Catastrophe cannot be avoided?

Call others to share

Tião, Sebastião Maria Rosalvinho da Silva, a rube from the boondocks of the interior of São Paulo, stocky, but muscular, young in his twenty-many years, wrinkles carved by the wedding at the sun, hands callused by the hoe and sickle, shrewdness and attention to see dangerous snakes and animals, avoiding ticks, imagining means and traps,

a straw cigarette hanging in the corner of the mouth,

a cigarette that he prepared with rope tobacco scraped with his pocket knife, wrapped in a well-smoothed corn leaf.

As a good straw cigarette smoker, after some puffs, he led the ember to extinguish, rekindled it with the flintlock of the pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants, and on…

He wanted better stuff for himself and his sister than the weekly paid wanted to improve their little house made in stick up.

The Primary course finished with difficulty in five years, he had no way of thinking about what appeared from vacancies in offices or as a store attendant.

Behold, Mr Gumercindo, his uncle-cousin, appears on Sunday for a runny coffee in his house and, chatting back and forth, he says he saw a sign at the Station asking for a railroad keys keeper.

- Hey! This is for me!

He asked his boss for time off. Early Monday, at eight he was sitting on the Station’s passenger seat.

Astrolabe, a grandson of the ex-Mayor of the city, opened the office at nine, with Tião almost glued to him.

- Hi, Tião, how are you? What do you need?

- I want to be the new “keys keeper”.

- Sit there; wait a minute.

Astrolabe opened the windows, dusted off the cupboard, table and hammock, flannelled the phone of the line hanging behind the desk, took the receiver off the hook to make sure it was working, he put the record book, pencil, pen, inkwell, and blotter on the linoleum over the table. He sat down.

- Tião, do you know what is the job of a keys keeper?

- Yes, I know, Sir Astro.

- I like you, your way, I know how hard worker you are; but the railway requires some tests to be accepted.

- Come on, Mr Astro.

- It’s the night shift; suppose you see the southern freight train
headlight coming towards the Station, you look the other way and see the light of the dairy-train that comes from the North, both in the same line: what would you do?

• I take the lever of the switch wrench, pull it, open the line on the left to the dairy and let the main to the freight.

- Very well! But the lever is rusted.

I take the oiler, I’ll pass it to unstick it.

- Right! Still, the lever does not work.

I go for two kerosene lanterns, run, and put one far north, the same southwards.

- But the lanterns are out of oil; and?

I’ll pick up kindling for two campfires, fire one far north, run and fire the other south.

- Nice answer! But it’s raining a lot …

- Then, I’m going to call Barbina.

- Call Barbina? Who is Barbina?

- Is my sister; I will yell:

RUN BARBINA! COME SEE WHAT A FUCKING DISASTER WILL HAPPEN!

Tião retired at the age of fifty-five; he didn’t get married. He lives with Barbina in his colonial brick and tile house, enjoying the passage of trains, puffing on his straw cigarettes.