured mind. By the time we succeeded in getting him admitted, Bartholomew was less agitated. They gave him a strong sedative and carried him, asleep, to his room.
We went to visit him in the afternoon. Bartholomew was much better. He was no longer having hallucinations and was released. He asked us to tell him everything that had happened and how we’d met. His memory was cloudy. The dreamseller signaled to me. I tried to explain the incomprehensible. When I began to speak, the dreamseller left. He didn’t like to be praised.
I spoke about the dreamseller, how I’d met him, how he’d helped save me, how we met at the foot of the building, the dancing, the question about Bartholomew’s great dream, how he’d called him, the bridge, the night terrors, everything. Bartholomew paid close attention and nodded his head, muttering, “hmm.” Everything seemed so unreal that I felt like a fool explaining something I didn’t even understand. The poor man was as good-natured as the dreamseller.
“You don’t know who he is or what his name is? Buddy, I think I need a drink to figure this all out,” he joked. “I’ve always wanted to follow somebody crazier than me.”
And that’s how I became part of this band of misfits. My sociological experiment was widening. I only hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. I’d rather anyone from my former life think I was dead or had left the country. Bartholomew whistled in a carefree manner. The dreamseller walked beside us with unabashed joy. Suddenly, he started singing a beautiful and rousing song he had composed, with lyrics that portrayed the story of his life. Little by little, the song became the central theme of our journey.
I’m just a wanderer
Who lost the fear of getting lost
I’m certain of my own imperfection
You may say I’m crazy
You may mock my ideas
It doesn’t matter!
What matters is I’m a wanderer
Who sells dreams to passersby
I’ve no compass or appointment book
I have nothing, yet I have everything
I’m just a wanderer
In search of myself.
On the walk home, or rather, to the bridge, we ran into another strange character. His name was Dimas de Melo, nicknamed “Angel Hand.” His nickname should have been “Devil Hand,” because he was a con man and a thief. He was twenty-eight with blond hair that fell over his brow, a long, pointed nose and Asian features.
Angel Hand was caught stealing a portable DVD player from a department store. He had already stolen countless other more valuable things without getting caught. But this time a camera had filmed him in the act. Of course he had slyly checked out all the cameras when he placed the machine in his large bag, but hadn’t seen there was a hidden one, and he landed in jail.
At the police station, he asked for a lawyer before detectives could question him. He told his lawyer he didn’t have money for bail. The lawyer said, “No money; no freedom.”
Whenever the thief felt nervous, he began to stutter badly. He argued, “Hold on a minute . . . I’m, I’m gonna get out of this without pa . . . paying a thing. Just f . . . follow my lead.” The lawyer didn’t understand what he had in mind. They went into the office of the impatient police chief.
When the chief asked the prisoner’s name, Dimas, acting like he had mental problems, twiddled his lips with his index finger and smacked his forehead three times. The chief got mad and again asked his name. And Dimas repeated the gesture.
“Are you playing with me, son? Because I’ll lock you in that holding cell and throw away the key.”
The chief tried asking for Dimas’s address and employer, but Dimas just repeated the same gesture, twiddling his lips like a monkey and slapping his forehead three times. He wanted to look like someone out of his mind, someone who couldn’t possibly have known what he was doing when he put that DVD player into his bag. The chief insisted on asking more questions and Dimas just deflected them like an imbecile. The chief cursed, banged the table, threatened, but Dimas wouldn’t break. He should’ve won an Academy Award for his acting. The lawyer was enjoying his client’s cleverness.
“There’s no use. This guy’s nuts!” the chief shouted.
The lawyer took over and told him, “Sir, I didn’t say anything about my client’s mental handicap because I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But you can see for yourself he has no idea what he’s doing.”
Not wanting to waste any more time, the chief let the crook go. Outside, the lawyer shook Angel Hand’s hand and praised his cunning.
“That was unbelievable! I’ve never seen such a clever con man,” the lawyer said, congratulating him. He quickly asked for his fee so he could be on his way to see another client.
Angel Hand stared blankly into the lawyer’s eyes and twiddled his lips, slapping his forehead three times. The lawyer laughed out loud, but said he didn’t have time to joke around. Dimas repeated the gesture. We were on the other side of the street, watching this all go on.
“OK, enough! Let’s settle up,” shouted the lawyer.
Angel Hand repeated his ritual once again. The lawyer became irritated, but Dimas just repeated his act. Nothing could dissuade that scoundrel. The lawyer threatened him in every possible way. He even threatened to call the cops. But how could he? He had told the police chief that his client was mentally ill; if he recanted, it could cause him problems with the bar. It was the first time in the history of jurisprudence that a con artist had tricked the police and his lawyer in the space of fifteen minutes.
The lawyer left fuming and Angel Hand said aloud, “One more sucker.”
The dreamseller was paying close attention to the thief. I couldn’t really understand why. But I thought maybe he wanted to sell him the dream of honesty. Maybe he wanted to reprimand him, deliver one of his sermons. Maybe he wanted to tell us to have nothing to do with a guy like this, who could ruin our path to self-discovery.
He crossed the street and approached the thief. We followed apprehensively, worried that this crook might be armed. Dimas saw him coming and immediately asked who he was and what he wanted. To our surprise, the dreamseller pulled no punches.
“Your dream is to get rich and you don’t care how you have to do it,” the dreamseller said.
I liked how the dreamseller put him in his place. But what he said next took me by surprise and sent Bartholomew’s head spinning—without vodka. He told Angel Hand, “Those who steal for a living are terrible money managers. They run from poverty, but it always catches up with them.”
The con man was taken aback. He didn’t know how to invest what he stole and lived in poverty. He detested it, begged for the scarcity to go away, but like a faithful companion it insisted on staying. And then, the dreamseller brought the crook’s world crashing down: “The worst swindler isn’t he who deceives others but he who deceives himself.”
Angel Hand took two steps back. He wasn’t much for thinking, but what he heard rocked his mind. He began to ask himself: “Am I maybe the world’s worst swindler? I’m a pro at cheating people, but maybe I’ve cheated myself. Who is this character who’s stealing my peace of mind?”
Then the dreamseller did what we never expected.
“Come, follow me and I will show you a treasure called knowledge, much more valuable than silver and gold,” he said. The dreamseller had a pointed, seductive way of selling his dreams.
But the con man looked the dreamseller from head to toe, saw his ragged clothes and empty pockets and snickered. He thought
about that treasure of knowledge and understood nothing. And he started to stutter again.
“What . . . tre . . . treasure do you mean? What mo . . . money?” he asked suspiciously.
Without offering an explanation, the dreamseller merely stated confidently, “You’ll find out.”
And he walked away without saying another word. The crook followed us. Initially, he followed out of curiosity. Maybe he thought the dreamseller was an eccentric millionaire. The fact is that the dreamseller’s ideas attracted people, especially those on the edge of society, like a moth to a flame.
Bartholomew, many years ago when he had money, had undergone psychotherapy, but it didn’t work. In fact, it had left him worse off. He had driven some of his therapists crazy, and they needed therapy themselves after they began to treat him. The guy was hopeless but brilliant. He discovered that pridefulness was my weakness. When we made our first trek toward the bridge, after the San Pablo dance, he nicknamed me Superego, unknowingly misusing Freud’s term. He now called me aside and whispered in my ear:
“Superego, putting up with you isn’t easy, but having to deal with this crook is impossible.”
“Look who’s talking,” I started to say, but then I thought he might be right. This new member of our family could be dangerous. I had never imagined myself associating with a common criminal.
Even more quietly, I told Bartholomew, “Putting up with an alcoholic like you is complicated, but that crook’s too much. Count me out of this.”
I thought about abandoning the sociological experiment for the second time. But then I remembered that I, too, had been lost and was found. I looked at the dreamseller’s calm expression and decided to hold out a while longer. I, too, was curious about where this journey would lead me. It could surely be the subject of many future theses.
The dreamseller’s new disciple had a disarming voice, but he was an expert in taking advantage of others. He sold counterfeit winning lottery tickets. He stole women’s credit cards and snatched purses from little old ladies after graciously helping them cross the street. The problem is that every schemer is overconfident. Dimas thought he could never be caught—until he encountered someone wilier than him. He didn’t realize that by accompanying the dreamseller he would be entering the biggest ambush of his life.
We sat down on a bench in the square to rest. The dreamseller suggested that Bartholomew and I explain the project to Dimas. Not an easy task. The young man didn’t look very smart and I thought it might be just the right time to scare him off. Bartholomew exaggerated everything that had happened to us.
“Dude, the chief is a genius. I think he’s from another planet. He hypnotizes people. He’s called on us to set people on fire with dreams.”
Drunk, Bartholomew hallucinated about monsters; sober, he had delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately Dimas liked what he was hearing. These two, living at the edge of society, they spoke the same language. I thought to myself, “Now I’m living at the edge of society and I’m alone. I’m worse off than both of these wretches.”
We knew whatever explanation we gave Dimas about this journey wouldn’t satisfy him—we were as confused as he was. But to someone lost in the desert, a mirage of an oasis brings hope. I was hoping to scare off this con man, but he was now determined to follow us. Thus, our band of misfits was born.
The Brave Little Swallows
LATER THAT DAY, WE PASSED BY A NEWSSTAND IN THE square and saw our photo on the front page of the newspaper under the headline “A Small Band of Misfits Stirs Up the City.” In the foreground was the dreamseller with Bartholomew and me at his side. I bought the paper with the few coins in my pocket.
I was shaken, perplexed. I knew I had caused a scene when I tried to kill myself, but I had hoped it was buried. I just wanted to forget the matter and return to my quiet life in academia. Now my name was on everyone’s tongue. The article described my suicide attempt and my rescue by a stranger whose name no one knew.
Dimas and Bartholomew saw one out-of-control intellectual reading that paper. They were accustomed to being insulted. I wasn’t. My social image was carefully protected. “I’ll be a laughingstock, especially to my enemies at the university,” I thought.
What a fool I’d been. I wanted to die without attracting attention, but I went about it all wrong. Instead, I had become infamous. I wanted to grab all the papers and burn them. I wanted to protest the unauthorized use of my photograph. I wanted to sue the journalist for that slanderous reporting. The article called me an attention-seeking mental case. And it also said that the psychiatrist who’d been at the top of the building diagnosed the dreamseller as a dangerous psychopath who could be a public hazard. The way the article read, I hadn’t been rescued by a hero; rather, we had been the villains in a Hollywood film.
The dreamseller sat on a nearby bench along with his other followers. Respecting my pain, he merely observed me. He was waiting for my temper to subside before he intervened. But it didn’t diminish. My mind raced out of control. I imagined all my colleagues and students reading the story. I was the chairman of a sociology department and had never bowed to any professor or student. I appeared unbeatable, detested stupid minds, but never saw my own stupidity. I had always been skilled at cultivating enemies and rotten at making friends.
“And what will they think of me now?” I thought. “What will they think of a jumper saved by a crazy man? And what’s worse, what will they think of that jumper who, after being rescued, danced merrily in a crowd of strangers? Obviously, they’ll say I’ve gone stark raving mad. They’ll say I have an advanced degree in insanity.”
It was everything that Mario Vargas, Antonio Freitas and other malcontents dreamed of, sullying my image. Without realizing it, I sold the dream they most desired, the dream of stomping on my image. Defeated, I concluded that I was through in the academic world, done at the university. Never again would I face the same silence when I wove social criticism, or respect when I debated ideas or corrected someone.
I began to feel angry toward the journalist who had written the article. I fumed, “Why don’t journalists, as part of their training, take a workshop simulating the public destruction of their reputation? Maybe then they’d learn to investigate all the facts and put themselves in other people’s shoes before trashing someone else’s name.”
To the journalist I was just another story. But to me it was my personal struggle: everything that I have and am, even if it is a twisted, troubling tale. A few minutes can change a life story. How could I go back to my old life? If I returned, I’d never be the same to the others. All I had left was to follow a man who proposes a revolutionary plan without the slightest intellectual, social or financial basis. And, moreover, he calls as his followers people who I normally would never associate with.
I had been protected inside the university for many years. And now, the first time I had left the protection of my notable degrees and become a simple mortal, I had been tossed about. I was outraged.
But just as my anger had reached a fever pitch, my mind suddenly shifted and I saw things from a different point of view.
I glanced at the dreamseller and realized that the “comma” he had sold me allowed me to feel all of this, even though it was unpleasant. Whatever negative effects that article might have brought, it also came with something positive: The living feel frustration. The dead feel nothing. And I was alive.
I had almost died that day. I should be celebrating life. But the conflicts wedged deep in my unconscious, though weakened, were not dead. I wanted to live a simple, calm life, instead of worrying about my public reputation. But I was a man ruled by anxiety.
Now I understand why the father of a colleague of mine, a seventy-year-old man, arrogant, aggressive, prejudiced, who had been kidnapped for six months, hadn’t changed at all after his long captivity. When he was released, everyone thought he would be a gentle, generous, altruistic individual, but after his rescue he was more unbearable than ever.
My lo
ve of power had always been hidden beneath the cloak of my intellect. It was not eradicated, even by the threat of suicide. I thought this business of selling dreams wouldn’t easily change a selfish man like me. It isn’t pain that changes us, but the intellect to use that pain. I realized that if I didn’t use that pain, I would continue being simply a hollow human being with a vast intellect but stunted emotions.
As I wrestled with these thoughts, I sensed the dreamseller at my side. He seemed to have entered the whirlwind of my ideas. I could see the concern on his face. He seemed to read my thoughts. In an effort to calm the turbulent waters of my emotions, he said:
“Don’t fear criticism from the outside. Fear your own thoughts, for only they can penetrate into your essence and destroy it.”
As I pondered his words, he continued:
“Someone can bruise your body without your permission, but he can never invade your mind unless you allow it. Don’t let yourself be invaded. We are what we are.” Then he challenged me more than I could have imagined: “The cost of selling dreams is high, but you’re under no obligation to pay. You’re always free to leave.”
The dreamseller had dragged me to a crossroads. I had the chance to turn my back and go anywhere in the world. But to quit now? Me? I had always been stubborn, fighting for what I wanted. I was wracked with doubt in a way I never had been before. I recalled a sociological study I had read about the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, and I began to understand psychological and social truths that I had never analyzed.
I began to think about the indescribable power of Jesus’ words and actions. They were enough to convince young Jews, in the flower of youth, wild for adventure, some even with established families and businesses, to abandon everything and follow him. What madness! They blindly followed a man with no known political power and no visible identity. He didn’t promise them money or riches or an earthly kingdom. What a risk they took! What internal turmoil they must have felt!
