Shorn Again
(Page 3 of 3)
November/December 1996
By Gregory McNamee, Troika
"Magnifico," I declared.
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Tomaso breathed a sigh of relief, smiled broadly, and poured another glass of wine, offering me one as well. I accepted and joined him in another round of "Pistol Packin' Mama," still not sure whether Tomaso hated Americans after all. The crowd, in the meantime, disappeared with the setting sun, only to reassemble on the other side of the piazza for the evening passeggiata, the ritual stroll through town that affords everyone in Italian villages the chance to visit with everyone else.
I joined the procession, a gaggle of children to my rear. This time no one shouted. I was still an exotic creature from a faraway land, clad in Levi's and hillbilly work boots and a full head taller than anyone else in town, but I now bore the aspect of a mere mortal being. The eternally feuding Fascist greengrocer and the Communist housepainter across the road, who had previously agreed only on the point that my hair was too long, smiled in greeting and sat down at a table for an animated game of scopa. The Christian Democrat mayor tapped the brim of his Panama hat and invited me to dinner later in the week. The monsignor looked at me searchingly and then shook my hand. Things had changed.
Late that evening I called on a comely young hairdresser whose salon lay across the stone path from my apartment on the south end of town. One of the many local Red Brigade sympathizers had told me, when I first raised the subject of a haircut, not to go to her place lest the villagers think me homosexual and thus a candidate for death by stoning or some other awful mischief, but now I didn't care. Lucia, a spinster at 25, set about undoing some of Tomaso's efforts, talking happily of her impending trip to Paris. I listened, admiring her beauty, telling her of good meals I had eaten in the Cinquième Arrondissement, of cheap bars near the Place de la Concorde, while she worked her magic.
By midnight I was content. I was no longer the Messiah.
Reprinted from Troika, April/May 1996.
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