Barnacle Love by Anthony de Sa

Mateus is certain his father was a fisherman, convinced he was lost at sea. His mother was a fishmonger in the open market in Lisbon; she never said much. Mateus is always there to greet the men of the White Fleet as they get off their ships. “They’ve been out for so long, so alone. We’re their family, now,” he says. Manuel believes that it is more of a hope—that Mateus will one day see his father step out onto the dock, out into the glaring sun, reclaimed.
    Manuel’s room is on the top floor of the four-story house. He looks out his bay window, down toward the black harbor. It was last year that he had stepped off the great fishing vessel
Argus
and onto the dock to gaze at the wood-clad buildings and the twin towers of the church looming over this city. He looked upon the bustling port with slit eyes and grinned with wonder, delight. Now he thinks of his struggle to get back here. Manuel doubts if there is still a place for him in this Terra Nova, if his dream is worth holding on to.
    He remembers the bitter night he left Pepsi in her little house on the hill, how the snow began to fall the very moment he stepped out the front door with a bundle on his back. He could see Brigus in the distance, a grouping of pinprick lights piercing the dark. Hethought he would be able to find work there, but there would be no work for a fisherman in December.
    The next morning he came upon a sign, EAST COAST ROPE AND LINE , and attempted to open the door. Everything was locked and an eerie solitude lay among the small cluster of homes scattered in the distance.
    He spent another night in an open shed behind the factory. The next day he was hired by a short man with no neck. Manuel was instructed to call him Mr. Johnson. He lasted three days working for this brutish little man who waddled along the factory aisle between fishermen, unsympathetic to their yearnings for the familiar roar of the sea. Manuel cut his hands as he guided the jute onto spools that spun wildly atop metal rods. When he could bear it no longer he took the money he was reluctantly offered and moved again. As long as he kept moving in the direction of St. John’s, he thought.
    A couple days later he found himself in a smaller town where he met a few men who had gathered near a dock and who magically seemed to repel the splashing ocean that crashed against the concrete breaker. They were all dressed in tattered costumes, some in women’s garb. One of the men held a mask between his knees, the others had tied their veils around their necks. Manuel knew about these men who would wander from village to village at night, playing the fool with their ceremonial knocks. In Portugal, the new year always began with church and then a night of wild revelry. There was dancing and drinking, all disguised while greeting neighbors with “
boas festas!
” Manuel was warmed by these recollections of boyhood, dashing through the small villagesinging old songs called
janeiras.
Once their true identities were guessed correctly the children were required to “unveil” and were rewarded with food or coins.
    A few days later he found himself in a town with no name. Feeling abandoned, he turned about for some sense of direction. He was lost. A car passed by and stopped. The red curly hair and freckled face of a young man popped out the window. His name was Jack and he was on his way to St. John’s and just wanted someone to talk to. “A man gets lonely,” he said. “That’s why I’m searching for something more, understand? Something that ain’t going to be found on this here rock. Ontario’s where I’m goin’ to get me a future.” He shouted his conversation as if he were speaking over loud music. Manuel listened and nodded, grateful that he was warm and in the company of a good soul.
    … Parched in my desert of loneliness.
    Nothing left.
    Bread, bitter and dry
,
    is what I’m given for food.
    I need nothing more.
    Hope is my only companion.
    Let me eat my