the voyeur (politics, society, culture, travel)
I witnessed an interesting spectacle the other day. I was in a park near my house when I saw two guys go together into the bushes. I figured they were going to have sex. Within minutes of their going into the bushes, two cops on motorcycles came into the park and positioned themselves to enter the trail down which the two men had gone. I was sort of at the other end of that trail.
I went down closer to where they had entered the woods and called out, “The police are here! The police are here!” I tried to call loud enough so that they might hear me without calling loud enough so that the cops might hear and get pissed off and then target me. I decided after calling out a few times that I’d better move back to my original position, to stay out of everybody’s way.
Sure enough, the police came upon the two men and they brought them out of the woods. They kept them on the path near the entrance to the woods, in a location still secluded from others, next to a cement wall. I manage to see everything from a place where none of the others could see me – or if they did, I might even be able to get away before they could get to me. I was a little worried about my own safety, but not much.
I could clearly see the older guy and the cop who was harassing him. I wasn’t sure what had happened to the younger guy and the other cop. It began to seem like the cops were keeping the two a long time: usually they assault and/or rob their intended victims and let them go pretty quickly. This situation was different.
Finally the older man was allows to leave and walked past me as he left the park. I didn’t say anything to him and he didn’t say anything to me. The cops stayed where they were, talking and making noises like they were rustling around in the bushes. Again, this seemed odd. I started to hear a clapping sound, so I got to where I could see better. They had broken off a piece of tree and were spanking the bare ass of the younger guy. I couldn’t figure out from that distance if they were hitting him hard or not. Was this was some sort of perverted sexual play or were really trying to hurt him? What was going on?
Then I saw them slam something against the wall. I thought it was the kid’s backpack. Suddenly the youth darted away from them and ran toward me. I had to move quickly to obscure myself a little in case the cops came after him, otherwise they would have seen me right away and perhaps known that I had been observing them the whole time. Lucky for me, though, the cops had apparently desisted in their “work”. As the boy passed me, I asked him if they had been hurting him, and while fighting back tears he told me that they were trying to break his bones. It dawned on me that he had probably been attached to the backpack that they slammed against the wall, and decided when they did that he had had enough and made a run for it – perhaps even for his life.
Later I wondered if they would have stopped beating on him if I would have shown myself, pretending to enter the area at the very moment they began the assault on their latest victims. I waited a while and didn’t hear or see anything else, so I decided to take a chance and venture over there. I wanted to try to catch at least a glimpse of them, to see who they were, to keep tabs on which of the police officers who frequent that park to beat up and rob people were the guilty parties this time. After all, I pass through that park rather frequently. The cops had already gone to another part of the park and although I could see them, I couldn’t make out details of their faces. I decided not to move any closer.
Later still I wondered why I hadn’t thought to offer to testify on behalf of the young guy, should he decide to press charges. It didn’t even cross my mind at the time that he might be interested or willing to file a complaint, since that’s not the way people typically think in Brazil no matter what they have been through with governmental authorities (problems will never get better; the police are all-powerful; etc). Of course, I also might then have to fear for my own life, as the police would then have my name, address, and so on. Although they generally don’t beat up or kill foreigners, there are always exceptions. (See how the do-nothing thinking can be contagious?) As a foreigner with little money and political power it would be next to impossible for me to positively impact the system here, and still I found myself feeling vaguely guilty for having done nothing but watched.
