The Gorilla man (Runaways, Escapees and Refugees)

 

It's night and there is only one big star up there in the sky, it's the the gorilla man, here he comes now and there he goes, uphill, surreptitiously walking along a narrow street with a cluster of stone houses on each side, old buildings pressed against each other, squeezed, skewed, some tumbling apart, some good, embalmed, and various balconies with all kinds of trinkets hanging from the balustrades, and so, as the creature advances we become his shadow, we become his partner, we listen to his small conversations about… and then, at some point, halfway up the climb, we get to a crossroad with a broken fountain and a pedestal over it, and so, straight away the gorilla man climbs onto the top of the of the pedestal himself and there he stays, nestled, inside the shell, eyes wide open, tongue sticking out. So, I approach it, already saying my prayings and with no blinkings I deposit a “holy leaven” on his tongue, and thus, as he swallows that thing we become the same thing, this is, I'm the gorilla man now, and there is no more narrator. So, then, as I leave the fountain, I go across a jumble of alleys again, and as we go through it we can already hear what looks like echoes of giggles, laughs, jeers coming from… apparently coming from the top of the hill. And so, up we have to keep going, following the human noise, until that, yes, we get to it, and here is the gorilla man again, waiting in the back of some trees. And there, on the sidewalk and adjacent gardens in front of the bars, nightclubs, tavernas etc, there are clusters of people wandering around with beer bottles and plastic glasses in hand. Some seated on the sidewalk, and others skating on the adjacent gardens. And so, amidst all this giggles, whispers and whimpers, we can hear tattered discussions about the existence of unnamed beings. Interjections of dubious connotations. Lascivious looks topped off with weird pronunciations and what we can describe as, slingshot poses, this is, the atheist fervor, or the imagery of a bizarre god with many arms and legs but incapable of making decisions. And so, in the middle of all this, some kind of paranoid heroism is exalted, half-truths, unfinished sentences… People murmuring, maybe happy in this or that instant. Plus, stories about transgenic fairies, smart woodworms and fallen caterpillars. And then, I can see, here on the adjacent gardens, some guys and girls letting themselves fall aback, looking at the sky,  preferring to dream than to talk, while others spill beer over them… and then, here comes the gorilla man, now going through all these people and saying "Uha uha, ed io ho due amori (and I have two loves)... Uhu! Aha! Uhu! Aha!... che in nessun modo sono uguali (that in no way are the same)... Uhu Aha Uhu! Ma non sono sicuro (but I’m not sure!)”... he now says, while giving punches on the chest “Uh! Ah! Ah! Se sono immaginari o irreali (If they are imaginary or unreal) Uhu aha! aaah!”, and "Ma non ne sono sicuro! ahu! ahu!" (But I'm not sure! ahu! ahu!); "Che mi piace di più, fantasy o reale!! (Which I like best! fantasy or reality!)” he says, while doing a series of pirouettes among the bohemian creatures. And then, some nerd guys are passing by and we can hear “Relativity only exists with knowledge of the absolute, but...”, says a younger nerd, a guy with a studied beard, hands on his pockets. “But I'm not sure... uh ah uhaa ... the absolute or the relative... which one is the most... uhu ah uhaa”. the gorilla man says now while dancing around the nerd boys. And then, as these guys walk away, we can see, to one of the sides, a group of students dressed in black, dragging themselves across the floor, perhaps looking for ancient coins, perhaps eating the grass, and so, there goes the gorilla man again "Ma non sono sicuro.. ahu ahu ahu...  dottore o ingegnere... quale sia più banale - But I'm not sure... ahu ahu ahu... doctor or engineer... which is more trivial". And then, standing in front of the entrance of one of the bar/taverns, I see a green-haired young man playing the guitar in a fast and awkward style, and another guy on his side, a dude with with a ring on the nose, growling phrases like this “diffondi tua merda, diffondi tua merda, prima che ci si impantani diffondi tua merda, ovunque tu vada diffondi la tua merda - spread your shit, spread your shit, before you get bogged down on it, wherever you go, spread your shit…”  and  “non mangio pasticcini, non mangiamo più pasticcini, a noi non frega niente vostre leggi puzzolenti... I don't eat pastries, I don't eat pastries anymore, we don't give a damn about your stinking laws…”; and “vaffanculo tutti, fottervi-fottervi-fottervi… farti sparire il culo  - fuck-you-all fuck-you-all…get your ass out of here”, and by this pair of rickety musicians, some other ragged-looking boys or girls are walking around staging disconnected dance steps, mistreating each others and then hugging each others and at random figures of time, nailing those who enter and leave the bars in front or the ones staring into the vain, on the sidewalks. “Utsh-Utsh-utsh, per favore, fare l'elemosina al gorilla - Utsh-Utsh-utsh please, give some alms for the gorilla” I say upon entering a bar, “if you please, compiacere, non possiamo amare con la bocca secca, we can't love with a dry mouth, fai l'elemosina al gorilla, compiacere  - give some alms to the gorilla…” I say as I go through the insides of the bar, and then, after saying my saying, I can hear something like “torna allo zoo, cagnolina - come back to the zoo you doggy”; or “girati e vai a cagare al cimitero, pipistrello - turn around and go to shit in the graveyard, you bat” and “ma dove vieni, faccia da mucca - but from where are you coming… You cow face!”. Even so, I insist “fate l'elemosina ai gorilla, che ha bisogno di monete per recuperare la sua condizione umana - give some alms to the gorilla, that is in need of coins to recover its human condition”. But despite cheering up the crowd, I’m not being very successful in my requests, and so, before I turn around, the establishment's security man is already coming within my reach, saying "Non puoi essere qui mascherato, e non puoi essere qui anche a chiedere soldi! - You can't be here masked, and you also can’t be here asking for money!” to what I oppose "Non posso essere qui mascherato tanto quanto tu non puoi essere qui con un beccuccio… - I can't be here masked as much as you can’t be here with that nozzle…” I say while I'm being pushed and pulled out, and at some point, the punks that were outside polishing the hooks are already coming in, and those billy boys who were playing snooker there in the back, are also coming armed with sticks and in the meanwhile there are chairs and tables flying around the establishment, and some other figures are already running to the bathroom door, and those that were on the street are now trying to enter in order to see the show, and those inside, are now trying to get out, breaking glasses and bones as they pass by, and then someone turns up the volume of the music, thats goes more and less like this “Quando cammino per strada (when I walk down the street) / Tutti mi guardano (everybody looks at me) / Sembra che vogliano mangiarmi (and it looks like they want to eat me) / E questa merda non finisce mai (and this shit never stops) / E quando accendo la televisione (and when I turn on the TV) / Tutti parlano di problemi nazionali (all them talking about the national problems) / Niente può essere risolto (nothing can be solved) / Loro sono animali (for that they are animals) / Sono animali (they are animals) / Sono animali (they are animals) / Tutti vogliono andare avanti nella vita (everyone wants to get ahead in life) / Sentirsi potenti (feel powerful) / Tutto quello a cui pensi è rubare (all they think about is stealing) / Nemmeno smettere che deve uccidersi (even if they have to kill) / quando arrivano in cima (when they reach the top)  / Continuano a volere sempre di più (they keep wanting more and more) / E non possono mai essere soddisfatti (and they can never be satisfied) / Sono animali / Sono animali / Sono animali (They are animals / They are animals / They are animals)” and then when I wake up I'm already on the road, laying on the back seat of a big truck, a house-truck actually, and there are two other girls laying on my side, both of them with extra-whitish faces, as if they are using some kind of nivea cream on the cheeks, and they also got dyed hair and rimmel on their eyes… One says “Easy!” as I wake up, already passing me a gross cannabis joint, and it hurts as I move each centimeter of my body, so better stay still looking at the expressions of these actually fat girls. Their semi-naked bodies displaying long tattoos with many dragons, swordsmen, unicorns and other creatures difficult to name. And so, as it goes, at some point I have to ask “Who are you and how did I get here?” and then, one says in a strange english pronunciation “we are the ones that, yesterday ti abbiamo salvato il culo, recorda?”, “no, actually I don't remember very well what you are talking about! Can you say it in full english? You saved my ass but from what?”; “We saved your ass from the sticks man, we and the other boys from our circus-crew, these sticks man came and started to hit our dogs as we got in the taverna where we have find you turning around, hands in the hair, people pushed you as they liked, and you covered your face, I didn't know why… “And I have two lovers ah uh ahu, not the same not the same, but very different from the main…ah uh ahu”, mocks the other of these two girls, the one that is furthest away, the fattest one. “Ohu I have a damnmotherfucking headache,” I say and straight away one of them accordingly justifies “It's normal, yesterday the security guard at the bar gave you a big headbutt, and then you fell, and then all of them fell on you… don't you remember?”, “kind of… What about my mask? Could you bring it?”, “Yes, yes we have your mask sir, and we also loved your show, actually that is a number you could perform in our circus, a gorilla man asking money around, asking money for juice, asking money for lies, asking money for hearts or even, who knows, money to revenge the lost and the fallen, ah, yes, yes, a gorilla man trying to save the humanity…” she mocks. “So, and where are the other clowns, if this is a moving circus”?, I say “The clowns are together with the magicians and other buffoons in the second roulotte, the one coming on our back, they are the roulotte number two and  we are the roulotte number one of the Atesh Circus, so, as you can imagine, here on the front we have the director and the co-director of the Atesh, both of them are contortionists and they are waiting for you on the driving cabin, go there and present yourself…coz they also helped to save your ass yesterday”, “No” I suddenly interrupt “I still can't move, all my body hurts, when will we stop?”, “there will be no stop soon, we are actually leaving Italy now and not sure if we will stop in Slovenia or if we go directly into Croatia, I don't know… it all depends…”, the fatter one says. And then I may ask, “but after all what's your speciality, what do you do in this “Atesh Circus”? “We are aerialists, trapeze artists… you know? the slimmer one says, “We open doors in the sky, actually windows, we bring the burning stars down and we take the illuminated ones up… that's it… my name is Mona and you, we still don´t know your name… “Xavier” I say and then “Doroteia, encahantê!” says the chubby one, stretching her arm with a limp hand on the end, as an invitation. And so, after some massages they apply in my body, using martial arts techniques, I guess, I'm now able to move, and as promised, there I go in the front cabin, I get to know the director and the co-director of this moving circus joke. So, almost there, now looking through the windscreen, I see we are driving on a secondary road by the sea, it should be the Adriatic sea, and by what the signboards are saying, I´m still not sure if we are in Slovenia or in Croatia already… so I present myself “Hello, I´m Xavier, thank you for your intervention yesterday but, where are we going?”, “Hello Xavier, I´m Bruno, just a clown like you here, I don't know where we are going, but ask this one here, because this one yes, he is the panjandrum, if you getting me…” says the  truck driver, a young man with a big pendant in one of his ears and a scar that goes from one of his cheeks until the forehead… “Nice to see you asking questions, stranger…” finally says the so-said big boss, the bearded man on the side seat. “We are actually going to Analotia, do you know where it is?” he says while passing me the gorilla mask I was missing, and so, happy with this reencounter I try to take the mask out of his reach but, he's squeezing it too tightly, as if waiting for something, and then I say “Yes, I know where is Anatolia, I have been there a couple of times,  Anatolia is the western-most extension of continental Asia, it's the bigger part of Turkey and so, geographically, bounded by the Turkish Straits to the north-west, the Black Sea to the north, the Armenian Highlands to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west. Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus strait and the Dardanelles strait, and separates Anatolia from Thrace in the Balkan peninsula of Southeastern Europe. The word “Anatolia” derives from the Greek Anatolḗ, meaning "the East" and designating, from a Greek point of view, eastern regions in general, and also, the place where the sun rises, being “anatello” to rise up, in greek language”.