Dear Zorro

To, 

Zorro, 

Los Angeles, 

C/o Johnston McCulley


Dear Zorro,

What a swashbuckling character you are! From the eye mask just above the thin moustache to the flowing cape, the flat-brimmed black sombrero to the fiery distinctive swathe of Z that you cut through the air in three quick strokes using your rapier, I was impressed with you quite early on. And then when you reared up on your steed, Tornado, with your sword held upright, I marveled even more.

The best thing about your costume was that it abetted your wiliness, instead of hindering it. You would keep a dagger in your left boot for emergencies. And while anyone else would have long since tripped on the cape (imagine doing all those acrobatics with a cape that might well twist itself around your neck twice over), you are able to use it to trip others and disarm them. Often you throw your hat with surprising swiftness at others. How you manage to retrieve it, I never could figure out.

You demonstrated amazing gymnastic ability, effortlessly leaping across from one roof to another, often surprising pretty women just about to have their bath, jumping over tall structures, without falling, and always landing on your feet. You were a great swordsman and your aim was precise and exact, another point in your favour.

Nor did you ever use mere strength to outsmart your opponents in your quest to fight against injustice, avenge the helpless and aid the oppressed. It was the force of your intelligence, your foxiness, with which you won your way, time and again. The fact that your name is Spanish for fox might have something to do with the appeal. I’ve always had a thing for the language.

And then again the fact that you were a secret identity upped the notch quite a bit. No one ever suspected that you were the alter ego of Don Diego de la Vega, a foppish Californian nobleman living in Los Angeles at a time when the Spanish held sway there. Incidentally, as Don Diego, you pretend to be a dull, insipid character, who writes poetry and cannot be trusted with any weapon, probably to enable yourself, as Zorro, to shine brighter in comparison.

The disguise is so impressive that even Lolita, a noblewoman fallen upon bad times, is charmed with you, and looks down upon Don Diego. Why movie and book heroines fail to catch on to something that is so obvious to the rest of us, is another of life’s mysteries.

You were a sort of Spanish Robin Hood, who defended the people of the land against the tyranny of the rulers. Your name paid tribute to the foxlike stealth with which you overcame and outwitted the bad guys. Your popularity soared when you began the practice of publicly humiliating the villainous and bumbling policia of the land. 

With you around, the common folk received both their dose of free entertainment as well as the satisfaction of knowing that those who trampled upon them were being made fools of.