In the year 1588, twenty-four-year-old Michelangelo Florio Crollalanza, fearing for his limbs at the hands of the Inquisition, fled his native Sicily for the sceptred shores of England.
Family connections ensured safe passage, and on arrival in England the young Crollalanza was whisked off to the relative calm of rural Warwickshire. There, it had been arranged for him to stay under the roof of one of his mother’s English cousins, a woman by the name of Mary Arden. Mary Arden, of course, lived in the market town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and her husband was none other than the town glover, John Shakespeare. John Shakespeare, of course, while he appeared very much the glove-maker-made-good, was a man with his finger in many pies. His reach was wide, his thumb rumoured greasy with years of undeclared lucre. Ostensibly merry-cheeked, he was also known to pale with rage when challenged about ‘family business’.
If Michelangelo Florio Crollalanza felt at home, he was soon to be in for a mild shock. Part of the ‘deal’, it seemed, was that he adopt the name of the Shakespeares’ third child – one William – who had died in infancy more than twenty years earlier and who, had he lived, would be the same age as he, Michelangelo Florio.
But the young Sicilian understood only too well. His silence said it all. Nothing short of a new identity was to be given him and he would become, to all intents and purposes, at least for the time being, an Englishman named William Shakespeare . . .
-AKA Saxpere AKA Shakeschaft AKA Shacksby AKA Shakespert AKA Shagspeare Saxpoor Shakespoor Sashpierre Sheksber Sadspere . . .
– Believed to be an associate of
– Alleged to have links with
– Said to have fled from
– Suspected of being involved in
– He practiced The Look, staring himself out in the mirror till he flinched at what he saw. As others would later crumble.
– He had a go at my place. Came in all smilets. Stood in the kitchen, started his spiel, oozing that ironic old-world courtesy so beloved of high functioning sociopaths everywhere. All scorpions and smiles. Many’s the poor blighter lost everything . . .
– Onetime holder of horses Jack of all trades mate of rogues and wantons.
– Had about him something hard to place. You wouldn’t’ve thought he was the man he was.
– To whit, a made one from Sicily or somesuch.
– I knew there was something. There was this way he had of putting on his doublet. It wasn’t just a bloke putting on his doublet. Something lurked.
– The word was out.
– Poetry had it coming.
– This shakescene of a city made me an offer which I flatly refused. Had I known the price of doing so I would have had the place insured, and myself removed.
– Greeny bluey eyes, cold ones.
– He applied words to my fingers. For he knew I played the lute. Thenceforth his wish was my command.
– Had a place on Silver Street – where the talk was of dishes best served cold.
– Shakespeare puzza di sleaze!
– Shakespeare puzza di corruption!
– Shakespeare puzza di sinistrino!
– Shakeaspeare puzza –
: In short, Shakespeare went street, his name not so much spoken as whispered hissed elbowed signaled whistled semaphored . . . It had its own knock.
A quiet word with Mr Shakespeare acquired ominous connotations; among threats issued, slumber-with-the-minnows was said to be a favourite, and seems the aspiring thesp from oop north was not afraid to use strong-arm tactics in his bid to get better speaking parts . . .
The evidence is overwhelming. It’s all there, in play after play, the gangland preoccupations: turf, treachery, violence, vengeance, honour, tradition, respect, family. Always, the made-man speaks.
Michelangelo Crollalanza, cloaked in his player’s hide, had theatre by the throat. What he wanted he took. What he disagreed with he destroyed. He carried on his person many people; his pockets contained yeomen, princelings, brothel-madams, civic leaders and half the judiciary.
As for those who did not see eye to eye with him, they often found themselves dangling from a very high precipice, the better to reconsider their outlook.
Made many offers did Mr Shakespeare.
However, the end, when it came, came in what might be called “expected fashion.” If the Inquisition had forgotten Michelangelo Crollalanza, certain former associates in Messina had not. What it was precisely they’d forgotten was never made clear but tradition dictated that the ultimate sanction be carried out on the marked man’s birthday. A team of shushmen was sent across the water, and on 23rd April 1616, after meeting with person or persons unknown, ‘William Shakespeare’ was found dead at his Stratford home. He had, as they say, ‘got his’.
For his widow and daughters, needless to say, there remained only silence, the kind that would remain unbroken. Or else.
Meanwhile, back in London, sweaty palms were drying, and there were many sighs of relief from many quarters. Nightly sleep could resume and business be attended to, love be made and breakfast enjoyed.
Mr Shakespeare would not be knocking on the door anytime soon.
Image: A quill pen in an old inkwell and a couple of old books alongside a goblet. From pixabay.com
literally stories 
An excellent reimagining! Gave me an early morning laugh tinged with admiration over the wordplay. Very enjoyable.
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Geraint
Lots of fun and makes much more sense than the Shakespeare deniers, the Bacon buddies. It explains the existence of the recently discovered. Badda bing folio:
“The quality of mercy is not strained
Tis gentler than an icepick to the brain”
Your stuff is witty as always
Leils
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And, indeed why not – it makes as much sense as lots of other stuff and gives him quite the edge! Clever wordage and an amusing take on it all. I really enjoyed this – thank you – dd
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Thank you, all comments much appreciated. I couldn’t agree more with regard to WS’s ‘real’ identity. The Crollalanza theory seems to me no less ludicrous than those studies purporting to prove that he was ‘really’ Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere or Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke – or for that matter Queen Liz I Herself. (Novelist Jo Baker put it best, saying, in an interview, “Some people say that only a nobleman could write like that . . . I reckon the opposite. Only an upstart, fake-till-you-make-it bit of scruff from the provinces could write like that. You haven’t been drilled with the rules; you’re not proper and genteel; but it’s in you. So you just go ahead and break all the rules and make up new ones – and new words – for yourself as you go.”) Perhaps as well to add that there were several high-profile mobsters allegedly partial to the Bard. In his later years, ‘Lucky’ Luciano, guided by his “cultured mistress” Senora Lissoni, developed quite a taste for some of the bloodier plays; he later went on to declare that his biggest regret in life was his “bad grammar” (!) – the murders, kidnappings etc being kind of by the by. ‘Bugsy’ Siegel used Shakespeare to improve his diction. Salvatore Maranzano, who believed himself to be, among other things, a reincarnation of Julius Caesar, was certainly conversant with Shakespeare’s take on matters. Murray ‘The Camel’ Humphreys, on the other hand, got to grips with Shakespeare while serving a stretch at Leavenworth, the Bard’s influence perhaps detectable in the drolleries he dished out for the edification of his fellow cut-throats – as in, e.g. “No good citizen will ever testify to anything if he absolutely convinced that to do so will result in his quick and certain death.” Easy enough of course to glamorise these thugs – as it is to lend them a devilishly clever veneer or some philosophic edge. The Mafioso as (Cod) Philosopher is a trope as old as the fedora – & is nicely captured in that otherwise lack-lustre film, Crime Spree, where hoodlum Frankie gets philosophical with Angelo the Boss, telling him, “We live and die by the rules we make. We are men of honour, but honour without respect is . . . a horse’s carriage.” Left to ponder, Angelo can but ask “What the fuck does that mean?” Gnomic Mobsterese is a lingo in itself, a kind of bad Zen – but does perhaps serve to show up the banality at the heart of these people. Thanks again. Geraint
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Geraint
I’m sitting outside Chicago right now (I’m inside, but I’m next door to Chicago) and Cicero, Illinois, is also right across the street from me as we speak. Cicero, Illinois, home to none other than Al Capone, America’s most famous gangster, whose lives and legends are still kept alive by the new gangsters who now live in Cicero, who are now mostly Mexican, when they used to be Italian and Jewish. Also have visited the site of John Dillinger’s famous murder outside the still-functioning Biograph Theater, where the Lady in Red betrayed him – permanently. I’ve also gotten good and drunk in a few of Capone’s old hangouts (back in my drinking days).
These men, especially Capone, were murderers – brutal and merciless, and heartless too.
And yet, as Woody Guthrie wrote in his song “Pretty Boy Floyd”:
“I’ve seen lots of funny men. / Some will rob you with a six-gun / And some with a fountain pen.”
Amongst and for many, the Outlaw, no matter his guise or disguise, stands for the figure of Robin Hood, the one who could, and WOULD, “rob the rich and give to the poor.” I.e., wealth distribution at the end of a gun, a sword, or a bow and arrow.
It’s a wild paradox that a brutal, selfish, nasty criminal can be raised to the level of a lauded, noble hero by a vast population “in chains,” but such is the complexity of our modern world, where the bad guys with the fountain pens remain in charge, and things are no more equal and fair now than they were in the days of Robin Hood.
THANKS for your literary brilliance, AND your knowledge of the world and the way it works!
Dale
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In the USA Robbing Hood is president.
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Geraint
I was really excited to see your name up today next to the title “Shakespeare: Made Man,” and couldn’t wait to see what you could do with this, and as I’ve said before, you did NOT disappoint!
You are a microfictionist/short story writer extraordinaire who reinvents everything you touch, and this piece, on one level, can fit into the description conjured up by Leila’s new term “fictional essay,” as well.
The use of the first name Michelangelo to morph him into who Shakespeare was = a brilliant invention.
I also noticed that you have the ability to turn places into characters, so to speak. As such, your Michelangelo is not just Michelangelo, he also stands, in your story, for all of Sicily itself. And “Shakespeare” isn’t just Shakespeare – he stands for England itself on some level, the power, the originality, the sins, the brilliance, the corruption, the lasting beauty, the endless complexity. And this tale, as seems right in these times, takes the nation’s Number One Writer and Number One Citizen and turns him into a Gangster – that is true satirical brilliance at a level that can only be matched by a few, and most of those are dead! This brilliant twist or technique also feels, somehow, like a reinvention of allegory, which is part of what cutting edge microfiction is about at one level at least some of the time.
The fast-paced nature of your prose, which also is endlessly thought-provoking, cannot be praised enough. The word plays on Shakespeare’s nameS in this piece, taking off from his sonnets and other places where he plays with his own name, is resonant, inventive, fresh, amusing, and wildly calibrated.
“Shakespeare: Made Man” also reminds me very much, somehow, of Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator. Not on the surface level, but under the surface, where the really important stuff is!
And your writing manages to also be charming while doing all of the above and more! Awesome.
I will spend the day going back and giving “Shakespeare” the re-reads it deserves. Thanks again for all your literary and story-telling excellence, which is highly inspirational.
Dale
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Hi Dale. Somehow missed your earlier comment. Thanks. Wonderfully apt, that Guthrie line about robbery “with a fountain pen.” Similar sentiment expressed in Dylan Thomas’s poem The Hand That Signed The Paper i.e. the hand that by doing so “felled a city . . . taxed the breath. . . Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country . . . put an end to talk.” Appreciated too the local flavour you brought to matters – you being a Chicagoan. Another real life character to sound the less-tragic Shakespearean note was renowned politico Ronald V. Libonati AKA ‘The Mob’s Congressman’ AKA ‘Mr Malaprop’, a kind of real-life equivalent of Shakespeare’s Constable Dogberry. Among Mr Libonati’s finer pronouncements was his description of Chicago as “the aviation crosswords of the world”, a city that would, moreover, “march on to new platitudes of learning”. In open court, he upbraided an opponent, saying that he resented his “insinuendoes” and he once spoke movingly of “walking pedestrians and tantrum bicycles”, matters which he pursued for the general “enlightenment, edification, and hallucination of the aldermen . . .” As he once memorably put it: “The moss is on the pumpkin.” Certainly with you on Shakespeare, his endless complexity, ever-renewable, almost mindbogglingly so. Even the word ‘genius’ seems flat when applied to him. In a sense, a poet more plugged into than read, such is the power of approx every single line; the Hamlet you read or see for the 400th time won’t be quite the Hamlet you read or saw the 399th time; reread & catch your breath at all those things that didn’t register last time round. Personally I could live on King Lear alone, but would need a few extra lifetimes to get anywhere near its full scope & depth.
Your comments, Dale, never less than fascinating, richly detailed & beautifully pitched.
Geraint
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Geraint
THANKS again for the idiosyncratic, iconoclastic and original “Shakespeare: Made Man”!
Your brilliant story literally gave me a great new idea for a new fictional essay. If I ever get this one completed in a successful manner, I’ll name-check you in it! (My cutting-room floor is littered with things that were never completed in a successful manner.)
Either way, the idea itself was well worth the trouble and it will lead to good things somehow, I know; so thank you for the inspiration on every level!
Sincerely,
Dale
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Wow, thank you for such a thanks! Hope to read said essay at some point. Go well, Dale.
Geraint
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In fact am, unsurprisingly, more than intrigued Dale. I look forward to reading it. As to the Made-Man piece itself, it’s loosely – very loosely – based on the little known but seriously – or at any rate earnestly – held theory put forward in the early 20th c. by Santi Paladino & others; not of course that he, they, suggested any criminality attached to Mr Crollalanza. The piece is one of a series of 10 Minute Shakespeare-themed plays written a good while ago – none of which has yet been performed; the difference is that the stage/sound directions have been omitted. No end to the ways in which WS can be (mis)appropriated.
Thanks again.
Geraint
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Thank you Dale. Your response, as ever, welcome & valued. As it happens, the name Michelangelo Florio is not my invention, simply the name of the supposed chap mentioned in the accounts provided by the likes of Santi Paladino & others. WS as inexhaustible as ever.
Geraint
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I think that it was Bill Bryson, an Anglo-Iowan who wrote about the possibility of someone else writing the plays credited to William Shakespeare. My unreliable memory suggests the most likely alternative was Christopher Marlowe. Bryson concludes that it is most likely Shakespeare was just who we think he was today. Maybe an Italian should be considered an alternative because of the plays Shakespeare wrote about Italy. There is the famous boo-boo about a clock striking in Rome (?) when there were not clocks that struck. I’ll go with the easiest answer – Shakespeare was Shakespeare.
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Thanks for the comment Doug. Yes, Bill Bryson’s book on WS is one of the most entertaining & your memory is spot on: Marlowe has certainly been cited as prime candidate for the ‘real’ WS, his death at age 29 having been, needless to say, ‘faked’, allowing him to spend the next 23 years holed up in Italy writing masterpiece after masterpiece. And the ticking clock in Caesar’s Rome is one of the many anachronisms to pop up in the plays – the landlocked country of Bohemia having a coastline being another!
Geraint
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Got that wrong: Bohemia’s having a coastline is not an anachronism, just clueless geography – what the politer folk used to call WS’s “cavalier attitude” to facts!
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A fascinating blend of historical detail and almost surreal myth. The bullet-point fragments capture the chaotic, multifaceted legend of “Shakespeare.” Darkly humorous and very imaginative.
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Thank you David, much appreciated.
Geraint
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Hi Geraint,
Well thought out, clever and beautifully written.
I’m probably on my own here but I never enjoyed Wee Bill’s work. I think it had to do with me being forced to read the part of Macbeth. The name Macbeth is unusual because after a Mac starting the name, the next letter is normally a Capital – But there are probably more and I’ll start noticing them from now on!!
One thing I can say, is I enjoyed your story much more than can be said about my rendition of Macbeth!!!
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
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By which I mean of course COULDN’T stand!
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Thanks Hugh. All too understandable the negative associations with Wee Bill’s work. The name is enough to cause major groan in many, thanks mostly to the way the stuff was, possibly still is, taught in schools; too much the literary equivalent of eating your greens. The man himself would doubtless be appalled. Personally, could stand going anywhere near his work till decade number 3. Thanks again. Geraint
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Great wordplay: ‘shakescene’ is one that I’ll never forget. thank you!
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Thank you Mick. Yes it’s a lovely coinage ‘shakescene’; unfortunately it’s not my invention, but the name contemptuously given WS by playwright Robert Greene in a pamphlet from 1592. In it Greene warns his fellow playwrights about this “upstart Crow”, a Jack-of-all-trades who “supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you and . . . is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.” It’s the first definite mention on record of WS as playwright. Thanks again.
Geraint
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Thanks Geraint, that’s really interesting! Clearly, Elizabethan social media was a dog-eats-dog world.
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Geraint
I think the first thing that grabbed me was the language. The word choices and phrases like “All scorpions and smiles.” That conveys a bag load of cold emotion.
This is really compelling and opens a whole different view on Shakespeare.
Wow is this true? Was Shakespeare Sicilian? He sounds like a rough dude. That’s funny about “sleeping with the minnows.”
It makes sense, Shakespeare being from the land of the vendetta. I could see how this could influence his work. All of the Italian references, too.
“He got his.” I could hear Paulie on “The Sopranos” saying something like that.
Great writing and story!
Christopher
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Thank for your comments Christopher. Yes WS would seem to have been pretty enamoured of all things Italian. You’re right: such lines as “He got his” would lend themselves well to Paulie-like delivery. As to the notion that WS was ‘really’ a Sicilian from Messina: I’d say it holds about as much water as other notions regarding his ‘real’ identity. In Joyce’s Ulysses there’s a character who says: “Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.” ! Thanks again.
Geraint
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Might as well add this one to the many mysteries of Shakespeare – as Made man, as woman, as Sir Francis Bacon…. I read one piece where he was depicted as an alien escaping crimes in another solar system, adopting the Bard as a cover….it was also fun to read!
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Thanks Harrison. WS endlessly amenable to ever more bizarre guises, but his career as alien fugitive is a new one on me!
Geraint
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A great playaround with the likes of the Baconian Heresy – throroughly enjoyed the buoyant pace of this one and it’s slight irreverence.
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Thank you Paul, your comment much appreciated.
Geraint
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