La Virgin

This is a few pages of a potential fiction novel I have been working on; An inspired act of ‘mundane’ blew poor Zio off his feet into a stadium of divinity lit by a thousand—125-candle foot—Fresnel lenses. Straight out of a William Blake’s doodle, the uncle found himself engulfed by flames of immortality, embraced to a deity with special spiked lights emanating out of a head, surrounded by wild flowing grey hair and a brilliant white beard. Moments before the farmer was spreading manure throughout the family’s lemon grove, nothing on his mind except the risotto and baked cauliflower waiting patiently for him at the barn; his lunch. Now, bear hugged by a god, his spine bent backwards, arms outstretched helpless, Zio is eyeball to eyeball with a catechistic creature, creditable only to those insane artists who display the gods of humankind as demented fiends. Estachio, a ‘paese signore’, is a man who comes down out of the hills of Sicily on Sunday mornings to sit at the church’s ‘cortile’ with the other two cronies in the village and call it good. They keep surveillance as the lambs of god corral in front of the mission. To get into the church parishioners have to get along past three sets of eyes: nothing is under the radar, everything is securitized; smoking hand rolled ‘sigari’ (the stench of which doesn’t seem to bother anybody) the ‘vecchi’ chew the tobacco’s ends to pulp ribbons, they talk to each other under their breath and pass sentence like godfathers. Every week Padre Aleotti, the ‘sacerdote’ of this ‘polverosi chiesa’ complains to the trio: “You should come inside and honor your God, and a few ‘monete’ in the ‘paniere’ won’t kill you ether.” However, that would be as far as that went. Back on the fifty-yard line, god’s rep busied himself blowing smoke down the uncle’s throat. The vapor contained the message from on high and a list of instructions to follow—Zio had little choice but to endure the embrace and inhale the abracadabra… (What did you think that all blessed visitations are virtuous, full of Saints with wings made of heaven-cloud—spun to silver? Instant trips to the tops of mountains to view the empire, did you expect a clear-cut view of sacred love? Did you expect the miracle was going to be easy? Relax. The alien was just having a little fun…) “A daughter will be born into thou’s mists, a special one picked by the holy of holies; with which all things are possible. Go forth thee then, my brethren and herald these tidings to those who will receive her. Heedith the name the almighty has given to the child, for she is chosen to be a bride of Christ. The fires of hell await thee if thou refuse the command of god, now leave and do what thoust been told.” With that, zapped back from god’s arena, away from the French-kissing broker, Estachio felt the fur of bad breathed angelic vapors lingering in his mouth. Filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with graphic sensation—his body clutched against a physical spirit—and filled with dirty feelings of violations, Zio was filled with terror. The farmer left his manure, headed for the wine caves, then, straight away to church. Parked low in the front pew, almost to his knees, bullet beads of sweat met at chin’s end causing puddles to form at the crotch. The farmer prayed his ass off— well, okay, that’s a stretch—begging is more to the point; a lot of ‘please god don’ts’ and ‘holy shits, and why me’s’ and ‘ohhh fuck’ was going on. Zio did throw in a couple of supplications: he prayed his cronies would not find him inside, next a prayer for the horrible death of Vencunzo who skipped out when Terresa needed him most. At the end, he gave thanks to Saint Barth—our patron of good booze for showing a mere mortal, like himself, a way into the second bottle of the estates’ vintage. “This isn’t so bad.” Zio mused after a while “I can do this.” Analgesic claret messaged his brain of haze—visibility zero. “All I gotta do is go to the farm and tell her what god wants, that’s not bad, Terresa’s a smart girl, she can figure out the rest.” It went on like this for a while: begging, denial/begging, denial. Aleotti entered the mission from one of the side naves, when the priest recognized

who was partitioning at the altar of Christ immediate ‘preghiere’ spewed from the priest’s mouth; other prayers of less mercy articulated alarm when the priest noticed the farmer take a pull from the wine bottle hidden by his side. The puddle widened. Zio interrupted his agony to relieve himself out back, marking a section of the lower wall much darker than the rest of the church the priest spied this blasphemous act through stain colored mosaic glass: Estachio had seven heads, ten hands, and twenty penises. Finished, our country boy buttoned up and started weaving in a general direction towards the farm, in accord with the fright-filled instructions he was petrified not to follow. Padre Aleotti quickly made the sign of the cross over his heart, as Zio’s shadow disappeared, many, many times at once. Anastasia Terresa’s ‘Madre’ and acting ‘meta` moglie’ finished cleaning the ‘bambina’ and returned the swaddled bundle to her mother’s side. Fifteen hours of ordeal passed as the two women did their best to bring another into the world. Now, Terresa at rest, grateful the emergency—panic pain—of birth, abandoned to a dull, after the fight throb. “Mia Madre, sit with me. You’re always so busy, you’re driving me nuts.” “Non e` assurdo Terresa, you need someone to take care of you. Not you’re Vencunzo. That ‘abbandonati’.” Anastasia crossed over to the bed with a cup of tea, she had earlier picked fresh chamomile and some basil filling the air fragrant in the room, she noticed the ‘maccu’ soup had not been touched. “Why you don’t eat Terresa, you must be strong for this girl; the ‘zuppa’ is good.” Terresa sensed another contraction coming on—a wispy feeling before the promise of more pain. She passed the placenta easy enough and tried to settle back down but the old anger quickened the catfight inside her stomach…Jimmy’s name. The new mother’s instincts, proven correct, believed having the child at the farm, a bad idea. She had no money for a hospital over in Palermo, in fact the trap, laid bare, is easy to read; her family of two is entirely dependent on her folks. Terresa has no one else. With Vencunzo gone all the mother can do is hold her added daughter to her breast and worry about the future. To point the fault at Anastasia or Abramo, however, left out secret directions to the real kicker. The farmers are good basic people who have done what Sicilians have done for hundreds of years; survive. The daughter and the newborn will do the same. Another set of tears waited behind her eyes and Terresa wondered, for the thousandth time, about him. “Leave me alone e` vecchia, I just had a baby,” “Si, and now you expelled the ‘torta’, you will be hungry.” Anastasia ignored her daughter “I am making nice ‘capretto ripien’ with herbs the way you like and Abramo brought in the ‘nduja’ last night, the ‘pane’ is almost done.” “When is Abramo getting home? He will eat your food.” “My husband hurries to know that he is a grandfather from his insolent daughter” Anastasia got ready to leave “he will appreciate a name so he can address his granddaughter properly.” The door closed firmly behind her. When the door opened again, Terresa, still holding her little girl, was halfasleep in and out of dreams. The mother swore Jimmy stood in uniform before her— some kind of gift under one arm. His eyes began to weep, a plea for forgiveness spilled from the authentic husband’s mouth; ‘uno devozionale marito’, the right and true man Terresa loved and understood, had come back. Something shook her head out of the fog, however, and she found herself face to face with Uncle Zio: standing there overweight and unsteady, holding up the frame of the opening. Panic spread across his face when he focused on the shape of a baby in her mother’s arms. “I am too late.” The uncle ranted to the ceiling as if god stood next to him. Terresa heard Anastasia coming up behind her Uncle as Zio bulldozed his way to the side of the bed to get a closer look. Anastasia flew into the room, “Get away you ‘barstardo’ you make me sick I can

smell you from here, you and your ‘alcol’.” The Mid-wife found her broom in the corner and advanced towards the hulk intending bodily harm in a no nonsense attack. “Anastasia Please, ‘per amore di Dio’, put that thing away there is ‘importanti novita’ for my niece here.” Zio’s sister let up on the offensive but kept the broom in her hands. “What do you want Zio” Terresa asked, snapping back to a world without Jimmy. “God gave me your baby’s name. I am here to give you this.” The Uncle grew more confident as he realized the bundle was a little girl. “I’m telling you I was visited by a being who took me to this place where there was nothing but bright lights in the sky. He kept hugging me and would not let me go; that’s when he gave me the message, and the name god chose for her.” “Lo sapevo, I knew it, you wouldn’t recognize the inside of a church if it fell on you, get out of here Zio…I’m warning you.” Anastasia again made her way towards her brother when Terresa interrupted. “No. Let him tell us” “I swear on my mother’s grave this is true sister“ “Your mother is not in a grave yet, why are you such a lunatic?” (Benedetta sits in her room all day with a view of the vineyards, last count the woman was one hundred and four.) Zio, filled with pride, took a few struts around the room as he raised his head, threw back his shoulders, he expanded his lungs and announced “La Vergine Maria Francesca!” The uncle stood triumphant. “Gesu, Maria e Giuseppe,” Anastasia said low, under her breath, the broom stick came up fast as she angled the swing and cuffed her brother behind the right ear, ripping the lower orb. The blood flowed freely from the wound turning his blue flannel shirt into a shadow, stained at the shoulder. “Jesus Anastasia,” Terresa huddled her infant closer to her body, “watch out what you’re doing.” “Gesu` Christo” Zio bellowed in pain “you fuck.” Anastasia stood ready to give her brother another blow and threatened to do so if he didn’t leave. “With a family like you, she would not be a virgin for long hey Zio? Why don’t you go home ‘fratello’, and sleep this one off.” Zio stumbled past his sister, back into the courtyard, holding the pieces of his ear together. Once pass the lethal radius of the broom, the brother turned back around. “By the angles in heaven I swear to you, Terresa, this name came to me from god. The message is your child’s been chosen; she is ‘touched’ by the Holy Spirit; she will not be normal. Don’t let this old woman here turn you away from God’s command.” The broom came around again, but this time the uncle was ready and snatched the sweeper in mid air. He took the thing away from his sister, snapped it in two over one knee, and threw it on the ground. At the gate, the uncle passed Abramo coming home “What happened to your ear Zio, you fall?” “Nothing that won’t heal Abramo, but if Terresa doesn’t take the name God gave her for her child my heart will fester until I die, you will see soon enough, our lives are going to change” “Buon Signore.” Abramo stood casual in front of his relative—a lifetime farmer from deep in the hills of Sicily—not much surprised him. “What name?” Zio did not pump his chest this time, no strutting, no arm rising and he did a quick search for anything like a weapon in Abramo’s hands. “La Vergine Maria Francesco” the uncle said careful, haunted by the sting of the broomstick. Abramo stood saying nothing. A flicker shot through his eyes barely noticeable in the dark, the gaucho left his brother-in-law patting his shoulder, “Take care of that ear.” Anastasia went nuts for hours furious over her brother. Abramo did what he could to calm his wife but when she is like this, you either have to listen to it or shoot the woman.

Terresa watched her baby girl for signs of what the uncle was talking about, she thought about the name and thought about the life of a virgin, touched by god. You are not a true Sicilian if you have never heard about those cursed little girls who run around healing people. Abramo came in to see the baby, and asked if she seriously considered branding a girl like that. “I don’t know papa`, I don’t think of the title as a brand; my little girl could very well be a virgin throughout her life, that’s not so bad, is it?” The daughter kept looking at her father for a sign, any sign saying she was not crazy. “Suppose Zio is right, maybe I should follow god’s directions.” “And James, how do you think he will react?” “I know papa`, I know. Nothing I can do about that now…Jimmy will honor my decision if and when he ever gets back here.” “So you have decided.” Abramo said; not a question. “Yes…I guess I have. Terresa relaxed on the bed relieved and then shot back up, fear looting her face “How do I tell mia madre? Tell me papa`, how do I do that.” “You don’t, ‘il mio piccolo’. Abramo took her hand and squeezed gently. I will commit to your decision—La Vergine Maria Francesca it is…I will tell her later. NEW CHAPTER Virginity and sainthood lived side by side according to the Catholic Church. A millennium’s worth of cases: the first time a girl told an old man to ‘vaffanculo, si suino’, to litany of consecrated women, closing the gates, leaving the copulating world behind and devoting themselves to God, the handy-work of the Almighty received mixed reviews. In Italy, however, where cornucopias of innocents fill encyclopedias to the ceiling, the prime mover was batting a thousand. Any skirt in the village cries ‘scelto uno’ and the phones at the offices of the Holy Catholic Church in Rome ring off the hook. Fantastic stories of divine intervention, instant faith conversion—healings and stigmata, keep the peasantry on their idolized knees. The country brimmed Virgins: seers and mystics crowded the convents, The Virgin Mary Mother of God (a best seller) showed up everywhere blessing the adorned heads of these ‘fixed little girls’. When it came around to Sicily, not to be undone, the tally rivaled its northern neighbor. A Sicilian Queen from the twelfth century bore a daughter who died at the age of two; God fingered the baby to rise from the dead, Saint Iollna of Aragona came back from the grave alive, to heal the sick and care for the insane. Palermo boasted Adelaide: a twelve year old who talked openly with Christ while walking the streets, she had a bad habit of floating in air sneaking up on people. Adeliza de Boramo, a Sicilian murderess from Safferana Etnea, Southeast of the volcano, disposed of her lovers (and their sperm) on the morning after. One little guy got through however and when the child was born the mid-wife stole it away from sure death. Marozia grew to be a devotee of the Blessed Virgin. So strong was she in her faith that when she died (there is proof), her vagina was skinned over and had been that way for years. To name a virgin after a village or region, keeps the saint-to-be rooted to a location, this raises her profile and puts people and places on the religious map. Clare of Assisi for example (did some idolizing of her own taking care of the famous St. Francis of the same town) increased the consciousness of the women-folk to follow her man’s teachings and to accept poverty as the holiest thing. The whistle-stop of Assisi never objected to the self-inflicted paucity: the convents were full, the churches went up and the word went forth. Assisi grew rich from the monastic pinch. Tendencies of competing townships included jealousy, kidnappings, and a host of unholy—if our girl was the real thing. Battle lines were a matter of pride when a Virgin, with a couple of visions under her belt, needed the protection of the hood. The flesh and blood of the uncorrupt, always in danger of separation by the fools around her, spent most of the time under lock and key. Historians describe this time as canonical or ecclesiastic, spent in prayer—mendicant. However, a slice of real pie shows scraggly-toothed women, missing youth, most of their hair and half of their minds, banging their heads against a stall.

The Virgin Bona of Pisa, later canonized, kept having visions of Saint James the Greater leading her to the image of his brother Jesus. By her tenth year, she hooked up with the Augustians and journeyed to her father who was fighting in the crusades. The crossings were dangerous and Muslims pirates on the high seas of the Mediterranean captured her. These buccaneers, knowing who she was, stowed her away to the highest bidder. Coincidently the Knights of Saint James (a religious military order) rescued Bona and returned her to travel again. The saint later came on strong guiding pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela—from Italy to Spain—a thousand mile journey, to honor her saint. The knighthood cashed in with each trek and made her an honorary guide, but the god fathers of Pisa, so covetous of her fame, did a little ‘capture’ of their own and kept Bona cloistered until her death. She remains afloat in a Pentecostal embalmment up to this present day. You may visit the shocking small casket—glass exposing what is inside, an eerie backlight illuminates the smoke of Bona’s bones; a full skeleton lying at rest, her hands folded in peace, her feet of many miles tranquil in the blue liquid.