Mario the Magician

Today I stopped at Finesterrae for coffee and then walked along the Arno to the Ponte Vecchio, crossed the bridge and angled towards the Boboli Gardens. The Ponte Vecchio is one of the concentrated focal points of worldwide tourism in Italy. It’s picturesque and crowded and it is where all of the jewelry stores are located.

This is a tourist town and there are specific things for sale. Florence is famous for its leather goods, antiques and jewelry. The shops are jammed and the salespersons are polyglot and do not miss a chance. I rarely shop and don’t like to buy stuff when I’m traveling. I don’t want to take up too much space in my limited luggage and, of course, I’m sure I’m going to get ripped off. I’m suspicious, untrusting and hyper vigilant; the perfect customer.

For instance, I do not understand jewelry, why it is worn, what it’s worth, and why it is such emotionally and psychologically weighted merchandise. Show your love, memorialize your class, commemorate a sports championship with a ring or necklace, bracelet, brooch, pin, tiara or some other overpriced bauble of doubtful authenticity. I just cannot figure it out and I don’t want to. I’ve had personal experiences with the marketing of valuables and I cannot bring myself to trust those in the trade.

I used to work with a guy who bought and sold gems, rings, and silverware. Clyde had a rare coin store in El Sobrante, California, but the business was only a semi-legal way of suckering in rubes that had recently stolen their grandmother’s antique spoons and wanted to turn them over for quick bucks that could be converted into quick drugs. Clyde was friendly, smiled a lot and happily welcomed his customers into his store. My job was to sit at a desk in the back of the store with a forty-five caliber automatic in my lap, ready to start blasting away, just in case one of the jittery patrons decided that he wasn’t getting a fair price for his neighbor’s silver bracelet. No one got a fair price. Ever. I saw Clyde buy a ring from a Hells Angel one afternoon. Clyde looked at the diamond through a jeweler’s loupe, muttered, nodded and said, “Big flaw in there. Might be cracked, too. I can give you $200 dollars for it.”

The dude wanted more, but since he’d probably robbed someone and had no idea what he was doing, he eventually settled. As soon as the idiot left the store Cliff was on the phone to his brother.

“Stan, do you still have that woman who’s looking for a good diamond?”

“Yeah, she was in today.”

“I’ve got one here. $2,000 and she’ll be very happy. It’s nice. A beauty.”

I watched the transaction, picked up a piece of the profits and we all went out for drinks. Lots of drinks. The drinks were what eventually led me away from that line of work. I was happy not to have to be in a position where I might have to blow some poor biker to hell and ruin my life because he didn’t think he was getting proper value for his mom’s wedding ring.

That’s how I learned about sales, merchandising and trade. I avoid it. I’m not at all interested in buying, selling or even browsing at jewelry or antiques or leather goods in Florence. It bores me and I am convinced that I will be fleeced buy a couple of guys like Clyde and me.

From the Ponte Vecchio Sally and I climbed up into the Boboli Gardens and sat on a shady bench overlooking Firenze on a beautiful calm day. After an hour we meandered through the back streets on the south side of the Arno and worked our way towards our apartment.

On the way we passed by the leather shops. There is leather everywhere in Florence. Way too much leather. Leather coats, shoes, pants, shirts, sox, scarves, zipper masks, vests, hats, wallets, umbrellas, hoodies, bracelets, brooches, trinkets, dolls, garter-belts, bras and panties. For entire blocks you can breathe in the pungent smell of leather. I’m OK with decent leather goods, but I am wary of the guys who stand in front of the shops and say, “American. American. Half-off.”

I’m fairly certain I’ll be cheated and it sounds shady. I’ve done shady.

In one window, however, was a beautiful seafoam green woman’s coat. We were looking at it, admiring it. Sally was taken by the color and we were move along when the salesman, a nice looking Florentine gentleman in a white shirt said, “Come in, come in, I have just what you want. Where are you from? America? I have many American customers.”

Before we knew it, we were standing in the store surrounded by all colors and styles of leather jackets for men and women.

I have an old, cheap leather coat at home. It’s got a hole in the back, caught on the sharp edge of a table in Paris several years ago. I still wear it but I’ve been looking for a replacement. I’m somewhat obsessive when it comes to clothing, books, fountain pens, music, shoes, and most everything else I have to spend money on. I’ve paged through hundreds of Internet sites looking for leather coats. Hundreds. I’ve tried on everything at Dillard’s, Target, Macys, Penney’s, Sears, Corsini and ten or fifteen other stores, and nothing works to my satisfaction. Too tight, too loose, crappy material, cheap lining, wrong pockets, badly made, loose buttons. I have a thousand reasons for not spending money on a new leather coat when I have one at home that looks OK from the front.

This guy in Firenze took one look at me, pulled a garment off the rack and draped it on me. Like it was made for me; it fit perfectly. Like magic. Like prayer. I could not believe it.

“How the hell did you do that? You know my size?”

“I’ve been doing this for 27 years. I know a lot about you.”

I was fucking nonplussed. Dumbstruck.

I mumbled, “It fits well.”

I shrugged my shoulders, waved my arms, craned my neck, turned, twisted and the goddamn coat looked fabulous.

Then the guy said, “You are Italian? Italian-American?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Yes, you are Calabrese.” He pointed to my face. “You have a Calabrese face, square, hard.” He smiled. “Are you Mafioso?”

Swear to god.

My grandfather emigrated from Scalea in Reggio Calabria in the far south of Italy at the turn of the twentieth century. I have a square face. I laughed and said, “No, no, not Mafioso. Ha, ha. Nope. But you’re absolutely correct on all the other.”

“I told you I know a lot about you. Nice coat.”

As I was admiring myself, wondering how I was being suckered, when the hammer was going to drop, when it would all go haywire, the salesman slipped another jacket off of a hanger and told Sally to try it on.

Perfect. No kidding, absolutely perfect. The man was a magician.

He said, “When Bill Clinton is at the Uffizi, his security guys come here, to me, for all their leather coats. They have to fit perfectly because they carry guns.”

He made a few nice little jokes about love and marriage and how the coats made us look ten years younger.

Right. A born salesman, but a salesman with panache and long experience.

He asked me to send him a postcard to him when we get back to New Mexico. I am to tell him that the card is from Joe, the mustache Mafioso from New Mexico. A Joke. Funny guy, Mario.

Mario looked at me, squinted and said that if I were willing to pay cash he’d give me a very good discount. I love those guys. The moment of truth and a 20 percent savings. I stripped 500 Euros from an ATM at the nearby Piazza della Signoria and when I got back to Mario, Sally was admiring her new leather coat and it was stunning. Mario smiled at her, delighted, patriarchal, confident; the Magus of Leather.

The whole time I was enacting this transaction I was waiting to be robbed. These jackets have to be constructed of plastic and fishing line, they are probably crap and will fall apart by the time I get back to the apartment.

Mario kept pointing to the label, assuring us that the garments were made in Italy, not in China or Pakistan. I looked at the stitching, the lining, how well the buttons were sewn on. Impeccable. Mario was genuinely proud of his product and I realized that, here in Italy, he was a member of an age-old profession. Mario wasn’t some out-of-work mortgage broker or a kid on a summer job. His life, his career was making sure that people were happy with their purchases and that they happily purchased from him. He had trained himself in all the jargon, the bullshit and sales pitches, but he was a pro, knowledgeable and accommodating. He had a reputation and he liked selling great clothing to appreciative clients.

I bought both jackets. I can’t wait for the weather to become colder next fall so that I can wear mine. Sally looks cute and sexy and hip in her coat, like Chrissy Hynde from The Pretenders. The store is named Estro, and it is on Via Dei Neri, 61, a block or so west of Piazza Santa Croce.

Ask for Mario the Magician. Tell him Joe, the mustache Mafioso from New Mexico sent you.

And I did not believe the part about Bill Clinton. That couldn’t be true.