Masses, 1964, 2nd semester, A Forja

People arrive inside cans conventionally called cars.

It reaches a point at which the cars stop being cars and begin to form a traffic jam. Then people get out of the cars and converge toward the entrance, and stop being people and become “mass”.

This mass crowds at the gates of the cement mass called Maracanã.

Before the gate there is a little mass made up of people who had arranged to meet acquaintances around the so-called Bellini statue, without foreseeing that others would have the same idea, which made the meetings somewhat difficult. But, after crushing an empty pack of cigarettes, and tired of waiting for the acquaintances, we decided to enter.

At the turnstiles there is complete crushing, a perfect massage, which counted on all our collaboration, in view of the female mass in front of us. Past the turnstile, and having been called a little joker by the distinguished lady in front, we went on with our friends, and not with the aforementioned lady, which did not fail to annoy the aforementioned fellow left outside.

Up there, we extended our gaze over the stands, and noticed, displeased, that the sides were already occupied by the mass, (except for the honor stand, which is not for the masses but for the bakers) and we went to place ourselves behind one goal, awaiting the match.

But as there are many people with nothing to do, some pastimes soon appear, such as, for example, releasing some things that look like birthday balloons, but must not be, given their great resistance, and everyone keeps tapping them, until they go all the way around the stadium. From time to time, a boring fellow appears, who instead of giving the little tap, holds the ball, and since nobody wants to give ball to a man, the mass rises indignantly and the “guy” lets the ball go, defeated by the “mass-crushing” majority, and before he gets a “blow” from some Black guy, because when a Black guy goes to a game it is to see Brazil win and to give “blows” to others.

Finally, the teams enter the field, naturally half an hour late, because if the Englishman is punctual, a self-respecting Brazilian does not do today what he can leave for tomorrow.

For better clarification: the game was Brazil x England, and so we do not need to tell what happened during the match; if you saw it, very well, if you did not, bad luck.

At a certain point, when things seemed as if they were going to get tough, at each Brazilian attack everyone would stand up, and it was that scene: - Sit down! - Sit down! It’s yours!, etc.; when Brazil lost the ball, everyone would sit down, and nobody had seen anything. In fact, we do not know how the people knew that the danger had passed and sat down.

After that, the game was “easy”, there is nothing special to narrate.

At the exit, it was again that mass flowing down the ramps, and at the gates, because of some fight, or something of the sort, there was a big mass, and beside it a little mass, and in the middle of this little mass, someone who knew what was happening in the middle of the big mass, therefore within the “law of the masses”: to every big mass there always corresponds a little mass.

We entered the middle of the little mass, carried along by the mass, and behold, in front of us is the same mass of the weaker sex from the beginning of the story; once again they crush us against her, and we do not oppose it. As she does the same, the result is that we start a conversation and she responds, and when we ask why she is alone, she says she had lost her parents in that mass, and we offer to take her home; in fact, by this time I no longer even knew where the friends were, but the fact is that we took the girl home (hers), and stayed waiting with her for the arrival of her parents, because she said she was afraid of being alone.

Since the story is getting too long, I must say, to finish, that the girl’s parents did not arrive until I left, and it was even good.

The mass was excellent.

Context: fanciful summary of Marília’s first trip to the “Maraca”, the first little girlfriend of hand-holding and innocent and embarrassed little kisses, whom the chronicler had the privilege of accompanying. Taking the opportunity to record and ironize the jargon of the time, of the festive left, composed of privileged people from Rio’s South Zone, for whom everything was with, by and for the “masses”, in the sense of “the common people”, and for whom anything that was not “militant” was alienated or a hateful enemy. A situation that came to be well summarized by the composers Marcos and Paulo Sergio Valle, around 1965-66 in the song “The Answer”: <... to speak of the hill / while living / facing the sea / will not make anyone improve ...>, which earned the Valle duo a “patrolling”, only overcome by the calm and talent of the brothers.

Chronicle published in A FORJA, in the 2nd semester of 1964,

newspaper of the student guild of the Colégio de Aplicação of UFRJ (CAp-FNFi)

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # R2026 Jan Ra, 3,179 characters.