by Adam Schell
“Friend,” said Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, turning to the gentleman seated next to him. “What is it that you’re eat—”
“Friend?” Benito interrupted with a hint of gruffness meant to intimidate. Benito did not look up from the plate of lamb shank he was noisily devouring. “What reason have you to call Benito friend, or Benito to call you friend?” Benito tapped his knife against his near-empty mug.
“Ah,” said Cosimo, a touch of fear flushing his veins. He had not spoken to a rimatore since, well, never. “I see. Dear lady,” Cosimo gestured to the barmaid passing before their table with a large pitcher from which she was pouring, “another round for me.” Cosimo paused and gestured to his right. “And for my friend.”
“Friend?” said the barmaid incredulously. “One should choose their friends more wisely.”
“And you should shut your mouth and fill my mug,” Benito said whilst shoveling a hunk of shank into his mouth, “then go and ready your hairy honey pot for my fat cazzone.”
“Madonna mia!” groaned the barmaid. “’Tis I who’ll need be drunk.”
My God, thought Cosimo, eyes transfixed upon the bosomy heap before him as she filled their mugs. Is she a whore?
“Are you going to propose?” said the barmaid sweetly.
Cosimo stiffened noticeably. “Excuse me?”
“Are you going to propose?” the barmaid repeated. “Because if you’re not, then you best stop your staring and pay me.”
Benito laughed hard and gave his new friend a solid clap on the back.
“Oh,” said a flustered Cosimo. He’d never before in his life paid for anything and he now nervously patted his hands across the four pockets of his jacket. Oddly, Cosimo noticed, each pocket jiggled with coins. So too did the two front pockets of his trousers. Lots of coins, far more than he imagined his stableman would be allotted. Goodness, thought Cosimo as he plucked a coin from his breast pocket and set it on the table. Is everyone stealing from me?
The barmaid’s eyebrows lifted at the sight of such a large and shiny silver coin. “Do you plan on getting drunk tonight?”
“Why not?” Cosimo shrugged his shoulders. “Him too.” Cosimo gestured to the man hunched at his side.
The barmaid scowled as she assessed the coin. “If you’re drinking ale, it’s five mugs each; wine, seven goblets and not a drop more.”
“Now,” said Benito, as he lifted his mug and turned to face Cosimo, “you may call Benito friend.”
The smell of his new mate’s breath was horrible. The sight of his face up close—pounded nose; ruddy, pocked and abused complexion; thick lips glistening with lamb fat; slightly errant right eye—was unnerving, but his smile was broad and real and his gratitude as authentic as a child’s. Happily, Cosimo lifted his mug and toasted.
Rapide y Edili, Rapids and Eddies, wrote the renowned 15th-century Italian dramatist Pozzo Menzogna in his eloquent treatise on drama Il Trattato Definitivo sul Dramma, which from time to time informs upon our story. In a play’s second act, Menzogna’s treatise emphasized, the plot should move like a river in the midst of the springtime melt, complete with rapids and waterfalls. Yet, between the moments of fast motion, the river needs also to pool into gentle eddies of insight and introspection. A place, wrote Menzogna, where readers may come to know with greater depth and clarity the world in which they visit.
Thus, Menzogna would assuredly want the reader to understand that almost all the villagers we have come to know were at the tavern, Ebrei, priests and women excluded. Though not all women: the barmaids were there, of course. Benito, especially, was mighty thankful for that. Downstairs, the barmaids saw to the slaking of thirst and appetite, but when they escorted a man through La Porta delle Puttane— The Whores’ Door—and led him upstairs, they set about quenching an altogether different thirst. And it’s only fair to mention that no one in the village spent a larger proportion of his or her income quenching that desire than Benito.
True, Benito was mostly crude and vulgar whilst in the tavern, but once upstairs, his behavior dramatically changed. He made love sloppily, with considerable moaning and some drooling, yet there was a gentleness to his efforts that endeared him to many of the puttane. Unlike a good many of the village men, Benito was never rough or abusive with ladies, nor did he encourage them, as Vincenzo and many others did, to be rough and abusive to him. What Benito craved, but never dared admit, was tenderness. And though the puttane laughed and complained to one another of Benito’s barnyard odor and thickness of penis, they all found themselves stirred by the soft sobs and tears that accompanied his release and his transparent need to be held and petted tenderly afterward.
And though it is of little importance to our tale, Menzogna would indulge the reader with the story behind the tavern keeper’s name, which was not by birth Signore Solo Coglione. Who in their right mind would give a child such a name? He was born Adriano DelGreco, and while most in the village knew that, no one but his wife called him such. The event that precipitated Adriano DelGreco’s decades-old moniker happened in the company of Benito and Vincenzo, when, as a trio of eight-year-old boys, Vincenzo thought it would be a hilarious idea to collectively loose their bladders upon the DelGreco family’s haughty and ill-tempered goose. Well, the prideful bird had no tolerance for such antics, and with an indignant and lightning-quick extension of its neck, the goose’s sharp beak tore through the young DelGreco’s soft scrotum, snapping off and swallowing one of his prepubescent testicles before the boys even had a chance to halt their streams. From that day forth, the sweetly natured boy of Greek ancestry whose father ran the tavern and who preferred playing with his sisters, was known as Signore Solo Coglione—Mister One Testicle.
But even more than the story behind the tavern keeper’s name, Menzogna would most want his readers to understand and appreciate the exquisite beauty, craftsmanship and nostalgic significance of Bobo’s marionette, Bobolito. For had it not been for this puppet, Bobo’s life might very well have turned out quite differently. The tradition of string-manipulated, lifelike puppets called marionettes may have begun in medieval France, but history undoubtedly asserts that it was in Sicily where marionette puppetry was elevated to an exquisite art form. And nothing exemplified this mastery more than Bobolito.
Bobolito was carved from the Moro Nigro, the black mulberry tree of Sicily, whose wood was loved by artisans for its density, strength, distinct grain and durability. The marionette was about twenty-four inches high with large brown eyes, pronounced cheekbones and eyebrows that turned up in a slightly devilish fashion. However, what made the Sicilian marionettes so extraordinary was not merely the artistry with which they were rendered, but the manner of their manipulation. Unlike the French marionette, controlled by a rudimentary pair of sticks, Bobolito was made in the Sicilian Dieci-Dita (ten-fingers) style. In this tradition, ten individual finger casts with a five-inch prod off the tip are placed over each finger. Each prod is in turn connected to a string controlling a specific function on the marionette. The setup, though a bit bizarre-looking, allows the manipolatore (puppeteer) a near-life-like range of movements in which the puppet’s eyelids can wink, the jaw can open and close, the back, elbows and knees can bend, the arms and hands can move. So remarkable were the Sicilian Dieci-Diti marionettes that a whole new art form called Opera dei Pupi was developed in which epic tales and stories were told on elaborate puppet sets.
Bobolito had been a gift from Bobo’s father, brought back from Sicily where the Cardinale de’ Meducci had been traveling. It was the only gift the cardinal ever gave Bobo and one of the very few times he actually acknowledged that the child was indeed his. In any event, Bobo took to the puppet like Michelangelo took to marble. He brought Bobolito to life, or more accurately, Bobolito brought Bobo to life, evoking in the young child wellsprings of passion and creativity. The marionette also aroused in young Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Prince of Tuscany and cousin to and constant companion of Bobo
, great envy. And so it was that in a few weeks’ time that Cosimo too received a Sicilian Dieci-Diti marionette. Only the problem was, the Meducci guard sent to Sicily to fetch a puppet for the spoiled prince died of dysentery in Palermo. Orders got confused, and when the marionette finally did arrive at the Meducci palace, it was a female. This, however, was of little concern to Cosimo and Bobo, who found that most Opera dei Pupi involved both a man and a woman. They named her Bobalita.
Within a few months, the pair of cousins had created their own Opera dei Pupi, with elaborate sets and numerous costumes, and were heralded for the excellent entertainment they provided dinner guests of the duke. Well-traveled dignitaries, royals and church officials visiting the Meducci palace claimed they had never seen a marionette come to life like Bobolito did in young Bobo’s hands. For a time, all was well in the Meducci palace. The quasi-bastard and mischief-prone child of Cardinale de’ Meducci, who would only respond to the ridiculous and inappropriate name Bobo, seemed to have finally found a constructive arena in which to channel superior wit and creativity. Even Cardinale de’ Meducci, who never dared show any connection or affection for his child, found himself to be begrudgingly proud of Bobo’s extraordinary skill and the enthusiastic reaction it received.
Alas, the affection was short-lived and ended in spectacular fashion on the night that young Bobo unveiled his masterpiece before a royal audience that included not only Cardinale de’ Meducci, but the King and Queen of France and the Holy Pope himself. The opera told the story of a young and ambitious cardinal of royal blood, and his mistress. Filled with song and dance, unwanted pregnancy, aristocratic foibles and follies and exquisite manipulation of the marionettes, the young cousins’ play seemed to especially thrill the King and Queen of France, who giggled hysterically through much of the performance. It also included a new puppet manipulation, invented by Bobo, that not even the most deviant Sicilian marionette-maker had ever thought of. Perchance the royal enthusiasm might have been enough to counter the rage that boiled inside Cardinale de’ Meducci as he watched his life sanctimoniously mocked and satirized before the eyes of the Pope; but at the opera’s climax, as Bobo lifted a middle finger and the erection rose, tenting up the cardinal-red gown that costumed Bobolito, it proved to be both the peak moment of the cousins’ childhood and its culmination. As Cosimo recalled, Cardinale de’ Meducci may have smiled and laughed along with the other guests that evening, but in the morning he was gone and so too was Cosimo’s favorite cousin—never seen or heard from again. That was, at least, until today.
“Neighbors,” said Vincenzo rising up from his chair with a tipsiness that splattered droplets of ale upon Augusto Po’s already stained yellow tunic. “Neighbors!”
The tavern-goers turned their attention to Vincenzo.
“Now,” said Vincenzo, taking hold of Augusto Po’s arm to help him to his feet, “’Tis not the company he often seeks, which means noble Po must wish to speak. There is much to discuss, indeed. So calm your tongues and let insults relent, for one wrong word and he’ll raise your stinking rent.”
It was a good rhyme and a nice rib to start things off, but the tavern did not react with its usual boisterousness, as there was more caution than humor in Vincenzo’s words. Augusto Po was not a stranger to the tavern. In the late afternoon while making his rent-collecting rounds he would often stop in for a glass of wine and a small supper. However, Po was not comfortable fraternizing with his renters and tenants, and he would leave as the tavern filled.
But this evening was different; if there was one thing that could bring Augusto Po to mix with the locals, it was the fear of having his business impacted. Po had been to Venice; he had witnessed the Ebrei prowess in banking and money-lending, and with his uncle, the old padre, dead and gone, he was without protection from the Church. It was challenging enough to have Giuseppe gaining such property and wealth, and he had no desire to see a clan of money-grubbing Ebrei welcomed into the village.
“Neighbors,” said Po, “unlike many here, I have traveled and know firsthand of the world. I have dealt and bartered with the unscrupulous Greek and know the forked tongue with which they speak. I have dealt with the Gypsy trader and the silk-selling Moor, and can attest to greater scruples in a three-penny whore. Idolaters, sodomites, be dubious of what’s in store, for these are people who prefer the back door.”
“They’re not the only ones!” the bosomy barmaid who’d just served Cosimo and Benito yelled out.
Much to Po’s surprise, the tavern broke out in laughter. He had meant back door from an ethical standpoint.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” shouted Vincenzo, throwing his arms in the air. “Barmaid, mind your place.”
The barmaid raised a hairy eyebrow to Vincenzo. “You sure have mined my place. You’d think my ass were made of truffles with all the burrowing you’ve done.”
And with that, a pigpen of laughter and snorts exploded through the tavern as crusts of bread and suds of ale and droplets of wine splattered and bounced all about Vincenzo. He had broken the tavern’s golden rule and he knew it: never, ever, should a whoremonger attempt to best his whore in public.
“Basta, basta,” said Vincenzo dropping his hands in defeat. “Can we just get on with it?” The tavern quieted.
“Thank you.” Vincenzo gestured to Po and took his seat.
Augusto Po looked around in disgust. “As I was saying,” he continued, his garments speckled with ale and wine, “the Greeks have done the world little favor, but at least they have sense to share our savior. But the Gypsy, the Moor, the money-lending Ebreo, what quality of theirs do we know? Do not be so foolish as to place an ounce of hope upon he who denies both Cristo and Pope. I tell you, long and hot shall be hell’s penance, to the Cristiano who turns our Eden into Venice. For be it a pound of flesh or ten percent, the Ebreo bleeds the Cristiano from money lent.”
“Ha,” laughed the Cheese Maker, undercutting Po’s grumble of support. The Cheese Maker was not an educated man, but he knew the difference between what smelt like cheese and what stunk like shit. “T’would be a pleasure for which I would thank,” he said in his full tenor voice as he rose to his feet, “to do my business in an Ebreo bank. For while I know not, it must be so, Po’s far cheaper than any Greek, Gypsy or Ebreo.”
It was not often that one got to witness a well-deserved humiliation of Augusto Po, and the tavern-goers took full advantage of the opportunity, rejoicing in a chorus of anonymous laughter. Augusto Po tilted his chin upward and feigned a smile, but it was obvious he did not take kindly to ribbing, which only sweetened the laughter, and he took his seat.
“You confuse the message with the messenger,” said Vincenzo in Po’s defense. “I take his words to heart.”
“Come now,” the Cheese Maker continued good-naturedly, “you make too much of this. We are country folk and have not the spleen to hate so many sight unseen. I would think in the name of commerce we’d all be supporters, yet you make sharing our market tantamount to sharing our daughters.”
Giuseppe’s ears perked up. Now, there’s an idea!
“Ay,” shouted out Mucca from the corner, unable to help herself, “you’d think Vincenzo’d be happy to sell such bruised and ugly fruit.”
The tavern crowd loosed a noise akin to that of a wrestler at the Easter Feast when he takes a low blow to the coglioni. Mucca was referring to Vincenzo’s pair of daughters, who, though approaching marrying age, by looks and demeanor would seem to have few prospects. It was exactly the kind of comment that made Mucca the only female to be tolerated at the tavern.
“By God!” Vincenzo said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “You flea-bitten harpy, have not you had enough of me today? You’d think a man need be married to a woman to be so pecked!”
Amazing, wonderful, delightful, thought Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci as the tavern’s habitués roared with laughter.
“And surely,” said the Cheese Maker over the noise, “by God’s wrath, would Venice have not long ag
o sank if these foreign Ebrei were truly so depraved and rank? Instead the city prospers. And why? Because Venice is keen enough to know the lesson that this decree does wish to sow: that whether a person be Ebreo, Greek or Gypsy, it’s by food they’re nourished and wine made tipsy. And it’s by tools they’ll farm from morn to night, and it’s candles they’ll need for evening’s light. So why take as contention what I take to please: all the better to have more customers to buy my cheese.”
“’Tis not only your cheese that grows mold,” said Vincenzo with a certainty that belied how little he really knew about the subject, “for all you think you’d sell would not be sold. The Ebreo belly is not so easy for us to please, for as surely as they don’t eat pork, they’ll neither eat your cheese.”
“Is that true?” asked the Cheese Maker, suddenly befuddled. “Surely, there is no cheese from a pig.”
Peering into the tavern from behind the kitchen door, Bertolli made a mental note to ask the Good Padre if it was true that Ebrei don’t eat pork. And if so, thought the boy, did Jesus not eat pork? And if he didn’t eat pork, then why do we eat pork?
Triumphantly, Vincenzo drained his wine goblet. “But the selling of cheese and pork, to me, is hardly the issue,” he said, “as I’m more riled by the limpness of our local tissue; that this new priest, without council or vote, has the gall to force decree and fruit down our throat. And that our wise fool”—Vincenzo waved the back of his hand disdainfully in the direction of Bobo—”and our foolish priest, would give this offense such yeast and invite the Ebrei to our sacred feast. And that we, without protest or complaint, would spinelessly oblige the corruption of our Saint. Now, I know the word did pass by way of Holy Rome, but Rome is not the place that I make home. And as I am the king of my own castle, I’ll not gladly play the Holy Roman vassal and eat willingly with knife and fork the fruit of those who killed our Cristo and defamed the pork.”
