The Taming of Frankie Carrozza

The Lost Kingdom

     'Goosey, goosey gander,
     Whither shall I wander?
     Upstairs and downstairs
     And in my lady's chamber.
     There I met an old man
     Who wouldn't say his prayers,
     So I took him by his left leg
     And threw him down the stairs.'

Unable to reverse and prohibited from moving further, they walked back into town to wait out the commotion and drink glasses of local cider outside the nearest tavern. Finally, having grown bored with the chaotic palaver he had caused, which resulted in a green tractor crashing sideward through a hedge, George hopped over a stile and into the fields rather nonchalantly as several scornful townsfolk shook clenched fists after him. When their path was dislodged, Charlie and the others hurried to make up for the time they'd lost by speeding through the green and beige roads of the Midlands. Shortly afterwards, they stopped again when Seraphina caused a furore inside her vehicle by popping halfway out of the window of the moving car to signal for them to pull over, throwing her arms out wide like the wings of a dove to embrace the sensational, seasonal thrill of it all.
     'Aren't you eating breakfast?' Charlie hopped up onto the dry-stone wall of the cobbled bridge and looked towards Frankie. 'I'm not much of an eater until noon myself.'
     'Why do you think I was late? I already had my porridge,' he replied, licking the paper of a hand-rolled cigarette. As he leant over the bridge and lit the rollie, he watched the others race rowdily towards the isolated cafe, much to the distress of the waitresses observing the stampeding animals approaching from inside. 'I've got a confession to make.'
     Oh, Hell! Charlie's heart sank pessimistically. Forcing himself to lift it up and slot it back into place like a clock on the wall, he asked, 'How many Hail Marys will this be worth?'
     'Do you remember the second detention you got? The one you had in the kitchens with me for not turning your essay in on time? We smoked a spliff and knocked rubbish into a bin.'
     'Yes,' he answered hesitantly. 'I remember—or, rather, I remembered fondly.'
     'You still will—or so I hope. Well, there's something I never told you about before.' Inhaling deep on his cigarette, he refused to look at Charlie and focused all of his attention on rolling another spliff for Ciarán Quinn as he spoke instead. 'I'd been given detention for refusing to hand in my work, do you recall? Well ... er ... I ... I discovered what work you had to have completed for that day by interrogating a few classmates of yours. When I'd given him the signal by using a few choice words rather loudly, I then had a first-year boy sneak it out of your bag when you weren't looking so that you'd be forced to join me.'
     Charlie gaped at him, vaguely remembering the first-year boy who'd bumped into him, one who wore his mischievous smirk like a badge to signify his affiliation to Carrozza. 'You didn't!'
     'I did,' Frankie admitted casually as the tip of his tongue wetted the edge of the paper again. 'I found myself wanting to see you again and I didn't have the patience to wait for divine intervention to link our orbits together another time. Who knows when that might have been? Years, for all we know! I'd barely seen you about Eton since you attended as it is, so I decided to bring you to me—'
     'I'd returned to my bedroom that evening to find my essay at the foot of my door as if someone had ... slid it under!' Charlie realised aloud. 'Is this what we've resorted to, when all the gesticulations we have are only schoolyard ruffian romanticisms?'
     'So, you're not upset? Images of you being ridiculously cross with me have been playing on my conscience something terrible since—many a sleepless night had.' Frankie grinned to make him understand that it hadn't been too daunting a secret to bear.
     'Divine intervention, my arse!' Charlie laughed. Picking at the lichen underneath, he said quietly, 'Despite the extra work I had to complete on top, I'm awfully glad you did do it. You were right when you asked who knows when or if we'd have met again without a bit of intervening, you sneaky bastard.'
     Their smiles turned into laughs that then developed into the ugliest faces they could make, all scrunched expressions and lolling tongues, before Frankie gripped him by the material of his jumper and dangled him over the brook below, ignoring his shrieks and nervous titters.
     When Seraphina Rose approached them, Frankie handed her the immaculate spliff and she exchanged it for a Beef Wellington. Her eyes swung between them like two synchronised pendulums. 'I'm sure you'll find something Grecian to do along the way, cousin, that'll leave you rather ravenous.'
     Frankie took a bite out of the pastry and watched her race Quinn to the front seat. 'You told them, didn't you? About us, I mean.'
     Charlie winced guiltily. 'I'm sorry, but they're my friends: if I didn't tell them, I'd be even sorrier; there would be an upheaval as violent as the Boxer Rebellion. I didn't so much as tell them, so much as they wrenched it out of me like torturers for the Iraqi Republican Guard—alright, that's a downright lie. But they'd already smelled a rat from our forging this sudden ... friendship, so they really wouldn't have needed me to confirm it the farther we head into this thing together, anyway—whatever this thing is. They're a pair of highly observant individuals—which is why you must never cock-up a word around them, or they'll pounce upon it like lions on a gazelle. What is this thing between us—'
     Frankie raised a hand to cut him off abruptly. 'I'm not mad or annoyed at all, Charlie. I knew you would eventually, so I was just curious as to when you would have.'
     'Oh! Right away, of course.' Charlie laughed.
     'Chuckling Charlie Chance, wherever I happen to glance! Oh, how we'd like to see him dance right down into his pants!' Frankie sang, throwing his leg over the scooter and making the engine growl. 'I'm never quite certain if my boys know about my ... dalliances; I tend to practically rub it in faces, so I highly doubt they don't. If so, then it has always been an unspoken agreement to leave it unmentioned. But never worry; if they suspect that you're a special friend, I don't expect them to act hostile towards you. I won't allow it.'
     'That doesn't ease my worries at all. Not everybody thinks like you, Frankie—nobody thinks like you, actually.' Charlie got up behind him onto the seat. With his hand plunged through his fringe, he swiftly pressed his mouth to the nape of Carrozza's neck as gently as a landing butterfly.
     The corner of Frankie's lip tugged into half a grin. 'Did I ever tell you that I was a distance relative to Percy Fawcett?'
     'No,' Charlie said, sweeping hair out of his eyes. 'And who may that be?'
     'Lt. Colonel Percival Harrison Fawcett was a British surveyor from Devon, England.' Frankie put his foot down and they took off, racing after the others. 'In 1925, Fawcett, along with his eldest son Jack, vanished under unknown circumstances during an expedition funded by a London-based group of financiers called The Glove. Having studied local wildlife, archeology, legends, and historical records in South America on either side of his time in the war as an artillery officer, Fawcett became obsessed with finding an indigenous city that he called "the Lost City of Z". Based on early histories of South America and his own explorations of the Amazon River region, Percy was convinced that the complex civilisation dwelled secretly in the uncharted jungles of the Mato Grosso state of Brazil, and that isolated ruins may have survived.'
     'Well, if only we could truly inherit from our ancestors'—Charlie smiled into his shoulder, the shirt warm against his mouth—'we'd all know some sense of peace, perhaps.'
     'You're awfully toothy for a lippy lad!' Frankie howled as he freewheeled them down a hill. 'I often wonder if Percival ever found the Lost City of Z, if he discovered a paradisal and other-worldly civilisation like Atlantis under the sea, but hidden in the jungles instead. Or if he and his son and his crew were either brutally murdered—and possibly ate—by a savage tribe of Indians, lost their way in the labyrinthine tropical forest and died of starvation, succumbed to the natural dangers of foreign botany, or fell into peril with the beasts of the wild—which, sadly, seems the more likelier outcomes. However, the knowledge of their fates (and demises) are as lost to us as the nation and notion of Z. Despite there being many theories contrived, we may never find a tooth of proof. With the advancements made in technology, the world is but all discovered to us—well, almost. We find no need for the reconnoiter anymore. Explorers still exist, yes, but not adventurers. Yet, mysteries remain—the unsolved mystery of Percy Fawcett, for one.'
     'The Bermuda Triangle, another,' Charlie commented.
     'And the fate of the Ark of the Covenant—another one to add to the list,' Frankie retaliated.
     'What's that one?'
     'In 587 B.C., a Babylonian army, under King Nebuchadnezzar II, conquered Jerusalem, sacking the city and destroying the First Temple, a building used by the Jewish people to worship God. The First Temple contained the Ark of the Covenant, which carried tablets recording the Ten Commandments.' Frankie slowed the scooter to be heard over the engine. 'The fate of the Ark is unclear. Ancient sources indicate that the ark was either carried back to Babylon or hidden before the city was captured. It's also possible that the ark was destroyed during the city's sacking. In any event, the ark's location is unknown. Since the disappearance, a number of stories and legends about the ark's fate have been told. One story suggests the ark eventually made its way to Ethiopia, where it is kept today. Another story says the ark was divinely hidden and will not appear until a messiah arrives.'
     'Cool! The identity of Jack the Ripper is another one, too.'
     'An ancestor of Trevor Hamilton's, no doubt,' murmured Frankie. Charlie could almost hear his eyebrows shrugging. 'For years, I've had the most vivid and most reoccurring dream: I set out on my own odyssey to Brazil in search of the Lost City of Z. After months of travelling, I find Percy Fawcett in a remote realm kept hidden in those Brazilian Jungles, where I discover that the man has been rewarded with prolonged life for ending his quest. Surrounded by monolithic temples, exotic birds, and neon plants that I have no name for, we sit down and have a conversation.'
     'I, for one, truly believe these ancient civilisations, lost cities, and hidden kingdoms still exist in spectacular secrecy and in a stupendous fashion,' Charlie replied as the engine began to drown him out. 'But perhaps most of them aren't shrouded by vines, smothered in dog roses, or submerged underwater. Just maybe most of them aren't too far to find at all if you know where to look and who to take. Although I'm sometimes overwhelmed by how many souls shine in the world, surely too many for Heaven to keep an account of, the world is also so very vast, and humans, with our cowardice and lack of imagination—aside from that slither to survive leaving childhood behind—we are much too small to wander it all. There exists, out there somewhere still, a big secret such as that—or one even nearer and smaller, perhaps. I can feel it: a lost paradisiacal kingdom, where love dares speak its name.'