Robert Coover - Pinocchio in Venice

Or words, in his cross-eyed, thick-tongued, mouth-stuffed delirium, to that effect

"Ecco!" cries Francatrippa as the gondola strikes its dock, unseen till hit, and slides, bumping and scraping, into its berth. "We're here!"

"Where else," asks Buffetto impatiently, stepping onto the bobbing dock and reaching back to help with the portantina, "could we be?"

"Well, if I were here and you were there," replies Francatrippa, as the two of them lift him out, "and vice versa, then we'd be, both, both here and there, would we not?"

"And if I were here and you were there," pipes up Truffaldino, following them ashore, "and he were neither here nor there, then we'd all be both here and there and neither either, too!"

"Hrmff. And yet here is where we'd each still be for all that," insisted Buffetto. "Isn't that so, professore? But now come along, if you are to find the romance and adventure that you seek, we must find the guise for it. Am I right? Tonight's the night!"

Yes, so he believes, though twenty-four hours ago he would not have thought it possible. Nothing seemed possible then. His desire to go on living, guttering out, had dimmed to nothing more than the simple wish to be able to die in his bed at the palazzo beside his hot water bottle, and even that wish was more like the memory of a wish than the thing itself. Moreover, as he thought about that hot water bottle, there, surrounded by Count Agnello Ziani-Ziani Orseolo's raucous court with their drunken taunts and fountaining organs, dunce cap on his lowered head and condom on his nose, bereft, grieving, his manuscript pirated and his watch stolen for the second time, the realization slowly invaded his consciousness like a last lethal wounding that it was his hot water bottle, the snuggies, too, also his the bent spectacles, the half-empty bottle of pine-scented mouth-wash, and certain very grievous patterns began to emerge, not least the lifelong pattern of self-deception: he had known all along that was his own hot water bottle, there could not be two of them.

The procession had reached the Bocca di San Marco. Through the columns and beyond the temporary stands and stages built for Carnival, a vast assembly of the island's smart set and power elect could be seen congregated together in full regalia under the Clock Tower, prepared to receive the venerable Count Ziani-Ziani, now poised arm in arm with the Madonna of the Organs, his free hand tucked in his vest of crimson velvet ŕ la the builder of this final wing of Venice's so-called "open-air drawing room," his chin high and pointy gray beard fluttering in the gusty wind, his immense phallus held aloft with the help of little Truffaldino. On a cart being pulled along beside him, the Winged Lion snored drunkenly, a sign around his neck reading "THE GOOD SOVEREIGN." Il Zoppo, as Pulcinella and Lisetta were — or was — now called, stepped forward from the crowd and raised a horn to Lisetta's lips, prepared to lead the multitudes into the Piazza, and just at that moment he heard it again, as though in fulfillment of some grim brassy oracle: "Oh my Ga-ahd! Lookit this! What a lotta crazy lolly-pops! Ding- dong, man! It's like a — ffpupp! squit! — little girl's dream come true!"

The professor sank even deeper into his litter chair, wishing there were a hole in it he could fall right through. The American strutted, hips swaying, through the spellbound crowd in her fringed white boots and wet blue jeans, tweaking organs and peeking into empty eyeholes and slapping the smirking faces on bared behinds, cracking gum between her dazzling white teeth and blowing fleshy pink bubbles, hooting and wisecracking ("Hooboy, I love those little faces down there, fellas! Is that what you call — ssffPOPP! — 'masked balls' — ?!") and circling inevitably around to the cringing scholar in his portantina. "Hey, wow, prof! This is a surprise! What are you doing here — ?!"

"I — kaff! — it's not what — ! A-a monograph I'm working on…!" he stammered helplessly down between his knees, and felt his shameless nose bounce and waggle goofily in its latex wrapper.

"Jeepers, teach, that freaky rig is beautiful!" she exclaimed, clapping her gaudily ringed and bangled hands together. "I hadn't seen you as such a fun-loving guy!"

And then she did something quite extraordinary. She peeled the condom away, pulled it on over her wet blond curls like a shower cap, and, leaning over, her red windbreaker rustling between them like a whispered secret, gave his nose a tender lingering kiss, tonguing it at the tip and pinching it gently between her soft lips before letting it go. He felt for an alarming but exquisite moment that he might be going blind. "Yum!" she sighed, her breath warm on his ravaged cheek, then added: "But gee whillikers, prof, look how you're shivering! You must be freezing to death!" Cold was what he did not feel. But he could not argue. He could not speak. He could not even close his gaping jaw, but could only stare in stunned amazement as she tossed her windbreaker over his knees, stripped off the azure blue angora sweater, and, while blowing a huge rosy bubble, the only thing his bedazzled eyes could see, tucked the sweater around his chest and shoulders. Then she pulled the windbreaker on again, leaving it unzipped, and grabbed Francatrippa's grand candy-striped phallus away from him: "Hey, gimme that, man! Whoopee! I always did want one of these doodads!" She gave it a squeeze and a jet of milk spurted out the end of it, making those nearby duck and shriek. "Yipes! Whaddaya know! It even works! C'mon, gang! Let's go!"

And so, with condom-capped Bluebell in the vanguard, carrying her particolored phallus over her head like the troop ensign and switching her behind provocatively, they all paraded triumphantly on into the great open light of the Piazza, unloosing in those delicate symmeteries a mad cacophony of shouts and squeals, honkings and blarings and other rude noises: Count Agnello Ziani-Ziani Orseolo il Magnifico behind Bluebell with his long nose in the air, his much longer organ on little Truffaldino's shoulders, and his flouncing Madonna on his arm; the slumbering Lion on the wine cart alongside him, wearing his crumpled sign like a belled cat; the bearded Ladies' Marching Band, led by Il Zoppo blowing a trumpet out the flies of his/her white pantaloons; the old professor, sugarloaf-capped and shawled in blue and ported by Buffetto and Francatrippa in his litter chair, his astounded gaze locked helplessly on their bewitching bare-breasted standard-bearer; the Count's royal attendants with their inverted anatomies, dragging along the now much lighter barrels of wine; and finally the multitudinous throngs of zany and improbable creatures who had joined the procession along the way, Melampetta yipping and barking at the periphery, first on one side, then the other, like a sheepdog rounding up the drunken strays. At the far end of the square, the awaiting dignitaries arose en masse, either in homage to the visiting Count or else aghast at the apparition descending upon them through the Mouth of the Piazza, while overhead the terrified pigeons, displaced by the clamorous invasion, let their frantic droppings fall upon the Piazza like confetti.

They emerge now from a narrow passageway so tight they have been scraping the walls into a campo too broad and thick with fog to make out its shape or exits. "Which way now?" asks Truffaldino tremulously as the other two set the professor down. "I'm afraid — !"

"Don't be stupid! That way, of course!" reply Francatrippa and Buffetto more or less in chorus, one pointing to the left, the other to the right. Glancing at each other, they quickly switch directions, pointing at each other, then switch back again, and Truffaldino bawls: "Help! We're lost!"