The strawberry man was eighty-four. Every morning his Chesterfield chant was heard above the clatter of his cart on the cobblestones. His donkey ambled down Pride Street to McGee and Gibbon. His strawberry travels were part of the daily rhythms of the neighborhood. His jingle was the music of the day, and his wailing serenade through the dew was a sign to the neighborhood that they belonged in this place.

This was the morning of his death, when his broken strawberry chant shattered the April dawn. His fractured wail was his last morning interlude, and closed his life. The sound of his body hitting the cobblestones was the call that suspended commerce and tranquility that day. His motionless silhouette against the cold gray Belgian block made sense in the neighborhood that morning, and a perfect and final conversation was initiated between the stilled strawberry body and the lifeless stone, that attracted the snooping voyeurs. The locals buzzed around the scene, like foreigners in a strange land trying to understand a culture they did not want to appreciate, and whose language they did not recognize. Their eyebrow wonder and spectator perspective were exactly where they wanted to be. Everyone who was brought up in this rocky neighborhood knew that you do not touch what you do not know. Death provided them with the comfort of ignorance. When you eat your strawberries here you remain grateful, and do not question the uncomfortable queries of the eternal.

Two men roam the old man’s kitchen. They are the strawberry sons. In the spirit and time of death they are appropriate and predictable. The units of measurement that day were furrowed brows, mumbling half sentences, and uncomfortable pacing in the kitchen. The smell of masculinity and grief is stifling. One had come from his job at NYU.., a teacher. You know how they are... Honorable, yet ambitious with their lesson plans. Not unlike Caesar, crossing the Rubicon without respect, and home for death again. He was not like the strawberry man. The family reviled his attempts to adjust. It was true that no one could understand the cobblestones, but they were the footprints of the neighborhood, and it was easy to see that he was uncomfortable walking on them. He had abandoned the family for a corduroy sports coat with those stupid fake suede patches. The bystanders understood his motives, and were offended with the strangeness of his manner. They resented him and his intrusive ways. There was no allowance in the cobblestones that measured the pain of a professional home for death.

The other son was a pudgy little dog in a cheap brown suit that might have fit one day. He was unevenly shaved, and his part looked like a back road in a map. He also had one of those clip-on bow ties that little kids wear. Women in the neighborhood would say that they trusted one man to teach the kids, and the other to play with them, but not to do both.

There was an old man sitting at the table, sipping anisette. He looked peaceful, almost happy. He had the knowledge of strawberries and cobblestones in his eyes. It was the moment after the funeral, the pain, the tribulation, and the amenities. It was the moment when people asked themselves what they are going to do with their feelings, with his house. It was the moment when life is evaluated and divided, like strawberries in little green baskets. Each son’s eyes burn silently into the other. “Why is this man dead?” And they immediately blister back, “Where were you when I needed you?” The indictment of life is in the air. The blazing sorrow smolders strawberry hearts in an instinctive catharsis. They radiate to the realization that the strawberry man is dead, but the strawberries kept growing. The strawberry man had died, but the strawberries didn’t stop. The teacher thought it advisable they stop. The one who played with the neighborhood children thought it would be a nice, considerate thing. They did not know that the strawberries will stop. They’ll stop when they are ready.

By Giulio Magrini

From: United States

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