Spindle City

by Jotham Burrello

  The few homes on the river were perched up for the view across the channel. Some had long stairs built to the water. Others had docks installed on high wooden pylons. Above the homes, a patchwork of stone walls divided pastures and fields. Teams of buggies and taxis ferried the housekeepers to the beach homes on a single paved road that bisected the fields. The road, paid for by the Fall River summer people, allowed the men to come and go as they pleased. For the first year it reached only as far as the golf club. Hopefully, a man in a car would stop and offer to take the extra bushels off Manuel’s hands at a fair price.

  Walking behind his uncle, João felt Pearl slipping off his back. Her pinkie nail nicked him behind the ear as she made a spastic swing at his neck. He felt a sudden pressure on his larynx and then heard a popping sound as his gold necklace snapped. Pearl sat up on the sand with the necklace limp in her palm like a dead minnow. She looked up wide-eyed, blinked, and then wailed, screaming for her mother.

  Manuel charged, shedding quahog tools as he ran. He scooped up Pearl and cradled her like a baby doll, pressing her face to his chest. Once he saw she wasn’t hurt, he jiggled her in his arms and tickled her armpits until they were both laughing hysterically, as if the accident had been a big joke.

  Michael hooked the end of the necklace from the sand with his stick. João rubbed his neck.

  Manuel shrugged. “Not bad news,” he said, then seeing Pearl’s owl-eyes moisten at the sight of the broken links, he added, “I can easily fuse the ringlets together in my shop.”

  “That’s a girl necklace,” Michael teased his older cousin.

  “Girls aren’t so bad,” João said as he tousled Pearl’s hair.

  “Whose is it?” Pearl asked.

  João tugged the necklace off the stick slowly, as if removing a ribbon from Pearl’s hair. A few years back he’d given it to a Yankee girl he was courting. But her Irish father found João, a Portagee working the mill floor, undesirable and made her return the gift.

  He’d won it on a sandbar six months before he had left for the New World. Locals called it Parrot Beach for the bright rainbow of coral that lined the ocean floor. Each afternoon, João gathered there with his friends to dive for mussels and shells. One day Lourdes, the prettiest girl in his group, challenged the boys to a contest. She unclasped her grandmother’s gold necklace from her neck and tossed it underhand into the lagoon. The boys scampered to the edge of the sandbar as the necklace danced and quivered through depths of thickening light. The refracted rays warped the links and shrank the necklace bit by bit until it was lost on the shimmering sea floor some thirty feet below.

  Lourdes stepped to the ledge. “I will marry the one that brings up my grandmother’s necklace.” She raised both her arms high over her head. “Ready?” She dropped them. “Dive.”

  Ten boys jumped into the lagoon. Two scrambled out, remembering their fear of the water. Lourdes and the other girls dropped to their hands and knees and peered over the ledge at the tangle of kicking feet, their soles the palest patch of skin after a hot summer. Their brown bodies shrank and then were lost in the sparkle of the coral and fish. A trail of air bubbles burst on the surface, blocking the view completely. After ten seconds three heads bobbed above the waterline, each boy complaining of sore ribs and cuts from sharp elbows and nails. The girls on the beach laughed and threw sand at the boys. Lourdes’s eyes widened as she dipped her face to the water. She knew only three boys could hold their breath long enough to find the necklace. Two boys shot up on either side of her. They beached themselves half out of the water, heaving for air. One promised to buy Lourdes a million gold necklaces if she married him. The other vomited.

  At fifteen feet, the water temperature dropped ten degrees. At twenty the ocean floor lost its golden shimmer. At twenty-five the colors muted. Schools of silvery minnows zoomed at the three boys, turned away at right angles, then whipped back around. A tall boy with angular limbs held a slight lead over João and his best friend, Julio. The pressure built in their ears. Their lungs burned. They knew how to extend their strokes, to slow down and glide, but what if the tall boy beat them to the bottom? João stopped to clear his ears. Julio too. The tall boy continued a few feet and then faced them, thinking he’d won. Suddenly he seized up. His hands gripped his ears. Blood seeped from his nose and rolled up his face. Their pressure equalized, João and Julio passed the tall boy as he shot toward the surface. Fish darted in his bloody wake. João had pegged the necklace near an outcropping of red coral, but now he wasn’t so sure. A cloud obstructed the sun, and everything went gray. The boys hovered over the sea floor. Their legs parted above them, bent at the knee. With one arm each they frantically swam down, while the other flipped over rocks and shells. Small explosions of sand clouded the water.

  Julio scurried over the rocks rubbing his eyes after each stroke as ribbons of blood seeped from the barnacle cuts across his knuckles. João swam toward a shiny patch of sand as Julio hovered over a crevice between two rocks; his arm plunged down and he pulled out a pearly oyster shell. He grimaced, and then smashed the shell down on the rocks, slicing his palm. The sunlight returned. João grabbed Julio’s arm and the boy jerked around.

  Lourdes’s necklace hung from João’s neck. Julio tossed the shards of shell at his friend. They floated an inch then tumbled down to the sand. Julio pinched off a rope of snot and then squatted down to the sea floor and rocketed topside, his left arm out ahead of him. João peered up at the squirming legs on the surface. Water now flowed freely in and out of his mouth. He felt a constriction in his throat and then a sharp pain seized him. Lourdes was promised to one of the boys above. His family owned five fishing boats; the boy would inherit the fleet. No dairy farmer’s son working borrowed land, no matter how many books he could read, had such a future. But now she was his. He urinated. The yellow stream blew through the fabric of his trunks, forming a jellyfish-like sac. He put the necklace in his mouth. He’d stay under forever, with Lourdes, growing gills, living among the coral and shellfish. We can live in underwater caves. The children will have flippers. Flippers, yes, flippers.

  João lost his grip on the rocks; buoyed by the little air swirling in his lungs, his body ascended. An updraft of current propelled him, then the warmer water triggered something. His legs kicked, but his arms trailed at his sides. He felt the sun and peered up. Black spots blotted the sky. A silvery trail of bubbles tickled his groin. His throat opened, and a rush of salt water flowed down his throat. Fifteen feet from the surface he stopped kicking. His body suspended, arms and legs splayed out like a frog preserved in formaldehyde. He didn’t feel the hands around his waist or the fingers pinching his armpits.

  Lourdes screamed when his face broke the surface. João’s head rolled forward; a boy pulled his hair to keep his face out of the water. The tall boy clasped João’s swim trunks and hoisted him to the sandbar. He rolled João on his side and drummed his back with two fists. Julio was doubled over, shouting at his friend to breathe. After a few seconds of pounding, João vomited up two puddles of water.

  “João?” Lourdes sucked the back of her hand.

  The tall boy flipped him flat and blew into João’s mouth. His chest heaved as he choked down gargantuan breaths. The girls broke their huddle when they saw João was breathing. Two choked back tears; others treated the boys.

  João opened his eyes and the crowd hollered. His bloodshot eyeballs rolled and he blinked hard, convulsed. He made a start to sit up, and the tall boy pushed him down. He felt something fall against his throat and remembered Lourdes, the contest, the silvery minnows like knife blades. João fingered the necklace. He took a shallow breath and coughed. He rolled onto his side. Lourdes knelt close, her soft knees touching his silky chest. Her lips fell on his upturned ear. She rubbed smooth João’s back. In a low voice, she whispered, “I’m yours.”

  A tingling sensation rolled his stomach. Slowly his friends came into focus. A steamer hummed i
n the distance. A flock of gulls flew passed. Then Lourdes’s face blocked the light. She smiled and whispered, “You won.” João seized the back of Lourdes’s head and pulled her face to his. Their friends hollered. The kiss lasted a single beat before João’s brown body jerked, and she fell on her back beside him on the sand. She squeezed his hand as he coughed and coughed.

  Years later on the Westport River, Pearl said, “The next girl who wears it you’ll marry.”

  João rolled the necklace between his hands. I should have married, he thought, should have swum down inside Lourdes and died on the sand.

  Lourdes’s father forbade her to see João after he heard the story. He punished Lourdes’s mother the entire fall by slamming doors and making threats. In November he threw an andiron through a picture window. “She will marry the fisherman’s son. It is arranged.” After six months of begging and crying Lourdes’s tears dried up, and she sent João a note rolled in a glass bottle: A fisherman’s wife I will be. Once the fisherman’s son returned from military service, they would marry. Heartbroken, unable to concentrate in school, and fearing military service, João approached his father about joining his uncle Manuel in America. His father had wanted it too. And so he began selling cows.

  The fisherman’s son was sent to João’s house the day of his departure for America to ask after the gold necklace of Lourdes’s grandmother.

  “I threw it back into the lagoon,” João said. He gave the boy a bitter smile. “You can fish it out since you don’t have the lungs to dive for it.” The fisherman’s son shrugged. João returned to his packing.

  “I never wanted it,” the boy said. “The necklace.” He nudged João’s trunk with his toe. “But America. America,” he repeated.

  “What of it?” João said.

  “Don’t you know?” João shook his head. “You won, you dummy. You won.”

  Years ago, the old village healer had told João’s grandmother that if she didn’t bless others, she would suffer from a long illness. Soon after giving this warning, the old healer died, leaving João’s grandmother to bless her neighbors—only she could rid one of mau olhado, or the evil eye. It was said João shared his grandmother’s healing power. The morning he set sail for America, she called him to her room in his father’s house. On the floor she set a clay bowl with dried rosemary, bay leaves, and garlic, and struck a match. All the shutters were pushed wide open. João’s grandmother feared that a quebranto, or curse, threatened her grandson’s trip because so many of the boys in their village were jealous.

  “Jealousy breeds bad fortune,” she said and instructed João to sit cross-legged with the bowl between his legs. She stood over him as he inhaled the burning herbs and cloves until God told her that the quebranto had flown out a window.

  On the carriage ride to the boat dock, the grandmother shared a recent dream. She had seen a large tract of black soil and many animals. She said she saw João standing on a porch overlooking it all.

  “But how? I will be in a city,” he asked, remembering that his uncle’s letter spoke of cotton mills.

  The old woman shook her head and yawned. Her powers had limits. She said, “You will pay dearly for this bounty, but a bounty it will be. I have seen it.” She kissed her grandson’s cheek, and fell asleep.

  * * *

  The lobster trap buoys and channel markers had begun to drift downriver by the time they reached Lions Tongue. Manuel hurried to assemble the quahog poles while João squatted at the water’s edge. The drop was steep: twenty feet in two steps. João imagined the fun of running off the sandbar into the water. He wet the surface of his right hand and licked it. The incoming tide was saltier than the outgoing. The water was cool, a good ten to fifteen degrees cooler than in São Miguel for this time of year. And not as blue, rather shades of green and gray.

  “Jeez! Look at that one.” Little Pearl pointed to an enormous house under construction above the tree line. The third story observation deck would offer a commanding view of Cuttyhunk Island, and on a clear day, possibly Martha’s Vineyard. The summer people owned the best views of the river. Most homes were carved out of farmers’ corn and alfalfa fields, though nothing grew within fifty yards of the homes. The bloated summer cottages had somehow poisoned the soil for the native farmers.

  Pearl pulled her cousin’s trouser leg. “Buy me that house?”

  João looked back up the hill. His face lit up. There were mahogany decks facing east to the river and south to the ocean, and behind them, large plate glass picture windows. Michael dropped a handful of periwinkles and then turned and waited for his cousin’s answer, though the boy’s expression soured as João hedged. Ever since they had seen the house where João lived on the Bartlett farm, they had figured he owned it, and all the surrounding farmland. He knew he should have nipped this fantasy in the bud—No, I work for the man who owns the farm, Joseph Bartlett—but at the time, he had selfishly wanted anyone, even two children, to believe he could be the kind of man to own such a property.

  “No,” João said. “I’d never buy such a house.” He spun Pearl in the air. “I’ll buy one ten times as big. But there, on the water.” He pointed toward the southern stretch of beach. “Wake up and swim. Like I did back home.” João lowered Pearl to the sandbar, and she and Michael raced down the water’s edge after a gull. João’s mouth went dry. Someday Pearl would stop believing his lies. He peered up at the large house. The voice inside his head amplified. A home ten times as big. His neighbors would seek his opinion on important affairs. He imagined a woman, his wife, with porcelain skin like Elizabeth Bartlett, waving to him from the patio and then laughing as he chased her with a watering can. His new butter business would lead to a fleet of delivery trucks, customers in New York, a great bounty—just as his grandmother had predicted.

  Manuel belched. João winked at his uncle then turned back to the looming castle. He lowered his arm, unsure whether or not he had been waving back at his imaginary wife. Manuel preferred to chew his tongue than shape it around words; in America, Manuel spoke with his hammer and anvil. It seemed the only thing his uncle had changed in coming to America had been his address. More Portuguese inhabited the neighborhood of his blacksmith shop than lived in São Miguel. Manuel’s pockmarked cheeks caved in, triggering a wet snort and hock that produced a gargantuan glob of yellow, snot-filled mucus that somersaulted to the sand. Whether it was a direct comment on the house or simply his usual phlegmatic housecleaning, João wasn’t sure. Manuel was a spitter, but it also meant Get to work.

  “We’re the Portuguese pilgrims. We made the Cape. We built it up,” Manual said in Portuguese. João froze at the sound of his uncle’s deep voice. Manual leaned against his wooden pole. “Then the artists come down. They must paint a hundred miles of nets and boats and docks. And then the writers heard about it, and the summer people. But we started it. Fishermen up and down the Cape. The Grand Banks is a gold mine.”

  “You work with Yankees?”

  Manuel grunted, spat again, and said, “In the city, Portuguese and Yankees don’t always get on so good. But on the water, we all square. Out there, the same rules for everybody.” He thrust a pole into João’s chest and set to work.

  They fished for three hours before stopping for lunch. Michael filled the burlap bags. A bored Pearl wandered into the woods to collect wild raspberries for her mother. Sloops appeared in the channel. The sailors waved and shouted out greetings. Seven years ago on a blustery day, much rougher than this one, João had saved Hollister Bartlett’s life after his father’s sailboat had capsized. Joseph Bartlett had used the word “hero” repeatedly that day, but talk didn’t impress João. The runaway boat and child would have sooner or later gotten caught in a salt marsh or simply run aground. João had saved the boy only from nightmares, but João was new to America, so he didn’t argue with the mill owner’s choice of words. “Hero” it was. João parlayed the accolade into a job at the Clevelan
d Mill and work for Manuel’s fix-anything business.

  After a lunch of chouriço and sweetbread, Manuel was back at it. João followed him into the water, raking the quahog teeth through mudflats and eelgrass. They needed to keep one step ahead of the creeping tide. In three more hours Lions Tongue would be gone.

  When it vanished shortly before three, the men hauled four bags of quahogs up to the single-lane road. They waited twenty minutes before a driver from one of the Atlantic Avenue mansions offered to buy the three bushels for a clambake his boss was having, a sort of post-centennial celebration. He mentioned his boss had chaired the Automobile Parade Committee. This meant nothing to Manuel. But João made a mental note of the man’s name, thinking Joseph would probably attend the bake. And for a fleeting second he wondered how he might get himself invited. On the near-empty trolley home, Pearl snuggled under her brother’s armpit. Slobber leaked from Michael’s open mouth. Raspberry stains covered their skin like a poison ivy rash. João always rode home in a back-facing seat so he could look toward the sea. He closed his eyes to listen to the caw of gulls over the clatter of the train, though he, too, soon dozed off.