Dirty Clothes

Run and run. The best way to avoid giving chances for bad things to happen to me in a dangerous city like São Paulo at night. My late shift ends at 1 a.m., and I can either take a bus that will drop me two blocks from my apartment — after a thirty-minute wait and a twenty-minute ride — or run eight blocks in fifteen minutes and get home sooner. If it is not raining, running is always the best option. But the fear that something might go wrong is always there, weighing on my nightly decision between the bus and my own two feet. And on that particular Wednesday, warm and dry, my choice is to run.

After checking all the video store’s doors, I look both ways, pull my almost-empty backpack to the front of my chest, step onto the sidewalk, and start running. After the second block — where the streetlight flickers and fails — a garbage truck rolls through the intersection, slow enough to hold me there for a few long seconds. When it finally moves and I find myself completely alone in that dim stretch of the avenue, a sharp, cold object presses into the lower part of my back. I freeze. It’s happening.

His age was unclear to most people, but everyone could see he was just a boy. A young, vigorous, sad boy. Somehow innocent and naïve, yet capable of holding a knife against another person’s body. Whatever he had lived through up to that moment was probably far more than any other sixteen-year-old ever had.

Born in the poor outskirts of Brazil’s largest city, he never met his mother or father. Someone he learned to call “Auntie” cared for him until he was ten, providing the basics: an improvised bed, food, dirty clothes. But from the time he could reach a car window, he was sent to the traffic lights to beg — offering gum or trying to clean windshields. Every driver who was generous, or simply not afraid to crack the window open, would ask about his mother — always — and what a terrible example she was for leaving him in that situation. A few bills here and there sustained most of his days, along with snacks Auntie complained about because cash was always better. Toys, when given, were thrown away almost immediately; they didn’t fill his stomach, nor the belief in better days, as he had been taught.

In Auntie’s house, three other kids lived with him — three boys and one girl. At ten, when he began to understand his reality, the girl was five and the oldest boy thirteen. There was no love, only pressure to bring home money whether the day was sunny or raining. “School” was a word they heard only from drivers, something Auntie refused to explain. The few words he picked up came from the rare joyful Sundays when low traffic allowed him and the others to play with local kids near the landfill, exchanging what little they knew of the world.

When the oldest boy stopped returning at night, he realized he also had an option: to leave. To live by himself, wherever that meant. And so he walked dozens of kilometers until he found a spot far enough that Auntie wouldn’t find him. There, he kept doing what he always did — approaching cars, begging. The new area was busy and, conveniently, close to a bridge where he could spend the night.

Workers from the city’s social services passed by occasionally, trying to convince him to go to a shelter. One cold December night, he accepted. He learned that he could count on a bed during harsh weather, but the crowded rooms and forced interactions made him uncomfortable. Being alone felt safer. The bridge welcomed him back.

As he adapted to the new place, he discovered a different dynamic: older boys who didn’t just beg — they threatened. Sometimes with knives, sharp tools, even guns. He couldn’t tell whether that was good or bad. It was simply another way to get money — enough to buy food or, his favorite, hot milk sweetened to excess.

Eventually, people stopped opening their windows for him. That pushed him toward this new strategy, one he felt oddly prepared for. The same day he found a rusty short knife in the landfill, he tucked it into his shorts. A big black car stopped at the light; the woman at the wheel smiled at him — right before a stone smashed her window. Panicked, she froze. He lifted the knife. She handed over her purse, trembling. Calmly, he walked away, as if it were now part of a routine.

Later, on his cardboard-box bed, he opened the purse. More money than he could make in a week. Cigarettes, but also perfume, creams, useless things. Smoking — he wasn’t new to that — he stared at the woman’s ID photo, trying to imagine what kind of life she lived.

After that day, his approach remained the same: threatening, not begging. Until a policeman caught him one night, lying on his cardboard bed, staring at another stranger’s photograph. He was taken to the station and left on a bench for hours before being ordered into a small room to undress, searched without kindness. When he came out, his clothes were gone. He was given replacements from a pile that looked more like trash: dirtier than his own, full of holes. Barefoot — someone had taken his shoes too — he was dragged to another room, where someone yelled at him, explaining that this time he’d be arrested, and next time he’d go straight to juvenile prison until he was older.

Late that night, hungry and uncomfortable, he jumped a random bus, slipped past the barrier, and hid in the back seat. He stayed there for more than an hour, until the bus reached its final stop. Then he stepped out.

The avenue was new to him, as were the towering buildings. Past midnight, it was quiet — except for muted footsteps crossing the street. A young guy, running fast through the night. The boy, unfamiliar with the area, followed him out of curiosity.

The runner had been stopped by the garbage truck and looked anxious. Without hesitation, the boy approached, covered his own hand with his shirt, and pressed his finger to the runner’s back. What was ordinary for him was terror for the man. “I have nothing on me,” the man said, panicked. “Just give me your clothes,” the boy answered. Without another word, the young man stripped — shirt, shoes, pants — right there in the middle of the empty avenue. “Now, take mine,” the boy said. The man obeyed. And the boy left, carrying the man’s backpack.

At the first bus stop, the boy decided to open the backpack. A wallet. An ID. Once again, he stared at someone’s photograph, letting his imagination wander. Then he found a case with a plastic disc — not music, but a film. On the cover: Pixote.

Sirens outside — almost at the same time I usually woke up — pulled me from a nightmare. After my usual shower and a cup of black coffee, I put my school things into a market bag and walked to the elevator hall. While waiting, I opened the trash door and looked inside the bin. The dirty clothes were still there. Just like so many stories out there from kids like the one I met that night when I decided to run.