Truw Thru True Story
One of the strangest texts by Bob Tagge. It's quite unclear if Bob is playing a literary game on the basis of a biographical pastiche or if there's a strong urge to ridicule the described person. No clues are found.
This is the true story of Peter Artedi, the man who kept his conversations hidden under a catalogue of fish. This is the true story of the role fish played in Artedi’s formative years. This is the true story of a couple of moments throughout Artedi’s formative years that can be associated with fish and boxing. Like fish in a bowl of water, truth as central to a true story makes itself apparent.
The true story of Peter Artedi starts from the words "this is the true story of Peter Artedi" and quite suddenly ends up with fish and his taste for boxing. Does anyone needs more truth?
“I would have written a different one”, Peter Artedi said, when his true story came out.
Truth finds some colour in the fact that Arundjö, the town he was born in, was overwhelmingly poor. "We are not poor," his mother told him. "We have plenty to eat, -- and we have screen doors." Peter's father had a quick wit and a flair for conversation. Peter and his father divided fish and conversation between them. At the age of six when Peter would see someone new coming into town, he would walk up to him, shake his hand, and say, "Welcome to Arundjö, if I can do anything for you, let me know." He got what he asked for. The vast amount of newcomers made him studying the social skill of indigenous fish – “this is what you can do for me!”
All the same, truth was among his guilty pleasures. As was boxing. By his late teens, he was a Golden Gloves champion, two years in a row. In the end, while living in the Netherlands, there’s a picture of him throwing a good right hand. The gentleman he hit in the nose has blood flowing from the punch, and it’s just a perfect picture. The same picture re-interpreted showed the right hand belonged to Hommerson and the punched nose was Peter’s.
There is a man on the floor with a bleeding nose. Above his head a sign: the party started without you. “Is it you on a floor”, the host asked. You stand up and introduce yourself. “This could be part of a true story”, the host says, “and since it’s September the 27th and the commemoration of Saint Vincentius a Paulo and your bio was planned to end here you can take the punch as finale or find yourself in one of the canals that are smart elements in one’s personal history.”
His parents called him Pete but his name appeared to be George. In a true story George has a career in Alabama and so do the fish. What are we waiting for?