UNIDOS DA TIJUCA!

I went to the Sambodromo for the apuracao, the formal reading of the Sambodromo results. The scores are read out one at a time by a deep-voiced announcer standing at the base of the arches of the Sambodromo. He definitely takes particular pleasure from dramatic pauses: "Unidos da Tijuca....." [pause] ".... DEZ!!!" (ten! the maximum score) The bigwigs, presidents of the escolas and such, were in 12 nicely shaded tables down on the ground level. The rest of us, the riffraff, the diehard fans, were gathered in the nearest bleachers of Setor 6 and 13. I went up into Setor 13 and found the fans had quite precisely sorted themselves into tidy contingents for each escola. Not all escolas had fans present - Portela seemed to be represented by 1 lone fellow with a Portela banner; only about 5 escolas had major contingents present. Setor 13 turned out to be inhabited primarily by a healthy contingent of Mocidade fans on my right, a rabid pack of Beija-Flor fans in the middle, Grande Rio fans on my left (relatively few of them but with an absolutely enormous flag that was bigger than anybody else's. Classic Grande Rio!). And up high above us, in the highest seats, were the Vila Isabel people. Whenever Vila Isabel got a 10, the Vila Isabel people would race back and forth along the empty seats of the upper bleachers waving their blue-and-white flags.

I'm pretty fond of Mocidade and Beija-Flor, but I have also always had a soft spot for Unidos da Tijuca and their parade really impressed me this year. So I was looking around for a Tijuca contingent and soon realized they were over in Setor 6, small but very vocal, and flanked by two huge Mangueira contingents on either side. They looked like they were about to be swallowed by Mangueira. I suddenly knew I had to be over there, so I ran all the way around the bottom of the Sambodromo and over to Setor 13 to the Tijuca pack.

That was a defining moment, for I'd cast my lot with Unidos da Tijuca. In fact I ended up standing in the battle zone right between Tijuca and Mangueira, which was definitely an interesting place to stand. The moment that you start screaming for Unidos da Tijuca when there are dozens of Mangueira fans on one side of you is an interesting moment. The moment that you start screaming because Mangueira got a bad score (thus helping Tijuca pull ahead) is an even more interesting moment.

It takes quite a while to read the results, since there are 10 categories, each with 5 judges, and 12 escolas. The sun was beating down and it was excruciatingly hot. Luckily the Rio city government had thought of this and had kindly stationed two fire engines, one at Setor 6 and one at Setor 13, and every now and then they'd spray us with FULL FORCE fire hoses. It was EXHILARATING. It was ICY COLD and COMPLETELY DRENCHING and we were ABSOLUTELY DRIPPING WET. It all added to the intensity of the moment as we were all being completely blasted by this fire hose, yelling TI-JU-CA! TI-JU-CA!

We'd gotten through several categories - Bateria, Conjunto and a few others - and it was clear Tijuca was doing very well. Lots of 10's (the maximum score). Tijuca had been tied for 2nd or 3rd for most of this, when suddenly, partway through the "Conjunto" category (this is a special category for overall effect of the entire parade), I noticed Tijuca had just pulled into the #1 spot on the big screen. I was actually the first Tijuca fan to notice this, because the others were all busy chanting something derogatory at the Mangueira fans, but a few seconds later a guy yelled "Olha a Tijuca! Olha a Tijuca!" pointing at the scoreboard and suddenly everybody realized we were ranked #1. Hot on our heels were Mangueira and Beija-Flor. You could feel an electic shock go through the Tijuca fans. The next category was Fantasias (costumes) and the one after that was Alegorias (floats). This was a critical moment, I thought; this is where we're going to find out if the judges really were won over by Paulo Barros' outrageous, funny, creative designs, or whether he was once again too unconventional for them, just too weird, too out there.

The first Fantasia judge's scores were read. At this point all that mattered to us were Unidos da Tijuca and Mangueira.
Unidos da Tijuca: 10.
Manguiera: 9.6.
The Mangueira fans actually gasped and the Mangueira girl on my right said in shock "Caramba!" (an expression of surprise).
I thought "Tijuca's going to win". I had no right to think this - there were still several categories to go, and we only had a lead maybe a tenth of a point, Mangueira was by no means out of the game (especially since the lowest score is automatically discarded, a new rule this year). And Beija-Flor was hot on our heels too. But suddenly I was sure. I ran straight out of the Sambodromo, ran 3 blocks to the first major street, flagged down a taxi and said "Take me to the quadra of Unidos de Tijuca!"

The taxi driver didn't say a word, just sped me out on the street toward the quadra, which fortunately is only about a 5 minute drive from the Sambodromo. His radio was already tuned to the Sambodromo announcements and we listened in silence as the scores for Floats were read out. Unidos da Tijuca... DEZ.

I got to the quadra. It was fairly quiet, just 2 beer vendors outside and a small trickle of fans heading inside. Inside were a rabid pack of maybe 100 Tijuca fans - not a ton of people, just the most dedicated. They were all clustered near the stage, sitting in rows of chairs that had been carefully set out in neat lines in front of a big-screen TV that was showing the live feed from the Sambodromo. By now we were in a tie with Beija-Flor. Result after result came in - DEZ, DEZ, DEZ, for Tijuca, but unfortunately it was also DEZ, DEZ, DEZ for Beija-Flor.

Then came the first 9.9 for Beija-Flor. Tijuca had gotten a DEZ.

Then another 9.9 for Beija-Flor. Tijuca had gotten a DEZ from that judge too.

Inch by inch, tenth by tenth, Beija-Flor fell a tenth behind, another tenth behind.... News photographers started showing up. First two, then four, then five of them. Nobody was in the chairs anymore; everybody was leaping and screaming. We alternated between singing bits of the Tijuca song, and chanting "O Paulo Barros voltou! O Paulo Barros voltou!" (Paulo Barros, Rio's most innovative carnaval designer, returned to Tijuca this year after a few years away. The entire Unidos da Tijuca parade had been designed by him.)

Another 9.9 for Beija-Flor. DEZ for Unidos da Tijuca. The big screen TV started having problems, flickering and going blurry, and we were all screaming so much we couldn't hear what the announcer was saying; so we were just peering at the flickery, blurry screen trying to make out whether it showed a "10" or not for Unidos da Tijuca. Sometimes an excited person on stage would veer in front of the big-screen projector, and the scores would end up shining somewhere on their body, wigglly and small, and we'd be peering at somebody's leg or chest trying to figure out if a certain wiggle was a "10" or a "9".

A small bateria had assembled out of random players in the audience, at first just 2 surdos and a few tamborins, but more and more players were arriving and it was getting stronger and stronger. A very strange-looking Unidos da Tijuca flag showed up - at first I thought it had caught on fire, but later I realized it was the flag that was used in the "undersea secrets" section of the parade, that had been made to look as if it had been undersea - deliberately stained and covered with barnacles and seaweed. (apparently the "good" flag was over at the Sambodromo). There were now 12 news photographers on stage. The strange seaweed-covered flag was whirling around. Now we were on the last category - the TV was so blurry I couldn't read it what category it was - and our second-to-last score came up. DEZ. The lowest score is discarded, so it didn't matter any more what the last score was. No one could touch us. We'd won. CHAOS in the quadra.

- cue endless dancing and singing of the Tijuca song. Somehow I acquire a Tijuca t-shirt that flies into my hand unexpectedly when I'm waving my hand around in the air.

Outside at this point were 6 TV vans, a 7th arriving, lighting guys setting up banks of light, journalists clutching pads of notes and interview questions, a special electrical generator truck squeezing painfully through a too-small alleyway, a helicopter circling overhead, 3 mysterious limos with smoked windows jammed in the entryway to the tiny parking lot. And 12 more beer vendors, 2 hot dog stands and 3 popcorn carts all rolling up (those guys are quick!) And floods and floods and floods of people arriving. Members of choregraphed alas and the commisao de frente showed up and started doing their dances. Everybody was singing the song, the "secrets" song that had won them so many 10's.

It took a while to sink in. They've really won. The brilliant underdog escola that's always unjustly the runner-up and never the winner. UNIDOS DA TIJUCA HAS FINALLY WON!