I fell out of a cherry tree. I heard a cracking noise, and everyone within one hundred yards turned their heads to see me plummet to the ground. I didn’t really have time to move, but I sorta recollect having reached skyward with my hands. What buffoonery, I know. In my defense, however, I feel obliged to mention that I’ve been reading Italo Calvino and it was because of him that I fell. His first novel is about Cosimo who, at the age of twelve, chooses to live out the rest of his days in the trees, spurning his father’s entreaties that he accept his rank and title of Baron, along with its manifold responsibilities. There’s a bold and uncompromising spirit for you! The story is extolled by the younger brother, who watches, wistfully, silently envious, as his brother pursues various crafts and adventures, including but not limited to stealing fruit, battling a ferocious wildcat, learning to hunt with a dachsund on the ground to retrieve his kills, studying Latin, reading classics, courting a high class foxy blond who rides a pony and tries to enslave him, running with brigands and providing them with reading material (after which they eventually cease to rob and pilfer from the villagers), spying on beturbaned Turkish pirates hiding their booty, sleeping in hammocks, making clothes with animal pelts, planning an aquaduct, and a lot of other shit too, and I ain’t even finish the book yut!
Well, I can tell you, I feel positively infused with the spirit of Calvino’s genius. I want to live in the trees and I’m even in love with his horn-weilding blond Italian princess (it helps that I know one like her). I know what you are saying to yourself, you says, says will Tim always be such a flaneur? Let us hope not. Elsewise, I’ll prolly die next time I go amok with the beauty and sex of Spring and climb a tree all ablaze with foliagé and fertility.
I mean, like, to return to my original narrative, I landed on my feet, narrowly missing an adamant trunk and a bunch of hardass roots that would’ve certainly broke my bare feet. My left ankle was all swollen and right is still a bit a bummy and stiff-toed. Wish I had been wearing mah steel toed boots, yup… I was swaggering hallified gangster lean for a bit there, and, on the streets of Harlem, a few fellow pedestrians didn’t know how to take it, judging by their comments on the order of, that boy so fucked up he cain’t even wawk, and that boy’s momma need a teach’em how ta wawk. Now I just do a little mosey with occasional stutter-steps. I feel nostalgic for the gangster lean though, I think I might continue with that. I could just keep telling the tree story, although with the caveat of Italo Calvino’s engenius writing so’s that it don’t seem like my momma raised a fool.
If y’all read that book, you’d prolly end up in a similar predicament. I says, steer clear of Italo Calvino! Shit, I mean, he was part of the reason I ended up in love with that benedetta Italian heartbreaker in the first place. Goddamn you Calvino! But I still love you. May you be reviled by History! May darkness consume you! But I’ll never tire of you. May your seed perish on the cold dead Earth! But I’ll always have your name on my lips, frequently while panting. The Benedetta spied your name on the cover of a tome which I pretended to read while peering over the aforementioned cover jealously devouring her tanned body and blond hair and Italian elegance. Now, years later, I haven’t succeeded in ridding myself of thoughts of her, of our conversations, of the way she shouted, non sei normale and non mi capisci. Chimera! Calvino, eh, can I call you Italo? Would that it was every man’s goal, says I with my hat in my hand. You succeeded in making your futile, brutish, and short attempt in this world have an enduring meaning. Calvino, do you know people all over the world get laid by the mere mention of your name, often only in a whisper, especially regarding the brilliance of I Numeri nella Oscurità, which I was pretending to read when the Benedetta started sizing me up as a prospective mate and husband?
I heard a cracking noise, and everyone within one hundred yards, I reckon, turned their heads instantly. Then I came down in terminal velocity, with a cloud of petals enveloping me, in my hair, pockets. Not a sound was uttered, except for the boisterous laughter of a good-natured British guy who later came up to discover if I was alright. Anthony (my roommate and comrade) was in the adjacent cherry tree, which was also all ablaze with the pink taco fecundity of Spring in the hills of Central Park. He came walking up about the time the first perturbed onlookers did. They were two twenty something girls, pretty easy on the eyes, but I could do no more than remark that fact, seeing as I was kind of embroiled in shock, pain, and chagrin. The one girl was like are you alright, and I was like, between shocked gasps for breath, I think so. Then she said, suddenly sultry, she can kiss it and make it better, but I was unable to reply. I was damn near paralyzed by shock, and Anthony stood over me, with his hands in his pockets, trumpeting his voice to the four winds, he’s alright, he’s just embarrassed, JUST EMBARRASSED, yeah, he’s just too embarrassed to talk, not to worry. I later managed to get on my feet, and the girls were sort of lingering in the valley, looking up at me, but i was still too shaken up and embarrassed to gesture for them to come over. I hobbled about, exalting my woes and sometimes using Anthony as a crutch, to the Metropolitan Museum, because Anthony had to see the Gustav Courbet show.
The moral of the story is that, well, I don’t give a fuck, live large, take risks, get out here and headbutt the sky. Calvino will be there watching, make him proud, make him a part of you, he is still around, as an onlooker and benedicting spirit, chuckling at our pining and our folly.
