Alfredo! Alfredo!

I hate to brag, but my record clearly exhibits that no prison can hold old Tonto. Not too long ago, I was doing time in the Ucciardone prison in Palermo, for a crime that the judge would only described as a form of loan sharking and protection. As far as I am concerned—it was frame job. Yet when I sang “De' miei bollenti spiriti,” from La Traviata at the yearly inmate talent show, the warden was so moved by my performance he simply handed me the keys to the front gate and said “Bella, Tonto siete i migliori.”

Refractive Index

Tonto was absolutely positive that his invisibility was a physical condition, and not something in my head. I certainly had not been hiding in a cave, living underground and stealing electricity from the Monopolated Light & Power Company and listening to Louis Armstrong records day and night. Perhaps this is why no body recognized me or had ever even heard of me, although in dark glasses, several other writers mistook me for someone named Rinehart. Things got a little dicey when I quickly ran out of money, and displayed my violent temper in the lounge. Worse still, the hotel security seemed to think that I was some kind of chemist because I had filled my room with messy chemicals, test tubes, beakers and the like. What the portable lab was for, I have no comment on advisement of my attorney. But by the end of the writer’s conference, I realized that I needed to stick to my guns: to honor my individual complexity and remain true to my own anonymity.

"Every Village Has One, Ladies and Gentlemen!"

Tonto’s old buddy, Reverend Stiggins, did not fare well after heckling the clowns in the touring circus, during their performance of the “Unicycle and Rubbish Can” routine. They did not appreciate that Nathaniel’s sense of humor was based on his unique perception of universal characteristics, like absurdity, incongruity, and emotional chaos. What these clowns had in mind, was more along the lines of the physiological, where the comedy involved exaggerated physical violence and a skit which exceeded the boundaries of common sense. The crowd went mad.

To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

As an inquisitive youth, I found that my two revolutionary theories could possibly win me both our school’s Science Fair AND help me get to second base with Mary Lou Pinsky. First, there was my general equation for the Electrostatic Repulsion Force between two charged objects that are point sources or spherical in shape. This could help demonstrate that nuclear stability exists when the nucleus has the proper proportion of neutrons to protons. And second, was that if I made an impression on Mary Lou by demonstrating a unique skill, talent or something difficult to do, she would know that I exist. As for actually reaching second base, I’m saving that for my biography.

Fear and Apprehension on the Part of a Wild Animal, Once Removed, Can Lead to a Total Disregard of any Being they Don't Respect.

Training toy poodles proved to be a far greater challenge than Tonto had signed up for. At first, I just assumed them to be cuddly little cutie pies, but quickly they displayed their truer instincts—those of the vicious beast. Since I had no fondness for bleeding and open wounds, I had to develop sufficient trust for them to approach me. These poodles were certainly viewing me as food (trust me, I could tell). I then took the tact of offering emotional enrichment, to gain their trust. It seemed to do the trick, at least for awhile, until they started to become upset, agitated, and anxious. The attack was not a pretty picture, but in retrospect the experience reinforced the feeling that I am alive and living, not just alive. There’s a big difference. Let’s just say I chalked this one up to experience-- no books or classrooms for this wild man.

Wovoka as the Christ

Tonto mistakenly thought that he had come upon a revival of the Ghost Dance, not too long ago when attending a Grateful Dead concert. Being truly inspired that I had discovered a sect who believed that a great new Indian Messiah had come to liberate them from the scourge of white people, I wished them well for the apocalypse they were summoning, during which time the earth would be destroyed, only to be recreated with their tribe as the inheritors of the new earth. I was certain of my anthropological find, because these dancers seemed to be engaged in the ceremonial cleansing, which was a form of meditation and prayer, which included chanting, and most importantly, dancing the Ghost Dance. I am sure that you can understand my confusion, when they stopped their dance and said to me, “Dude, you the fuzz or what?” All I could say back was, “Mellow Out. Hey, is that China Cat Sunflower?”

Thar She Blows

“A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.” It was thoughts like this that plagued Ahab when he realized how hard it was to articulate where exactly the line between camaraderie and romance was drawn. The social and homoerotic bonds between men were never more confusing to him until the season had come to an end. After realizing his single-minded obsession with the white whale was only a metaphor or sexual symbol for something completely different than what he had thought, was he able to realize the valuable lesson that sanity can only consist of moderation and the relinquishing of guilt. This could not have been more poignant than when he came to blows with Ishmael over their mutual man crush for Queequeg.