Sicilian Tragedee

by Cappellani, Ottavio

  And then Rattalina gives Caporeale the creeps because he has a Neapolitan accent. But not a high-class Neapolitan accent, no, he has a Neapolitan-Brazilian accent. Caporeale calls it that because once he had been in a comedy where there was a Neapolitan faggot transvestite who wanted to speak Brazilian because that’s how they talked in the work environment.

  Even if Rattalina, so he says, has all his clothes made by a Neapolitan tailor and, say his colleagues, tries to make it with all his actresses, he still has the accent of a Neapolitan Brazilian faggot transvestite.

  Whatever.

  Rattalina had even made a rapid bow in his direction and Caporeale couldn’t figure out whether he was making fun of him or not.

  But meanwhile Rattalina was looking ever so serious and intellectual.

  “Good evening, Caporeale.”

  Caporeale stared at him. “Good evening, Dottore.”

  “Look, I wanted to compliment you on the party.”

  Caporeale looked around. It wasn’t his party, was it?

  “Everyone here is talking about your performance …”

  Caporeale half nodded and then looked the other way as if to say, And you think that’s my fault?

  “No, no, Caporeale, we all know that fellow, um, Cagnotto, is a, as you say, a fine director …”

  Caporeale, his head pointed away, studied Rattalina with one eye.

  Rattalina was nodding firmly as he spoke. He seemed to believe in it.

  “However, Caporeale, I too am interested in the theater, the real thing … certainly it’s not like in the summer they can sell out all the spaces doing Brecht, otherwise the audience will head off to the beach, they’re on vacation, after all … But I too am a man of culture.”

  A humble Rattalina Caporeale had not only never seen before, he’d never even heard mention of. But knowing how these things worked, seeing as how he’d never been to a party at the Contessa’s before, for all he knew the Contessa could be a Mafia boss and Rattalina was trying to warn him. What the fuck did Caporeale know about high society and stuff like that?

  Rattalina looked left and right with a conspiratorial air, and then took his arm and in a low voice asked, “But, um … this thing that you … you go … you thing … I mean, you touch yourself down there?”

  Caporeale snapped his chin up as if he were looking skyward to see whether some bird was doing its business on his head. “We’re discussing it. It’s a question of point of view. Classical theater versus modern theater.”

  Rattalina drew back as if he were astonished by the cultural level of these remarks (or like somebody who’s getting ready to spit in your face). But then he moved forward again, very cordial, he could have been talking to a university professor, and asked, “No, please, you must explain: how, what, and why?” Rattalina nodded very rapidly, inviting Caporeale to elaborate on the matter.

  Caporeale looked around.

  All the actors, pretending to be somewhere else, were watching, all curious to know what Rattalina and Caporeale were being so chummy about.

  “There’s Mercutio in the part of Cosentino,” Caporeale said, putting his hands in his pockets and confusing Cosentino playing Mercutio with Mercutio playing Cosentino. But then you try being on Rattalina’s arm.

  Rattalina nodded.

  “Mercutio complains to Romeo that the night before, he had disappeared.”

  Rattalina nodded twice.

  “And Romeo apologizes, saying that his business was great.”

  Rattalina shifted slightly and peered into Caporeale’s face. “And that’s when you touch it?”

  Caporeale looked down at Rattalina. He looked down at him because Rattalina’s head only came up to his shoulder.

  “No, actually—”

  Rattalina, drawing close once again, said, “Oh, right, it seemed … no, no, not at all … it seemed strange to me, such a heavy, um, thing.” Rattalina made that gesture with his head again, inviting him to continue.

  This time Caporeale moved his head back a little.

  So what was up, was Rattalina trying to make a fool of him?

  Only, Rattalina’s face was all interested and deferential.

  “And then Romeo and Mercutio talk about courtesy, about bowing in the hams, about a curtsy …”

  “Ah, yes, sure. Cagnotto does these things so well.”

  “What?”

  “No, I mean these things, the Shakespeare thing.” Rattalina made a revolving gesture with his hand, inviting him to continue. He was much too interested and didn’t want to get lost in the details.

  Caporeale pulled his head back again. He couldn’t pull more than his head back because Rattalina remained glued to his arm.

  “Romeo says that Mercutio is very good at bowing.”

  “Bowing?”

  “Yes, bowing,” said Caporeale with a serious face.

  “Oh, I see, so tell me, does Cosentino make this bow?”

  “This I have no idea yet. We’re still doing the sit-down readthrough.”

  “Sit-down?”

  “We sit down and read.”

  “Sure, sure, and then what?”

  “And then Romeo tells him that he’s good at bowing and Mercutio replies that he’s the very pink of courtesy.”

  Rattalina jumped back.

  He looked at Caporeale.

  He put his hands on his prick.

  He grabbed it.

  He started to wag it back and forth like a madman. “And you do … this shit … this shit?”

  Then all of a sudden he dusted off his hands, leaned toward Caporeale, and hissed in his ear, “Got any idea, Caporeale, what I’m going to say to you when you and your dear cumpare come back to me looking for work?”

  And then he was off as quickly as he had appeared.

  The way it looked to Caporeale, Rattalina seemed to waddle ever so slightly and the back of his neck was all burned by the sun and a tiny bit sweaty.

  Caporeale hears applause.

  “So, can we begin the rehearsal again?” Cagnotto is saying. “Come on, no resting on our laurels! Caporeale, what’s up? Lost in thought? I hope that yesterday’s success made you realize that this production is going to be an event. We’re not just performing Shakespeare, we’re contributing a little piece to the history of theater. Caporeale, I trust we’ve banished your doubts about my direction?”

  Caporeale makes a rotary gesture of his hand as if to say, Hey, totally banished.

  Cagnotto puts on his pink glasses and picks up the script. “Okay, let’s begin. Here we are: Romeo apologizes for having disappeared the night before. ‘Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.’”

  Cagnotto smiles and raises his eyes to the heavens, relishing the poet’s verses.

  “And Mercutio replies: ‘That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.’”

  Cagnotto shuts his eyes in delight. “And Romeo: ‘Meaning, to curtsy.’”

  Cagnotto thinks. He turns to Caporeale. “Okay, now here you, Caporeale, could make a nice bow. You know, with a polite swish of your hand.”

  “I have to bow?” says Caporeale, stunned.

  Cagnotto nods, immersing himself once again in the play. “Mercutio replies: ‘Thou hast most kindly hit it.’”

  Cagnotto jerks his head around like when you come out of the shower and shake to dry off your hair; Shakespeare’s words are running through him like shivers of pleasure. “And Romeo: ‘A most courteous exposition.’”

  Cagnotto smiles and turns to Caporeale. “Here, Caporeale, you need to make another bow with, you know, your kidneys tucked in a little.” Cagnotto puts a hand on his back and arches it.

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  Cagnotto, still seated, puts a hand on his back, bows, and then arches. “Like that.”

  Caporeale crosses his arms again.

  Cagnotto nods distractedly, continuing to read. “And Mercutio exclaims: ‘Na
y, I am the very pink of courtesy.’”

  Cagnotto nods. “Here you, Cosentino, should raise your clenched fist, with your fist clenched like a real man!”

  Cosentino raises his clenched fist like a real man, puffing himself up and making what’s left of his biceps vibrate.

  “Perfect, Cosentino. Perfect.”

  Cosentino makes a face at Caporeale as if to say, Hey, take that!

  “And Romeo again: ‘Pink for flower.’” Right, that’s perfect, and now you, Caporeale, should close your fist too, that’s right, and then open it gently, in a, you know, feminine way.”

  “In a feminine way,” says Caporeale, leaving out the question mark.

  “Like this.” Cagnotto tightens his fist and then opens it, sinuously, like an orchid flowering in the soft dawn of spring.

  Caporeale, his arms still crossed, looks at Cagnotto’s hand.

  Cagnotto says, “And you, Mercutio, reply, ‘Right,’ and you, Caporeale …”

  Cagnotto looks at Caporeale.

  Caporeale is making strange movements. He has spread his arms as if he wanted to do calisthenics or was stretching, then he wiggles the fingers of both hands, raises his arms, lowers them, grabs his crotch, and yells, “You mean this great, big, hotheaded, crazy dick!”

  Cagnotto snaps his head up. “Perfect, Caporeale, that’s perfect!”

  Cosentino is very annoyed.

  And so is Caporeale, who was referring to the orchid.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  God, What a Jerk You Are

  “God, what a jerk you are.”

  “Huh?”

  Commissioner Falsaperla’s rear end is just visible under his desk.

  “What are you doing under there?”

  Commissioner Falsaperla, in reverse, comes out of his desk with the remote of the air conditioner in his mouth. “Ightfeght …”

  Gnazia puts her hands on her hips. She waits for the commissioner to stand.

  Falsaperla rises laboriously. He dusts off his hands. He takes the remote out of his mouth and says, “It fell.”

  Gnazia looks at him.

  “The remote,” says Falsaperla, as if to excuse himself.

  “That remote is messing up your mind.”

  Falsaperla shrugs his shoulders. What the hell does Gnazia know about the letters and the forms and the requisitions you need to file before they give you an air conditioner? She plays the lady, she receives the proposals, and sends them on to me. She thinks that because I’m the commissioner I have a magic wand?

  “Why the fuck did you have it in your mouth?”

  Falsaperla, moving back behind his desk, makes a pushing movement with his hands. “Otherwise how was I going to push myself ?”

  “To push yourself?”

  Commissioner Falsaperla sits down. He puts the remote in the remote holder (he had brought it from home, it’s a dish with a blue ribbon attached to it, given out at the baptism of his neighbor’s son, little Vincenzino) and crosses his hands on the desk.

  He looks at Gnazia.

  Gnazia really enjoys a good quarrel.

  Okay.

  She has to make him pay because at the Contessa’s party the commissioner spent the whole evening with his wife on his arm.

  “To push myself, yes, Gnazia, to push myself.” The commissioner begins to gesticulate like a mental patient, Gnazia has been tormenting him all morning. “I was under the desk, I picked up the remote, but I cannot, Gnazia, walk backward on my knees without using my hands. Because if I don’t lean on my hands, I have to push the baricenter back so as not to end up with my face on the floor, but I can’t go back because I’m under the desk and if I raise my rear end”—Falsaperla imitates a bear getting up on its hind legs—“I butt my head.”

  Falsaperla calms down and crosses his hands again. “Is that enough of an explanation for you or do you want me to go into the details?”

  Gnazia looks at him with sarcasm and contempt, reproach and repugnance. She says, “Pirrotta’s out there, do I tell him to wait because you’re having problems with the remo—”

  Falsaperla slams his hands on the desk and jumps up. “Fuck, what a bitch you are.” He runs to the door. “Dottor Pirrotta!” he screams. “Please! Come in! Please! Holy Mary, what a surprise! Come in!”

  Pirrotta makes his entrance into the commissioner’s office.

  Gnazia looks at both of them with open disgust and walks out, slamming the door.

  The commissioner is smiling even more brightly.

  Pirrotta looks around.

  “But what an honor! Coming here to see me in the office! And I thought you were joking. You, coming here to see me. But what an honor. What an honor! What can I offer you, what can I get you? Would you like a coffee? Shall we call down to the bar? Please, do sit down, you’ll have to excuse my humble office but this is what the government provides.” Then he remembers that he was elected thanks to Pirrotta’s vote-buying. “Not that I’m complaining, oh, no! I have everything I need here, a desk, a TV, a computer, there’s the air cond—”

  “Nothing for me,” says Pirrotta, sitting down.

  Falsaperla races around behind his desk and takes his place. He joins his hands together and smiles at Pirrotta.

  Pirrotta looks at him impatiently. “To get right to the point, Commissioner …”

  “Yes!” says the commissioner. He says no more.

  “You told me you had some ideas.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, sure, certainly.” Falsaperla stares at the remote, then turns his gaze away so as not to lose his concentration, picks up a pen holder, moves it, picks it up again, and moves it back where it was. “So …”

  Pirrotta waits.

  “Okay, this is what I’ve understood. There’s Paino, who wants to screw us.”

  “He wants to screw us?”

  “Yes, that is, us, our wing of the party.”

  “Uh-huh,” says Pirrotta, who still doesn’t understand why the party wants him to produce votes for a culture commissioner who counts for nothing.

  “And behind Paino, as I’m sure you know, is Turrisi.”

  “No, that I didn’t know.”

  Falsaperla nods gravely. “It’s a conspiracy. A conspiracy.”

  Hey. It seems to Pirrotta that this Falsaperla is behaving like a moron today. A conspiracy? Of what? Turrisi has copped all the petrochemical rights from Ispica to Ragusa, and why should he give a shit about Paino, another culture commissioner, and not even for Catania, or for the province, no, for San Giovanni la Punta, which is famous because they have a movie theater that shows films on Sunday morning, period?

  It starts like that, slowly, slowly, bit by bit, filtering in.

  Pirrotta is beginning to understand why they made Falsaperla culture commissioner. Probably they had started out to give him Health, then they realized he was a jerk and gave him Culture. “Okay, but how do I come in?”

  Falsaperla smiles as if to say, Gotcha! He picks up the phone, dials a number. “Hello?”

  Falsaperla gives Pirrotta a conspiratorial look.

  “Yes, yes, it’s me. I’m here with Dottor Turi Pirrotta.” Falsaperla laughs. He covers the receiver with his hand and says, “They send their greetings,” then, in a whisper, “from La Voce della Sicilia.”

  Pirrotta makes a face like, And why the fuck am I supposed to care?

  Falsaperla flashes back a look that says, Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll take care of this, relax.

  Pirrotta sits back with an expression like, You do whatever you want.

  “Do I know Cagnotto’s production?”

  Falsaperla nods violently in Pirrotta’s direction, Yes, yes, I know it.

  Pirrotta glances back with a look that says, What’s this all about?

  “Yes, yes … I know Paino behaved badly … yes, I know … I know … I know …”

  Falsaperla makes a face that says, The usual throat-clearing.

  Pirrotta sees the remote in the remote dish. He reaches out his hand.
r />   Falsaperla grabs his hand.

  Pirrotta looks at Falsaperla.

  Falsaperla, leaning forward over the desk, the phone still on his ear, his hand on the remote, smiles, going, No, not that, that’s not important. He leans back. “Right, I know what I told you … I know … I know … listen a minute.”

  Falsaperla nods vigorously, There we go, now they’re listening, the throat-clearing is finished. “I want the evening to be a success … yes, that’s right … yes, I know what I told you … I know … I know … but now you do what I’m saying … sure … sure … my responsibility … sure … I said yes … yes … eight pages for the food festivals … I said yes … but listen now about Cagnotto … it must be a success … a big success. That’s it, then. ’Bye.”

  Falsaperla hangs up contented, puts his fingertips together, and smiles at Pirrotta. “Get it?”

  Pirrotta shifts forward until he’s sitting on the edge of his chair and rests his forearm on the desk. “Get what?”

  “It’s going to be a big success. If La Voce della Sicilia says so, we can believe it.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means there will be a big crowd. Reporters, photographers, and VIPs. Some things”—Falsaperla makes a fast movement with the right corner of his mouth, smack! like a wink without the excessive intimacy of a wink—“the more people the better, no?”

  Pirrotta looks at Falsaperla and sits back in his chair. “Certainly, it’s a play, so the more people the better,” he says, trying to figure out where Falsaperla is going with this reasoning.

  “What did I say?” says Falsaperla, laughing.

  Pirrotta makes a hard-to-decipher gesture with his head.

  Falsaperla continues. “Turrisi will be there, Paino will be there, Cagnotto will be there. Let’s hope nothing goes wrong … know what I mean?”