´óÏó´«Ã½

An excerpt out of my 2nd Pilgrimage book:

I finally made it to Bari on my first 'eight-day leave', the very last one in my platoon to get away. And after checking in at the large 8th Army Rest Camp on the shore of the Adriatic just north of the city, I scooted into town to have myself a look around. No ulterior motive crowded my mind, like maybe shacking up with one of the local signorinas, or getting pie-eyed drunk like a lot of guys did. No sir! Neither of these pursuits was for me, what with VD rampant in the big cities, and 'getting drunk' was not an activity I classed as being a good time. What I had in mind was to live it up a little by dining in a clean, cozy cafe where I wasn't likely to be served corned beef, the Argentine canned variety, and I’d eat from real china instead of mess-tins. And though I didn't relish the thoughts of picking up a dose of "you-know-what" I wasn't averse to lusting at the well-built and good-looking signorinas parading by. And there were plenty of them— enough of them to make a Minister lay his good book down.

Though the afternoon began in what I’d say was great style, with a steaming hot plate of spaghetti and tangy tomato and meat sauce, it gradually grew boring. After all, you can do only so much window-shopping, girl-gazing and people-watching when this activity begins to lose some of its appeal. To break the monotony I stopped in at a gelateria (ice-cream counter) where I got into a conversation with a Yank air force ground crew type. He, like me, didn't drink, smoke, swear, or frequent bordellos. In other words,we were not exactly what you'd call the daring and dashing Lotharios. Just a couple of ’squares’, that’s what we were.

The Yank had a couple of box-seat tickets to an ENSA concert showing at the famous Bari Opera House and he asked if I'd like to join him. l wasn't too sure of the situation, and I wasn't all that keen about plays, but I also didn't want to show the Yank what kind of an uncultured klutz I was. so I accepted his invitation. I never realized how many guys in the services—ours British—Yanks— Kiwis—and a few other nationalities went for what I called 'stuffed-shirt' entertainment. The place was packed to the rafters. From our box-seats on the second tier near the stage I had an ideal place from which to scan the audience on the floor below and in the boxes on both sides. I knew as soon as I looked around that the Yank and I were grossly out of our element. All I could see was the "high-priced help' occupying all of the most expensive seats in the house. And we were amongst them. Most of the occupants were British and American officers, Army and Air Force, none below the rank of Major. And most were in the company of strikingly attractive and fur-bedecked signorinas. It was my personal guess that these stunning ladies had to be either countesses, or the daughters, maybe even the wives of some of the Italian tycoons of industry, or else they were simply the most expensive prostitutes in town. Other officers were in escort with their counterparts of the Women's Division of the three Services.

The only other box-seat occupants, at least on our tier, without opposite gender escorts were five quite attractive New Zealand Nursing Sisters. They sat in the next box to us on our left, looking all prim and proper like the cultured young ladies they were. Most of the balance of the audience fell into the category of 'other ranks', only the odd few being lucky enough (?) to have picked themselves up one of the prettier local belles.

The play, "The Merry Widow", went along just fine and I actually found myself enjoying it. Of course the risque´ theme had a lot to do with the interest I showed. By today's moral standards the play would, no doubt, get the stamp of approval from a High-School PTA. Though there were a number of hilarious scenes, they couldn’t compare with what took place at intermission between the first and second act. When the lights came on, out came the smokes and in short order clouds of cigarette smoke rose, along with the normal buzz of conversation. Nothing unusual. And then far to the rear of the staid old Opera House, from the topmost tier of boxes, an uncouth officer pulled off a stunt more likely to happen at a high School basketball game. Whoever the culprit was, took a condom out of his pocket and without a trace of inhibition proceeded to blow it up to the grand and obscene four foot length. He then tied it and released it out into the smoky air where it began a slow descent toward the audience below. Though I didn’t see the expression on his face, I knew there had to be a wicked smile there.

The pale white balloon floated slowly downwards, unnoticed by most except those in the boxes. A bare titter of laughter broke through the high hum of conversation. On the whims of air currents the unspeakable object floated first in one direction, changed course and floated off in another. As it approached our tier level, the playgoers in the seats below finally caught sight of the bloated condom. Then it was as though someone had suddenly turned a radio on full volume just as an audience broke loose in uproarious laughter at a comedian's punch line. The fun was only beginning.

Hesitating for the briefest of moments directly in front of our box, the condom then slid sideways and came to rest indecently on the broad-topped railing in front of the nurses. Five confused, flustered, and red-faced Sisters tried without success to hide their embarrassment of the obscene thing practically staring them right in the eye. One, a little less sensitive of such things thrust her hand out to push the offensive beast over the edge. She thrust with such speed and deftness of movement and withdrew it with even greater speed you'd swear she’d poked her hand into a fire. The house went wild.

On her second thrust the condom fell over the edge and descended quickly. But this wasn’t the end of the laughter-provoking lighter-than-air flight. When it came down to audience level it was propelled upwards by a hundred upraised poking hands. Up and down it went all over the Opera House like the bouncing ball on the screen at a movie sing-a-long. And then it disappeared with a bang at the touch of someone's cigarette end. The laughter stopped abruptly like someone had turned off a switch, and for one brief half-minute the place was as silent as a mausoleum. And then as though on cue, everyone in that ornate old Opera House who had on his person a packet of 'Sheiks', had it out of his pocket. A minute later there must have been five-hundred blown-up condoms floating up an down in that smoky hall of culture, with at least 700 yipping and yiping servicemen flailing away at them like a bunch of kids. And the usual models of military decorum senior officers up in the boxes forgot their own dignity in the levity of the moment and down from the upper reaches came the inflated condoms by the dozens. Well sir! I thought I'd bust six guts laughing. I had so much fun in that quarter hour intermission I can't recall what the rest of the play was all about. Anyway it made for quite an unusual and fun-filled afternoon.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.