It all began on March 10, 1963, in the municipality of Petrópolis, in the neighborhood of Itaipava, well-known and one of the most developed in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro. On this Sunday day I was born, and this certain day, I believe, has been very special to my parents. My father was a tall man with approximately 6.23ft tall, with a lean body, clear skin, greenish eyes and straight black hair. My mother, or rather, the person who says she raised me, is a little person, her height is approximately 5.01ft and as we know well the saying: “small snakes have poison too”. Back to this person with 5.01ft, black skin, although she always claims to be blonde, because when she was a child, she had blond hair, very curly and almost black skin, why almost? Because the Brazilian people have the habit to describe black as mulatto. They say that they are not racists, but they have begun to deny reality of what they are, black, saying: “- I’m not black.” Of course not, black is a color. “- I am mulatto, because my mother is black and my father is caucasian”. And then there is racism, when we do not accept ourselves as we really are. My mother, I affirm this now at the age of forty-five, has always been an unbalanced person, a really evil person. My father was a good father as far as possible. Sometimes we couldn’t cover the bare necessities, but we didn’t suffer from hunger, even we came very close, for many times we only had a cornmeal cake to eat,


But, even facing many difficulties, if we would have had  love instead of beating, none of this would have been so important. My father was a half-illiterate, but he had an unmatched intelligence; I remember him making calculations and meterings of the works that he would take. He worked as a caulker, the name given to people who shave sticks or rocks, to apply varnish afterwards. He also was a house painter. He was a hard worker and good at what he did, but he did not have always work and when this happened, we faced difficulties. I am the first of thirteen children that these two had together. Three of them died when they were young: Luiz Fernando, the third son, died at four months of a disease, which I don’t know, because it was never reviewed by them. Antônio Marcos, the seventh of this troop, died after twenty-five days; he had some health problems and a lack of bones of an arm or two, I did not know the whole story.
     
Maria de Fátima, the ninth daughter, died seven days after birth. They say that it was the seven-days-disease; I do not know what this actually means. When all this happened I was quite little, and despite of having only few memories of what really happened, I remember having accompanied my mother to the hospital where Antônio Marcos died, I remember that she cried a lot; notwithstanding she was not a good mother, I believe she felt the loss. Maria de Fátima was born at home and died there; I remember absolutely nothing about that incident.
         

 Back to my childhood. As I said, my father was a man of little culture, but had a good character and unique intelligence. Of course studying helps us to grow as human beings and professionals, but the lack of study of my father did not bother him; being very intelligent he learned very easily. My parents lived fighting. When I was six years old, I started to attend the public pre-school Cardoso Fontes, located in Bingen Street 210 in Petrópolis. From this moment on, I remember a little; I think I did everything to forget the childhood I didn’t actually have one because this woman forced me, a six and a half years old girl, taking care of my brother who was about five and who attended the same kindergarten. Our age differences are little between us, because when she gave birth to one, she already got pregnant again. I do not know if it was that marathon that has changed and transformed her into what she is, what she became by time, A MONSTER.

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