On Earth as It Is in Heaven (18 page)

Nina, why in the world did you get such a tall boyfriend?

A sheet of flame spread over my shoulder blades. Someone had hit me with a motorcycle helmet. I had the bout in just a week. There were too many of them. I didn't stand a chance. I threw in the towel, raising both arms in a gesture of surrender, while Raul collapsed to the pavement, both hands clutching at his groin. He was moaning softly.

Gerruso, flat on the sidewalk, was rubbing his flame-red cheek.

Nina's eyes were focused on me.

Nina.

You hadn't looked at me that way since before that time Giusi came walking toward us both, the time you whispered to me: “Try to behave.”

And now I see that look again.

Is this how you want me?

In a never-ending battle?

They lunged at me. Igor, Loris, and Mattias. Bigger, taller, stronger. Nina was there, flight wasn't an option. So the only thing to do was submit, hoping that it would be over as soon as possible, somebody was bound to intervene. I curled up like a porcupine, wrapping my forearms protectively around my head. A boot caught me on my right shin, a motorcycle helmet hit me square on my left shoulder, knocking me over. Amen, that's how it goes, everything comes with a price, you always have to sacrifice something. The motorcyclists weren't doing Nina any harm. All weighed and balanced, it was an acceptable exchange. A myriad of kicks, delivered boot-heel first, rained down on the left side of my body. The curse of the first bout, I decided, I'm bound to lose by forfeit. Suddenly I heard a shout. Unexpectedly, there was a pause in the beatdown. Gerruso had lunged at Loris. And right behind him came Nina.

Gerruso, you're an asshole. If anything happens to Nina, I'll kill you with these hands of mine.

A crowd stood watching, people covered their mouths with their hands, keeping a cautious distance.

I needed to move fast. Do the greatest amount of damage in the shortest possible time.

Nina, please, don't get hurt.

I'm coming.

A sharp jerk of my abdominal muscles and I was back on my feet. I blocked a helmet with my right forearm and with a sharp hook I shattered Mattias's eyebrow.

Nina.

Igor was trying to shake her off his back by reaching around behind him. A sudden lunge forward and my fist shattered his septum. He deflated, toppling to one side in a puddle of blood and mucus. Nina was watching me. She was breathing hard. Just wait, Nina, just wait. The shark fish isn't done yet.

Gerruso.

He was still clinging to Loris. Oh no, Gerruso, no, biting's no good, only little kids bite. The motorcyclist let out a yell. My fist ground into his stomach, depriving him of voice and breath.

“Gerruso, that's enough biting.”

It was only then, once everything was over and the risk had vanished, that the passersby decided that common courtesy demanded they notice us.

They were sure to ask questions and erect barriers.

I had little, very little time.

“Nina.”

Her eyes were puffy from crying.

“I'm sorry about Giusi. I was wrong to say what I said to her. I was mean to her.”

She was seething.

“You just don't get it.”

“What don't I get, Nina?”

Her hands were shaking.

“It wasn't her you were mean to.”

“No?”

Her eyes were blinking back tears.

“You were mean to me. You were supposed to lie to her, and you were supposed to do it for me. You should have been nice to her for my sake. Instead, you're so staggeringly selfish that you don't even realize it. And I'd even asked you.”

Try to behave.

That wasn't a command.

It was a plea.

Strangers arrived. Now they were eager to find out how I felt.

Little, very little time for one last, desperate attack.

“Will you come to see my first fight this Sunday?”

Her eyes could no longer stand it, and they burst into tears.

A crowd of people created an abyss that separated us.

She disappeared.

The carabinieri arrived, took me and Gerruso, and carted us away.

Nina and I hadn't seen each other in two months.

There's really not a lot you can do about it.

The first match is always a losing proposition.

Franco returned to the gym after a series of uphill sprints, bandaged his hands, put on his gloves, and started going a few rounds with his sparring partners. He threw punches with an unfamiliar violence, once, twice, three times. He thought Livia liked him, he thought she really liked him a lot, but it turned out he got it wrong and the slut had let that shithead Pino the mechanic feel her up. He was so furious that he instinctively changed the established sequence, came this close to hitting his sparring partner in the face. This close. All Umbertino did to avoid the punch was take a small leap backward. Then he took steps accordingly. He laid Franco flat with a one-two punch to the face that the boxer never even saw Umbertino wind up. From the canvas, while the flowing blood outlined the contours of a new face, he heard: “Dickhead, keep your guard up.” He felt like laughing but he couldn't quite: his maestro had just broken his nose. He retched and then, for the first time in his life, vomited blood. He dragged himself into the bathroom, filled a basin with water, plunged his face into it, and cleaned himself up. Half an hour later, he was stretched out on the dressing room's wooden bench, ice wrapped in a towel pressed on his nose, Umbertino's complaints in his ears.

“Hey now, that cost me two lire worth of ice, Franco, you're bleeding me dry.”

Another trainee showed up, Ugo Moscato, twenty-six years old, from the Noce quarter.

“So what about the match in ten days?”

“What about what?”

“Am I going to fight, Maestro?”

“What are the odds on you?”

“Pretty low, I'm the odds-on favorite.”

“Then no. Franco's going to fight instead of you.”

“The little kid?”

“Yes.”

“But he has a broken nose.”

“And what do you think, that I'd send one of my boxers to fight without a broken nose?”

“Maestro, had you already made up your mind?”

“You just mind your own fucking business. And anyway, in ten days or so Franco's nose will be all better. Go tell Half-a-Kilo that we're introducing a brand-new boxer, age fifteen. Make it very clear to him that this is going to be his first fight.”

“All right. So do we bet on Franco to win?”

“Moscato, I've always told you that you're a good kid but you don't understand a single fucking thing about life. We're betting against Franco. This is his first match. It's a sure loss.”

“Whatever you say, Maestro.”

“That's right, Moscato, whatever I say, and now get the fuck out of my hair. Franco, how's your nose? It hurts? Don't worry, the scent of pussy, you'll still be able to smell it.”

He'd learned it from the Americans toward the end of 1943. The prize was a chocolate bar or a stick of gum or a cigarette. “
Fight! Fight!
” the soldier would urge them on, and the kids would whale away at each other with their fists. The last kid standing was the winner of whatever was put up as the prize.

In Piazza Zisa, right before his eyes, there was a brawl that pitted a dozen street kids against one another, scattershot, disorderly. They were fighting because someone had said something about someone else's mother, and because streetfights are fun, and because there's nothing better to do in Palermo; ten years later, and the city was still in ruins, the perfect place to fight to your heart's content. After a few minutes, he decided to intervene. He waded into the fracas, quieting it down with his mere presence. The kids, with quick reflexes, immediately assumed a defensive stance, sensing the danger that this giant brought with him. Instead, a welcome surprise: the enormous man pulled a pack of chewing gum out of his trouser pocket.

“These are the best sticks of gum in the world, they're American. You want them?”

The kids bowed their heads.

“All right then,
fàit
.”

At first they looked at him curiously, and then with a shade of doubt dimming their expressions, and finally with the look of those who truly fail to understand.

“
Fàit
,” he said again, but still no one moved.

Finally, a curly-haired kid worked up the courage.

“What's that mean?”

“That you've got to murderize each other, one on one, but just fists, no kicking and no biting. Whoever wins takes the whole pack.”

He stood there for an hour watching the kids murderize each other.

Three days later, he walked across Piazza Zisa again. Some of the kids recognized him, and left off torturing a lizard to come running over.

“You have a stick of gum?”

He walked on, paying them no more mind than you'd give a swarm of flies. One kid stood in his path, brow furrowed and flinty-eyed.

“Give me a stick of gum.”

“How old are you?”

“Ten. I want a stick of gum.”

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

“First the stick of gum.”

The giant pulled his hands out of his pockets, displaying his palms to the kid. With a glance, he invited the kid to lay his hands over his own. The kid obeyed and waited for further instructions on how to win the stick of gum.

“If you dodge the slap, I'll give you a stick of gum, okay?”

“Yes.”

The kid caught a slap full in the face so hard that his eyes welled up with tears. He'd expected a slap on the back of his hand, but that's not what he got. Bastard. He glared at him with hatred. He tried to keep back the tears but he failed. The giant, gazing at him calmly, said: “Dickhead, keep your guard up.” Then he added, seriously: “Ah, a piece of advice that will be useful in life: never bust my balls again as long as you live.” He was no giant. He was a beast. He went on his way.

On the kid's right cheek the flaming five-fingered brand continued to burn. His friends called his name but he ignored them. One of them walked over to him and took him by the hand.

“Franco, come on, let's go home, it's late.”

Franco didn't move. He just kept repeating under his breath, “I'll kill him,” until the Beast's broad shoulders vanished beyond the rubble to the left of the Zisa castle.

He was returning home at a dead run with a brand-new cap on his head, a gift from his maestro.

“In just a week you have your first match, Franco, and since you have just a few hairs left now and before long you're bound to be completely bald, at least this cap will keep you from having to worry about pneumonia.”

Franco was so happy that he hadn't been able to find the words to thank him. Running through his head was a relentless stream of triumphant pictures: he'd be victorious, Maestro Umberto would be proud of him, Livia would dump Pino the mechanic and from now on he'd be the one taking her out for strolls along the Mondello wharf.

In Piazza Ingastona, an unexpected encounter: two men, taller, stronger, and older than him.

“Hey, you,” they called to him—a challenge.

Franco understood immediately that it would be pointless to try to say anything.

“Give me your money and your hat,” commanded the taller of the two.

In a week he'd fight his first bout. He had to keep calm and react like a grown-up, worthy of his fifteen years.

“No.”

As soon as the criminal reached his hands out toward him, Franco's feet went into action, pushing him backward. He threw a left cross at the first man's face, then a hook that bent the other man in half at the stomach. Both of them fell to the ground; neither was able to get to his feet. Franco examined his hands. Not a mark. He clapped his cap firmly on his head and resumed his run homeward.

As he was punching away, he had remembered the words that Maestro Umberto had spoken to him that very afternoon, during the lower-abdominal training session.

“On paper, there are laws, like if it rains you're going to get wet. Bullshit. You make your own laws. If it rains, you grab someone's nice umbrella and to hell with getting wet. There's always going to be a time when you'll have to start throwing punches without stopping to think about whether your opponent is bigger than you. In real life, you're never fighting someone who weighs the same as you. So,
p'una mano
, on the one hand, when in doubt, do as the Gospel says: throw punches first, ask questions later.”

He was excited and scared at the same time. Fear produces adrenaline but the razor-sharp knife in his pocket helped to calm him down. A large, broad blade, it was a
liccasapùni
, a “soap licker,” so called because in the old days it was used to smooth soap. Modern times had transformed its function; now it was used to lay out on a slab bastards who acted high-handed with kids. The Beast. He'd waited for him every single day for three endless weeks, right there, where the most powerful slap in history had left its firebrand on his cheek for six days running. The Beast. He'd pay for what he'd done. When the Beast finally reappeared, crossing Piazza Zisa, he followed him, without letting himself be seen. That was how he discovered the Beast's lair: behind a roller shutter that concealed a door through which Christians entered and exited: once outside, they'd invariably take to their heels and vanish. The plan that he had devised was infallible. He'd wait for the Beast to be alone, and then he'd enter his lair, slamming the door loudly behind him. A bold and reckless entrance. He'd brandish his soap licker. He'd show no pity whatsoever. He'd stab him just as the Gospel says. Then he'd deliver an open-handed slap right to his face. Last of all, to do things by the book, he'd spit no fewer than three sticks of gum right in his face. Perfect.