julie lives here.

I walked past the window of an antiques and collectibles shop in North Beach often enough to see this young child in the window. I think he was a store mannequin from the early 1900s, the shop owner told me. His glass eyes were perfect and captivating. You felt he was looking right past your shoulder, out the plate glass window, at something across the street.

I normally don’t collect or buy things, and it saddened me one day when the boy in the window was no longer there. If I had $1000, I would have taken this glass-eyed boy home with me long before.

To me, he was Pinocchio. Not the Disneyfied version, but the real (insert irony here) Pinocchio, the naughty wooden boy that Carlo Collodi wrote about in his The Adventures of Pinocchio. I have a copy of the book from the 1920s, with tipped-in color plates and ragged, deckle edge thick pages. The book smells wonderful, too. I used to read it often.

I think kids miss out on not being exposed to the real fairy tales. Kids are smarter and stronger than parents give them credit for. They don’t need the Disney Corporation to do all of their thinking for them.

***

All I have left of my Pinocchio is this photograph. Silvi added a poem to it so we could replace another sold collaborative item at the gallery where we have some work. I didn’t tell her about what I thought of this boy doll. Somehow she just knew.

The art has already sold. In fact, I think it sold before it was hung on the gallery wall. I’m not the only one who loves his face.