Davi took off the bulky dawn jacket and lifted the bike's passenger seat, revealing a storage compartment. He stuffed the folded jacket inside and reached out for Ivo's, who zipped off his own and handed it to him.
He sat back down, wrapping his hands around the bike's handles. "Let's go," he said, revving the bike into gear.
Ivo climbed behind him clumsily. His makeshift skirt rode up his legs, making him feel like their position was oddly intimate.
Even more so when Davi looked at him over the shoulder and said, "Hold on tightly to my waist."
Ivo did as he said, bringing their bodies even closer. So close that he could smell the salt on Davi's skin and the fresh scent of something underneath. Oddly it made him think of the sea, even though he knew they weren't anywhere near it.
He stopped thinking the moment the bike drove off the cracked sidewalk and into the pockmarked asphalt.
Davi drove fast, cutting through the traffic at twice the speed of the much slower cars.
The bike's electric motor was almost noiseless, but the wind whipped past Ivo's ears at such speed that it muffled the sounds of the city. He could imagine them, though.
He rested his cheek on Davi's slippery jacket and looked out the streets they left behind. In the distance, he could still see the towering spires of the lux neighbourhood, but he could also see crumbling concrete towers next to them, looking rusty and derelict, but filled with people. Like feverish ants they crawled all over the exterior of the building, leaving and entering through busted doors and broken windows.
Ivo thought he could see children playing in the balconies, running from apartment to apartment, and collecting more friends along the way. Their small fingers ran through the rust-coloured bars of the balconies' metal railings, as if they were keys in xylophone.
He was sorry he couldn't hear their laughter.
But there was no time to observe anything in great detail. They were simply going too fast.
Soon, even the dirty, dilapidated streets with their graffiti, and peeling advertisement gave way to dirt and dust. The asphalt disappeared under the spinning wheels of Davi's bike, and the concrete buildings were replaced by raw brick constructions with tin roofs and rags for windows. Shipping containers stacked on top of each other like building blocks made the ways of apartment complexes.
Buildings of all sizes and shapes crawled up and down the bare hills like crooked teeth in a mouth too small to accommodate all of them.
Ahead, children kicked a ball back and forth in the middle of the dirt road. Davi slowed down and drove around them, honking twice to their delight, making them whoop with laughter.
For the first time, Ivo saw Davi smile. He caught just a glance, when Davi turned his head to look at the children, but his unguarded expression shocked him -- it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He didn't look younger, but lighter somehow.
It was gone as quickly as it appeared.
Ivo thought their destination might be somewhere among the brick buildings, or shipping container towers, but no soon had they entered the dirt road than they were driving off and back into the crumbling asphalt.
He couldn't help looking over his shoulder at that crooked mouth filled with colourful teeth. He wondered if he'd be back, or if he'd ever just be someone passing through this city he could barely understand.
---
Davi took them back into crowded streets, the sky darkened by the many layers of stacked highways, and the silhouette of the towering buildings of concrete and steel closing in on each other.
There was a seediness to the streets they drove through now, as if every corner and alleyway was covered with a layer of grime.
Unlike the forgotten streets with the shuttered shop windows of before, it was clear that people hadn't given up on this part of the city yet. The advertisements crawled in bright neon strips under the overpasses and all around the glass walls of bus stops many used as shelters.
Ivo saw many people sleeping in the sidewalks, cooking food out of tin barrels, bare feet sticking out of tents. At the same time, those same sidewalks were crawling with young people -- or people who appeared young -- with eye-catching mods, bright clothes, and a spring to their step.
It seemed impossible to Ivo that such different groups of people could inhabit the same space. They gave each other wide berth at times, but sometimes came into contact in unexpected ways. A girl let out an excited shout when she saw a man with a wild mane of hair and a single red eye turning a skewer over the open fire. He returned her enthusiastic greeting and handed her the skewer.
She took a bite and the two kept talking, even as the girl's friends continued down the sidewalk.
Ivo was so preoccupied with observing the comings and goings of the world around him, that it was almost jarring when the bike came to a stop.
"We're here." Davi dismounted and left the bike parked against a wall where someone had written "fuck the lux" in acid pink lettering.
Ivo followed Davi under some scaffolding that seemed to have been there for years, and towards a rusty green door, above which a red neon sign showed a dog biting into an arm from which an incongruous femur bone stuck out.
'O bicho come' read the flashing letters.
Davi banged on the metal door and soon after it slid open with a groan. It was dark inside, and by the time Ivo could see well enough they were in the middle of dark, smokey bar, surrounded by walls and floors of indeterminate colour and dubious texture.
"Ah fuck," Davi groaned, rubbing a palm down his face.
Ivo looked in the direction of his gaze and found the source of his displeasure. A column in the middle of the bar had four screens mounted around it, and the one in front of them was showing the news.
A reporter talked over a surveillance video where three people traipsed through a luxurious apartment. Two of them appeared as blurs, their features flashing intermittently with static, as well as parts of their exposed skin. The effect bled all around them, making it hard to identify even t clothing.
However, Ivo knew he was looking at Alina and Davi, because the third person was him. And unlike them, there was no blurring filter over his face or body.