Saint Enrico: Dwarven Acrobat and Chicken Sexer

    Well.... I was coming back from the surf a few weeks ago and this fellow was out on the lawn across the road - doing somersaults.

   He saw me pull up, flipped himself onto his feet like an agile leipreachán and came across to the car. He walked on the gravel a little oddly, as if he'd sprained his ankle. But after a moment I realised one of his legs was a little shorter than the other - so he limped from the pelvis.

   He stopped three feet from the car and smiled. What few teeth he had were dirty yellow - like old ivory. And his broken nose looked like a back street plastic surgeon's rebuild. 

  He eyed me up and down, looked at the bald tyres of my four wheel drive... then shook his head sadly. His right eye wobbled a little and I saw that it was false, and pointed towards his nose more than it should.

   The glass eye gave him away; finally I recognised him.

  It was Enrico Bastardi Santa Ferdinardi, the little Basque chicken sexer who'd come to see me at my offices the previous week (chicken sexing is very hard on the eyes).

  He wasn't really a dwarf of course, he was merely very, very short.

  He, his three children and his mother had moved from the Basque region of Europe eighteen months before, and, he explained in his twisted English, that they had secured 'apartment 2' in the block of flats opposite...." à l'extrémité du couloir..."
 I followed his pointing finger to the neighbourhood eyesore. Victory Flats they were called, like something out of Orwell's 1984, all broken windows and crumbly grey brick coated in granulated salt from the seaside breezes.....

   Enrico had an interesting face I decided, and would be good for my illustration work. So I hired him for a few short sessions. The going rate is $47 an hour - draped or non draped, so we settled on $46, as long as he kept his clothes on - which suits me down to the ground thank-you-very-much.

    It also turned out he been the leader of a Dwarven Group of Female Acrobat Impersonators back home in Europe, and insisted he pose for me doing one of his favorite skits. (see the daguerreotype like pic at bottom right.) He also posed for this circus poster, which was quite difficult as you can imagine.

   Tommorow I might hire him for a few hours. I need someone for the "man who isn't there..." You know: 'he wasn't there again today, I wish that man would go away' '.....

 

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