Who is Lou Sciortino?

by Ottavio Cappellani

  Valentina looks straight at her. “Your panties are showing,” she says.

  “Fuck,” Rosy says. “I fucking knew it!”

  * * *

  Nick is at home, looking out at the barbecue through a crack in the shutters. He’s sweating in his blue graduation suit, a nylon-worsted blend. “Fuck,” he says out loud. “No way am I going to this fucking barbecue. No fucking way. I’m out of here. I’m gone. I’m in … Honolulu. Honolulu? Why the fuck did I think of Honolulu? Maybe the fucking barbecue reminds me of Honolulu! But who the fuck’s ever been to Honolulu?”

  Then Nick remembers Uncle Sal stroking his cheek and saying with a smile, “Make sure you don’t miss the next barbecue, eh, Nicky?” Clumsily, he knots his tie.

  * * *

  Coming up Via Etnea, Lou Sciortino Junior stopped in three different bars and knocked back a couple of gins in each. So by the time he sets foot in Tony’s garden, he’s already dead drunk, and feels like he’s back on Mulberry Street at the Festival of San Gennaro! Colored balloons, colored streamers, colorfully dressed guests, men on one side, women on the other, the bandstand with the musicians in blue uniforms … Now they’re gonna bring out the cannoli! he thinks.

  And here’s the guy from Sal Scali’s photo, dressed in fuchsia like an eighties soap star!

  “You must be the americano Uncle Sal’s expecting, right?” he says. “I’m Tony, Tony, capish?”

  “Capisco,” Lou says.

  “Tell me,” the guy from the photo says, “in America, in the original of Baretta, how the fuck do you translate minchia?”

  The band has started up: Abballate, abballate, fimmini schette e maritate …

  “We translate it as fuck…” Lou says.

  “Oh, right,” the guy from the photo says. “Minchia means fuck!”

  “Sure,” Lou says.

  Meanwhile, nobody’s dancing, but everyone’s starting to clap hands in time to the music.

  * * *

  Uncle Sal is in the middle of the men’s section with his legs apart and his hands in his pockets, swiveling his head to take in every nook and cranny of the garden like he’s some kind of TV camera. When anyone says hello, he doesn’t respond, just nods. And he’s the only person not clapping in time to the music.

  Tony pushes his way through the crowd with Lou in tow. He bows to Uncle Sal.

  “Your copywriter’s here!” he says.

  How the fuck did they ever give birth to such an idiot? Uncle Sal thinks as he nods. Tony does a pirouette, claps his hands enthusiastically, and walks off in the direction of the grills, where Nunzio and Agatino, dressed in white, with chef’s hats on their heads, are handling big slabs of Argentinian beef from the prizewinning butcher Tano Falsaperla and Sons. Nunzio picks them up with the thumb and middle finger of his right hand and passes them to Agatino, who puts them carefully on the grill, all in time to the music.

  * * *

  Uncle Sal looks at Lou and nods contentedly. He’s a good kid, he came on time!

  Lou passes a hand over his face and looks around, with the same childish wonder he used to feel when his grandfather used to take him to the Mulberry Street parade. A guy with a small mustache, wearing a black suit, is clapping his hands and looking at him like he wants to whack him. Some guys are dancing with their arms linked and smiling at him like they smile only in San Francisco. Another guy isn’t clapping, because he’s got a plate of beef in his hand, but sways his hips in time to the music, trying his best not to drop the meat.

  Meanwhile, a little woman dodges an old lady the size of a wardrobe, like something out of The Ladykillers, and walks unsteadily toward Lou. She’s carrying a tray with a bottle of gin and a glass. She looks startlingly like Arthur Scafati’s crazy aunt, the one they locked in the attic whenever anybody paid them a visit in the Bronx.

  “Thanks, Cettina,” Uncle Sal says. “Help yourself, Lou, it’s just for you.”

  * * *

  Nick closes the door of his house. Has he forgotten anything? Not a thing! Not a fucking thing! He walks toward Tony’s garden, his moccasins sliding strangely on the asphalt, thinking, For fuck’s sake, who is this Mindy? I’ve seen so many girls at Tony’s barbecues, some of them were even pretty … But Mindy? Who the fuck is Mindy? Nick is bad at fitting names to faces in normal circumstances, so now, you gotta be kidding! And Tony, fuck him, he has so many fucking relatives!

  * * *

  When Nick makes his entrance in the garden, Uncle Sal signals to the band, which stops playing all of a sudden. Everybody at the barbecue freezes and turns to Nick. Nick looks at everybody. Everybody looks at Nick. They’re all thinking the fiancé has arrived, and they burst into applause.

  Uncle Sal signals to the band again, and they resume playing.

  Abballate, abballate, fimmini schette e maritate …

  “That’s him,” Uncle Sal says to Lou. Lou looks around, searching for Scafati’s crazy aunt. He spots her immediately, because Cettina is wearing a red dress with sequins and is the shortest person here. Lou goes up to her.

  “Excuse me,” he says to her, “could I have another gin, please?”

  Cettina turns anxiously to a woman who’s passing, who must be a relative or a friend because she clutches her arm like she’s drowning.

  “Mari,” she says, “do you speak English? Some of my guests are foreigners and I can’t understand what they’re saying.”

  Mari looks at Lou and is about to speak when Lou says, “Thanks, I’ll do it myself,” and walks away.

  Mari takes Cettina by the shoulders and starts shaking her. “What did he say, what did he say?”

  You never know, you might miss a compliment, a few words of appreciation from a man, just because you don’t know English.

  * * *

  Nick is still by the entrance, not moving. Tony joins him. “Come on,” he says eagerly. “I’ll take you to see Uncle Sal! He’s waiting for you, Nick! Hurry up!”

  * * *

  “Did you know that arranged marriages cause neuroses?” Alessia says to Cinzia in a corner of the garden opposite Rosy and Valentina.

  Alessia is wearing thick, light-colored cotton pants, lace-up suede ankle boots, and a man’s brown sport coat, like all the girls studying psychology in Rome.

  “Especially when a woman arranges a marriage herself, and allows herself to be influenced by her culture, by inherited tastes and—”

  “You’re talking bullshit,” Cinzia interrupts. “If you arrange the marriage yourself, it’s not an arranged marriage anymore … An arranged marriage is called an arranged marriage because you don’t fucking arrange it yourself!”

  Cinzia is wearing a white sleeveless top, a pair of very wide pants full of big pockets, and boots. That’s how female anthropology students dress in Siena.

  “Yes, but, fuck, I’m sorry for Vale…” Alessia says. They both turn to look at Valentina and realize Rosy’s miniskirt has ridden right up her thighs.

  They look at each other and run to her to make a screen.

  In the meantime, Valentina is looking at Nick.

  “But how can you like him?” Cinzia asks. “His face is so nondescript, no distinctive features…”

  “Distinctive features? Who gives a fuck about distinctive features?” Valentina says.

  “You’re in my light,” Rosy says. “I can’t see a fucking thing.”

  * * *

  Tony drags Nick to see Uncle Sal. When they reach him, Uncle Sal is looking away, toward some indeterminate spot in the garden. Then he turns abruptly to Nick, looks him straight in the eyes, stands up, grabs his neck, squeezes it like he wants to break it, and starts shaking him. “Nicky, you came! Nicky, bello, bello!”

  Tony is moved by what he sees. Nick coughs. Uncle Sal takes his cheeks in his hands, squeezes them, and starts shaking him again. “Bello, let’s go for a walk! I gotta introduce you to Lou. You speak English, Nicky?”

  They walk arm in arm around the garden, Uncle Sal short but perfectly upright, Nick tal
l but bent. Uncle Sal gives him a powerful tug. “Of course you speak English, your name’s Nicky!” Then a more suggestive tug. “Minchia, Tony told me you play the guitar. So, English…” A final, assertive tug. “Of course you speak it!”

  They reach Lou.

  “Minchia, Nicky, here we are. Do you like the barbecue? You really gotta come more often! Look, here’s Lou! Go on, Nick, say hello to Lou!”

  “Piacere,” Nick says.

  “Nice to meet you,” Lou says.

  “Encantado,” Tony says, taking advantage of the opportunity to introduce himself again, in case Lou didn’t understand the first time. “I’m Tony, Tony, capito?”

  Uncle Sal looks at Tony. What the fuck does he want? We’re working here!

  Tony takes the hint. “Excuse me,” he says, “but I gotta supervise the barbecue,” and disappears.

  Abballate, abballate, fimmini schette e maritate …

  “Now, Nick,” Uncle Sal says, “Lou is an American who writes the mottoes for my amaretti … Minchia, Nick, did you ever taste my amaretti?”

  “Sure, Don Scali,” Nick says. “Tony—”

  “Minchia,” Uncle Sal says to Lou, “did you hear that? He never tasted my amaretti. Incredible! Cettina, Cettina, where the fuck are you?”

  Cettina appears out of nowhere, like she’s been waiting just for Uncle Sal to call her.

  Uncle Sal gives her a reproving but affectionate look. “Cettina, how come you never gave Nick my amaretti to taste?”

  For a brief moment, Cettina looks puzzled.

  “Come on, Cettina, come on,” Uncle Sal says, shaking Nick by the neck, “let’s remedy that right now! Bring me a big box of amaretti!”

  Cettina lifts a hand to her chest and rushes off.

  “So, we were saying?” Uncle Sal says. “Oh, yes, Nicky, you see Lou?” and he twists his head around so he can see better. “Lou’s a foreigner … a foreigner! So, minchia, are we going to show him Catania or what? I said, are we going to show him around? Nicky, I’m talking to you!”

  “Yes, yes, Don Scali, of course…”

  “Okay, then! So tomorrow you take him around, show him the sights. Agreed, Nicky?”

  “Of course, Don Scali, of course!”

  “Okay, then!”

  Cettina appears with a big box of amaretti.

  Uncle Sal, who’s tenderly squeezing Nick’s neck with one hand and Lou’s arm with the other, says, “Cettina, dig me one out!”

  Cettina jumps. Both her hands are occupied holding the box.

  “I’ll hold it,” Lou says.

  Cettina separates one amaretto from the others and hands it to Uncle Sal.

  Without even deigning to look at Nick, Uncle Sal forces it into his mouth. “So, we agreed?” he says to Lou. “Nicky’ll take you around, show you the sights. You’ll see the elephant, you’ll see the cathedral, you’ll see … Cettina, another amaretto … you’ll see Via Etnea … But please don’t let him out of your sight, you never know, you might miss something … You like Sal Scali’s amaretti, eh, Nicky? Here! Have another!”

  Then suddenly he relaxes his grip and walks off without saying goodbye, wiping the powder from his hands.

  * * *

  “The last time I saw Uncle Sal so affectionate,” Rosy says, “was with Girolamo Santonocito, and two days later they found him in an irrigation channel at the beach, all trussed up with his dick in his mouth.”

  Alessia and Cinzia look at each other. They were thinking the same thing, but fuck, not in front of Valentina! They look at Rosy, as if to say, Shut the fuck up, but the damage has been done. A tear is already streaming down Valentina’s right cheek.

  Rosy, who doesn’t understand a fucking thing of what’s going on, settles on the couch.

  ON THE PLANE, CHAZ IS FIXING A COUPLE OF MARTINIS

  On the plane, Chaz is fixing a couple of martinis, one for himself and another for Frank, who immediately after a blow job from Greta always knocks back a martini. God knows why. After a blow job, Greta ought to be the one knocking back a martini!

  The plane is like one of those fifties diners painted by that realist painter Frank’s so crazy about … what’s the cocksucker’s name? Whenever Frank sees a painting by this painter, he always says, “Damn, it’s so magical, it makes me feel sad!” Anyway, the plane has cream-colored seats and green carpeting. Leonard is sitting near the cockpit, because he doesn’t like to fly and for some reason feels more comfortable up front. Chaz is fixing the two martinis at the bar, which is just behind the cockpit. Frank and Greta are at the back of the plane. At least Chaz and Leonard assume Frank’s there, because from where they are, they can only see Greta, or rather, they can see her blond hair and her eyes bobbing up at more or less regular intervals (roughly every two or three seconds) above the back of the seat in front.

  To avoid thinking the usual thoughts that cloud his mind whenever he sets foot on a plane (the plane hurtling downward as he faces the last seconds of his life with great dignity, his funeral, his inconsolable father and mother, the women he’s known—how many? thirty, forty, sixty? amazing how you can’t remember a fucking thing when you’re about to croak!—anyway, the women are all there, also inconsolable, his male friends, though, not many of them, are all talking about their own concerns…), Leonard keeps his eyes fixed on the top of the seat above which Greta’s eyes keep bobbing and he gets an idea for a short: just eyes, nothing but close-ups of eyes, the eyes of women as they’re fucking, all kinds of women, in all kinds of positions. Indifferent eyes, loving eyes, disgusted eyes, amused eyes, and … thoughtful eyes, thoughtful like Greta’s. Because right now Greta doesn’t so much seem busy with a blow job as with a think job. Maybe because Frank is moaning and can’t speak, and if he can’t speak she can think. Or maybe it’s because she’s got this bee in her bonnet that Frank is using her to make the other woman jealous, even though she doesn’t know who the fuck the other woman is. Or maybe it’s just because the unthinkable has happened!

  My God, Frank inviting her to a party in Rome! A public party—her? Sure, it’s normal for somebody like Frank, when he has to go to Italy, to take a woman with him to give him blow jobs in the plane or hotel. But then he expects her to stay at the hotel, because he’s ashamed to be seen with her, like when he invites you to dinner at his house and buys crappy Chinese food in crappy cartons, and never, never, never takes you to Bobby’s restaurant in Tribeca, where he likes to boast about black hookers and scumbag pimps.

  Asshole!

  The day before they left, what the asshole told himself was this: Here’s how I’ll play it. I’ll tell her about the party so it sounds really tempting, and sooner or later, she’ll ask me to take her. In fact, Frank felt a little ridiculous, because it’s absurd trying to tell a whore like Greta about a party so it sounds really tempting, because obviously she’s going to find it tempting anyway. All whores find parties tempting. But he had to do it, so Greta would ask him to take her with him, then if those FBI bastards questioned him he could say, “She’s the one who asked me,” in front of everyone.

  So he told her all the top Italian producers—De Angelis, Lombardo, Bernabei—would be at the party, cazzarola!

  Greta still couldn’t see the reason why Frank was behaving with her like this in private.

  He was telling her all these things about the party, and Greta was thinking, I already give you blow jobs anyway, and I know you’re friends with these people you’re talking about, you don’t have to remind me. And besides, Greta had taken her first glorious steps in the movie business with Cameron! And Cameron had become a star, and she knew why! Because she always said, “Remember, Greta, when you go out with a producer, it’s not because he can give you fame and fortune! You go out with him because you’re genuinely interested in him, in his personality! So please don’t quiver when you hear the word ‘producer’!”

  Frank couldn’t understand what the matter was with the whore, because for half an hour he’d been shooting off these big fuck
ing names and she didn’t react! He was going on and on about VIPs and the whore was filing her fucking nails! What the fuck was the matter with her? Was she on some kind of hand-job improvement mission? He ought to have worked on her better, given her more confidence.

  Madonna, what a mess!

  Then suddenly, in a blinding flash, Frank knew: he’d never get Greta to ask him to take her to Catania, no matter who was on the guest list. Never. Frank felt a very distinct spasm in his colon. But he mustered his strength and, restraining every homicidal impulse in his body, even though it was quite obvious that Greta would rather be burned alive than show any interest in that shitass party, went closer to the blond cow, stroked her cheek, and said, “Obviously, sweetheart, you’re coming, too!”

  “Me?”

  Without so much as a shiver of excitement, Greta went to the bathroom, looking bored, even her way of walking saying, Shit, that’s all I needed now, a party, closed the door behind her, and, once she was alone, was seized with panic.

  “Me? But what am I going to wear?”

  “EXCUSE ME, YOU MUST BE NICKY, AM I RIGHT?”

  “Excuse me, you must be Nicky, am I right?”

  At Tony’s barbecue, Lou suddenly finds himself facing a large woman with an impressively wide chest, four double chins, eight dangling corollas of fat around her face, a lacquered hairdo, a shiny black dress with a big blotch across the stomach (that was Nunzio’s fault, after he tried some acrobatics with one of the slabs of beef from the prizewinning butcher Tano Falsaperla and Sons), and shoes that look like fifties convertibles.

  “I’m Mindy’s mother,” the woman says. “My brother Sal tells me you know my daughter.”

  It may not happen to everyone, but when you’re in a state of intoxication, it can be quite pleasant to be confused with someone else. Lou nods and, dodging arms, glasses, and plates with some difficulty, follows the convertibles across the lawn.

  Suddenly the convertibles stop and Lou senses the presence of a scented body. The scent isn’t perfume, it’s naturally occurring. He looks up and meets the eyes of a girl dressed like one of Fonzie’s girlfriends, eyes it’s impossible to penetrate. Eyes that say, Don’t even think about it, you asshole.