A Pimp's Notes (7 page)

As if these thoughts of mine had summoned him from behind the scenes, Giorgio appears from behind the black drapery that serves as both backdrop and curtain and makes his entrance onstage. There’s virtually no applause but you can detect a quickening sense of expectation. He starts the show by tossing off a few good offhand wisecracks about current events, the way they all do to break the ice. He follows that with fifteen minutes or so of excellent stock material that I’ve heard before, and the audience really starts warming up. Then he begins talking about himself, saying that he was born into a big family, that he had a lot of brothers, and that he hasn’t had an easy life. At this point, I expect one of those routines that churns out a tragicomic elegy to poverty. Instead he surprises me and everyone in the audience, by suddenly changing his voice and mouthing the subdued and emphatic tones of a child.

… Oh yes, I come from a really big family. I remember in the mornings we always woke up at dawn and as soon as we were awake we said good morning all around, we’d say
: buon giorno,
Aldo
, buon giorno,
Glauco
, buon giorno,
Ugo
, buon giorno,
Silvio
, buon giorno,
Sergio
, buon giorno,
Giorgio
, buon giorno,
Amilcare
, buon giorno,
Gaspare
, buon giorno,
Anselmo
, buon giorno,
Massimo …

With each greeting and name Giorgio swivels his head, changes voice, intonation, and facial expression. The audience has the impression that on the stage before them, they really are seeing all those people interacting. After a pause he turns to the audience.

Around eleven thirty, we’d go out to begin the hard work of tilling the fields. At noon our mama would call us for the simple good food of our midday meal and we’d sit down around the table thanking the good Lord for that day’s gifts and then
buon appetito,
Aldo
, buon appetito,
Glauco
, buon appetito,
Ugo
, buon appetito,
Silvio
, buon appetito,
Sergio
, buon appetito,
Giorgio
, buon appetito,
Amilcare
, buon appetito,
Gaspare
, buon appetito,
Anselmo
, buon appetito,
Massimo …

He offers the spectators a gesture of resignation and then, in a slightly more adult voice:

I’ve never tasted a spoonful of hot soup in my life!

Then he returns to the world of his character.

And then, when evening came, weary but happy, we’d go to bed after brushing our teeth and, before falling asleep …

By now the audience knows what’s coming and starts repeating along with him:

… buona notte,
Aldo
, buona notte,
Glauco
, buona notte,
Ugo
, buona notte,
Silvio
, buona notte,
Sergio
, buona notte,
Giorgio
, buona notte,
Amilcare
, buona notte,
Gaspare
, buona notte,
Anselmo
, buona notte,
Massimo … And then we’d close our eyes and fall into a peaceful sleep …

Another pause for effect.

… around four in the morning
.

Someone slips involuntarily into the kind of laughter that you simply can’t stop, the kind that has the power to spread to everyone else in the room, the kind that only talent—true talent—can trigger. Giorgio continues.

One Sunday morning, the day on which we gave thanks for our good lives, we were in the courtyard of our farmhouse, and we were playing soccer, passing the ball from one to another and saying
grazie,
Aldo
, grazie,
Glauco
, grazie,
Ugo
, grazie,
Silvio
, grazie,
Sergio
, grazie,
Giorgio
, grazie,
Amilcare
, grazie,
Gaspare
, grazie,
Anselmo
, grazie,
Massimo …

He breaks off and appears to look into the distance on his right.

At a certain point we saw someone come slowly down the hill, heading in our direction. As he drew closer we realized that he was the midwife’s husband, a man who knows us all perfectly well because he practically watched us come into the world. So we lined up, along the fenceposts, thinking that when he passed by he’d greet us one by one, by our names. But instead, when he came even with us, he smiled, waved his hand, and called out “Hi, everybody” and continued on his way …

Giorgio pauses again, looking around with an expression of baffled bewilderment. Then he speaks in a forlorn voice.

…
having ruined our childhood
.

The audience sits in silence for a moment before it clicks. Then comes the wave of applause, warm with empathy and tenderness, prompted by his surreal sense of humor and the sheer virtuosity of his monologue. Seated next to me in the dark, Laura claps, her eyes glistening, tears of laughter sliding down her cheeks. Giorgio Fieschi must be one good perfomer if he can make someone forget about the existence of a creature like Tulip.

I look at my watch. In just a few minutes I have an appointment to meet Micky, outside in the street. I drag Laura out of the theater. I want her to be able to see me and hear me clearly. As we close the door behind us, surging applause still echoes in the air.

I move Laura back against the wall. I speak to her in an undertone but emphatically. I’m no actor, but I can play my part when it’s necessary.

“Listen to me. I do something for you, you do something for me. I have a meeting in just a little while that should solve your problem once and for all. And you have an appointment tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, at the Hotel Gallia, room 605, with a very refined and courteous gentleman who, if you’re willing, wants nothing better than to hand you a million lire.”

Laura looks at me. I look back at her and there are no violins in the air, just the rumbling of thunder.

“Tell me that you understand and that the answer is yes.”

She makes the tiniest movement of her head, as if to nod yes.

“Should I consider that to be the yes I’m looking for?”

At last, Laura accepts that she is what she always has been.

“I understand. Hotel Gallia, room 605, at nine o’clock.”

“Excellent.”

I relax. I smile at her and authorize a distraction, one that I would guess she was planning to enjoy in any case.

“Have all the fun you want fucking your little cabaret artist, but tomorrow morning you have to give that gentleman the time of his life.”

I leave her waiting, alone, though I feel sure that she won’t be alone for long. I climb back upstairs to the street, slithering out without a word to anyone. Actually, I’m fifteen minutes early, but I was dying for a cigarette to make up for the sense of envy that other people’s talent and success have always aroused in me. I wait under the glow of the streetlights, studied with some curiosity by a pair of hookers competing for the few passing cars. Then, from around the corner of Via Silva, preceded by the grumbling of the engine, Micky’s Ferrari emerges. As before, he pulls up next to me and waves for me to get in. I open the door and take a seat on the cream Connolly leather upholstery.

“So, are we going?”

He confirms with his voice and his head.

“Yes.”

He takes off while I’m still pulling the door shut. Instinctively I wonder whether this is the last ride I’ll take in any car as I set off for an appointment with a businessman said to have been responsible for a series of unmarked graves scattered through the vast amount of cement that’s been poured in this city.

5

Micky threads his Ferrari through the evening traffic without any pointlessly showy acrobatics. He makes a U-turn, takes Via Tempesta as far as Piazzale Zavattari, and then turns onto the outer ring road. Now we’re roaring through Piazza Bolivar, and where we’re heading is a complete mystery to me. He has chosen silence as the distinctive feature of our journey together and I go along with his choice. For that matter, what is there for us to say to each other that we don’t already both know? In two very different ways, we’re the same person, even though physically we’re two different chessmen.

In spite of the most impassioned pleadings of counsel for the defense, a couple of pawns, I’d have to add.

We drive on, roaring through a city part of which is sound asleep while another is just getting dressed and made up for a gala banquet of bad habits and vice. Every night can be considered a special occasion, until a midnight finally rolls around when everyone will realize that none of those nights was special at all.

And that’s not going to be a midnight to look forward to.

We stop at a red light, next to a newsstand. Posters cover the little shack, announcing the lead stories of the newspapers and magazines: the ongoing and hopeless saga of Aldo Moro, the trial of the founders of the Red Brigades,
UFO Robot Grendizer
, Loredana Bertè and her latest love affair, the FIFA World Cup on its way, Juventus and Torino F.C.,
TV Sorrisi e Canzoni
, the troubles of Italian president Giovanni Leone.

All these different stories intertwined on the same wall, in the same world, in the same life. And I don’t give a damn about any of it or any of them. Maybe that’s because first and foremost I don’t give a damn about myself. I turn my head to look at Micky. I wonder if he ever thinks about it. I wonder if he ever asks questions, or if he’s just pure instinct. Fast cars, fast trips, fast love affairs. And time, capable of outstripping the fastest speed there is, time, which kills you quickly because there’s no memory that can remember every instant.

Micky mistakes my glance for impatience.

“It’s going to take us a little while to get there. We have to go all the way out to Opera.”

I dismiss with a nonchalant gesture all my thoughts of just a few seconds ago.

“Don’t sweat it. There’s no hurry. We have all the time we need.”

I turn my head to watch the road.

All the time we need …

Lucio would appreciate the irony. How much time do you need, anyway? Now that I know who I am, I’d prefer not to know it. Memory is the only way of being sure you’ve even lived. But I don’t remember, so I won’t be remembered.

Micky turns right, leaving Viale Liguria and heading for the on-ramp of the Milan–Genoa superhighway. He asks me if I want to snort a line of cocaine. I shake my head no. He pulls a solid-gold contraption out of his pocket, a tiny container that dispenses one snort at a time. He sticks it up his nostril and inhales powerfully. He does the same thing with the other nostril. Then he snaps it shut and shakes it before putting it away, ready for the next snort.

He turns toward me, gives me a look, and comments: “Good shit.”

I have no difficulty taking him at his word. People like him always have the best of everything.

As soon as we’re on the bypass for Assago, the speed begins to increase and the Ferrari’s eight cylinders start to suck gasoline and give back power. The way mechanical objects work is a game I like, an honest game. I give and I get. Cocaine is a fraud: it leaves people exactly as they are and tricks them into thinking they’re different.

We curve onto the beltway and the speed increases even more.

I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of dying, to be specific. I’ve already suffered that misfortune. A fatal crash in a car rocketing along at 125 mph would be nothing more than a formal certification of the fact, a red wax seal on a letter that’s already been written and signed.

We take the Vigentina–Val Tidone exit. Before entering Opera we take a right. A short time later our trip is over. Micky decelerates and steers the Ferrari left onto an unpaved lane that intersects with the asphalt road. I can hear the tires crunching over the gravel and, because of the car’s stiff suspension, I can feel every bump and pothole in my spine. We rumble through a couple of curves, and after a short straightaway we see a warehouse and a parking lot cluttered with the decrepit automotive carcasses of a scrapyard. The area is surrounded by a hurricane fence. A few well-meaning streetlights do their best to scatter a little light.

We pull up to a gate. It’s closed. Micky flashes his brights and immediately, on the other side of the fence, the silhouette of a man emerges from the dim shadows. He walks toward us and the twin cones of the headlights reveal a short, powerful individual wearing work pants and a denim jacket, peering with light-dazzled eyes through the mesh of the gate.

He recognizes the car and starts swinging the gate open. We drive past him and through the gate. We continue along the road that leads to the warehouse, past stacks of flattened automobiles, cubist shapes, lifeless relics. A series of totems erected at the cost of a chain of human and mechanical sacrifices, though there’s no one around who seems willing to worship them.

Micky stops in a clearing where a number of other cars are already parked. In the first row I see a shiny new Porsche and, parked next to it, in all its tawdry desolation, Daytona’s old orange Porsche. Speak of the devil. As if he were declaring: This is what I am and this is what I wish I could be. Then there are a couple of Mercedes-Benzes, a 240 and a Pagoda, a BMW 733i, and a string of other cars of various makes and models and engine displacements. All of them intact, motionless, and gleaming, as if to mock the crushed automotive carcasses that surround them. There’s a sense of rust and melancholy in the air that only failure can convey.

I kick myself for the asshole I am.

I’m here for other reasons and to run other risks. I have no time for dreary animistic reveries.

If I make one false move tonight, I could wind up looking like one of these stripped automobiles, just waiting to be handed over to the tender loving care of the crusher.

Micky gets out of the car and I follow suit. I follow him toward the building on our left. We walk along the outside wall of the structure for a certain distance in the inadequate light of the overhead lamps. We walk around the far corner, and on our left we see a sliding metal door. There’s a man standing guard. Having heard our footsteps, he’s already walking toward us. He’s a completely different-looking type from the squat guy at the gate. He’s dressed in a dark brown suit and has the appearance of a man who would ring a doorbell and pull a trigger with the same unruffled calm: maybe the trigger of the gun sticking out of his belt, visible through his unbuttoned suit jacket.