Luso Style

I recall the feeling of slow-motion horror as her shopping cart collided with mine. The metal-on-metal clang reverberated into my hands, sending a nerve-pulsing buzz up my fingertips into my shoulders, jarring my head back in surprise. The shopping cart's cumbersome size locked me in between that old 'Tuga and the cereal aisle.

She sneered, a surprisingly intimidating feat considering she's all of five feet, but the memory of the finger-pointing is what brought me back to the present.

I adjust the cold bag of peas on my face, groaning as the bright neon lights burn my retinas. The general manager crosses his arms and huffs, attempting to strike a balance between concern for my well-being and concern that I'm going to sue or make a fuss.

The store clerk kneeling on the floor in front of me asks gently, "So, then what happened?"

Shifting in my seat, I fidget with the bag's lumpy contents, looking for a cold spot, and press it back against my face. "So then she claimed my father stole her choriço."

The clerk in front of me, a fellow Luso, nods in understanding, but the tall manager behind him seems confused. 

"What did she say exactly?" The manager asks impatiently.

"Seu pai roubou o choriço."

"And that means…?"

"Your father stole my choriço," I shrug. 

The store clerk tuts while the manager shuffles uncomfortably. "And, did he?"

The clerk gasps, but I pat his shoulder, letting him know it's okay. "No, I highly doubt my father stole her choriço. Although…"

"What?"

"It was de sangue." Blood sausage.

If his increasingly stiff posture is any indication, the annoyed manager’s still clueless. Pushing away from the door, he ambles around his big, messy desk and pulls up the security feed from the incident twenty minutes ago that had the old Portuguese lady shouting at me on her way out the door, completely unconcerned about the drama she was causing. Every tia in town will know what happened in the next hour, and I'm sure she can't wait to retell her version.

The manager rewinds the video to the part where I get railed by the shopping cart, and then we watch the scene unfold: the finger pointing, the boxes of cereal getting pulled off the shelf and nailing me in the face before she moves on to throwing a stack of bananas that were conveniently arranged beside her. One box breaks open, and bits of cereal fly around us like a busted firehose. We watch as I duck cowardly, and then I feel sheepish embarrassment when video-me returns the favor: one box of cereal, then two, gets tossed at the old woman twice my age.

We argue before she throws her hands up in the air and storms out. There's no audio, but I remember the threat: she's going to tell my tia I threw cornflakes at her head.

"I don't get what the big deal is, even if your dad did steal this woman's choriço."

"Shour-deez-seh," the clerk and I both correct his pronunciation, not for the first time. "Chour-eez-oh is Spanish," I point out, but I don't think the manager cares about our cultural differences, even if the only similarity between the two meats is the name.

He waves us off, "Whatever, my point is, attacking a young woman at a grocery store over some meat seems a little far-fetched. Are you sure you didn't say or do something to provoke her?"

My glare could melt stone, and he shrinks back, but my head is feeling better, and he clearly feels less responsible for my well-being, so I toss the now warm, mushy bag of peas on the desk between us and come to a stand.

"My cousin is an EMT. One time, he got a call that some old guy was having a stroke. He showed up, but it took him and his partner, like, ten minutes to get him into the back of their bus. You wanna know why?" I ask the tall mustached-man in his ill-fitting button-up.

"Why?"

"Because his choriço was still smoking. He kept shouting, 'My shour-deeezahhh! My shour-deeezaah!' He wouldn't leave, terrified someone was going to muck it up and all his sausage would be ruined. His wife had to convince him their neighbor would take care of it, and after he went to the hospital and had his surgery, when he came to? First thing he asked was, 'Is my choriço okay?'"

"I get it, you folks love your choriço."

The clerk and I both wince, but I decide to leave the young Luso to deal with the ignorant manager, who’s clearly missing the entire point of the story.

He should know better, he manages a store in a predominately Portuguese community. When you step outside the grocery store, you don't see billboards for lawyers and bakeries. You see Advogado and Pasterlaria on the signs.

The store clerk squeezes my shoulder, and I appreciate the gesture of solidarity. After saying our goodbyes and assuring the manager there were no hard feelings, I got in my car. 

The drive home was blessedly uneventful, though the further I drove, the more a deep sense of foreboding tugged at my stomach like an unruly knot. 

Though nothing seemed out of place when I pulled into my driveway and parked, I sat quietly for a moment, then turned in my seat to face my parent’s house. The street was quiet, both their cars in the driveway, though no sound emanated. No music or shouting.

I climb out of the car, dodging a chicken pecking at my feet, brushing off the old galinha before she turns and clucks, wandering off in another direction.

When I cross the street, I'm surprised no one automatically greets me. My cousins all live close by, my Tio Fernando across the street. On a quiet day, half a dozen people are shouting at each other from their windows. This silence feels deafening. 

"Hello? Mãe?" I call out when I let myself into my parent's home. No answer. "Olá?" 

The house smelled of chicken soup, likely the sister of the bird running around outside. My mother would have no mercy for the poor thing if she stopped producing eggs.

My steps creak the old floor, and the further I move into the house, the more my stomach churns. There, a sound coming from the basement urges me forward. Hushed voices, arguing, hissing.

"Olá?" I call out again. The muffled sounds stop.

The basement door squeaks loudly, and I follow the steps down below, each stair ratcheting my beating heart faster and faster. A blur in a blue-and-white floral dress with a heavy whiff of roasted vegetables and gardenia perfume envelopes me so fast that I bump backward, nailing my hip into the handrail.

"Mãe, que passa?" I snap.

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Whas the matter for you, uh? Go on upstairs, I'll make you some lunch."

"Mama, it's like, ten am, I'm fine. What's going on down here?"

"Nothing, nothing," she shoves me upward, and I've no choice but to move. We get to the top of the stairs, and she makes a point to shut the basement door behind her with a loud, satisfying click. Still manhandling me, she pushes me into the kitchen before pulling out Tupperware after Tupperware of leftovers.

"Mãe, I don't need all this," I argue, my arms loaded up with food I'll never finish.

"Nonsense. You're too skinny," she argues absentmindedly. I'm too skinny when she wants to feed me, and I need to stop eating the pastéis when I'm not trying hard enough to find a boyfriend. It's all in the delivery with her.

With one glance at the basement door while she's distracted, her head buried in the fridge, I set the containers on the table and make a run for it.

She yells after me, but I'm down the stairs, rounding the corner into my father's second kitchen in the basement before she can catch me.

When I get to the bottom, there's my father, my Tio Fernando, his wife Maria, all hovering around rows and rows of choriço hanging from their makeshift curing rack.

I gasp.

"O Pai, how could you?"