Don't read this if you're dead.

23 December 2007

Fate, destiny, whatever. You don't have to believe in such things - they will follow you around anyway.

Daniel.

His story.

Once in a while life seizes you by the throat and shakes you until your teeth rattle. With Daniel I got that visit! Daniel slipped into my life like a nuclear explosion. The last five years have been a roller coaster ride, you bet. But I wouldn't trade them for anything. They have been the hardest and the best years of my life.

How can I condense five years into a few paragraphs without losing the essence of exactly who Daniel is? Well, that challenge can be my quest... read on.

Daniel

I got my dad on December 23, just before Xmas. It was 8:30 at night, he was visiting a favela (what we call a slum here in Rio, but it's way worse) and organizing Xmas food for poor families. How it all happened I can't talk about without crying, and yeah I'm crying now.

I was a shoeshine, spent most of my life since I was eight years old working the streets just to stay alive. That's how I met my dad. I wanted to clean his shoes for a dollar, but he never lets any kid clean 'em. It's a thing he's got about dignity. Instead he buys the kid food or a new tin of polish or whatever the universe will provide at that moment.

We started talking a lot, and my dad found out I love magic. So he taught me some tricks and organized a special coat for me. Then he got me a job performing in a restaurant every Friday night - and I earned more for two hours work there than I got in a whole week of cleaning shoes. I smashed my shoeshine box with this huge rock.

Dad

I'm in downtown Rio, strolling around like a good tourist. This little kid keeps bugging me. Hey mister, let me clean your shoes. Just a dollar, mister. Hey, mister!

I have pre-survival Portuguese. Listen kid, no-one cleans my shoes but me, I manage to get across. You hungry? I'll buy you something to eat. He shakes his head. One dollar, mister. Only just one dollar, mister. Like a burr on a bear's butt. What do you want kid, with your dollar? He points to a guy selling magic tricks at a little stall in the square. I laugh, no problem kid, take your pick. He chooses the cheapest trick on the table: a bit of colored string wrapped around a silver bangle.

Kid holds out his hand for the dollar to pay for it. I drop a coin onto his palm. He closes his hand. One dollar, mister, one dollar he insists. Very funny kid, I say, now pay the guy his money. He opens his hand. It's empty. What the hell? One dollar, mister, he says. I grab his hand, turn it over. Nothing. Damn. He's grinning fit to split his face. Reaches up and pulls it out of my nose. He's a runt. Skinny, ragged. On edge, permanently ready to bolt. In spite of the huge grin on his face, one look at the eyes and you know this is one tough, angry kid.

Daniel

Every Friday my dad dropped into the restaurant, just checking on me. I never told him I was homeless, that I didn't go to school - there were some things I figured it was better he didn't know, and his Portuguese was too awful for him to check up on me!

One day after he had known me about maybe a month he walked into my world. It was night, and late. I was playing in the street near where I live. Suddenly Daniel - that's my dad, weird huh, same names. Cosmic happenings. Anyway, Daniel turns up, holding a huge chocolate cake and a little gift. Well, it was my birthday. I didn't eat that cake, I couldn't. I gave it away to other kids. All I could do was cry. It was the biggest embarrassment of my whole life. But it was the first present I have ever got, that cake and a small magic trick to add to my performance, and it was too big for me to handle just then.

Then a second time he turned up in the favela where I live, holding a bunch of Xmas parcels. It was a real dangerous place, Daniel was stupid to be there at night. He was giving boxes of food to poor families for Xmas. He gave me this huge box full of food, all special stuff for Xmas dinner. I opened it and looked inside. It was great, all my favorite stuff. I said can you wait here just a bit? and I disappeared. I came back in about five minutes, without the box. What have you done with your food? Daniel asked me. Gave it away, I said. He didn't look too happy at that. Look, I said, there's people here need food a lot more than me.

Dad

It's the heavy twilight of a summer's evening. I have spent the day giving little Xmas presents to a bunch of families I've got to know. I still have a few to give out, but it's getting late and I sure shouldn't be where I am at this hour. But I want to give the last box of food to this intriguing little brat, Daniel.

He's not playing in the street, but a bunch of kids show me where he lives. I find myself standing in front of a box. Big wooden thing, with a piece of steel leaning against it. Damn, what I'm thinking is just too awful.

I knock on the steel. Two little hands appear at its edge, drag it across. Daniel is standing there, wearing nothing but a pair of torn shorts. "Uh oh," he says. Busted. I act like it's perfectly normal to live in a box, some of the best people do. I hug him fit to pop his eyes out of their sockets, and give him his parcel of Xmas food. Before you can blink he's given it away.

Daniel

You mad I gave away my present? I ask him. I'm nervous in case he is, cause I just got this idea in my head. I won't be needing it anyway, I said to him. Why not? he asked. Cause I've just decided I've had enough of being abandoned, I said, so I'm giving you a Xmas present... Me.

I looked straight at his face and inside me was all a mess. O God let him take me, I was praying, O God let this thing happen. And my heart was beating and I was shaking inside and saying and saying let it happen God, let this thing happen o please God. And I just couldn't talk, I was so scared.

And he just took my hand and walked out of that favela.

Dad

In the first three years with me Daniel got himself shot at twice [as in, he was the target], actually shot once, abducted at gunpoint, woke up in a morgue, spent half-a-day trapped alone in an elevator - all accidents.

By the time he was 14 he was older than me.

It is a credit to him that he is compassionate, sensitive and totally honest. The fact that he is alive is amazing enough; that he spends so much time trying to help others is inspirational. But don't imagine for one minute that he is easy to live with. He is a stubborn, single-minded brat with a confidence born of risk and bred of hazard.

I love my son.

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