Miguel Street Read Online Free PDF Page B

understand. Man-man voted for himself, but who were the other two?
    I asked Hat.
    Hat said, ‘I really can’t say, boy. Is a real mystery. Perhaps is two jokers. But they is funny sort of jokers if they do the same thing so many times. They must be mad just like he.’
    And for a long time the thought of these two mad men who voted for Man-man haunted me. Every time I saw someone doing anything just a little bit odd, I wondered, ‘Is he who vote for Man-man?’
    At large in the city were these two men of mystery.
    Man-man never worked. But he was never idle. He was hypnotised by the word, particularly the written word, and he would spend a whole day writing a single word.
    One day I met Man-man at the corner of Miguel Street.
    ‘Boy, where you going?’ Man-man asked.
    ‘I going to school,’ I said.
    And Man-man, looking at me solemnly, said in a mocking way, ‘So you goes to school, eh?’
    I said automatically, ‘Yes, I goes to school.’ And I found that without intending it I had imitated Man-man’s correct and very English accent.
    That again was another mystery about Man-man. His accent. If you shut your eyes while he spoke, you would believe an Englishman-a good-class Englishman who wasn’t particular about grammar-was talking to you.
    Man-man said, as though speaking to himself, ‘So the little man is going to school.’
    Then he forgot me, and took out a long stick of chalk from his pocket and began writing on the pavement. He drew a very big’s in outline and then filled it in, and then the c and the H and the O . But then he started making several O ’s, each smaller than the last, until he was writing in cursive, O after flowing O .
    When I came home for lunch, he had got to French Street, and he was still writing o’s, rubbing off mistakes with a rag.
    In the afternoon he had gone round the block and was practically back in Miguel Street.
    I went home, changed from my school-clothes into my home-clothes and went out to the street.
    He was now halfway up Miguel Street.
    He said, ‘So the little man gone to school today?’
    I said, ‘Yes.’
    He stood up and straightened his back.
    Then he squatted again and drew the outline of a massive L and filled that in slowly and lovingly.
    When it was finished, he stood up and said, ‘You finish your work. I finish mine.’
    Or it was like this. If you told Man-man you were going to the cricket, he would write CRICK and then concentrate on the E’S until he saw you again.
    One day Man-man went to the big café at the top of Miguel Street and began barking and growling at the customers on the stools as though he were a dog. The owner, a big Portuguese man with hairy hands, said, ‘Man-man, get out of this shop before I tangle with you.’
    Man-man just laughed.
    They threw Man-man out.
    Next day, the owner found that someone had entered his café during the night and had left all the doors open. But nothing was missing.
    Hat said, ‘One thing you must never do is trouble Man-man. He remember everything.’
    That night the café was entered again and the doors again left open.
    The following night the café was entered and this time little blobs of excrement were left on the centre of every stool and on top of every table and at regular intervals along the counter.
    The owner of the café was the laughing-stock of the street for several weeks, and it was only after a long time that people began going to the café again.
    Hat said, ‘Is just like I say. Boy, I don’t like meddling with that man. These people really bad-mind, you know. God make them that way.’
    It was things like this that made people leave Man-man alone. The only friend he had was a little mongrel dog, white with black spots on the ears. The dog was like Man-man in a way, too. It was a curious dog. It never barked, never looked at you, and if you looked at it, it looked away. It never made friends with any other dog, and if some dog tried either to get friendly or aggressive, Man-man’s