Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
In Which I Speak With An Imaginary Fishmonger
“…my indignation was roused by the sophistical arguments, that every moment crossed me, in the questionable shape of natural feelings and common sense.”
- Mary Wollstonecraft, in response to shitty arguments
Perhaps I should formally introduce myself before we continue on this impossible odyssey.
~~
(This is a book about beginnings, which means this must also be a book about introductions. Introductions, like beginnings, can be daunting things. First impressions are so important, remember. Or that’s what the employment agent kept rattling on about when you tried to explain the small brush fire you started in the parking lot, anyway.
It might be that first impressions are only spectacularly important to a small group of people: potential bosses, potential lovers, and those with short-term memory loss, for example. Needless to say, if you plan on sleeping with your future amnesiac boss, you’ll want to spend the extra thirty minutes it takes to fix your hair. But for everyone else, I suspect we more or less drift into loving or hating them.
Still, because we’ve attached such supreme importance to employment and sex, first impressions still terrify most of us. There are many ways to botch a first impression that don’t include committing light arson in a strip-mall parking lot. You could say the wrong words or have food in your teeth or be the son of the man that leveled their village and murdered their sensei.
But even more anxiety-inducing than these faux-pas is the knowledge that introduction implies definition. Sure, you could just say “hello” and end it there like some sort of dead-eyed NPC or stroke victim. But most people prefer to say “Hello, I’m…”
And that’s where things get really daunting, because there are so many ways to define yourself. You could define yourself relationally, for instance: as a sibling, pet owner, friend, enemy, roommate, bodyguard. You could define yourself vocationally: as a writer, fishmonger, arsonist, middle-manager, bodyguard. Or maybe you’d prefer to define yourself avocationally: as a meth addict, mini-golf champion, denim recycler, skin collector, bodyguard (strictly for kicks). You could define yourself by the obstacles you have overcome, the awards you’ve won, or the items you own. Many people—especially artists, students, and children—choose to define themselves aspirationally: as a future something or other. Or you could define yourself ideologically, if you’re feeling brave: as a Christian, communist, nihilist, liberal, radical centrist, fifth-wave anarcho-transhumanist. There’s no shortage of people who define themselves by gender, sexual preference, race, nationality, and language. And if you’re feeling spectacularly lazy, you could always define yourself nominally: as a Steve, Muhammad, Aaron, Rodolfo, Bodyguard (although if that’s what your parents named you, I’d bet you generally avoid it).
Or you could go even further, define yourself biologically: as a member of a species, a discrete organism, a collection of symbiotic cells and organ systems. Hell, why not define yourself atomically: as a semi-discrete amalgamation of molecules smashing into each other. Of course, this wouldn’t make for a great introduction. “Hello, I’m a human with human insides” doesn’t just sound like the biggest lie ever told, it also does nothing to distinguish you from every other human on the planet. Definition implies difference just as much as it implies sameness.
This is a book about introductions, which must also mean this is a book about definitions. And I hate defining myself, dear reader. I really do. Why should I have to be one thing only?
The answer is: I don’t. I always have the opportunity to embrace the variety and fluidity of my identities, to assert that I am just as much a friend as I am a writer and arsonist, that my hobbies and distastes are just as important as my profession, that I may be a fuzzy cloud of atoms in the general shape of a human, but I’m also quite good at making sock-puppets. These assertions are immediately comforting to me, but I still can’t shake the suspicion that my identity is far sparser in the minds of others than in my rather self-aggrandizing ramblings and that I’ll be lucky if, in a hundred years, anyone can so much as list a business-card’s worth of facts about me.
Here goes, anyway.)
~~
My name is Aaron Pappalardo. I am a man who lives a fairly normal life; I have a loving family, good friends, and I enjoy all the comforts of being a white, ostensibly straight, middle-class American. This isn’t to say my life is one long list of positives, but I find it is the custom to paint oneself in a good light during an introduction. In the interest of fairness, however, let me take this time to also list a few of my faults.
I bite my fingernails and cuticles until I draw blood, although sometimes even that won’t stop me. I suffer from that distinctly American disease called laziness, or, more accurately, self-perceived laziness despite productivity. I also suffer from a frequent and complete detachment from all humanity (and reality in general), which some doctors felt could be accurately described by the word “depression”. Unfortunately, that word is too general to be taken seriously by many people; the doctors would have been better off naming it Pappalardo Disorder or Hemmingway Disease or some nonsense word like Tiroschalia. Or anything else, really. (Although part-way through the writing of this book, I am diagnosed with bipolar depression, which is another beast entirely. And really, I should have known, considering all the signs: the increased productivity, the mood swings, the hypomania, the starting of this book...)
But maybe I should have been more Aristotelian about it and listed a bunch of relatively neutral, innocuous facts about me: The Golden Mean of Personality. Let me try that.
I enjoy listening to a variety of music; orange is my favorite flavor of Tic Tac; I drink coffee at least twice a day; I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning (this sounds more like a fault); my right testicle hangs a little lower than my left (this one's maybe a bit too personal); sometimes I think I am an artist (that's better).
So there you have it: this is Aaron Pappalardo in profile. Good family, great friends, and greater-than-average socio-economic standing paired with mangled fingertips, serial laziness, and occasional absence (and sudden resurgence) of all human emotion. If you must know my physical appearance, I shall oblige. I am of average height; that is to say, five feet and ten inches tall. My hair is a forgettable brown and my eyes are an equally forgettable blue. The only thing that really makes me stand out is the volume of hair on my head, which isn’t exceptionally long but still manages to impress as a sort of impenetrable bramble of loose curls. Everything else you need to know about me will be revealed in time.
~~
If you are wondering why you should care… what my motivation is, what conflict I am trying to resolve, what my eventual goal (or goals) may be, why you should continue to read this book rather than go for a walk or attend to your many obligations (there are so many, remember) … then there is little I can do to help you.
I know, I know… I’m the one who wrote the story and I’m the one responsible for its path. How about this: every adventure novel inevitably begins with the adventurer’s disdain for the familiar. Or else: they are perfectly happy with the familiar until calamity falls on their household/town/country. Or else: they seem perfectly happy with the familiar until an opportunity for change arrives on their doorstep, suddenly making the tedium of their everyday life seem lifeless and dull in comparison. Most of the time the adventurer rejects the call to adventure, before eventually adventuring. This is supposed to reinforce the notion that our hero has fears just like you or I, but also that something about them is inherently essential to the fabric of life as we know it. Sure, the adventurer is often the everyman, but it’s also true that he is the only everyman that could have saved the kingdom/city/universe.
But calamity hasn’t befallen me, dear reader, and no one has arrived at my door in quite some time. It is easier (and infinitely more accurate) to say that I had begun to hate my surroundings, that the sight of every morning star revolted me, that every moment spent staring at the wall cataloguing the ways in which I disappoint myself cemented the malaise in my throat. I had the sense that I was backpedaling in some spiritual or moral way. My return from New York to my childhood home represented a regression I was entirely unprepared to deal with.
So I left. This is one of the ways adventure novels begin.
Perhaps this trip is a bulwark against my feelings of regression. Adventures can often prove instructive, after all. And if you are taught in the process of my journey, then it is just as well, for I believe there is no problem so personal that it cannot be made relatable. Simply put, my problems are your problems, dear reader.
And my problem is life itself.
~~
A general disclaimer: if, at any point, I appear unknowledgeable about the workings of Renaissance Italy, it is for a good reason (one that I probably shouldn’t have to explain); I have never actually been there. But within my mind I am perfectly within my rights to imagine myself atop a cart with a man named Rodolfo, speaking about any number of things.
I have been to Florence in real life. If you require some bit of realism, there it is.
~~
“So, one-eye, what brings you to Tuscany?” Rodolfo boomed over the crunch of the wheels and rhythmic tramping of hooves. He was a stocky man, rounded about the edges like a worn statue. His black hair was thinning but it had not receded to the point of no return, that line across which it is better to chop the whole thing off rather than try to mask the hopeless no-man’s land of forehead that once held hair. His nose was wider than average, but not so wide as to invite any animalistic comparisons; it didn’t flair like a baboon’s, for example. The face that held his nose was consistently red as though he were constantly exerting himself, although in reality he hardly ever exerted more effort than a situation called for. All in all, he was stout and flippant man who found no difficulty in speaking his mind.
“I’ve got a letter to deliver,” I replied.
“A courier! And what unfortunate circumstance has made an errand-boy of you?” He guffawed and shot me a quick glance. “Don’t tell me it was a personal choice.” His glance was enough for me to know there was a hint of sincerity below the laughter.
“It was a personal choice,” I responded. I wasn't sure if it actually was, but I decided that if I really was in a story I had better start forming a narrative now. “But why should that be so bad?”
“Because being an errand-boy is only a few steps away from selling yourself into slavery. It takes an idiot to willingly give up his will, one-eye, and you don’t seem like the sort of idiot that would take that bargain.”
“And you— this is the life you’ve chosen?” I admit, selling fish didn’t seem like the worst profession for a pre-modern man, but I was feeling a bit quippish and we had quite a lot of ground to cover.
“It was the life available,” he said without shrugging.
“Well now, see, where’s your will? The life available? That sounds an awful lot like fate.”
“No, no, I had other options. It wasn’t wide open, or anything. A crab can be a lot of things, but not a fish.”
“I’m not sure a crab can be a lot of things.”
“Well he sure as shit can’t do my job.”
“So, wait… is ‘better than a crab’ what we’re going for now? Because in that case, errand-boy is definitely—”
“I’m saying that you probably have better lives available. ‘Lackey’ isn’t exactly a title to be proud of, one-eye.” He turned to me and kept his left eye closed, although I couldn’t tell whether this was to mock me or simply because of the angle of the sun.
“That’s fair, I suppose,” I said, seeing the truth in his accusation, “but in that case every line of work is one step closer to slavery. The only choice that would be truly freeing would be to skip work altogether, right? I mean, if it isn’t slavery to men, it’s slavery to ideas.” Rodolfo raised his eyebrows in mock interest. I continued: “For example, you may not have an employer, but you conduct your trade in accordance with laws and customs, right? With ideas.”
“That’s sure enough, one eye, but what you’re talking about isn’t normally called slavery. Submission to God isn’t called slavery. It’s called piety. Slavery to the law is called justice and slavery to philosophy is called virtue. I would much rather be a slave to an idea than to any man. No man is naturally higher than any other, after all. Not the Medici, not the King of France: not even the Pope himself is above other men.” He chuckled and gave a listless flick of his switch to remind the horses of their job.
“Not even the Pope?”
“Well…”
“That was surprisingly blasphemous for an Italian,” I said after a brief pause.
“Everything is called blasphemy nowadays,” he replied with a smile.
~~
This shut me up for several minutes. I surveyed the countryside before us. Miles and miles of hills carelessly rolling into one another, occasionally ornamented with the towers of nearby cities. Endless fields of sunflowers, olive trees, and grape vines filled the valleys with the occasional citrus orchard to vary the view. Close inspection revealed men tucked into the vines and trees, pruning the unnecessary shoots, testing the ripening lemons. The traffic along our route was sparse enough to feel isolated, if it weren’t for the numerous hamlets we passed through on our way to Florence. I had been to Tuscany before, or should I say afterward, in 2010. It didn't look much different. The roads were paved. There were more signs.
My eyes drifted toward the spring horizon and glazed over. My ears focused on the incessant crush of dirt and pebbles below the wheels of the cart. When a sufficient amount of time had passed (which, for me, is usually about 3-5 minutes), I spoke.
“I’m not a career errand-boy anyway. I only took this particular job so that I could meet great people.” (Is that why I had taken the job? It does sound an awful lot like something I’d do.)
“Great people?” came the incredulous reply. “Who exactly is that letter for?”
“You wouldn’t happen to be a Pazzi by any chance, would you?” The Pazzis were a family of well-known bankers that would eventually try to kill Lorenzo De Medici and his family. They had a history of doing silly things like that.
“Pazzi? Is that who it’s for? What have they done to earn the title great? They deal in money like I deal in fish. Except you can eat fish.”
“No, no. It’s not for them. It’s for Lorenzo himself. I want to speak with him and some of the artists he patronizes. I don't think calling them great is much of a stretch.”
“Lorenzo is a man, sure enough,” Rodolfo shot back, “but why great? What has he done that other men couldn’t have? Let me tell you something about great men, one-eye: they shit like you and me. They may have interesting ideas or large armies or whatever else, but when all is said and done, they still have to shit. How can anyone who produces such filth everyday be held in such high regard? If you can find me a man who doesn’t shit, then perhaps I'll listen to your talk of great men. Until that day arrives, I’ll maintain that no man is great.”
“What about Constantine or Alexander? Are you going to tell me they weren’t great just because they had to shit?”
“Let me let you in on a secret,” he said with a growing grin. “You want to know why everyone thinks God is so great? It’s not because he created the world or gave us free-will or anything like that. That’s all incidental. It’s because he’s the only person who’s never had diarrhea.”
And with that I became silent again, contemplating the bowel movements of God.
~~
(And if God did have to shit, it goes without saying that he wouldn't have to wipe. His anus wouldn't betray Him as ours are prone to do, deciding to clench a fraction of a second too early, making a mess where there needn't have been one. And what would he eat? I suppose it wouldn't matter all that much; not even sweet corn could make it through the perfect intestines of Elohim. No indigestion either. No heartburn or questionable burps or dangerous farts or...)
~~
“So, do you like fish?” I stupidly said after a few minutes of silence.
“Do I like fish?” he replied. “What kind of question is that, one-eye? If I liked fish I wouldn’t ally myself with men who slaughter them wholesale and I certainly wouldn’t sell their corpses for profit. What kind of inanity will you spout off next? Are you going to ask me what I think of air? Perhaps you’d like to know my hat size?” His face became gradually redder as he made fun of me.
“I meant… I was just curious to know if you enjoy your job.” We hit a fist-sized rocked which jostled the cart and caused Rodolfo to grunt.
“My job is bearable. I enjoy the rides through the countryside and I like knowing that what I do provides people with food. I serve a necessary function in society, unlike those Pazzi bankers. But I still can’t really say I enjoy my job. If I could train these stupid creatures,” he gestured to the horses, “to deliver the fish and collect the money for me, it’d be just as well. As it stands, I have to do it myself. There isn’t much to love about selling fish, but I’m not so selfish as to abandon my post.”
“Is it unethical to strive for greatness, then?” I leaned back enough to crack my back on the cart. “Or are you saying that men have lots, and only a few are chosen to be influential?”
“I’m saying that my poetry is horrid, my paintings are flat, and I couldn’t lead a troop of men across a field of flowers. If I have any talent that does not include selling fish, I can't think of it. Stick to what you do best, one-eye, that’s what I say.”
“Fine and fair. Want to read the letter I’m supposed to deliver?” I’m not sure why I offered to read him the letter I had been expressly instructed not to show anyone. Awkward silences tend to force idiocy from my mouth. (Had I been expressly instructed? It seemed correct to say so. There was a seal, after all. And it is a federal offense to tamper with someone else's mail in the time and place from which I left...)
“No,” he laughed, “I’d rather not be implicated in a plot at this particular moment, but thank you for the offer.”
I heaved a sigh of relief and began to wonder what the letter might contain. Not that it mattered much, of course. It was ink-black and adorned with a seal of crimson wax. On its face were the words, ‘From the Court of el-Fatih, Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.’ This was the man who conquered Constantinople. There was no doubt that his message was of some importance.
~~
The rest of the trip was pleasant, despite the strengthening stench of fish wafting from the back of Rodolfo’s cart. We talked about family. He had come from a household of eight children, although only five survived into adulthood. When he was young he wished to become a painter but his family had little means to cultivate his dream, so he went into the family business of selling fish. I was careful not to ask him about the fish again. He said he’d rather be on the sea actually catching them, but that he had frequent back pain and got sea-sick easily.
“We’re just not meant to do some things, one-eye.”
We turned onto a narrowing path that wound its way up a steep hill as he asked me about my family. I told him I was the youngest of four boys, all still alive, and that I dreamed of being great. He laughed: “You’d better start clenching your ass-cheeks now, you hopeless fool.”
He also asked me about my eyepatch. I laughed and lifted the flap to show that my eye was perfectly functional.
“Then why are you wearing an eyepatch?!” he exclaimed.
“I’m not sure, honestly,” I shrugged. “I guess because it looks… mysterious?”
“Jesus Christ! ‘Looks mysterious?’ Perhaps you are the type of idiot that would sell himself into slavery.”
~~
The view from our perch was tremendous. There, in all its terra-cotta splendor, was the city of Florence. A massive wall stretched across the rolling hills, inside were thousands of buildings and the towering Duomo, that magnificent church whose monumental dome cannot be unseen.
“Do you ever get tired of it?”
“The view? I’m not sure anyone gets tired of looking at a city from afar, its living in one that gets old.”
I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but it sure sounds true.
~~
(Isn’t that what good writing is? Lists of words that sound true?
You're at the point now where things are starting to solidify, it seems. The structure and subject matter seem to indicate an adventure novel, with a twist. Perhaps you aren't entirely sold on the tone. Maybe the blunted philosophical dialogue and discussion of shitting is grating on you, at this point. Or perhaps you are alright with that, but the constant interjections by the author make you roll your eyes. You wish I would get out of the way of my story. "He's not doing himself any favors," you say to yourself. You want to suspend your disbelief, but I keep cutting in.
I'm sorry. I'll let you get back to it, dear reader.)
~~
We rolled down the hill and toward the River Arno, where the smaller path once more joined with the main road. Carts and pedestrians were much more prevalent around the city than in the countryside. (What an interesting observation! More people live in cities than the countryside, you say?) I listened to the various snippets of conversation as we made our way inward, toward the market. It was wonderful to be back in a city. I had missed New York dearly since coming home. I wanted to explain this to Rodolfo, but he was from another time and place. He wouldn’t understand.
The market was so densely packed that Rodolfo’s cart was immobilized. He waved a few men over to us, no doubt familiar faces to him. As they began unloading the cart I paid him ten florins: twice the agreed upon amount. He gave me a look of mock concern and bellowed, “Not only a fool, but a spendthrift! God help you, you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said.” I gave him an earnest smile as I dismounted the cart.
“You know, I quite like you,” I said over the clamor of a hundred merchants trying to sell their wares, “I think I’ll keep you around.”
“Sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve got a job to do and no time to run around meeting royalty. Give Botticelli my best, one-eye!”
And with that I bid farewell to Rodolfo the stocky fish merchant. Now it was time to meet Lorenzo De Medici.
