Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
The Parade
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
My writing desk is an outdoor table at a sidewalk cafe crammed onto the pointy end of a triangled street corner in a part of old Lisbon with streets so narrow two cars cannot pass each other. I have a front row seat, a clear view, to a parade without marching bands or flowered floats.
Sunlight refracts off mirrored store windows. The air is a pleasant admixture of salty sea breezes and restaurant cooking fumes.
Bifana drippings splatter my notebook. Despite the beefy name, my lunch sandwich is hot pork, infused with garlic, on a soft roll slathered with mayo and mustard. Sagres beer is the perfect pairing.
Like a human light post, I see everything but say nothing. To the pedestrians in front of me on the uneven street, I’m invisible—a private eye on stakeout, an undercover agent, a tourist voyeur.
Trudging slowly to accommodate his slight limp, a middle-aged couple is nicely matched. Both have slender bodies. Both wear wrinkled khakis and rugged walking shoes. She’s a bottle blonde in a patterned blouse. He’s bald and carrying a straw hat to cover his sweating dome. They look happy.
A gangly young Goth strides by. His spindly teenage legs look even paler in his black walking shorts, black socks and black shoes. His black tee shirt flaps off his scarecrow body. His greenish-dyed, ruffled hair flows over his ears and onto his shoulders. He looks like a multi-legged insect.
An Asian woman in her mid-thirties struts by, confidant and poised. Her skirt is an inch too short for the hills of Lisbon. Her left hand twirls the ends of her bobbed hair. She seems to enjoy being admired by the younger men reclining on the stone steps chiseled into the intersecting street.
The idling men in their early twenties are either in college or gang members. It’s hard to tell. They wear large sneakers, tight-fitting jeans, shirts emblazoned with Portuguese logos, no hats. They trade cigarettes. With voices a decibel too muscular, they mark their territory. Innocent and threatening at the same time.
A swarthy, tough-looking character carries himself like a thuggish member of the Salazar era secret police. His face is the mottled color of a pastel de nata. Like me, he has salt-and-pepper hair. Meeting him alone at night in an alleyway seems unwise.
All about me, Lisbon is happening. A street vendor hawks scarves to tourists. Kids, playing like wild prairie dogs, use the universal language of laughter. Two construction workers hover over a broken water main. A dog sniffs a sandwich wrapper. Three elderly women on a park bench balance pastéis de bacalhau (salted cod fritters) on paper plates. A nun, maybe late for choir practice, scurries by.
This café. The ocean breeze. The iconic lunch menu. A cobbled street. The people.
For a daydreamy moment, I am a Lisboeta populating the city’s hills, streets, plazas. This passing procession, this pageant of people, is as close as I will ever get. A sigh escapes my chest.
My cellphone pings. A text from my son. I text, “Having a grand time. Watching a parade.”
