Chapter 1
Jacó had just left his studio apartment, and there were already butterflies in his stomach . Today was the big day. Today he`d get to once again see his newly bought property and the skeleton upon which his life, the greatest and, honestly, the only decent club in the small town of Caçapava would be built. Between Rio and Sao Paolo and far away from the frontline of the gruelling civil war that had swallowed the country. He was finally going to be able to live in acelasi. Jt.better place than his crappy, leaky studio apartment which, to his confusion, has actually started to seem dear to him. Still, a proper apartment would certainly be dearer and, if things went well, maybe he even would be able to afford a house someday.
In all of this, Jacó had faith. Not in God, he didn’t care much for these kinds of things. He had faith in himself, in the unbeatable plan he had to get rich. When strolling through the city about a month ago, he had found an opportunity that seemed to him almost too good to be true, and yet there it was. His sheltered upbringing never really prepared him for what he so happily was walking towards.
He waved off the cab driver at the southeastern edge of Caçapava, close to some abandoned cabin he never really bothered to learn the name of. As he walked towards the decrepit brick building, he felt his heart race. Maybe it was the remoteness of the place. Besides the cabin, there really weren’t any buildings. Maybe it was simply the threshold which he was about to cross: from his old life of living on his little allowance into a life of financial independence and risk, of adulthood. He took a deep breath. He was already at the end of the beaten path, in front of the large, deserted warehouse.
He looked at its facade before entering. He had inspected it many times but he found himself staring. The building was two stories tall, with a ground floor and an upper floor. The windows were broken in some places and would need to be replaced. The door was still in decent shape despite the fact that the paint had long ago worn off. The loan from Mr.Oliveiro wouldn`t cover a new door, so he was just going to have to repaint it. Despite its age, the door was very silent, never creaking or making a sound when opened or closed. For a second Jacó pondered if this was more or less like the whole warehouse. Despite the look of utter disrepair and abandonment, it was mostly clean and had no actual hazards, with the exception of the shattered windows and a bit of disrepair in the plasterwork. The aspect, he figured, could be made into a feature with the proper lights and design. Before this, he never knew he had a knack for these kind of things, but so far everything seemed to come naturally. Almost all of the spending would go in installing a bar and preparing the light and sound systems for the club, a bit of cleaning up and they were all good to go.
There he stood, alone in the vast and empty building, just him and the penumbra of the poorly lit warehouse, the chiaroscuro before the light of creation.
