What if the world you know wasn't the real world but a real Matrix.
Then I discovered that this is real, it exists, but sometimes we can't always tell right from wrong, true from false.
Let's start when I was 14 years old.
My father is a good-for-nothing. He loved to abuse my mother, not only in words but also in deeds. I won't say much so as not to embarrass my mother in this book, but let's talk about the future. As I said, everything happened when I was 14 years old. I sold candy at the traffic lights here in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro. That's how I sold it. Look at the caramelized coconut candy with condensed milk and freshly grated coconut. Come with me, it's fresh. It's only R$1. R$1. And so I sold more than 200 bags of candy. Each bag costs five candies. For each bag sold, I earned 25 cents, which was enough to take food home, because I had a younger brother who was six years old.
As the cariocas say here in Rio, I was rushing around doing my thing, everything was legal.
But you know that those who live in communities here in Brazil are tough, crime doesn't pay, I can make that clear to you, and it never will.
I worked until I was 16 selling candy at the traffic lights, but I was a scoundrel. What did I do besides coconut candy? I sold water, I sold Coca-Cola, I sold natural juice. You know that smart kid who's up for anything? That's me, nice to meet you, Daniel.
I remember it as if it were today, a rainy day, a Mercedes Benz stopped next to me. I only remember it was a Mercedes because I saw the car symbol on the buses, so we knew which car it was. The car stopped next to me. At first, I was scared. It stayed there for half an hour. Here in Rio, a lot of children disappear, even my age at the time. What if he wants my organ? I thought at the time, "Look at that idiot's thoughts, but that's okay, life goes on, let the party roll."
After a while, a man comes out in a suit, he has a dress and look, it was raining, huh, imagine. He called me into a Chinese snack bar and there we talked for about half an hour. He said he saw me selling sun and rain candy. I even thought of the joke and saying widow's wedding, which here in Rio and in Brazil we have this slang, sun and rain, widow's wedding.
But let's continue with the story, he said that he saw me every day working at the traffic lights at Carioca Shopping, I told him.
is the salary good?
It's not the best, he said, but the son of a bitch won me over with one thing: you can put everyone on the health plan in Brazil, that, my friend, is gold. Because health here is problematic, the government is sloppy, it doesn't let you have money, but it also tells you to use everything public, a public here has never been public. Everything you have to pay for medicine, and look, they are expensive. Every stab wound will make you go crazy for medicine here. He doesn't give you a cheap medicine, it's a medicine that costs R$100. At the time, it was almost a minimum wage. Imagine a person who gets sick paying for medicine that costs almost R$100. It's absurd, but that's okay. Like I said, the party goes on.
He told me, yes, you can work there. What happens? You will work from 6:00 at night to 6:00 in the morning and you will have complete freedom to do whatever you want there.
I looked at his face, I said seriously, are you gay? I swear I've never seen a guy laugh so much in my life as he did that day, but it's okay, it was funny for everyone and it was funny for him too because he laughed, everyone laughed, everyone was happy, oh before I forget, he bought me a Coke and a snack. I didn't eat it. I brought bread with mortadella from home to save on the money I earned. Each day I earned it was more to take me home. It was more meat, it was more cookies for my brother. It was a gift for my mother. It was better clothes for my mother to wear, and so it was. He invited me to work there. He said, son, the deal is this: you go talk to Alexandre and tell him that I'm the one who's hiring you. He gave me a card with a signature on the side.
I didn't really understand this thing about the signature, but that's okay. I didn't understand it that day, but later I understood that the signature was the truth of what I was saying.
When I got there, I spoke to Alexandre, "Hi, how are you?" I came here because so-and-so, I'm not going to put his name, told me to come here and that everything would be fine for work. Alexandre was very receptive and told me, "Look, leave your work card here and your itinerary, okay?" I immediately put my work card on the counter and said, "There are two tickets, one for the outward journey and one for the return journey. I'm on the 756 bus, the one I took was Pavuna, Saens, Penha. Imagine the kid. Happy was I."
I told Alexandre the same day, "Hey, I can stay there and watch until I can help, if I need to, there's some clothes there for me." Alexandre saw that I was hardworking with things.
And so my work at McDonald's began. At 6 o'clock in the morning, I would leave my shift and run with my cooler to the mall to sell my coconut water, sell Coca-Cola juice and water. Oh, before I forget, I would sleep until 10 o'clock in the morning at McDonald's, in the area where the attendant ate, I would lay the blanket on the floor and lie there until 10. There were no cell phones back then, and if there were, it was only for Rich people.
I used to run a McDonald's as if it were a market counter, come to my cashier, come to my cashier, it's cheaper here, it's cheaper, it's more affordable, come come come, it's faster and easier to receive your order, my cashier always closed with three times as much as two other attendants, Imagine that, I made 8,000 a day at the cashier, while the others made 2,000 R$ 3,000 at their cashiers, I was in a rush, I had to show that I was there because someone gave me an incentive, they saw me because here in Rio and in Brazil, being seen and noticed by someone is very rare.
So I always wanted to do my best to tell that man, "Look, you gave me the opportunity, and I'm doing everything I can." And so the days went by, the years went by, rushing around, you know, but we don't always have a happy ending. The time came when every human being in Brazil hates enlistment, which is mandatory because everyone hates it. You have to work and enlist and run the risk of serving like I did, and you lost your job. At McDonald's, I was earning a salary of almost R$600. That was very rare at that time. The salary was R$250. I received double that because there was also this thing about unhealthy night shifts. I didn't understand much, except for the tips I earned.
Oh my friend, the tips. These are the best parts. Because my cash register was fast, everyone loved me. People would go to the dance next door and go straight to my cash register. They wouldn't go to another cash register. They would go to mine. He said, "It's faster here. I don't understand how he manages to do that." But I had a business where I shared my tips with the kitchen staff, and he gave me preference. As I said, you have to be shrewd here in Rio de Janeiro.