Arturo

His name, Arturo at the outset, stretched on for several more syllables and across the map of Asiatic, Catholic European - chaotic and decidedly Latino.

Round faced, a cherubic smile and smart, dark intelligent eyes. Easily mistaken for a filled out Japanese, as my friend Trea discovered.  He had an easy smile and round, full lips that teased my own thin ones as they glided back into a grin.

We said goodbye near the Consolation end of Paulista, catatonic both. It was the last bus ride I would take back from the centro, winding quickly back to Butantã in the early morning.

I awoke to the fare collectors tap. End of the line, he said. I stared blankly out the window at unfamiliar streets.  It was the last time I'd be lost in Brazil.

We exchanged messages a few times, via some social networking chat connection. Enough to say some unforgivable thing about his corner of SP metroplex. The conversation fizzled, but persisting into a hollow buzz of awkward static misconnection.