Barnacle Love by Anthony de Sa Read Free Book Online Page A

pins her small hand firmly against the tabletop. She lowers herself back onto her chair and sits hunched over. Her eyes dart across the room then up to the wooden beams before she drops her chin against her breastbone. “This is still my house, though, and I want to say something.”
    He narrows his eyes at Manuel as if daring him to a challenge.
    “Manuel. We have taken you in and treated you like family.”
    Manuel lowers his head, ready for his censure.
    “You well know no man could’uv done more for you. It’s time you made plans, I’d say.”
    With these words he lifts himself from his chair and half stumbles toward the Christmas tree. He falls to the floor, where he clumsily searches for a gift. He crawls back to the table with a smug grin. The present he clutches is wrapped in the brown paper used to wrap meat at the butcher’s. There are smeared traces of blood on the parchment. He flings the packet across the table as he pulls himself up and takes his seat.
    “Thank you, Andrew.” Manuel is unsure of the offering. “I bless by you … and Pepsi. Thank you.”
    Manuel begins to work his fingers around the package. He glances up, expecting to meet Pepsi’s gaze. He’s confused by the way she stares at his hands unraveling the string, flipping the gift over before lifting the center fold. Her eyes look at nothing else. In a split second his letters slip from his hands and fan themselves on the table.
    The room begins to spin. Manuel glimpses the smirk on Andrew’s face, the tree, the perfectly browned chicken sitting in the middle of the set table, gleaming plates and flickering candles. The images swarm in his head. Bile rises from his stomach, sharp and sour. Then he sees Pepsi getting up and tripping over her lifeless leg. She cannot look at him. She falls down and drags herself the rest of the way across the floor. She reaches her threshold, pushes the door open with her shoulder and is swallowed by the dark mouth of her room. Manuel sits still and numb. The door closes. He hears the click of the lock and the din of his own silence over her father’s simmering laughter.

FADO
    My boat skipped across the surface
    of the great wide sea
,
    so angry and cruel.
    Yet, I danced and sang and smiled
,
    tempted by the comfort
    of my mind’s dream.
    I will not stop my little boat
    from skipping across the sea.
    I will dance, sing, and live
,
    but only live my dream for me …
    WITH ANGUISH, MATEUS ALMEIDA sings a fado, while his guests sit at his table and weep. Manuel’s ass leans against the edge of the counter. He wipes the glass with the tea towel, Mateus’s “No spots” chiming in his head. Mateus hired Manuel to do odd jobs in his boardinghouse, and Manuel is grateful to him. At fifty, Mateus is immaculate in every way: he cuts a fine silhouette in his tailored clothes, his greased hair, and buffed nails; the way he turns down a bed, dipping his hands in a small bowl of warm water, flicking the excess before smoothing the lip of the downturned sheets with his moistened palm creating a sharp crease. “We were not born here, Manuel. You must always appear to be … more,” he says without a hint of superiority. The truth is Mateus can’t walk down to the harbor without men lifting their hats to him, even the bank manager who sits behind a desk with the glittering pocket watch and cauliflower nose. The women silently swoon as the children chase him like swarming hornets until he is forced to toss a nickel in the air, allowing enough time to get away.
    “Remember this, Manuel: they
almost
think I am one of them. But, they never do … not completely.”
    Mateus Almeida hangs on to the final note with his eyes closed. The young moths ping against the lightbulb that dangles, caught in a cloud of smoke, over the kitchen table. There is a reverent quiet as Mateus lays down his
guitarra.
Then Eduardo’s tobacco-stained teeth appear as he begins to clap. His friend Duarte begins to clap too, and soon it