The Completely True, Totally Verified Tale of the Tutti-Frutti Trees

Back in the mid-1970s my little brother Marcello (we’re five years apart) hated going to sleep. He would hide when it was time for bed. He would get out of bed the moment you tucked him. He would plead and bargain and promise anything to stay up just a little while longer.

Our folks assumed these were just the actions of a little kid who simply wanted to stay up as late as possible to watch TV or play with his toys. Only years later did we learn my brother suffered from an extreme form of sleep paralysis and that every night he would experience horrifying hallucinations of approaching monsters, demons floating over his bed, and giant heads screaming towards him to swallow him whole. And since this happened for as long as he could remember, Marcello assumed this was what sleep was. And since he was barely five, he could not explain what was happening anymore than by saying “I’m scared.”

So in addition to a night light (which did nothing), my dad recorded several audiobook versions of Golden Books for my brother to hopefully drift off to sleep to (at which point we realized just how many of our Golden Books featured Hong Kong Phooey). And the times that wasn’t enough, my brother would climb into my bed and ask me to tell him a story. Sometimes I’d tell him the reason clouds moved so slowly across the sky was because of the constant traffic jam to the amazing mid-air amusement park only they could see. Sometimes I’d explain how if you’re at the beach at sunset you could see the sun slowly go into the water, steam rising as it cooled into a giant rock, which would then bounce hard off the ocean’s bottom and fly back into the sky to become the moon. And often I would relate the multi-part story of the squirrel who lost everything in a high-stakes poker game and was now planning a heist with the grasshopper to steal all the winter food supplies from that smug ant.

And once I told him the story of the Tutti-Frutti trees.

You see, somewhere just a little past the horizon after the horizon our eyes can see, in a magical, mystical grove in Secaucus, New Jersey, stood the only three Tutti-Frutti trees in the entire world. On each branch of each tree there were what appeared to be oversized walnuts. And if you cracked one of these nuts open, you would find inside countless small sections, each featuring a different fruit—orange, apple, banana, pear, plum, mango, cherry, grape, papaya, and grapefruit, along with a small sliver of chocolate because everyone likes chocolate. 

However, once you found the Tutti-Frutti trees you could never take the same path back to them again. That’s because the moment you left—while the trees would remain in place—everything within a 40-mile radius around them would spin and lock into a new position, so that every map you drew, every marker you placed, would lead you to anywhere but the grove again. 

But, if you were smart enough to take a Tuttle-Frutti nut home, plant it in your yard, and hammer in large, industrial spikes all around your house so that it wouldn’t spin into another zip code if not a new state, in three to six days (depending on the weather and the nut’s mood) you would have your very own Tutti-Frutti sapling. And once that tree reached its full height, a Lord Protector Bunny would instantly appear to prevent any other animals or children it didn’t particularly care for from stealing your nuts.  (My brother loved rabbits as a kid.)

And so happy to hear about special lands and guardian animals, Marcello blissfully drifted off to dreams of finding the trees. All was well. 

Until the next day.

That’s when my brother got on the school bus for half-day afternoon kindergarten and excitedly told EVERYONE there about the Tutti-Frutti trees. About the special nuts. About the constantly rotating landscape. About the Lord Protector Bunny. And because these kids were not excessively sleep-deprived, and because they had absolutely no reason to trust me as a reliable news source, they did exactly what you assume they would do when a peer hands over their vulnerability to them on a silver platter. 

Thus it was later that day when I heard the front door slam open. When I heard little feet angrily marching down the hallway towards my room while I did homework. When Marcello came into my room, eyes ablaze and finger pointing directly at my soul, and screamed over and over again “YOU RUINED ME! YOU RUINED ME! I CAN NEVER, EVER SHOW MY FACE ON THAT BUS OR IN SCHOOL AGAIN! I HATE YOU!!!“

The next day he got on the bus, went to school, and had a very nice time.

That night I told him how spider webs are actually wires so the insect world can have their own telephone system.