Telefonema

Before cell phones came to Rio de Janeiro, you had to use a pay phone. They called them 'orelhoes' ( big ears), they swallowed gray metal tokens you could buy at a newstand. If you were lucky - or wealthy - you had a landline. To have one legally, you got on a waiting list. Five years was the average wait. I rented mine from a private owner for 150 reais - about $100 a month. Phone calls were extra.

With cell phones, talking became easier. No more walking the streets, tokens in hand, frantically looking for a pay phone that worked. Then yelling into the phone as four lanes of cars and busses screech down Avenida Copacabana, two feet away.
No more losing your landline to a power failure and still having to pay the 150 reais even though the line is dead. And the phone company says they will send someone out, and they keep saying they will send someone out, and two months have gone by, and you still do not have a dial tone.

No one had ever seen a cell phone, and then, suddenly, everyone had one. Bus drivers, school teachers, nurses, waiters, doormen. They all had a black bullet in their pocket. When we'd go out dancing on Friday nights, my girlfriends warned me never to trust a man who only gave out his cell phone number. Or cell and work phone. "If he doesn't give you his home phone" they said, "it means he's married".

Once I saw a couple in restaurant. sitting at a small wooden table covered with a white paper table cloth. There were brown bottles of beer on the table, a huge plate of white rice, green salad, a platter of steak with thick french fries. The man sitting at one end had his back to his girlfriend, cell phone to his ear, talking loudly, shaking his head. His girlfriend put hers directly on the table and dialed her mother " Hi Mom. Yes we're here in the restaurant. Oh, the food's great, and they're showing the soccer game on TV". My dinner companion was telling me why he hated Americans, and I assumed he meant all other Americans, not me. I couldn't stop looking at this couple, sitting at a tiny table, platters full of un-eaten food, backs to each other, talking on their phones.

My parents came to vist me that year, and I took them to Ipanema, a wealthy neighborhood. Ipanema houses the beautiful people of Rio de Janeiro, has expensive boutiques, cafes that serve espresso, a gorgeous beachfront. We got out of the cab and went to cross the street. At the crosswalk was a middle-aged man. He wore flip-flops and swimming trunks. His stomach spilled over the elastic wasitband. He was talking on a cell phone with his left hand and scratching his crotch with his right hand, waiting for the light to turn green.

That is what my parents remember most about their trip to Brazil.