Handsome Freaks: The Breast of the Pyrenees Ch4-P1

ezravan (63)in #story • 8 years ago (edited)

Handsome Freaks Cover

"..Before that moment, he had seen her as almost the same size of himself, even as a giant sometimes, that loomed over him. He saw now, all that 'bigness,' was only her spirit. Her body seemed nearly used up.."

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Ch1-P1 | Ch1-P2 | Ch2-P1 | Ch2-P2 | Ch3-P1 | Ch3-P2 | Ch3-P3

This is an original STEEM series novel. If you like odd dramas about odd things, strangely funny and sad, freaks, bearded ladies, emotional pain of invisible boys–I'm writing this on steemit based on a short story I've written... enjoy. Resteem, UpVote & Follow @ezravan

Chapter 4 / Part 1

The Breast of the Pyrenees

The evening of Pio’s thirteen birthday (the year of accountability), his mother asked him to assist her on a trip to Spain for the week of 'a thousand celebrations'. She would need to take three times the soap and supplies that she usually carried, and said she needed his inhuman strength to transport the burdensome load.

That evening Pio opened the birdcage and set the pigeons free. He watched them scatter to different building rooftops and felt a certain freedom reveal in himself. He disassembled the cage and built a harness from the frame then took the wire mesh and formed two large baskets that hung from the edges of the harness. It fit over his shoulders like a yoke on an ox, and he practiced maneuvering it back and forth across the rooftop. He then filled the meshed bags with two suitcases of travel clothes and approximately three hundred pounds of Zola's Pig Fat Soap.

When Zola saw his contraption she clapped her wrinkled leather-warn hands and smiled in a manner of gayety completely outside of her repertoire of emotions, and praised him for being “such a creative boy.”

He was not accustomed to her use of kind words or wide full-mouth smiles. Not that he had never seen Zola’s softer nurturing side, he had, she was always smiling when she counted money and motherly when she bathed him and Piero–but not like this.

The little boy in him wanted to trust that this new softer side she was presenting was not a trick on his emotions but everything in him told him it was just that: a new level of manipulation. Though, It felt good for her to smile and to smile at him for what he had done. It made his 300-pound frame feel as light as the child he really was. Having no experience in responding to her kindness, he responded with an uncontrollable giggle.

When the kindness his mother continued throughout the train ride to Spain with her warm and her satisfied laughter, he believed it was real–a new frontier of his young adulthood. Soon, he forgot all the cruel tortures he had suffered at Zola's hand and abandoned himself to her new affection.

Zola told Pio many stories about herself on the long train ride to the festival. She reminisced the days her own mother and father were still alive; spending her mornings dancing through her Father’s vineyards, not having a burden in the world, unlike today she said, "where even happiness herself is a burden, for her equal counterpart is suffering. She will surely flee again and hurt you worse than you would have hurt without ever tasting her sweetness. Oh, Pio, I find life much simpler if I only deny her the residence inside me, then I know what to expect of life."

In the midst of her strong hands wildly waving telling the stories of her youth, Pio noticed something in her slim frame he had never noticed: that she was frail ...more frail than any woman he had remembered seeing.

Before that moment, he had seen her as almost the same size of himself, even as a giant sometimes, that loomed over him. He saw now, all that 'bigness,' was only her spirit. Her body seemed nearly used up. He felt suddenly protective of her as she spoke. Maybe he had misunderstood her all of these years, maybe the stress of having to care for a family losing their solidity and with only a bastard son still fully visible and him from the seed of a dirty Russian, he who ate her every florin in food, he who’s only friends the birds who ruin her beautiful courtyard with white shit–maybe he miss understood her hardness, maybe it was the only natural reaction possible with her lot in life. His thoughts were many, deep and pleasant on the train.

That night in the dinner car, Zola fed Pio like he had never been fed. He ate a fine meal of veal scaloppine and a side of spicy radish cream soup. Of course, the servings were very small as is the case with fine dining on a train and of course, Pio was still hungry after dinner. He felt no need to tell his mother that he was hungry after the fine meal but his stomach did. When it grumbled on the way back to their car, Zola reached into her purse immediately, placed a few francs in passing bellboy’s hand and asked him to bring one bushel of russet potatoes, boiled and mashed with butter and olive oil.

That night Pio slept well; fully satisfied. He dreamed of the Holy Mother, and he lay sucking at her breast. Her breast which was the very earth of man. He awoke and could see the great snowy mountains of the Pyrenees that separated France and Spain, they looked like the pure white breasts of the mother of God, "how blessed your breasts" he whispered in one breath.

When they arrived in Pamplona at 4 a.m the following morning, he hoisted the great supply bundles on his back and his mother led him through the small winding streets of Pamplona. As they walked in the cool morning, she would point out different areas in the town and told detailed histories of each building. It seemed every cross road had a story. She showed him the sign of the road on which she had met his Father (Zola reminded Pio that he was a bastard; that when she spoke of his Father, she spoke of the quiet man that walked through walls, not the Russian and the Gnostic). She had not called Elmo his father since he began to disappear, usually referring to him as 'Piero's Father', or sometimes: 'that damn quiet man'.
The road they met upon was called Sandrego.

To Be Continued...

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