Old Charlie's post 4

The stupid (called “differently clever” by the politically correct) are around us in great numbers – they are the majority of human kind: in fact, as remarked so clearly by Jerome Klapka Jerome, in his Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, everybody who doesn’t share our personal judgment or opinion is inherently cretinous. Thus, apart from a minimal minority of close friends of ours, the whole world is inhabited by morons.

That is not, per se, a bad thing: most of fools are gullible, and this might be a benefit for the real intelligent, who can take advantage of credulity and naiveté. Just think of the millions believers in the most popular utopian faiths and persuasions, and the business built on their money contributions. Apart from that, morons are ever-green sources of amusement for the real clever who have time to rejoice observing them.

The case is different when stupidity is associated with arrogance and presumption. When the fools are bamboozled by maîtres-à-penser into the use of violence to foster ideals of a better future for the world, we are on the verge of impending disaster, dear friends.

Such craze erupts cyclically here and there in the world; some places endure typically long infectious seasons (think how long it took for some pseudo paradise to get rid of, in certain countries in Eastern Europe, in the twentieth century – one whole generation has been robbed of any chance of freedom, huh?) and even my country experienced for some decade the joy of being shepherded by arrogant fools convinced of doing their best for the Good of the Country and of the World at large.

Let me introduce you to TestadiPera, who used to be the corporal in charge of the platoon I belonged to, in my teens. You know, seventy three years ago the young boys of Germany were enlisted in the Hitler Jugend (that was the name of Nazi Youth— they were trained to flawlessly march carrying a toy copy of the Mauser model ’89 rifle, to  shout “Sieg Heil” at present’ arms and to perform a peculiar parade gait, called Goose-step: it consisted in launching the stretched left leg up to the height of your stomach, then thunderously hitting the ground with the left foot and then repeating immediately the exercise with the right leg.

We were the Mediterranean allied of the Nazi, and we were compulsorily recruited in the Opera Balilla (our southern version of Nazi youth) we were trained to march carrying a toy copy of the Mannlicher-Carcano model ’91 carbine— called musket by us (thus we were labeled musketeers); we had to shout “A noi” at present’ arms and we had to perform the Goose-step too, though we called it “Passo Romano” in sign of deference to our glorious Ancestors the Roman legionnaires who conquered the entire World — almost (and sure never practiced such a laughable gait!)

However those ancient subjugators unwittingly played the model role for our dilettanti contemporary leaders who loved to play with antique symbols and hot-air blablabla, believing to reincarnate those marvelous epitomes.

Corporal TestadiPera was the instructor of our platoon, he was around four years older than us, was much bigger and heavier than the most massive of us and he admirably impersonated the imbecility of our children-soldiers organization: he had taught us how to stride in closed ranks, how to salute, how to synchronously obey his marching commands. He had a peculiar way of barking, when issuing his orders, and enjoyed a lot kicking the glutei of the unfortunate musketeer at closest range. He used his boots as a seal for all directives issued by him, and I, being the smallest musketeer in town, panicked all the time I felt his presence coming near. In fact he loved very much to boot the huge posterior of plump Bernardo, while my meager buttocks were not so desirable to be kicked.

However, when the date of the famous big parade to be performed in a central boulevard of our city came near (attended by the top brass of our fascist youth organization, as well as by the German Nazi ambassador coming expressly from his Rome office to supervise the training level of the Italian Youth) we the musketeers were kept under harsh pressure and TestadiPera increased his ferocious booting,   staring at us with bedeviling eyes and promising ruthless chastisement for any less than perfect performance— he made my blood run cold and I was so terrorized that I was unable to eat anything of my meals at home, I simply vomited all days! In fact my muscles were just about paralyzed, I was poorly able to execute the prescribed exercises … and that made him more and more aggressive.

I have blurred memories about the details of our preparation for the Great Event. I only recollect one occasion, when we had been ordered to march three by three, and I, who was the smallest musketeer in town, came lonely last. Immediately TestadiPera booted me on the back, screaming:

<I said three by three!>

<But we are twenty-two! It’s an even number, sir. And not divisible by three. I cannot help, being a singular marcher following my twenty-one mates going on three by three>

<You talk too much. You are not supposed to object, just to obey. I said three by three!> and sealed his words with— you know.

Eventually the effulgent day came, and TestadiPera was extremely stressed:

<I will strangle with my own hands any of you who make a mistake> he bellowed gazing ominously on my direction.

And this was not the last baffling news of the day: on a corner of our school backyard we saw a huge heap of shoes, all new, all with the same ochre-yellow colour, each shoe of each pair laced together. Official explanation: all of you boys wear different types of shoes, different colours and pattern; you look like a ragtime-army! But we won't appear as an operetta battalion at the Great Parade. (Second explanation, untold: someone in the shoe trade had made a lucrative deal with some Party's big boss). The snag was that we never tried to march with those shoes. Had they been given us one week before—

The second-rank-commander whistled and then ordered: <Go and take your pair!>

All my young colleagues sprang up and pushed each other on the pile to be plundered. Being the smallest of all them (I was the youngest as well: my mother had taught me the essentials of the primary school when I was too small for regular admission and then I entered directly among schoolmates who were older, stronger and more resilient to stress— mom had thought this would be advantageous, later; and that later I would have appreciated her farsightedness. However the present shortcomings were palpable enough) being the smallest of them I waited quietly until the last pillager made his choice, and then I took the one pair left, a pair of jumbo shoes, so large that I thought TestadiPera with his gargantuan feet could appropriately wear them.


I reluctantly went to seek him out while he was declaring, in a circle of his peers:

<We shall inject shit and arsenic in the veins of these soft lings, effeminate brats of the spineless bourgeoisie. We shall—

I interrupted him, squeaking:

<Sorry sir, but it's a matter of urgency. Look at these enormous shoes, please. How could I make one single step with them?>

        <Again! - he snarled, aware of the attention of his admiring compeers around - How many times did I repeat that you are expected to obey, not to object? You bloody little bastard>.

I went back to my platoon in total distress. Bernardo and another boy named Vincenzo tried to comfort me. That young fellow was surely from a well-off family, his black shirt was made from expensive silk and his manners were quite urbane:

<Try to fasten the laces as tightly as you can> he suggested perceptively.

 So I tried my best to fasten the laces as tightly as I could.

And now we were marching, really, and this was the moment long waited for and everything seemed so un-real to me, perhaps because of my fasting and vomiting and consequent languid exhaustion. I saw confusedly behind the heads of my taller comrades the authorities' platform coming nearer and nearer in a somehow waving way, as we marched oscillating from the left to the right foot, it seemed a dream, so waving, as if I were on a rocking boat undulating on top of sea waves, or strangely floating on the long grass of a large field blown by cogent wind in long waves, a dream, yes, and not so bad a dream as I had feared, after all, until that point— only less than fifty meters more, and then there will be no reason to worry any longer— 
At that moment the musketeer who marched behind me pinched the heel of my left shoe with the point of his one, and for a few steps I went on like a lame duck, admittedly in a less than bellicose attitude. Fortunately, being somehow concealed deep in the core of the marching battalion, I was not conspicuously visible from the authorities' scaffolding. I heard the chuckles of comrades around but I managed to keep shoe and foot under control, jumping lamely among the columns and files while the battalion inexorably marched on ... and then somebody in command shouted "Passo Romano!" exactly when we were in front of the authorities' stand, and all boys jolted launching martially their legs in the Goose-Step fashion... what an impressive view, indeed! As soon as I lifted - with all energy left in me - my stretched left leg, the yellow shoe went up, high towards the blue terse sky and after a perfect parable it landed amid the marching warriors, spreading momentarily confusion among the men-at-arms. It's a dream, of course it's just a dream - I was instantly telling myself in my delirium - now I will wake up in my bed, sure, of course. What a fantastic dream, Charlie.     So without delay I kicked up also my second shoe, which performed a high flight up up over the heads of the surrounding musketeers and then fell ruinously somewhere yards away, right in the middle of the marching battalion: the boys started to disband and disorderly disperse under the unexpected bombardment from above—

Are you, dear readers, feeling the tension inherent to these circumstances, are you longing to see how the story evolves through the catastrophic end of the parade, the awful scene where my fellow musketeers play the role of mute choir while no music is being played, no fat lady sings … read my book Fun for the crippled in Paris and other stories, and in the third chapter you will find relief to your tension.

Carletto Scara