Chapter 2
Needless to say, I woke up Friday morning with a splitting headache. My phone was buzzing on my nightstand, but it sounded like a samba drumline inside my skull. I answered without looking.
“Is everything okay, sweetheart?”
“I’m hungover.”
There was no point in lying. My voice gave it away.
“You really shouldn’t drink so much…” said Hilda in her typical scolding, motherly tone. “What about work?”
“Everything’s fine. Today’s my day off.”
“I need your help,” she said, sounding serious.
“Mirtes has taken a turn for the worse. The new treatment she was on got too expensive, and she had to go back to the public hospital … The cancer’s growing again.
She told me you’d offered to help; you mentioned something to her about a charitable fund… ”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to think fast. “There’s a charity here in Rio. Miguel was already in touch with them.”
“But it’s a lot of money … The new surgery alone is fifty thousand.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Helping Mrs. Mirtes would undoubtedly tip the odds in my favor on Judgment Day.
Maybe it would score me a slightly cooler place in hell.
As soon as I hung up the phone, I ran to the shower, quickly got dressed, turned on my computer, and transferred 50,000 reals to the account my mother had given me.
I texted her I got the money! ?, hoping she wouldn’t ask too many questions.
Mothers have a good nose for that kind of thing.
My good deed of the day gave me a little boost. I opened my inbox, determined to organize it.
There were a bunch of junk emails, but one in particular caught my eye: an online petition that already had over two million signatures.
The subject line was Stop Dog Torture in China.
Curious, I clicked on the email, which opened to a picture of a strangled dog:
Some are beaten, others are bled to death before being eaten.
This is how dogs are treated at the Yulin Dog Meat Festival.
Thousands of Chinese citizens have already spoken out against the event, but authorities won’t act unless they recognize the extent to which it’s hurting China’s global image.
That’s where we come in … With just one click, you can add your name to the petition below.
I clicked on the link reflexively and typed in my name. Boom. Two good deeds in under ten minutes. I could only imagine the outrage if those activists found out about the dinners we hosted in Brazil. I wondered how many signatures they’d get.
The group was planning to send the signed petition to Chinese President Xi Jinping, the governor of Guangxi Province, Lan Tianli, and members of the Central People’s Government.
It was funny thinking about what those leaders could possibly do with a list of millions of names that meant absolutely nothing to them.
Human beings are such hypocrites. No doubt most of the people who signed that petition ate pork, beef, and chicken.
The truth is, you don’t need to eat human flesh to be committing monstrous acts: Just enjoying steak or sausage is enough.