Eduardo

My name is Eduardo Cardoso, I'm 28 years old, and I'm a nurse. I've been working in public health since I graduated 4 years ago.

I was always a chubby and effeminate kid, an easy target for all the bullies at school. It was very difficult, and it's in my childhood that I have the worst memories of being assaulted, humiliated, ridiculed, and offended.

In elementary school it was just nicknames and some shoves. In high school it was worse, they beat me more, called me offensive names because of my weight, called me "big bag," "fluffy cake," "fat slob," and so on. They also called me "little fag," "fat queer," and "obese faggot." They excluded me from everything. Anyone who tried to be nice to me became their target, so everyone walked away. There was one year when they pretended I didn't exist for a month. It was horrible. They hit me in the face, held my head in the toilet, and painted my face with lipstick.

At home, things weren't much different. My mother died when I was born, and my father kind of blamed me for it. He hated the fact that I was fat. He didn't understand that I developed this compulsion for food because of the abuse I suffered at school, and even though he knew, he never did anything. He believed that it would make me a man. It didn't work, nor did soccer, judo, karate, running, and swimming. In short, I was a klutz at any sport.

My older brother ended up becoming a great player, which distracted my father from me and from trying to make me a "man."

When I started college, my brother was called by a scout to play at a big team's training center. My father was so proud it was almost funny. I continued to be invisible.

When I went to college, things got better. No one cared if I was effeminate or gay. I even found a crush. He was beautiful and was studying physiotherapy. One day he asked to take me home. He kissed me in the car. It was my first kiss, and I really liked it. When he dropped me off at home, he got out of the car and kissed me again. Just then, my father arrived with my brother, who had hurt his foot, which is why they both came home early. My father made a scene, yelled, cursed, ran after the boy to hit him. The poor guy left there desperate, leaving me alone with the beast!

"How could you do this to me? Rubbing yourself on another guy at my front door? What do you want the neighbors to think?"

"Dad, I didn't do anything wrong. It's no different from what everyone else my age does."

"Normal couples, not two men. You bring me so much shame. I don't ever want to see you doing this again!"

"But Dad, this is who I am..."

He raised his hand and slapped me hard across the face, leaving the mark of his fingers on my cheek.

"Not while you're living under my roof."

"If that's how it is, I'm moving out tomorrow."

"That will be a relief, not having you around reminding me of what a failure you are."

I left and ran from there, went to the beach, spent the night there looking at the sea, walking along the beach, and looking at the stars. I thought about everything that had happened and thought about a plan for when I left my father's house. I decided to call my best friend, Manuela. She lives in the Morro da Piedade favela. The owner is married to another guy, so it's cool for me to go there. But she told me that she had received an offer to work in another favela. My friend is a teacher, and she's going to teach tutoring there in this favela, and she was going to see if they needed a nurse at the clinic there too. It turned out they did. I left my father's house and moved to the favela with Manu.

As soon as we arrived, we had to ask to enter, explain what people were doing there, and wait for the favela owner's authorization to go up. When he authorized it, a young woman of about 18 years old at most came and said she was the favela owner's sister-in-law and that she was going to show us where we were going to live.

The house was at the top of the hill. We walked like hell. The house was simple and small, a living room and kitchen, two bedrooms, and one bathroom. There was no backyard or patio, the door opened directly onto the street. I had always lived in a poor neighborhood, but never in a favela. I thought it was strange, but not that much. The house was close to the clinic and the school, and there was a market nearby too, and a court where the dances took place. A place where I'll never go, of course. What's a fat, clumsy guy going to do in a place like that?

But anyway, this is my new life now, and I'm super excited. I hope this is a fresh start for me and that everything finally works out.

I pick up my phone, open the app, and start reading a new story from my favorite author. She writes gay romances, and through her stories, I find a little bit of happiness. I feel like I'm the protagonist living an intense love, even though I know this is all the love I'll ever have, just the illusion of fictional romances.

I look at myself in the mirror and I don't like what I see. I wish I was skinny, maybe then someone could love me. But nobody wants to date a fat guy, no matter how caring, faithful, and true he is. If you don't fit the beauty standard, it's like you don't deserve to be happy.

I've been on several dates, people I met through the app, and it all ended the same way. Either they liked me a lot, but as a friend. Or they tried to help me lose weight, showering me with diet and gym tips, I even got a recommendation for a bariatric surgeon. And lastly, and saddest of all, there are those who arrive and look at me, and don't even sit down, they just turn their backs and walk away and say that I'm not what they were looking for.

That's why I don't do that anymore. It wasn't me who gave up on love, it was love that gave up on me.

My name is Bruno, I'm 32 years old and I own this favela. Getting where I am wasn't easy, staying alive in this world is complicated, and having good people around is rare. In my case, it's my brother Breno, he's two years younger and he's my right-hand man, and sometimes my left too. My mom goes crazy knowing that both her sons are in this life, but it was this or go hungry. My old man took off when I was twelve, he got himself a rich woman to fund him, left one day out of nowhere without saying goodbye to anyone and without looking back, we never heard from him again.

And to put food on the table, I became a drug dealer, it was the only place where I got a job, I was responsible for the house, since my mom was always a housewife and depended on my dad, when he left he left us with nothing, and I had to take responsibility for my mother and my brother. I started from the bottom then worked my way up as I got older, one day I saved the boss from getting shot in the head, he, in gratitude, started training me and told me that when he went down I should take over the favela.

We weren't like father and son, or even best friends, none of that, it was just business. He taught me and I learned and that was it. It's been 3 years since the old man went down and I took over. The beginning was difficult, but then I got the hang of it. The people respect and obey me, the same goes for my soldiers.

I never wanted Breno in this life, I wanted him to study and have a future, but he wanted to help and people needed the money, our mother also worked, she did odd cleaning jobs and took care of children, but it was little and the money was not enough, so I ended up letting Breno go to the drug point to work with me, but he was always the smartest one, he was good with numbers and money, so he always worked at the point, almost never went out to make runs.

I had another teacher and a nurse brought in, I wanted them to be from here, but as there weren't any, a friend of mine helped me and sent a nurse and a teacher, I heard they arrived and called Bia, my sister-in-law, to go there and take care of receiving them, I don't have time, I'm full of problems to solve at the drug point.

My mother has a snack bar here in the favela, I set it up for her, robbing was the first thing I did when I took over the favela, I wanted her to stop working and stay at home resting, but Dona Nena is tough, she didn't want to stay at home and since she makes delicious snacks, I set up this nice snack bar for her. Whenever we can, we go there to eat and see the old lady, Breno and I don't live with her, each one has his own place, so whenever we can, we go there to eat and see her, so it kind of became our meeting point, the dealers also live there, and Dona Nena is like a mother to all of us, she treats the dealers as if they were her own children, she says that she has to treat well those who help protect her children. I don't mind, I just don't want my soldiers all fat and chubby because of her delicious food.

Breno takes care of the financial part of the favela, he knows how much we make, and how we spend the money, he pays everyone and pays for the merchandise, the rest is with me, I negotiate the drugs, the weapons and everything else.

I had a school built in the favela, and a health post that looks more like a hospital, you can even have surgery if you need it, there's a doctor who comes every day, if I or my men need it, everything is here so that no one dies, but one of the nurses had the nerve to get involved with a married dealer, the bitch got what was coming to her and it ended badly for him and for the pretty boy who thought he was a ladies' man, I got rid of both of them, they went to hook up in hell now.

I'm not a very patient guy, and I don't trust anyone, not even myself, so I don't have a relationship with any woman, there are several out there wanting to be my faithful, but I'm not interested in having piranhas all over me, I don't go around picking up just anyone either, when I need to I have someone brought in, I relieve myself and that's it, then they leave, I don't want anything more than that, I never wanted to and I never will. What my father did to my mother any woman can do to me too, so I'm not going to give any of them a chance to fool me.

I finished my work and went down to my mom's snack bar with Breno, I told Breno's girl Bia to bring the new residents for me to meet and to also give them the lowdown on how things work here in my hood.

When Bia returned, she brought a girl with slanted eyes and a chubby guy beside her.

"Hey Bruno, this is Manu and this is Eduardo."

The two of them didn't say anything, they were scared shitless, the chubby guy wouldn't even look ahead, just stared at the floor and was trembling all over.

"Look here, you two, in this hood we kill traitors, so if you even think about trying anything funny, I'm warning you, it's going to end badly. Obey the rules, respect the people and don't get into trouble and you'll be fine. Now scram, both of you, tomorrow I want to see you both working, I didn't call anyone here for a vacation."

The two left without even saying goodbye, the nerve of some criminals. I continued talking to my buddies and then went home, I was tired and wanted to sleep early tonight.

But I couldn't even get home, I had to go back to the drug point because two of my dealers arrived wounded, they were delivering some merchandise on the main road when the cops showed up, there was an exchange of fire, they managed to escape but the shots hit them, I had them taken to the clinic and called the doctor and the chubby nurse.

Damn, it's going to be a long night.

Eduardo

I was sleeping when I heard someone banging hard on the door and yelling my name. I ran out and opened the door, a young man of about 15 arrived telling me to run because there was a wounded "valor" and Bruno had sent for me. I ran to the room, put on my green uniform, grabbed my backpack with my stuff and ran there, when I arrived the doctor was already there and he started giving me orders to prepare the room to perform surgery to remove the bullet. It was all very fast, in the middle of the surgery something went very, very wrong.

"Doctor, what's happening?"

"I don't know, but it's not good, there's a lot of blood, it wasn't supposed to bleed like this, I can't stop the bleeding, the organs are already going into shock, we're going to lose him..."

As much as the doctor and I tried, we couldn't stop the bleeding and the man died on the table.

"Shit, this is bad. Bruno's going to be pissed, how am I going to explain this to him? Shit!

You know what, you go, newbie, tell the family and whoever's out there."

"What am I going to say?"

"You're going to say what happened, we tried everything but we couldn't save the patient."

I walked out of there suspicious, but there was nothing I could do, we really tried everything, I don't know why the doctor is so scared.

"So, what's up, fatty, where's Pedro? How is he? - Bruno

"Man, for God's sake, how's my man? Can I see him already? - Nanda

"I'm so sorry, ma'am, we did everything we could, but unfortunately the patient passed away, I'm so sorry."

There was all this commotion with everyone crying and the bandits all wanting to know what happened.

"How did this happen, man? He went into that damn surgery conscious and talking, how come he just dies? Bruno

"As soon as the bullet was removed, there was a hemorrhage, there was nothing we could do and we couldn't stop the bleeding, his organs went into shock and he went into cardiorespiratory arrest, unfortunately we couldn't bring him back, I'm sorry."

"My God, but how?" - Nanda

"Did the patient have any pre-existing conditions?"

"He had something, hemo-something, but he said that as long as he took vitamins, everything was fine."

"That explains what happened, if we had known that, we would have started him on the correct medication. The patient had Hemophilia, a disease that prevents blood from clotting properly, which makes bleeding heavier and longer."

That Bruno guy was paying close attention when I was explaining this, and he was already angry and came to talk to me.

"You better not lose any more of my men in that damn operating room, or I'll make you eat grass from the root."

"Sir, I'm really sorry."

This guy scares me so much.

"Good thing you feel it, fatty, stay sharp with me, I'm watching you."

I have an idea so we don't lose any more patients due to lack of information, but I don't think now is the best time to do that. I'm going to pass this idea on to Dr. Carlos and he can deal with the bandit.

I hate this guy and the way he and his men treat me, it reminds me of school, I hate being called fat in that pejorative way, but there's nothing I can do, this is really a lot like school, which doesn't bring back good memories.

I went back inside and cleaned up the room and sterilized the equipment, the doctor, of course, left everything for me to tidy up. I went home just in time to take a shower and go back to the clinic.

The doctor asked me to do the triage of the patients, basically I solved what I could and he only saw those who were dying, I never saw a lazier face.

After seeing everyone, I went to help draw blood, place IVs, take the blood pressure of those lazy people and everything else, before I left I talked about my idea with the doctor.

"You want me to consult, order exams, and make a file for each of these bandits? Why bother, isn't it easier to let them die, they are criminals, remember?"

"They are people, doctor, human beings, we took an oath, remember? Besides, they are the ones who pay our salaries."

"All right, I'll talk to Bruno."

I don't know why, but I suspect he only said that so I wouldn't bring it up again, I highly doubt he'll actually talk to Bruno about it.

I've been asking around about this Bruno guy, everyone says the same thing, that he's not very patient, not much of a talker and has few friends. Everyone is afraid of him, but people also respect what he does for the population.

I thought it was strange, he's the head of the bandits and doesn't look much like what I imagined a drug lord to be. He doesn't have any tattoos, piercings or earrings. Well, from what I hear he seems to be a good leader. Maybe I can talk to him about this idea of mine.

Even though I know it will be up to me to do all the work, I really want to do this.

Here at the clinic, there is another nurse and she is not much different from the doctor, ever since I arrived she dumps all the work on me. I don't mind, I like to have a lot of work, it makes me feel useful. But the snake Cintia started to get jealous because the patients started to praise me, bring me treats, cakes, pies, sweets and I even got a kitten, I named him Botoes, I don't know where that name came from, but I thought it was cute.

Since Cintia was unfriendly and rude, it shows that she didn't have an ounce of patience with the elderly. When she saw that the patients were arriving and looking for me, she decided that she wanted to show service, as no one liked her, the patients preferred to wait for me, but did not want to be seen by her. This made the viper even more hateful, I know she's going to give me a hard time, I need to keep my eyes open.