“Boa tarde,” a customer lifts his cantaloupe onto the conveyor belt with thick fingers. Thin slivers of black line the edge of his fingernails where dirt has embedded itself. The Brazilian sun has darkened the skin it can reach, leaving a light ring around his neck that his shirt now exposes. I wonder what he does, if he gardens for someone famous. Plants the flowers and pulls the weeds and all. And if sometimes he works construction. If he builds skyscrapers in Florianopólis for people to stay in during the summer. And maybe in his free time, he coaches little kids on a dirt pitch in the middle of São Paulo, with balls that stay inflated and nets without holes.

“Boa tarde, senhor,” my mama replies and smiles. She swings around the counter to help pack the man’s groceries. 

“Last customer for today, menino, and you can head home,” she whispers to me while I open up a fresh paper bag.

I reckon she won’t be home much more than an hour after I am. Traffic is slower than usual this afternoon. And despite how much I dislike getting asked by every customer how I’m doing, my hands and feet get antsy with slow business. The sun that’s burning a hole in the window is now burning one on my back. The store is always too hot. I take care to put refrigerated food in the bottom of his bag to make sure the sun doesn’t find it. I don’t know how much of a difference it makes.

Our register is one of five in the store and smells like coffee all day long because of the display behind it that’s been there since 2011. The store is slightly bigger than the neighborhood would lead you to believe. Our ordinarily cluttered shelves are bare because of recent events, even though I’ve never seen more than ten people in here at once.

I hand the man his bag.

“Obrigado,” he thanks me.

I nod, and watch, waiting until he leaves, before I slip the apron over my head and kick it under the counter with my toes.

“See you at home, menino.”

“Tchau, mama.”

I dart away before she can remind me to put the chicken on before she gets home. My shoes squeak happily down the emptied aisles, thanking me for finally putting them to use. A stray bag of corn that made its way into the middle of the floor gets flicked up by my toe, back onto the shelf.

“Don’t be playing futebol with my groceries now, Gabriel,” a hoarse voice behind me laughs. I know his voice well from the years I’ve been at the store, although I can’t recall it ever being directed at me.

“Descuple, senhor,” I apologize, a little embarrassed.

“That’s alright. Big game tonight?”

“Sim, senhor”

“I’ll be watching. Don’t stay up too late, though. Can’t have any tired employees on Wednesday.”

“Sim, senhor.”

Although I’m not actually employed here, everyone acts like I am. I’ve been coming in with mama since I was seven, when I had to bag groceries on a stool. I know all the employees, and the regular customers, who always greet me and touch my hair.

I leave through the creaky back door with paint that has been fighting to pull from the metal for years. Out in the alleyway, I retrieve my bag from under the frail bush covering it and make sure it still has everything I left it with. Although nothing has ever been taken, I once found a dog trying to nose its way through the zipper, and the hiding spot is rather weak.

I start home. The store sits on the nicer side of Jardim Peri, my house on the other. I try to imagine navigating these streets as an outsider, what the houses look like if you didn’t know their people and what the stores look like if you didn’t know their smell. Street signs are either faded or covered, if not gone completely. We don't need to tourist-proof since we don’t get that many tourists in our part of São Paulo, although it doesn’t seem to stop the vendors from setting blankets down on the sidewalks. Mama always has me carry a map on my way home from school now, after I got so lost one day that I almost ended up leaving Jardim Peri. A dog started trailing me after I dropped a corn chip in the street and I ended up turning down an unfamiliar alleyway, and ended up northbound. The streets I know, I know like the sound of Mama’s voice, but in my neighborhood you don’t go to places you don’t need to, which leaves some of your mental map unfinished.

The streets are mostly empty. I don’t even see Senhorita Hawkins walking her Maltese. It’s abnormal for people in our neighborhood to own a dog. It’s something you only see wealthy people with since where they live dogs aren’t roaming the streets. I wonder if she’s inside preparing for the game with her dog trailing, waiting for an afternoon exercise. I wonder if she’s rooting for Brazil since her home country, England, didn’t make it out of Group D.

Senhorita Hawkins always asks me how I'm doing when I see her. I recognize her accent from the Liverpool stars I see on TV, the scouse even thick through the Portuguese she speaks. She is one of the only people I don’t mind talking to. Her voice makes me listen to what she’s saying instead of worrying about my reply. Even still, I never ask her any of these questions. I wonder if she even likes futebol. But even more I wonder why she came here, when all I’ve ever wanted was to leave.

The walk home seems shorter than usual. When I near my house, Rio’s silhouette became visible. He is kicking a ball against the wall of my house, back and forth.

“Finally,” he says when he sees me.

“You been waiting long?” Good thing I got out early.

“Nah, you’re fine.” He flicks the ball up at me, which I redirect at him with my shoulder. He catches it.

“You look excited.”

He’s being sarcastic. Mama has been making remarks all day about the purple bags under my eyes. I always sleep lightly before a game day, last night was just worse.

Rio hates it when I’m tired, even though he wouldn’t ever say it to my face. He is always two steps ahead

of me, anyway, always full of spirited energy that has been keeping me on our toes since we were ten.

“I am, actually. Semis are a big deal.”

“You sure you won’t sleep through it?”

I punch his shoulder.

“Just asking.”

I unlock the front door and get inside to start the chicken. Rio sits at the dining table and waits.

“Lineups out?” I ask. I can tell time is getting away from me as the sun dipped behind the buildings. At my question he turns on the small radio where the commentator is ranting about the quarters. Most of what he’s saying I already know.

“Any news on Ney?” Rio asks over the insignificant chatter.

There’s a pang in my chest when he reminds me.

“Out for at least a month, maybe two. He isn’t hospitalized anymore, though.”

Rio doesn’t reply, and I keep my eyes on the poultry in front of me.

“Here we go,” he says and twists the volume up.

“For Brasil, we have a 4-2-3-1 formation of Júlio César, Maicon, Dante, David Luiz, Marcelo, Luiz Gustavo, Fernandinho, Hulk, Oscar, Bernard, and Fred. On the bench. . . Jefferson, Dani Alves. . .”

“You reckon it’ll be alright without our captain?”

I wish he’d stop asking me questions.

“We’ll be fine. Don’t stress it.”

Again he goes silent and when I finally turn, he is looking down at his shoes.

“If we leave now maybe we can get good seats?”

We both know that won’t happen.

He smiles.

We start back down the road I came from. The strip of sky visible when you look up that isn’t hidden by houses is almost perfectly clear. The air smells of moqueca and five steps forward it smells of feijoada. It’s the perfect afternoon for a game. And boy, do people know it. The singing and yelling grows as we near the center of town, as it usually does, but today it seems louder.

“I wish my family was like yours.”

When Rio says this I almost stop. I want to tell him to quit being sappy, and tell him to enjoy the evening. This is game day and we’re supposed to be happy. But the fact that he isn’t means something is on his mind, and he needs someone to listen.

“What do you mean?”

Now it’s his turn to go quiet. I try to figure out if he isn’t going to answer or if he’s thinking of how to answer.

“Papai just doesn’t support it anymore. I guess all the politics just took away the meaning of futebol for him. Waste of Brazil's money, he says.”

Everybody supports the movement for a better Brasil. I was aware of the social injustices before FIFA brought the World Cup to our country, but now they’ve been highlighted in red, when all of our government’s promises were broken. The money that was supposed to be for us is instead for the tourists, who can now sit in fresh new seats, forcing us off the streets and into other colors. FIFA likes to pick on the countries that run on soul instead of government. We take care of each other. Futebol takes care of us. And as Rio keeps talking I try to wrap my head around how someone can resent it.

I look at him. His sapatos are old and tattered, the soles sanded down especially from being on the street. His legs are tanned. He has a pink scar on his left knee from when he skied a ball and had to climb through a barbed fence to retrieve it. His shirt, which was probably a relative’s, is almost too big for his small frame. His face is mature. His ears don’t stick out the way mine do, which I secretly envy him for. And if you added five years to his age, you could easily picture him scoring a goal in yellow and green.

I’m from wearing shirts all the way from R9 to Ronaldinho to Rivaldo. I’m from sitting on vovó’s carpet since she is the only one with a TV, watching games in the middle of yelling adults with bottles in their hands and a rosary in mine. I’m from kicking a ball on dirt pitches and grass pitches and the middle of the street where it gets stuck under parked cars.

I kind of just assumed he is from the same thing. He deserves to be.

The bar is yellow. I was right about the lack of seats. People with glasses in their hands chatter loudly over the music. Still forty five minutes until kickoff. The closest vacant table to the TV has scraps of food from its previous tenant, and is right in front of the counter where two men in identical jerseys talk and laugh. It smells the same, but the energy is different. Or maybe it’s the energy I brought with me into the room. The excitement, as if you were one of the men playing on that field.

Rio and I sit across from each other. His mood has definitely lightened, although he’s still quiet. Part of me wants to comfort him, but I don’t. I wipe my hands on my shorts at least five times before Rio gets up to order a drink.

Thoughts really start to flow in with his absence. This win definitely isn’t guaranteed, and God knows it won’t be easy. Every person in this room and in Brazil will be watching, because this is the only thing we could ever want.

Rio sits down with two lemonades.

“I don’t have cash,” I realize when I feel my pockets.

“It’s on the house he said,” Rio puts the glass in front of me, “It’s starting.”

The players enter the field. Something like butterflies happens in my stomach. The camera pans the stadium. Mineirão never looked so gorgeous. The crowd is yellow. Cardboard faces and rippling flags wave.

And the atmosphere.

It’s almost overbearing. Some people with painted faces are dancing and others with sparkly hats are waving shirts. And everybody is smiling.

At kickoff the room loses half its volume, now only small words about a pass or a tackle. It’s promising. I wince everytime we lose or gain possession, as does the rest of the crowd, and half of my drink is gone when Germany is making another attack.

I try not to look at Rio who I know is peering at me from across the table. I know that if I do he’ll realize I’m scared, so I don’t blink when Marcelo intercepts Sami Khedira’s cross, putting the ball out the back. I’m able to swallow the rock in my throat. A corner is better than a goal.

Kroos places the ball tentatively. The midfielder’s face has never made me feel as much hatred as I do now. A tacit feeling, homed by the entire bar.

He takes it. And Thomas Muller, left completely unmarked, is able to get on the other end of it.

In 2014, Brazil hosted the FIFA World Cup for the second time. It was considered one of the greatest World Cups ever held. Many uprisings occurred in the host country because of the financial mismanagement during the time of this competition, making a win even more desirable, and possibly the only thing able to reunite the country. Brazil and Germany met up in the semi-finals, both with an undefeated record up to that point. Brazil walked into the game without essential forward, Neymar, and captain, Thiago Silva. Despite the absences, analytics expected that the home crowd would level the playing field, therefore making for a close match. Estádio Mineirão reached an attendance of 58,141 that night. Brazil lost the match 1-7.