Sicilian Tragedee

by Cappellani, Ottavio

  Maybe she was right, Signora Saretta, when she said that Viagra was having a strange effect on her husband. (“When he had that crisis at fifty, he had a thing for German girls, but it never got this bad.”)

  Giacomo has finished fiddling with a screwdriver on the underside of a red velvet seat in the front row.

  He gets up, looks around.

  Nice, this theater in Noto.

  “Hey, you, what are you doing?”

  Giacomo doesn’t reply.

  The security guards hasten over, alarmed. “What are you doing here?”

  Giacomo looks at them, blinking.

  He takes off the earphones of the iPod.

  He sighs deeply and says, “What do you think? Cool enough?”

  The security guards look at each other and begin to laugh. “Shit, we’re freezing to death.”

  “That’s because the people haven’t come in yet, when they do, the temperature will be fine.”

  “Fuck, let’s hope so, it feels like a freezer.”

  Giacomo puts on his earphones, picks up the wheelbarrow, and walks off.

  Ottone and Ernst, seated at a bar on the Corso, are watching society arrive. Ottone is eating an almond granita, Ernst a huge strawberry ice cream. They’re wearing lightweight tailored blue suits over blue shirts, and the only thing that distinguishes them are the ties, one blue and one red.

  Ernst looks at his watch.

  He returns to his ice cream.

  Timpanaro’s rented limousine parks in the center of the piazza in front of the theater.

  Cagnotto is happy.

  The doctor has fine-tuned his medication and with this sunset, Baroque Noto looks psychedelic. Maybe it’s the lights that illuminate the downtown, maybe it’s the vans in the colors of Sicilian carts selling ice cream and brioches, maybe it’s the sidewalk salesmen hawking balloons, maybe it’s the flourescent necklaces that begin to glow as the sun goes down in a haze of metallized fuchsia-pink.

  Cagnotto gets out of the limousine and is hit by a breeze smelling of salt and lemon, of hair spray and shoe polish, of deodorant and shampoo, the smell of a small-town street festival.

  A group of security agents surrounds the limousine to check them out.

  Cagnotto spreads his arms while a cop pats his hips.

  He takes a deep breath.

  Then they escort them into the dressing rooms.

  Turrisi and Pietro appear at the bar in the piazza.

  Commissioner Intelisano, sitting in the bar, gets up and begins to leap around, making signs with his hands.

  Turrisi looks at Pietro.

  Pietro nods.

  They hurry over to sit down with the commissioner.

  “Mister Turrisi! What an honor. Sit down, sit down. I got box seats for you, are you happy? Yeah? Happy?”

  Intelisano pulls the tickets and the invitation out of his bag.

  Pirrotta and Wanda arrive at the same bar.

  Pirrotta takes a look at the tables.

  There’s Turrisi and Pietro with that sad-sack Commissioner Intelisano.

  And there’s Rattalina, bending over the newspaper, not talking to anyone.

  “Rattalina!” shouts Pirrotta.

  From a van with megaphones on top comes an announcement. “Guests with invitations can begin to go in. Guests with invitations can begin to go in. Guests with tickets will be able to enter the theater in twenty minutes. Please wait your turn. We repeat, please wait your turn.”

  Pirrotta gives Turrisi a reproachful look as if to say, See what a mess you made?

  Turrisi pretends not to see him.

  The ambulance parked in front of the theater is under siege. There’s a long line of commissioners, consultants, mayors, MPs, and a couple of senators with low blood pressure and panic attacks.

  They’re all trying to be ill enough to be hospitalized.

  Despite all the security forces deployed, word has gone around that Pirrotta’s men and Turrisi’s men are at risk, all of them.

  And Pirrotta’s men and Turrisi’s men in Noto—just over ten miles from Ispica—are numerous.

  Pirrotta and Turrisi have let it be known that not to show up for the performance would be considered an insult and a slight, considering the protection the family is capable of providing. And if Falsaperla and Paino ended up the way they ended up, people shouldn’t worry because it was none of their business.

  But as they say, “He who looks out, lives long.”

  The commissioner for education for Ispica, planted in the job by Turrisi although he had barely finished elementary school, broke his little toe, dropping a crystal vase given to him by the best man at his wedding.

  Turrisi had sent someone to get him at the Avola hospital and brought him over to Noto with his foot in plaster.

  One of them tries to fake a heart attack, another pretends to talk strange as if he’s had a stroke.

  The nurses in the ambulance don’t fall for it.

  They have been hired at the Noto hospital thanks, needless to say, to Pirrotta and Turrisi.

  Vaccalluzzo, invitation in hand, turns out to be the first to be securitychecked at the entrance to the theater.

  They’ve put him in the box next to the Royal Box.

  He’s also the first to be photographed by the paparazzi.

  Then it’s Turrisi’s turn, arm in arm with Intelisano.

  Then comes Pirrotta with Rattalina.

  Cagnotto, behind the curtain, peers out.

  It can’t be that something strange will happen again tonight.

  They’re indoors, everyone who comes in is checked, there are plainclothes police all over the place, there’s no way anybody can do anything.

  Tonight will be the night of his success.

  Finally, the attention will turn to his production, his rereading of Shakespeare, to theatrical neorealism using actors from the dialect stage, the “street actors” of the theater.

  He looks around.

  The empty stage.

  Juliet’s balcony, the exact reproduction of a Baroque balcony of the eighteenth century, gargoyles and all. The mayor of Noto had insisted on having the Baroque onstage.

  Cagnotto looks around again.

  He wants to savor this moment.

  He alone, in his solitude.

  He and himself, the author of all this.

  The eyes of all Sicily on his art.

  He, who has combined classical Shakespeare with a bold new interpretation of the text.

  He, who as La Voce della Sicilia says, combines Greek theater, Pirandello, and Shakespeare!

  He’s about to cry.

  God, how he misses Bobo.

  Obviously the kid had been traumatized by the death of Falsaperla.

  Of course he had wanted to run away with a ceramic tile exporter from Caltagirone, someone who could promise him a normal provincial life far from murder’s violence.

  Of course that’s why Bobo did it.

  Bobo just wanted a normal life.

  Bobo, so sensitive and so enthusiastic about life!

  Bobo, who had put him on Art’s right path. Bobo … Bobo …

  Cagnotto looks for his cell phone.

  He calls him.

  Ciao, you’ve reached Bobo’s voice mail, if you want to, you can leave a message after the beep, but even if you don’t want to, hey, leave one anyway, because I’m curious. Beep.

  Cagnotto bites his lip.

  Bobo, in that very moment, is passing through the metal detector.

  Caporeale, bowlegged on account of the codpiece, walks across the stage.

  He sees Cagnotto.

  “I was looking for you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Look at this.” Caporeale turns around. “I’ve got a run in my tights.”

  “Oh, God, come on, let’s get Lambertini to loan us some nail polish.”

  “Nail polish?”

  “Yeah, we’ll put nail polish on it so it won’t run more.”

  “Okay, na
il polish.”

  Cagnotto looks at Caporeale. “Hey, Caporeale, this codpiece is bigger than the one you had before.”

  Caporeale looks down. “Is it obvious?”

  The prefects of Catania and Siracusa appear. “Okay, let’s get going, they’re almost all seated. Everybody’s nervous inside.”

  The first call sounds.

  Little knots of people break up and sit down.

  The police are muttering into their walkie-talkies.

  Ottone and Ernst knock at box number two, last row, open the door, and go in. Rattalina, who is already sitting down, jumps to his feet. “Thompson brothers?”

  “Signor Rattalina?”

  “Pleased to meet you!”

  “The pleasure is ours! You were right, Noto is magnificent!”

  Rattalina’s face lights up and he spreads his arms as if to say, And what did I tell you?

  The prefects order the second call to be sounded.

  The lights go down.

  Betty whispers into Carmine’s ear, “And now I want to see what the fuck they do, those two faggots Turrisi and my father.”

  The curtain opens, silence falls in the theater.

  Enter Chorus.

  CHORUS Two households, both alike in dignity

  In fair Verona where we lay our scene

  From ancient grudge break to new mutiny

  Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

  Vaccalluzzo says to Paolino, “How long does it last?”

  Then Lady Capulet explains to Juliet that she must marry Paris, Romeo changes his mind about Rosalina and decides to go for Juliet. He stakes out the balcony and discovers that Juliet is a Capulet, daughter of that slimeball Capulet.

  “See?” says Betty at the end of the first act. “Nothing happened. Let’s go to the bar, I’m nervous.”

  Carmine gets up, adjusts his cuff links, looks at Betty with contempt.

  “Where’s Turrisi sitting?”

  Carmine doesn’t reply, he’s heading for the foyer.

  “And this is the foyer. Okay? Here we can do whatever we want. You see an angle you like? At your service. You want us to close the Corso? We’ll close it. Oh, and obviously the same thing all over Sicily. Everybody’s working with us, the mayors, the commissioners, the caterers. Oh, and in addition to locations, we can also do casting, obviously, which is a good deal, by the way. Sicilian actors will work for nothing just to have a job, if you get my drift.” Rattalina is telling the Thompson brothers why it’s advantageous to make films in Sicily. “And if you decide you want to make a series, I can get you further discounts on the prices.”

  Avvocato Coco passes out at the feet of the Thompson brothers.

  Rattalina, embarrassed, steps over Coco while a group of police officers come running.

  Vaccalluzzo on the other hand, has remained in his box, looking down.

  Like Pirrotta.

  Who’s looking at him from a box not far away.

  Vaccalluzzo stares back and nods.

  Pirrotta stands up and bows toward Vaccalluzzo.

  Vaccalluzzo turns toward Paolino. “What the fuck does Pirrotta have in mind?”

  Paolino looks toward Pirrotta.

  “What’s he supposed to have in mind? His funeral, no?”

  Vaccalluzzo looks at Paolino. Then he hurries to the door of the box and opens it. His boys are on guard.

  “Everything under control here?”

  His boys nod.

  Behind the scenes, everybody’s pretending nothing is up, except for Lambertini, who’s replaying the death of Juliet in two versions, the fake and the real one.

  A British TV crew wants to get a close-up of Caporeale’s codpiece. “Could you lie back on that divan, please? You know, like in the famous painting, The Origin of the World?”

  The second call sounds.

  The audience take their seats for the beginning of Act Two.

  The police are tense, ready to jump.

  The lights go down.

  CHORUS But passion lends them power, time means, to meet

  Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

  Turrisi squeezes the velvet border on the balcony of his box.

  Enter Romeo.

  BENVOLIO Here comes Romeo! Here comes Romeo!

  MERCUTIO (Looking toward the public, half squatting, with a screwing motion thrusts up his arm and then follows through with his whole body, rising off the stage in a little hop.)

  Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

  ROMEO (Covering his crotch with both hands, then spreading them out slowly as if something were swelling in his undershorts)

  Pink in the sense of something that flowers? That explodes with the joy of springtime? Or pink like something that pricks? That swells and stands up? Stands up like a turret? Pointed like a mountaintop? (He joins the five fingers of his right hand and thrusts it upward.) Or are you not speaking of an uphill struggle through nettlesome bushes?

  Pause.

  MERCUTIO (Bouncing on his knees while he moves his arm back and forward like a pendulum, a pendulum that culminates in a finger pointing toward ROMEO)

  Thou hast most kindly hit it.

  ROMEO (Brief pause while he appears, although no one can be sure, to wink at the audience, then moves his arms in a circle and positions his hands once again on his crotch, which he clutches meaningfully)

  You want to hear my reply? It’s this great, big, pointed, sweet-smelling, flowering explosion of my great, big, hotheaded, crazy dick.

  Caporeale and Cosentino turn toward the audience while the mortar under Chartered Accountant Intelisano’s rear end begins to ignite.

  It all happens in an instant.

  Chartered Accountant Intelisano lifts off from the pit while Caporeale and Cosentino follow him with their eyes.

  Backstage, Lambertini is listening,

  She’s waiting for the next line.

  She’s looking at Cagnotto.

  The pause goes on longer than necessary.

  Lambertini yells, “Fuck, no—not again!”

  Special Agent Cavallaro runs up onstage to prevent panic. “Stay in your seats! Lights up! Lights up!”

  No need for Cavallaro to say so, the lights are already coming up.

  The hall sits immobile, gazing up.

  Down at the feet of Special Agent Cavallaro, with a sound of bones crunching, falls Rattalina’s body.

  The audience looks down toward the stage.

  Chartered Accountant Intelisano descends from the plaster angels on the ceiling and comes down on top of Commendatore Calì, president of the local Rotary Club.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It’s a Beautiful Day and Villa Wanda Is Full of Cops

  It’s a beautiful day and Villa Wanda is full of cops.

  Turi Pirrotta is very nervous.

  Wanda even more so.

  Cops coming out of every room, walking all over the place, hustling around.

  To say that Vaccalluzzo was pissed off was to seriously understate the matter.

  First he had leaned over to see if he had seen right.

  He had seen right.

  Then, with his boys deployed around him, he had tried to leave, but they had stopped him and identified him. “But if you know very well who I am …” he had said to the police commissioner of Siracusa.

  The police commissioner had no desire to play the fool.

  Vaccalluzzo had raced down the Corso talking on his secure cell phone. “They’ve all gone nuts here. Face it, they’re going to send in the army again.”

  He got to his car and that dickhead Corrado, his driver, wasn’t there.

  The boys had pulled their guns.

  Corrado appeared, running. “Sorry, Don Melo, there was a tourist who collapsed because of the heat.”

  “Heat! Let’s get out of here!”

  They got in the car, Corrado turned on the engine, and Don Melo’s Lexus went ka-pow.

  The crime scene investigation squad said that the c
ar blew up in that unusual way because it was armored. The armored parts remained more or less whole, and the Lexus—so said the crime scene investigation squad without the least sense of humor (and without any respect for Chartered Accountant Intelisano)—had “acted like a mortar.” Vaccalluzzo’s gold left sneaker with his foot inside was found in a tree three hundred yards away, by a man whose kid had been frightened by the bang and had let go of his balloon, which got stuck in the branches.

  Nobody could understand why Rattalina had chosen that particular moment to commit suicide. Zerbino had written that probably a man of the theater like Rattalina had been devastated by the havoc wrought on Shakespeare. Half of Sicily, the half that knew Rattalina, thought that was hilarious.

  He had been in the box with the Thompson brothers, he had been taking them around Sicily because they wanted to shoot some movies on the island with the support of the Film Commission, and all of a sudden, said the Thompson brothers, he had looked at them with a crazy look and leaped onto the stage. Ernst, who was telling the reporters, didn’t mention that Ottone, just to be sure, had dislocated his neck before he tossed him over.

  And he did well, because you can never be too sure in these matters. Intelisano, despite the theatrical nature of his farewell, had broken just about everything there was to break, but he hadn’t croaked. While Commendatore Calì, the shock alone had finished him off.