Fricassée

        Capitano Alfonso Redoto Friccassé at your service.

         No doubt, you have remarked on the fine bearing of the Capitain. The shapely leg, the tight buttock, the frothy chest and the alluring eye.  All fashioned by the brave and fashionable blood of the Fricassés, carved from the same stick as all Fricassés, stretching back to time immemorial. Handsome, courageous and humble. 

         The adventure I am about to recount begins on the wind-buffeted coast of Rimini. Around us the spray and spume, crashes of lightning, the trees bending in the howling gusts. Myself, Capitain Friccassé in mortal combat with the terrible Count Donculo, our swords flashing as we have at each other on the cliffs. Below us, the sea smashing on to the rocks. We have been at it for four days. Our swords are red hot. We are fighting for the hand of the famous beauty, Donna Angelina. And what a hand it is. As if made of pearls. She stands to one side as we flash backwards and forwards, her chest heaving and her incandescent lips releasing cries and shrieks. On we fight.

         I parry to the right and lunge. The Count defends himself and with a snarl thrusts himself at me again. Right. Left. Will it ever end?  With my consummate skill, I execute the famous Romano back wrist flip. The Count’s sword flies through the air and the villain is left defenceless.  Laughing, I cease combat and with a gentlemanly bow invite this son of a cabron, to retrieve his weapon.  Such is the honour of the noble Friccassés.  The bastard. This heathen ingrate grabs a handful of sand and throws it in my face. I am blinded. I stagger backwards and….. over the cliff.

         It is a long way down to the thrashing sea.  I have time to recite a few poems, comb my hair and sing a chorus of Rigolleto before hitting, with a mighty smack the churning ocean.  I submerged a few fathoms, and tumbled among giant calamaris for a while. Fortunately, I am able to hold my breath for twenty minutes without mishap. A long shark with a nose like a hammer scudded towards me. But he reckoned without the ferocity of your Capitano. With one punch on that nose, I rendered him unconscious and together we floated to the surface.  Quick as a flash, I pulled out one of my luxurious whiskers and bound up the shark’s mouth. Then I straddled the great fish, and took my bearings.

         The endless green sea was laid out before me. I resolved to set out for foreign parts. And using my hat as a sail and my sword as a mast, I did exactly that.

         After forty days of seeing nothing but sea, eating nothing, drinking nothing, the shark and I came upon an island.  I landed and immediately removed the whisker that bound the fish’s mouth. After fond farewells, the shark went his way and there I was, marooned on this small island with only a palm tree for company.

         My most pressing problem was hunger. Unfortunately I could not repair to my usual restorante, the remarkable Pane y Vino, where Luigi would prepare me a steaming tagliatelle langoustino with a litre of rossto wash it down. No. It was coconuts for me. I gave the tree a shake but chance would have it that an unusually heavy fruit brained me. I was looking up into the branches at the time, a fortunate coincidence, because when the coconut smashed onto my noble forehead, its sweet juice was delivered directly into my open mouth. As I sank onto the white sand, my thirst quenched, I was already turning my mind on how to escape from the island.

         The first thing was to send out a signal to attract the attention of passing ships.  Here I fell back upon a trick I learnt from a fellow called Johnny Threeshoes, a Red Indian I met on the streets of Palermo. I drank four coconuts, waited for my insides to do their business, put my tinderbox to my rear end, and lit an enormous fart. I found I was capable of sending out a three-metre flame. I repeated this signal through the night and hoped for the best.

         There was not much else to do on the island but I was able to entertain myself with funny stories and songs. I have a pretty voice and I gave myself lots of applause.  I also performed my famous ballad, The Wanton Bitch, including all my little bits of business for which I am rightly well known among the drinking set of Napoli.  But applauding, laughing, performing, bowing was very tiring, and in the middle reaches of the night, after a last signal blow, I fell into a deep sleep.

         Now I could have awoken in a cooking pot surrounded by jabbering savages, or lashed to the mast of a pirate boat, knives at my throat, or even in the arms of a dusky Creole maiden…but all that greeted me was an ominous silence. The sky was white as pearl and the sea as smooth as a polished doorstep. I lay there in the glaring silence not knowing what to expect.

         And then it came. A black tower of roaring wind scudded over the sea straight towards the island. Suddenly all was mayhem, clouds of sand boiled over crashing surf. The palm tree was wrenched from its moorings and shot into the air with a crack. Chaos. Then it was my turn. One minute I was crouched on the beach, my hand clamping my hat to my head and the next I was ascending breathless into the black sky. Luckily I had my wits about me and when I had reached a hundred feet or so, I turned this mad weather to my advantage, whipped off my coat, tied the arms together fashioning a balloon, lit a cigar and rode the tornado to wherever it would take me.

         What goes up must come down, as the courtesan Rosalinda remarked to me late one night. For a while the tornado and I shot about all over the sea leaving wrecked ships and exploded islands in our wake and then slowly the puff went out of my vehicle and I began to descend. Before I knew it I was back in the sea.

         The sea is the sea but all the seas are different. This one was cold and grey. I made out land not far off and struck out for the shore. I once had the opportunity to observe a salmon on its way upstream. Since then I have imitated it exactly when I need speed in the water. With my arms by my side, and an undulating movement, I streamed my way to the beach, leaving a trail of white phosphorescence.  Such is the skill of Friccassé.  Lightning on land, turbo in water.

         I arrived on an inhabited beach. It was only later I found at that these people, mostly naked and lying about like fish on the a marble slab in the Rimini market, people of both sexes, astoundingly beautiful women and weedy men, did not actually live on the beach. For that was my first impression. I thought I had stumbled upon a strange tribe, red skinned and bemused.  When I emerged from the froth I was immediately surrounded by small children, some with miniature garden equipment and all shrieking. Overcome by my not inconsiderable exertions, I fell into a swoon, collapsed in the ebb and swirl at the waves edge, and slept like a rock.

         Imagine my surprise. Imagine the outrage that followed it. Imagine the great Capitano Fricassée bellowing with righteous rage when he found himself strapped to a bench in a carriage that roared down some devilish road leading God knows where, lights flashing to the sound of a troop of banshees howling in the wind. Two oafs decked out in stolen general’s uniforms accompanied me.

         “He’s coming to,” said one.

         “Damn you.” I replied.

         To all you ladies present, may I offer my apologies for this coarse language, but can you imagine finding yourself bound to a metal bed by two leering wild men.

To be continued