Island of Divine Music by John Addiego Read Free Book Online Page B

a series of triangles, a progression of right triangles, the hypotenuse of one becoming the base of the next. He held the shell, closed his eyes, and as he took in the scent of the briny air he returned in memory to the arcade from childhood, the secret peep-show world in the machine. That distant afternoon when he’d chased friends up and down this same beach and seen the woman in the box was linked somehow to looking into the heart of the shell today.
    His daughter was still lifting her knees in the foam, her black hair tossed back and bouncing, and his father and the baby were trudging in the opposite direction now, along the water’s edge, their distant shapes silhouetted against the radiant mist. Joe turned and brushed the sand from his trousers.
    The arcade was dark after the shore’s brilliance, and it took a moment for his eyes to read the signs. He got change from a cigar-smoking boy in a booth and scanned the dark recesses for a phone. Sammy answered and said that his brothers were still out with NewJersey. The carousel started up as he spoke, and it was hard to hear him. Joe watched the horses moving up and down. Could they do any damage without his signature? Sammy didn’t see how they could, and Joe agreed.
    Several kids were at pinball, but none at the ancient penny arcade machines (which now demanded a nickel), and as Joe strolled among them he realized that the boy had given him twenty nickels for his buck, and he had eighteen left, and his brothers probably couldn’t do anything without his signature, so what the hell. He glanced up and down the aisles of dusty machines, sighed, and dropped a nickel into one of them.
    A little man with a bushy mustache was crank-starting a car. Joe could adjust the speed of the jerky black-and-white images with his arm, and he found it amusing that he and the man were cranking handles simultaneously, the ghost of an actor who died years ago and Joe moving their right arms in perfect sync. When the man hopped into the jalopy, the fenders fell off. Joe shook his head and peered up and down the aisles sheepishly. He wondered if he could find it or if it had long since been replaced.
    He peeped into a few more machines. On some the metal visor above the eye sockets was worn smooth and shiny. The actors in the little films were obscure, the scenes taken from all manner of unsuccessful projects and experiments with the moving picture craft. Physical comedy, pratfalls, smoke and combustion were the main fare, but there were several very odd pieces: men rowing boats and lifting dumbbells, soldiers marching like wind-up toys. He had three nickels left when he found it.
    The tiny figure in profile was running in place, the muscles of her hip moving to the rhythm of Joe’s arm, her small breasts bouncing with the sway of Joe’s shoulder. She was so small and naked, so white and vulnerable jogging before the pitch-black backdrop, her long hair pinned on top of her head. Her eyes looked frightened or startled, and Joe’s heart pounded as he cranked the handle. The screen went black.
    He dropped another coin and moved more slowly this time, and still again more slowly with his last nickel. When he finished and started out of the semi-open, cavernous building he felt beads of sweat dribble down his dress shirt. He stood above the gleaming ocean feeling a bit foolish and ashamed.
    Penny and Maria were in almost the precise place they’d been when Joe had left, silhouettes moving in the radiant mist, wading in the surf. Joe shuffled toward them and peered down the beach for the old man. A good fifty yards south of the girls the toddler crouched and bounced atop a log, but Giuseppe was nowhere in sight. Damn that old goat, Joe said to himself, leaving a child alone by the water. He started for Jesús. Obviously, the girls hadn’t seen the old man disappear. The toddler walked on the log and pulled something off one end of it. Then he ran west, across the smooth expanse of sand,