My Mother-in-Law Drinks

by Diego De Silva

  “Oh, how Pindaric,” I comment inwardly.

  If we were in an American movie, by now the building would be surrounded by dozens of police cars, with sharpshooters posted on nearby roofs, black-and-yellow police tape cordoning off an extensive surrounding area, a screaming crowd split up into sympathizers and those who would like to see the hostage takers locked up, and the most popular TV networks of the country competing for live coverage, and Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo would already be negotiating with a hard-bitten cop played by someone like Harvey Keitel or Tommy Lee Jones, who would have already told him to remain calm more than once, and made a certain number of fairly compromising personal commitments in exchange for a rapid and bloodless resolution.

  But this is reality (which is like a movie with poor production values and a screenplay written by dilettantes), and so all we have to entertain us, at least for the present moment, is a pair of carabinieri awaiting reinforcements and Mary Stracqua behind the microphone.

  “The divverence,” Peter Arnett’s Neapolitan colleague continues, carefully lowering her eyelids to half-mast (I know that inspired hesitation: she’s preparing to deliver an authorial insight!), “which chust coes to show how reality always outsdribs the imatchination . . .”

  Wooow! I say to myself.

  I practically burst into applause.

  Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo (I’m not kidding) mops his forehead, as if listening to this idiot talk were physically exhausting.

  “. . . is that in this gase we gan follow in real dime what’s coing on inside the store, so it seems reasonaple to think that this is politigally motifated.”

  . . . Oookay, I think to myself, with a sigh of relief. Once again, she just made it.

  Jesus, that was hard. Like watching a depressive go for a walk on a ledge high up on the side of an apartment building. I can’t wait for some other television station to show up, depriving Mary (at least) of the exclusive live feed, and freeing us from this torture.

  I take a breath, look around, and the faces I see look as exhausted as my own. Matrix, on the other hand, has become completely expressionless. Up until now his expressions have ranged from lèse-majesté to impulses toward revenge, but what I see on his face now is a blank slate, a horrendously placid surface.

  I’m reminded of those TV shows set in hospital emergency rooms where the doctor steps away for a few seconds only to find upon his return that the wounded patient is already as stiff as a board. Mary Stracqua’s reporting from the front entrance must have stunned him, that much is clear.

  I try to put myself in his shoes, recapitulating the events, and I think to myself: Now then. I’m handcuffed to the metal rail of a dairy case in a supermarket on the outskirts of the city; there are a dozen or so television monitors showing me in this humiliating condition; I’m probably going to die, because the guy who set up this whole prank doesn’t exactly seem interested in letting me leave except feet-first; I still don’t know why all this is happening to me, and to cover the live broadcast of my ultimate misfortune they’ve sent an aging bumpkin of a TV journalist from a local network who can’t speak proper Italian and gets off an idiotic one-liners.

  At the conclusion of this sort of train of thought, as is only natural, my emotions are all in turmoil. And this undermining of the defensive impulse, this apathetic surrender to whatever the future may bring, is a typical product of the state of confusion that Mary Stracqua seems to cause in anyone who listens to her.

  When you find yourself forced into a corner, the only tool at your disposal that can possibly get you out of that situation is a clear head, the ability to make the most of even the faintest glimmer of a chance you have. You have to think fast, and you must be rigorously selective in the steps you take.

  Mary, however, compromises all strategic and, more generally, all intellectual activity. She draws you out of yourself, she hijacks you, making you worry about her instead of yourself, leaving you with your heart in your throat every time she starts a new sentence and, especially, every time she finishes one. I can’t imagine that there’s a human being on the planet capable of withstanding the stress of these continuous acts of transference.

  I include Matrix’s reaction in the general symptomatology common to anyone who has undergone this surreal experience, and I come to the surprising conclusion that, when it comes to Mary Stracqua, even the Camorra is powerless.

  “The store,” Naples’s own Oriana Fallaci continues, “has been evacuated” (this one, by dumb luck, she pronounces perfectly), “the situation is already under gontrol, the puilding is about to be gordoned off, and vurther reinvorcements are on their way. No demands have yet been issued for the liperation of the hostach who, as these sequences show, is still in the gitnabbers’ hands.”

  From this side of the Stracqua Reality Show we remain mystified, but we don’t even have the time to process this last phrase before the mental defective completes her defamatory tour de force, delivering a final, fatal blow.

  “Here,” she says, pointing to the monitor being filmed by the video camera held by her unfortunate cameraman and assistant, “as you gan see, it’s bossible to clearly see the outline of a man with his hands behind his back, and three other intifichuals, all without masks.”

  There must be something intrinsically ridiculous about the dismay that suddenly appears on all our faces; otherwise I can’t explain the hint of a smile that has just appeared on Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo’s lips.

  I don’t know what the hell I’m feeling: something like the kind of muttering sound your computer makes when you’re sitting there waiting, starting to suspect that okaying that automatic update was a big mistake.

  “Hey,” Matteo the deli counterman says, breaking the silence, bright red from the seriousness of the accusation, “what the hell is this woman saying?”

  Then he turns to Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo, conferring upon him directorial authority, as if to say: “What, you’re not going to speak up?”

  The engineer, contrary to my expectations, keeps his cool in the face of the gross libel perpetrated by the cretinous newscaster. If anything, he seems determined to have some fun with her.

  A masochistic pleasure that, all things considered, I’m equally eager to enjoy.

  “As you gan imatchine,” Mary Stracqua barrels on, “we are in the bresence of an anomalous case, goncerning which there is zdill a great teal to be dedermined, but bersonally, considering the nature of the agtion, I wouldn’t rule out the hybothesis of a derrorist oberation.”

  Whereupon Matteo the deli counterman waves his little hat like a white flag, calling attention to the harmlessness of his uniform; sort of like saying: “Hey, take a look at me, does this look like a terrorist’s outfit to you?”

  I scan the monitors for Mulder and Scully, and they seem to be just as disconcerted by the shamefully irresponsible information that Mary Stracqua continues to spout, ravaging that minimum of journalistic ethics that even an illiterate like her ought to be conscious of, if only from having heard others refer to it.

  The two of them stand there, exchanging off-kilter glances, focusing on the idiot like two hunting dogs, driven by the impulse to tear the microphone out of her hand and at the same time restrained by the risk of being accused of infringing on the freedom of the press on live TV.

  This further, perverse combination of circumstances that conspire once again in Mary Stracqua’s favor, allowing her to spew her bullshit with impunity, with no objections from anyone, triggers an irrepressible rage within me.

  I break in, and it feels as if I’ve just shattered the blank wall of omertà that has protected this living disgrace for far too long. The feeling that I’m taking the law into my own hands, seeing that justice is served retroactively, fills me with a sublime dizziness. If this is what cocaine is like, I understand why so many people snort it.

  “Listen, Signora Stracqualurso, t
here’s something I’m dying to know.”

  She looks around, disoriented. I doubt that Mulder and Scully failed to inform her of the presence of the microphones, but, impatient to blurt out the news and self-centered as she is, she probably didn’t take the time to add two and two.

  “Here, over here,” I come to her aid.

  I mean the monitor in front of her, which I’m speaking to her from and in which she can see me.

  “I’m right here. Don’t you recognize me? You just pointed me out to your audience as an alleged terrorist, why would you look at me now with that bovine expression?”

  She turns salmon pink, as she struggles to comprehend the technological wonders of the new millennium.

  The monitors show new arrivals among the rubberneckers crowded just outside the door: a large band of hooligans elbowing their way into the front row. They don’t even know what’s going on yet and already they’re commenting. Unemployed hyenas, it’s clear. The kind of guys that wander the streets in search of somebody else’s business to stick their noses into (preferably of a catastrophic nature). But nobody beats them when it comes to stadium waves, there’s no doubt about that.

  “So tell me,” I ask, doing my best to look sincerely interested, “do you pick your clothes out on your own, or do you have an ill-intentioned girlfriend giving you advice?”

  She looks at me in confusion. Matrix and Matteo the deli counterman also seem somewhat baffled. Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo, on the other hand, opens his eyes wide and then puts his hand over his mouth.

  Deep down, we understand each other, this guy and me.

  “You know what really mystifies me about you?” I resume. “The way you manage to bring together a total lack of good taste with an obsessive pursuit of that touch of class. Have you even looked at yourself in the mirror with that jacket?”

  And she even takes a look at it. As if she didn’t remember which jacket she was wearing.

  At this point little seedbeds of laughter start to spring up around the entrance (there’s one—super-contagious—who sounds like a seal).

  The great part is this is all going out live.

  “You look like an old Fiat 128. My grandpa had one that was that exact same color.”

  After rounding out the idea, I pause and look around, waiting to enjoy the fruits of my performance.

  The hyenas begin cackling unrestrainedly. The seal gets to work too, making converts along the way. Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo presses his hands against his face, doing his best to silence a burst of convulsive laughter, but it overflows laterally, turning into ridiculous snorts, sobs, and groans. Matteo the deli counterman puts on an empty smile, the kind that means you didn’t get the punch line. Mulder and Scully turn beet red in their effort not to piss their pants laughing. Even Matrix emerges from standby mode, raises his head, looks at the monitor to verify the similarity between the color of the jacket and a Fiat 128, and then abandons himself to a series of labial firecracker pops, which seems like a watered-down version of the belly laugh he’d no doubt have let loose if he didn’t have much more serious problems to worry about.

  At this point I believe that Mary is coming dangerously close to having a stroke. In the meantime she presents a striated version of her face to the live broadcast, accompanied by a faint tremor of her jaw.

  If you want to get some idea of the level of self-satisfied ecstasy I’m experiencing right now, try to think back, if you’ve seen the movie, to the scene in Witness where Harrison Ford (who’s playing a cop, and a pretty rough-and-ready one, who infiltrates an Amish community to escape certain crooked colleagues of his who’d like to take him out) breaks the nose of this asshole who’s been mocking his Amish friends for a good five minutes, counting on the fact that the Amish never react to provocation.

  True of the Amish; not true of Harrison Ford undercover.

  Especially if you go right up close to him and make faces.

  “And don’t grind your teeth,” I dig in, “since it’s clear you have problems with your dentures. How would it look if they popped out on live TV?”

  Laughter breaks out again, in a crescendo of raucous coarseness fueled by the sheer gusto of cruelty. One hooligan shows off a piercing whistle that would have done honor to a goatherd. On one monitor I see a thumb jabbing skyward repeatedly as if to say: “Way to go!”

  I think of all the people watching at home, who knows how many there are, watching us live, of all the years they’ve waited for this moment, and I’m practically moved to tears.

  This one’s for you, boys.

  “Who are you, how dare you?” the poor woman finally counters.

  “Boooo!” the hyenas comment in chorus.

  I may have also heard an: “Aw, go fuck yourself,” but that may just be wish fulfillment on my part.

  “What do you mean, who am I?” I reply, disappointed to find myself so quickly defrauded of my identity as an alleged terrorist.

  I’m on the verge of adding a little something extra (like, say: “My God, Mary, can’t we even rely on the bullshit you spew out anymore?”), when unexpectedly Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo breaks in, in an exceedingly calm tone of voice, instantly dousing the brushfire of excitement.

  “You’re a cretin,” he launches in Mary Stracqua’s direction.

  She retreats into her shoulders so abruptly that her neck practically disappears.

  “Hey,” I say, looking at Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo.

  Which stands for: “You took your sweet time.”

  We all shift our attention to our leader, in unison, waiting for what comes next. Which, in fact, comes next.

  “Do you realize that that’s a microphone you have in your hand? That you’re actually speaking on live television? That the people who are listening to you will take seriously the false and above all completely baseless news you’ve just reported?”

  Jesus, boys. This must be Judgment Day.

  “I thought you were just a comedian, a sketch artist, and in a sense I even found your imitation of the Italian language droll. But now I see you’re a genuine con artist, a dangerous ignorant fool. What were they thinking when they gave you a press card?”

  “That’s right, go fuck yourself!” a loyal hyena shouts in solidarity.

  “You asshole!” another hyena adds. But it’s not clear who he’s yelling at.

  Whereupon Mulder and Scully lunge into the fray, arms outstretched, to prevent a riot.

  The poor woman tries to launch an indignant counterattack.

  “Listen here, I won’t permit you . . .”

  “Shut your mouth,” Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo promptly annihilates her with an abrupt, masterly transition to a disrespectful use of the “tu” form. “You don’t give orders,” he goes on, switching back to the “Lei” form. “You don’t even understand what’s going on in here and yet you act all hurt: learn your profession, you utter donkey.”

  “Waaah!” one hyena howls.

  “Outstanding!” shouts another.

  Then they start clapping their hands (some stamping their feet as well), laughing, and shouting filthy words without subject or predicate.

  Scully and Mulder don’t know whether they should feel embarrassed or join in the laughter with the rest. Matteo the deli counterman sports a happy face of Satisfaction Obtained (on this occasion I learn that contentment too can cause blushing).

  As for me, I have to summon every ounce of my self-control to keep from punching the air in joy.

  “Captain,” Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo calls out, in a tone of voice that seems intended to reestablish the level of drama that the situation had attained before the arrival of this charlatan.

  In fact the hyenas, eager for fresh carrion as they are, immediately pipe down.

  “What,” he replies.

  “Would you please take the microphone away fro
m her?”

  Mary stares at Mulder, scandalized, as if to say: “You’re not dreaming of obeying him, are you?”

  “Did you hear what I said?” Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo asks, seeing as Mulder is just standing there, conducting an ocular consultation with Scully.

  “Don’t you dare,” Mary Stracqua says, trying to intimidate him.

  “Captain,” Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo resumes. Calmly, unruffled. “That cretin has already done enough damage.” He snaps off the safety, aims his gun at Matrix, and reiterates the concept: “Take that microphone away from her. Immediately. I’m not going to tell you again.”

  We all stand motionless, petrified.

  Even the hyenas seem to huddle together.

  Matrix grinds his teeth.

  Mulder takes a step toward Mary Stracqua and holds out his hand.

  She looks him in the eyes, hesitates, then slowly hands him the—and this is what technicians call it because of its shape—ice-cream cone, with a pained sequence of broken gestures, like Clint Eastwood tossing away his pistol in compliance with the orders of the bank robber du jour, who just threatened to murder the hostage (usually a woman, preferably a blonde) unless Clint does as instructed.

  An intolerable scene.

  I can’t stand watching it any longer.

  “Just give him that fucking microphone!” I finally blurt out in exasperation.

  I catch her so completely off-guard that the poor woman practically capsizes, leaping up awkwardly and making one of the hyenas guffaw. The ice-cream cone flies out of her hand. Mulder lunges and catches it in midair, keeping it from crashing to the floor.

  There follow machine-gun bursts of laughter. Mary turns angrily toward Hyena Central—which has by now developed an insatiable appetite for mocking her—but all she’s met with is a chorus of: “What the fuck are you looking at?”

  Mulder gets back to his feet, bright red from the unplanned rescue operation and furious with Mary Stracqua for having indirectly made him part of her foolishness (it’s typical of foolishness to extend its effects to everyone who happens to be in the vicinity, even if they’ve done nothing to deserve the embarrassment and have in fact gesticulated wildly to mitigate its effects).