Ernesto Borelli: An Ancient Hero?
I admit I spent a few moments wrestling with the title to this piece. I abhor clickbait, and admire honest, pellucid titles. Yet I had to opt for the tired ‘Title: A Subtitle’ format to avoid a Rousseauian construction like ‘Ernesto Borelli, or the Captivating Likeness of a Legendary Sumerian Minotaur.’ Or something. Anyway, I digress.
This story concerns my good friend, Ernesto Borelli, who often writes here for Il Macchiato and elsewhere under the preposterous pseudonym Michael (Angelo) Caldstone (it’s also been brought to my attention that he’s currently employed, under this laughable Victorian nom de guerre, by some sort of wine-and-microchip investment bank). In recent months Mr. Borelli, or as I call him, Ernesto, has decided to speed up the slow sabotage of our friendship that he’s been bizarrely and incoherently executing for years. For example, where in the past he may have only responded to my well-phrased messages when he needed something from me, now he often ignores them altogether. Another grievance: on a recent visit to his city of residence, he declined to receive me at his home. Why? He falsely claimed to be in a different town, even though I drove by his house and saw his car parked on the street.
Now I’m not holding any grudges. I will be happy to welcome Ernesto back into my rich social life whenever he’s ready. I’m aware of his eccentricities, such as lying unconvincingly about trite matters like whereabouts, names, and engagements (there’s good reason to believe that even this banking job is a fabrication, since another acquaintance of ours recently spotted Ernesto giddily surfing at high noon, sometime midweek).
The truth is, my interest in the Borelli Question has become largely anthropological. Not only am I perplexed by his unusual behavior, I’ve become obsessed with finding a larger explanation that might make sense of it. And to my great excitement, yesterday, I stumbled upon an ancient anecdote which suddenly, thrillingly, put everything in place.
Before I tell it to you—it’s from the Epic of Gilgamesh—let me first relate two short stories which will do much to vivify his character:
- I once visited Ernesto in the windowless van in which he was filthily and ecstatically living like a caveman. After he removed his jerrycan filled with urine from the vehicle to make room for me, I took a seat on his bed. It was so full of sand that it had basically scraped a hole through the seat of my jeans by the time I got up. Before joining me on the sidewalk, he said, “wait—,” and then guzzled about a finger of olive oil straight from the bottle.
- Ernesto once told me, with characteristic and somewhat inscrutable passion (he is Italian, after all), that he had been humiliated by a couple of children the day before. At this point you could only imagine my delight, preparing myself exquisitely for the comedy that was sure to follow. I was not disappointed. Apparently, Ernesto had gone surfing that morning, and—I should mention his physical appearance first: he has the build of a Thracian mercenary, a charming divided smile, and brutishly handsome features—and believed, as he was peeling off his XL wetsuit, that he spotted a friend of his in the nearby brush.
So he assumed a wild-man expression (eyes circular, something like a tribal mask), and ran in half-nude, cowabunga, screeching with glee and testosterone. Unfortunately it was not his friend, but three very young children, who were huddled unsuspecting behind the reeds. They were scared and scarred beyond belief. The incident made it into the local newspaper.
With that out of the way, I can now share the story of Enkidu, the wild man, from the Epic of Gilgamesh. At the beginning of the epic, Enkidu is a naked savage who grazes with gazelles, drinks at the river with beasts, and terrorizes city folk. He’s abundantly hairy and primitive. Nobody can tame him. So the people of Mesopotamia who have been suffering terribly from his indomitable nature send out a priestess-prostitute to domesticate him using sex. It works, because after their weeklong intercourse, Enkidu has lost his horns and can understand language; his animal companions abandon him forever; he agrees to put on clothes and come live in the city like a human being.
He is then engaged to destroy the tyrant Gilgamesh, whom he proceeds to prevent from deflowering some poor newlywed. Enraged at being sexually thwarted by this thug, Gilgamesh attacks Enkidu, and the two wrestle ferociously. Since they’re perfectly matched, they simply grow tired, and then become attracted to one another in a sort of extension of autoromance. They become best friends, finally clinching Enkidu’s embrace of civilization. Meanwhile, Enkidu continues to serve as a needful reminder to the pampered king of the barbaric, unforgiving world-out-there, and its ineradicable echo in the city and in the soul.
Anyway, in the end, the gods somewhat arbitrarily decide to assassinate him, and he dies twelve days later from sickness. Let me be clear: I certainly hope the same fate doesn’t await my comrade. I just reckoned that the Enkidu myth may explain why Ernesto has been off the grid, dodging my calls, refusing civilization impressively. Will someone send out a priestess of Ishtar already?
