Frenky Banana: A Man of Many Turns

This weekend, I set out for Perugia with two new friends, architecture students Emily Parker and Virginia Boyd. Perugia is north of Rome, about three hours by train, in Umbria. Built into a hillside, no street goes straight: all streets double back on themselves, making little headway up the elevation.

There's an overabundance of churches in Perugia. Pick your patron saint and go.

Dynamite chocolate. Clean empty hostel. Nice old man.

I even had good roommates. Peter and Phil were Austrailians moving from Europe bottom to top with their girlfriends. Phil, a devout Catholic, gave me a little spiel on relics. Today they hold mostly a symbolic position, he said.

But, most certainly, the highlight of the small trip (and quite possibly crown jewel of Europe; the jury's out) was our dinner. We ate at a small restaurant in the wall of a narrow side street called Vecchia Perugia, in Italian, or Old Perugia, in the language civilization and justice.

We were met outside with cries of "My friends, my friends!" from an old man in pin stripes and red. The pin stripes were from his suit; the red was from everything else: his vest, his shirt, his scarf. As he ushered us inside, on the walls were pictures of him in the exact same clothing: in the newspaper, at a jazz festival, with Don King. This was Frenky Banana.

Pronounced Frankie, Frenky Banana (for with him, both names must always be used) is a seventy-two (72) year old man who sang his handwritten menu to us, to the tune of James Taylor song(s) (I'm not sure if he used more than one tune; he was that good of a singer). He instantly recognized us for Americans, and started calling the girls "My Love" and I "Schwartzenegger." I'm not exactly sure how he made that last jump of logic, but I think he sensed my confusion, and in order to clear up what was muddled, boldly shouted "Viva La France!" He then sat at the table next to us and read the newspaper while we ate, alone in the restaurant.

I'm not really sure how to end this. It's impossible to relate his Don King impression, or his stories about Las Vegas. I can only say that at the end, when we took a picture with him, right before the photographer pulled the trigger he managed to get off a face more awkward than any I have ever put on. That is what earns my respect.