Ash Wednesday

February 24, 1971

          Suffering, so much suffering, so much inevitable suffering: drugs helped, wine helped, a kindly word from a friend helped, but suffering simply couldn’t be avoided. The only real way to deal with suffering was to acknowledge it briefly, put a band-aid on it, and then forget it as quickly as possible. There was no blame, no atonement, and no solution to suffering. Everyone ended in ashes and dust.

         Fulvio lifted his gaze from the notes on his desk and told Barbarina to send in the next patient: another middle-aged man? Would it be another middle-aged woman? Or would it be another old widow with nothing to do except dwell on all the suffering in her life, someone who had mornings free to spend hours reading the out-of-date magazines and chatting with the other old women in his waiting room?

          “Doctor, this is Enea Rambaldi.”

          “Enea? What’re you doing here? You should be at the tavern grilling castrato mutton for lunch today. I’ll be by later.”

          “Oh, Doc, I’ve got this pain in my chest. It just won’t go away.”

          “All right, well take off your shirt and we’ll take a look at it.”

Fulvio had known Enea these last thirty years, after taking care of Enea’s mother who had passed away about twenty years ago. Enea was likely to be found at the tavern watching other people playing cards or building a fire and cooking dinner for his friends in the evening. Enea had never married and until about ten years ago, he’d had one companion after another, usually each for about five years at a time. Every successive woman eventually tired of waiting for him to ask her to marry him, which he never did. “If all I want is a glass of milk, I don’t know why I need to have the whole cow!” was his final, frank, and insulting, response. Enea was never eaten by remorse that anyone could tell and he was ready any day of the week to go hunting or scour the countryside in search of a farmer with good demijohns of wine for sale. In the summer, Enea would spend the whole day at the beach tanning until he was toasted just as brown as a berry.

         After Enea took off his undershirt, Fulvio asked him to sit on the examination bed. Fulvio pulled out his stethoscope and started to lay it gingerly across his back.

         “Inhale! Again. Let’s listen here.”

          As Fulvio moved the stethoscope over Enea’s skin, he noticed the erythemas from all his summertime sunbathing.

         “How many years have you been smoking, Enea?”

         “Since I was fourteen, but I’ve had to cut back to a pack a day in the last three weeks. It just gets to me and I wheeze every time I stand up.”

          “Well, Enea old shoe, the first thing you need to do is quit altogether.”

         “Oh Doc, you know I can’t do that. How many pleasures are left me at seventy-five? Can’t do it with the women anymore, and the wine upsets my stomach and I never did play cards.”

        “You need to lose about thirty pounds, too.”

        “So, I can do what?”

         “Enjoy good health.”

          Fulvio knew people and he knew Enea wasn’t going to quit smoking or lose thirty pounds. Fulvio also knew that the erythemas on Enea’s skin and what he heard in Enea’s lungs quite likely meant some form of metastasis might have reached his brain. If that were the case, Enea might live another year and a half but even that was unlikely.

          “How much aspirin are you taking these days?”

          “Funny you should ask. I probably take six a day. I get these curious headaches that come at all hours: early in the morning, in the late afternoon, before or after a meal. They’re so bad sometimes they wake me up when I’m asleep.”

          That was it. Unless Enea was willing to submit to the new chemotherapy, he would be in a clean tomb for the Commemoration of the Dead in November of this year.

          “That much aspirin isn’t good for your stomach. That’s probably why you’re cutting back on the wine. The next time you feel one of those headaches coming on, have a glass of red wine. Just one, don‘t drink the whole bottle. That should make the headache go away. And as for that pain in your chest, I think we need to do a routine x-ray, or better yet, let’s try out the new CAT scan if it is available in Bologna, do you think we can do that?”

         “You’re the doctor, Doc. I’ll do what you tell me to do.”

         “Then have a little piece of prosciutto on some piadina when you drink that glass of wine. Food can cure a lot of ills.”

          Fulvio dictated to Barbarina the prescription ticket for specialist examinations while Enea put his shirt back on. Barbarina could tell from the way her boss raised his left eyebrow and turned his head slightly to the right while speaking, that the Doctor was hiding a grimace. She also knew that when Doctor Raggi ordered a patient to drink a glass of wine and eat a few slices of ham there was either no problem at all, or “bad disease:” cancer. How many times had Fulvio told her about old Dr. Miserocchi whom he’d interned with at the City Hospital?

          “He wasn’t really from the twentieth century. He used all the latest methods and penicillin, needless to say, was a lifesaver, a real lifesaver when it came along. However, old Dr. Miserocchi always told me that a good third of the problems the patients had were in their heads or in their stomachs. We could always prescribe a placebo, which they would have to go to the pharmacist and pay for. A few of the patients would eventually discover this therapy was just some old sugar pill."

        “A glass of wine will actually make just about everyone feel better. Moreover, it costs a tenth of what a placebo costs. But old Dr. Miserocchi, he remembered how they practiced medicine before the great Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918. ‘A glass of red wine for the men, a cordial for the ladies will cure about three-quarters of the patients you prescribe it for. Either you’ve misdiagnosed the other quarter or they’re hypochondriacs or they’ve got ‘a bad disease.’ If they’re still in pain, they’ll come back. You’ll never cure them. Their only hope, the only thing those patients can do is seek a second opinion. And we need to urge them to do that, because they won’t accept the truth until they hear it from several people, and not even then sometimes. No one wants to admit that suffering is inevitable.’”

        Fulvio smiled and grabbed Enea by the shoulder and elbow as he escorted him out of his office. “Be sure and let me know when you get your appointment so I can call down to the hospital and see what they have to say.”

          Fulvio knew he would have to call Elisa, Enea’s sister after the results from the x-ray came back and inform her that her brother had only a few months to live. Fulvio would put it off as long as possible: Enea would never put up with the new interferon they were talking about or chemotherapy. Fulvio needed to think about something else.

         The maid knocked at the door. “Coffee’s ready!”

         Barbarina and her boss left the office to go into his study where strong, fragrant coffee with the maid’s special hypo-concentrated sugar froth awaited them. As they drank, Barbarina remarked: “It’s bad, isn’t it?

        “Well Barbarina, let’s just hope that this new-fangled CAT scan can tell us something that we don’t know.”

         The phone rang and Barbarina answered it while Fulvio went to the washroom. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and winced slightly as he combed his hair into place, and added a tiny whiff of aftershave to his person. When he returned to his office, Barbarina was just putting the phone down.

          “Doctor, that’s the hospital health service. They were asking if you would make house calls this afternoon until ten. There’s this flu, let’s just hope it isn’t that Hungarian flu they keep talking about. Any, this flu is going around and they’re receiving far more calls than the list of doctors can handle.”

         “Oh well, I suppose so. I didn’t have anything special planned except dropping by the tavern for a bite of grilled castrato mutton. This is my job, after all. Even if there’s really nothing we can do about the flu except. . .”

        “. . . prescribe antibiotics, lots of fluid and bed rest. Oh, I know Doctor, but somehow when you go and see a person, they somehow get better a little faster, and suffer a little bit less.”

       “I don’t know how much of that is true, but I’ll take it as a compliment. Let’s empty out the waiting room.”

          Even though Barbarina locked the door to the waiting room at noon and showed patients out through the side door, she and Fulvio worked until after half past one. He missed lunch with his wife and children who ate and left for their afternoon meetings, shopping, and sports. When Fulvio got to the table, the maid waited on him hand and foot, whatever he needed and as much and as hot as he wanted it.  He never asked her for anything; she just scurried.

        “No, Nanny. No wine today. I’ll be making rounds this afternoon.”

          “It’s the flu, isn’t it?”

         “Oh, yeah. So, I’ll prescribe antibiotics . . .

        “. . .  and bed rest and plenty of fluids.”

         Barbarina knocked on the door and came in just as the Doctor was having his coffee.

        “Here’s your list of patients to see from the hospital. There’s no use in waiting around for the phone to ring, today. There are already fifteen calls.”

          “Fifteen!” Fulvio frowned.

          “Yes, but I did manage to negotiate and keep them all in town, and even better they’re all in the Saint Blaise neighbourhood. You won’t have to drive out into the country and visit some cold farmhouse today. Is there anything else I can do, for you? I’ll stay as long as you need.”

          “No, no, nothing. I was hoping to get some ice cream for the kids and myself, but I guess that won’t be possible.”

        “Doctor, don’t forget, it’s Ash Wednesday. La Signora won’t much appreciate your giving the children ice cream at the beginning of Lent. You know how she feels about eating meat and drinking alcohol and meat and sweets especially on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.”

        Fulvio clucked his tongue very quietly and shook his head, very slightly.

       “But I think I could smuggle a pint of hazelnut into the house, if Nanny here . . .”

        “Can keep it out of the Signora’s sightlines until the children have inhaled it? I think I can do that. I’ll give it to them for their afternoon snack of course. La Signora will undoubtedly be out until six. Barbarina, can you drop the ice cream by my house? I’ve got my family to feed and an appointment with my hairdresser before I come back to fix supper this evening.”

       “Oh, I think we can do that. Anything else, Doctor?”

       “Don’t get sick, either of you. Keep covered up when you go out and keep your kids apart as much as possible. The whole flu thing is coming out of the elementary schools. Children are spreading it everywhere they go.”

        It was the same, house after house. Everyone was glad to see him, they took his coat, led him into the bathroom to wash his hands, and then into a bedroom where a child or a grandmother or an adolescent or an adult male was trying to sleep with a temperature of 103. Fulvio would sit by the bed and take the patient’s hand in his as he started speaking to them. All his patients felt immediate relief at this: Doctor Raggi was there. Little did they realize that Dr. Raggi was trying to determine:

1)    what their pulse was,

2)    more or less how much fever they had,

3)    how much they were sweating.

       He’d pull down the bedclothes and touch them under the liver and in their armpits, under their necks and in the middle of their bellies. The flu. It was always the flu, in different stages. He would pull the bedclothes back up, give the patient a squeeze on the shoulder and tell them to rest.

       Once he got out of the bedroom and washroom, the relatives would offer him coffee or water or even a slice of piadina. He would tell them they needed to give the patient antibiotics, and lots of liquids and plenty of bed rest and it would all be over in five to ten days.

       The day had been relentlessly bleak and ominously cold, and then about five a thick, bright aluminium fog had started to roll in. By six, it gave the entire town the appearance of being frozen in time, with no future and no past, only the damp, opaque present.

          It was just after nine o’clock and Fulvio was driving to his last appointment. He pulled up to the address and aligned himself to park his fire-engine-red Alfa Romeo in a spot right in front of the apartment building.  But out of nowhere, a sleek black BMW appeared and zipped right into his parking place. This piqued Fulvio enough to get out of his car and walk over to the driver’s window.

      “Excuse me, sir.  Didn’t you see me backing into position for this parking space?”

        “With that red car in this fog? NO, I’m afraid I didn’t. You must have been moving so slowly that I thought you were double parked on the street.”

        “Well, that was not the case. I’m terribly sorry, but I have urgent business and I do need this space.”

       “Finders keepers, losers, weepers. ‘Fraid not. I’ve got urgent business too, pretty much more important than anything you could possibly invent.”

        “Well, I’ve never seen such poor manners.”

        “Fuck you, asshole. Now get out of my way, and find yourself a fucking parking spot, if you can.”

        The man slammed his car door and walked off into the fog.

It took Fulvio a good fifteen minutes to find someplace to park: it was late and everyone had already come home for dinner that evening. He had had to walk four blocks back to the house. When he rang the doorbell, a nervous young woman opened it, and ushered him in.

       “Oh, thank you Doctor. We’ve been waiting all afternoon.”

        “I know poor thing, but you have no idea how many calls I’ve had today – you’re the last of fifteen. Now, who has the flu?”

        “The children. Both of them. And their temperatures have been wavering between 100 and 103 all day. This way please.”

          As Fulvio turned the corner to go into the children’s bedroom, he heard the front door open and slam shut. “Honey, I’m home! I just popped around the corner for a glass of wine and some cigarettes. Did the fucking doctor ever get here? Couldn’t he come earlier?”

         It was the man who had taken his parking place: “Oh, so it’s you again.”

        “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, I’m Dr. Fulvio Raggi, Ma’am. I need to wash my hands before I examine the children. If you could just show me where the washroom is?”

        While Fulvio washed his hands, he could hear the father muttering curses under his breath. Situations like this didn’t happen often, and Fulvio knew it was likely to get worse, since it was evening time. People always behaved their worst then, especially if they had not dined yet. Neither the woman nor the man had offered to take his coat, which he had laid across the other sink in the washroom.

        “Now, ma’am, just direct me to the children and we’ll see what I can do for them. I apologize for being so late, I did come as quickly as I could.”

          “Well maybe if you’d come earlier in the day, things wouldn’t be so bad.”

        “I doubt things can get much worse. Just let me see your kids.”

          The woman ushered him into a children’s room with two low beds and every imaginable kind of stuffed animal lined along the walls. Fulvio sat by the little girl and talked to her quietly, and then pulled out his stethoscope when he examined the little boy. The woman and man looked anxiously on.

          The three of them left the bedroom. While Fulvio was washing his hands, he told them: “They have the flu. It’s not too bad really, even if their temperatures are so high. It’s painful, but they’ll get through it. The little boy however seems to have a problem in his lungs. When was the last time he was outside?”

         “Oh, he insisted on playing soccer yesterday.”

          “In the rain?”

          “It wasn’t my call. Ciro here is the coach for his team and it wouldn’t do well for the coach to make the little boys practice in the rain if his own son were not there, even if he was starting to look a little sickly.”

          “Well, that explains it.”

          “Explains what?” the husband asked.

          “Incipient pneumonia in his right lung, would be my preliminary diagnosis. It’s just the start. If you treat it immediately it shouldn’t get any worse.”

          The parents both gasped. “What can we do?”

          “Don’t let him go outside.  Call your family doctor tomorrow and see if he can come check on the boy. Your doctor will know what to do, which medications and therapies to prescribe.”

          “But our doctor is skiing!”

          “Well, he should have a substitute. Who’s your doctor?”

“Loris Macri.”

         “His substitute has just finished her internship in the geriatric ward at the hospital and I know that she’s in town. Her name is Doctor Nucci. But for tonight just try to keep them asleep, if their fever goes up to 103, try to bring it down with wet compresses on their foreheads. Then call Dr. Macri’s office first thing in the morning, or better yet, go there in person early so you can be the first in line. This flu epidemic has got us all working overtime.”

        “Compresses all night? Who’s got the time for that?”

         “A child’s parents usually do. But you can always see about finding a nurse. It won’t be easy to find one this week. Now, here’s the prescription for antibiotics for both children. Give them each a pill according to the directions: one after breakfast, one after lunch, one before dinner and one before they go to bed. Keep giving them as much to drink as they want, they need lots of fluids. I might add you’ll want to keep them as warm as possible.”

          “Isn’t there anything else you can do? Couldn’t you come back tomorrow and check in on him? I mean, if you’d come earlier today, this might've all been averted, mightn’t it?”

          “I’ve already come today, and this was supposed to be my afternoon off. I don’t have any other slots available for the rest of the week. I’m afraid you need to wait your turn like everyone else.”

          Under his breath, the man uttered the words “Fucking asshole” once again. Fulvio ignored him and walked to the door. The woman sounded slightly more desperate.

        “But doctor, haven’t you got some samples of the antibiotics for this evening. Going out in this cold is . . . “

         “I know what the cold’s like, I’ve been driving around town since lunch time. I had to park four blocks away because someone took my parking space as I was backing into it. I’ve used up all my samples; but the pharmacies in the square and at the hospital are open twenty-four hours a day. You’ll need to go there.”

         “Couldn’t you run up and get them for us? I mean, you’re going out anyway.”

          This was a little more than Fulvio wanted to hear. He took a deep breath, stared at the woman and wryly responded.

          “Well, I could, but I also have two children at home and I haven’t had any dinner. Indeed, I haven’t even been offered a glass of water for the last half hour I’ve been here with you. I need to get home. And I’m parked four blocks away, as I mentioned earlier.”

          “But Doctor, oh please come back tomorrow morning. First thing. We’ll pay you.”

        Fulvio turned to put on his scarf and walk out the door, then he looked back at the couple and said: “I’m afraid you haven’t got enough money for me to come back, but you can call the hospital tonight if you like. Someone might be along around one or two in the morning, but they won’t tell you anything different from what I’ve just said.  Good evening.”

          “Some people only think of themselves!” the woman shouted after Fulvio as he walked down the stairs. He also heard the man mutter “Fucking asshole!” as he slammed the door at Fulvio’s back.

          Fulvio didn’t get back home until just before ten o’clock. He took off his coat and his wife came towards him, clutching her dressing gown tight around herself. He noticed she still had the trace of an ashen cross on her forehead.

        “Fulvio!”

        “Well, hello.”

         “I know you’re tired, but Donato’s not feeling well. He’s running a fever and feels all achy.”

         “It must be the flu. Can’t I get a bite to eat first?”

         “It’ll only take a few minutes. I mean after all, he is your son. I do think that’s more important than stuffing your face.”

         Fulvio knew any comment would only lead to an argument. He went to his son’s room, pulled up a chair by the bed, and took Donato’s hand. Of course, he had a slight fever. It was the flu. Fulvio sat there and sighed a minute or so, while his wife looked on. Fulvio was beat, he was tired, and he knew there was nothing he could do except prescribe antibiotics, lots of fluids and bed rest. He almost fell asleep sitting there.

       “Pops.”

         “Donato, you need to go back to sleep. I’m going to give you some antibiotics. Francesca, can you go into the kitchen, bring back a glass of water and a packet of Allmusan? It’s in the tin next to the wine bottles.

        While his wife was away Donato said: “Thanks for the ice cream, Pops. I just wish you’d remembered I don’t like hazelnut.”

         Fulvio sighed. “I’ll eat it, don’t worry.”

        “Oh, we already ate it all, Pops. Just next time remember, hazelnut is your favourite flavour, not mine. That is, if you really want to make everyone happy and not just yourself.”

        When Fulvio finally made it to the kitchen, he saw that the maid had left his place setting laid out. Francesca was heating the soup and had put the fish in the oven. They chatted for a moment, and when Francesca poured the soup into the bowl, she announced:

        “Time for me to go to bed. I’ve got a big day in front of me. You can just put the dishes in the sink when you’re finished.”

        At this, Fulvio didn’t even lift his head from his plate. “Good night.”

        “Good night.”

        As he sat at the table over the bowl of steaming soup, he turned around to look at the pallid flounder in the oven behind him. Once Fulvio heard Francesca’s bedroom door close, he stood up, walked over to the counter, opened the bottle of wine, and poured himself a glass of garnet red Sangiovese with bright orange overtones. Then he went to the refrigerator and felt under the celery in the crisper. Sure enough, there was the package he was expecting, where he knew that Nanny would leave it for him.

          Fulvio stood there at the counter and opened the folded butcher’s paper to reveal a prairie of gentle waves of perfectly sliced, orderly rows of paper-thin ham gleaming pink against the slick white background. It emanated a lusciously plump aroma of lovingly cured pork with smoky hint of cloves. He broke a piece of audibly crusty bread, picked up a slice of prosciutto bathed in a subtly golden iridescent sheen, and held it up in front of the kitchen’s single bulb. The ham glowed with all the translucent opulence of the stained glass in one of the Rose Windows in Notre Dame de Paris.  Fulvio laid the slice of the ham on top of bread and bit off half of it. Then he drained the glass of wine, and poured himself another one. Still standing there, he finished off the ham and bread and then he sat down and fixed himself another open-faced sandwich.

         “Some people only think of themselves. The people who say it are usually experts, that’s for sure. Well, they’re something more than experts, they’re licensed masters in zoological selfishness.”

          Fulvio poured himself his third and final glass of wine. His day was over: he could put all the fatigue and injustice and suffering behind him. The thought of repentance and atonement and expiation did not even enter the ante camera of his brain; he had no room for needless suffering there. He did not utter his final thought for the day. Even if there had been someone there to listen to him, Fulvio would never say anything like that out loud:

          “Fuck Ash Wednesday.”

Mardi Gras

February 19, 1985

          No one had quite the heart to tell Fabrizio that his costume suited him perfectly. His older sister Edvige had spent all Saturday afternoon sewing up outfits for her brothers and sisters, and Fabrizio’s was the last one. Hence, her criteria for construction were simplicity and speed. Edvige rooted around in the scrap basket but she could only find an old ripped white sheet.

          Well, Fabrizio could be a ghost, that was easy enough (but a little too easy, even Edvige knew that). He could be a mummy. This had been tried once, and although it was warm, the great disadvantage was that there was no place to keep keys or money. Also, if you ever got wet, you had to go home, for the water seeped through the layers of fabric right down to your skin. When the wind ripped through the soaked fabric, it chilled you straight to your bones.

Edvige turned and looked at her childhood dolls lined up on her shelf. 
          Of course, that was it!

          Pierrot: droopy pants would only require one long inseam and two outer seams. If she cut out the tunic correctly, all she would have to do is sew up the arm inseams, baste three pompoms made of old black hose on it, and it was finished. Edvige went to Fabrizio’s room and got a pair of his jeans and an old sweatshirt, laid them on the sheet, and started cutting. She was finished in less than forty-five minutes, just in time to watch her Brazilian soap opera Agua Viva in the living room.

          Fabrizio came in and slammed the door hard out of mere carelessness. When he looked down the hall, he saw Edvige had hung the costumes up on the lintel of her door: a plush brown bear made out of his father’s old flannel pajamas, a Snow White dress assembled from hand-me-down clothes that looked perfect, a bunch of purple and red grapes made of old hose and rags, and finally this white thing hanging down.

         “Well, what am I supposed to be? A ghost?”

          “Oh no, Fabrizio; something much easier to walk around in. You’d get your sheet caught everywhere you went. No, I fixed you an outfit as Pierrot.”

         “Who’s he? The class jerk?”

          Edvige flicked off the TV and strode to her room. She picked up the Pierrot doll her grandmother had given her for her tenth birthday.

         “This is Pierrot. He’s the sad character from the commedia dell’arte, always falling in love and never being fallen in love with.”

          “That doesn’t sound very lucky to me.”

          “Fabrizio, Carnival is not about being lucky; it’s about pretending you’re someone else. This will be easy to wear and take off. All you have to add is a black skull cap and white face.”

        “Oh no, not makeup! It’ll make my skin break out.”

        “Oh no it won’t. I read about a new chalk preparation that washes off with water. It’ll be fun.”

        “I’m not so sure about this.”

        “Well, then, you can jolly well go out and buy yourself a costume or make it yourself. I don’t have any more time to spend sewing. Or would you like to take over and fix your own costume ?

         “Men don’t sew.”

         “Well, they don’t in Romagna, that’s for sure.”

          The day was pasty grey and wet. Fabrizio saw the fog rolling in already at half past four from the kitchen window. The whole world looked like it was made out of lead, with the same smudged cast as the pipes he was learning to repair at school. Fabrizio was not really a bad sort, but he had very little character. He was trying to find a girlfriend, but he was not having much success. Most girls just ignored him, and when his skin broke out, a regular occurrence at the age of 16, he didn’t even want to leave the house.

         When he put on his costume, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to walk into town for a pizza with his class, which had been the plan.

         “Oh, Edvige, I look pathetic! Gosh, I don’t think I even want to go out.”

          “Here, sit still while I make you up. Sit still!” Edvige placed a black skiing cap on Fabrizio’s head, and tucked all his hair up inside. Then she carefully applied the white base on his face, expertly eyelining his nostrils, eyes, eyebrows, and mouth. She lipsticked his lips very lightly, and finally drew the coup de grace: the outline of a tear descending his cheek.

         “Here you go. Take a look! You make a pretty good Pierrot!”

Fabrizio looked himself full length in the mirror and cringed: big floppy sleeves and big floppy trousers and the ugly shape of his head.

          “God, this is horrible. I look like the nerdy loser of all time.”

          This offended Edvige and she was about the rip into him, but then she really looked at her brother. He was a sorry sight now that she looked more closely, and she immediately pitied him. But there was neither time enough nor fabric.

          “Well, I’m sorry. This is just the best I can do. If you want, you can go buy an outfit, but I don’t have the energy left to make you another one. It’s just going to have to do. I’m sorry you don’t like it.”

          “Well, you could’ve thought about it a little bit better, that’s all.”

          Though Edvige knew he was right, this comment piqued her. She knew her brother would never say thank you, he would never apologize, and he would never appreciate anything she did for him.

          “That’s the last time I sew something for you. Now, I think you can leave my room since I am obviously not worthy to do things for you, for free!”

          Fabrizio slammed the door, this time out of anger. Why was everyone was so mean to him? Why didn’t he get a little consideration? Gosh! Everyone was out to let him down.

          His little brother Vincenzo came into their room.

          “Fabri.”

          “What the fuck do you want?”

          “Oh, Mamma said never to talk like that, Fabri.”  

          “Well, just don’t tell her. What do you want?”

          “Can you help me with my arithmetic?”

          “Oh, ask someone else to help you. I haven’t got time for you.”

          Vincenzo looked Fabrizio in the eyes sadly and walked out of the room.

          Fabrizio went to the mirror and inspected the pimples on his face: at least four and three more on the way on his forehead. It was all so disgusting. He hated his face. He hated his skinny, smelly body. He hated his uncomfortable clothing. He hated his bedroom. He hated his school. Indeed, Fabrizio pretty much hated his life and with that, he hated himself.

          Edvige knocked on the door and came into his room, the Pierrot costume on a hanger.

          “Here. If you want it, you can have it. If you don’t want it, tell me now, and I will give it to Morena’s brother who also needs a costume and doesn’t have one.”

          Fabrizio completely ignored her.

          Edvige hung the costume on the door and walked out of the room.

          “If it’s still there before supper, I’ll get it out of your sight.”

          When it was time for supper, Fabrizio glumly went to the table.

          “What? Baked fennel again? Can’t we ever have something good to eat?”

           Fabrizio’s mother looked him painfully in the eye. Why was her son so unhappy?

          Fabrizio’s father looked him sternly in his eye. Why was his son such a jerk?

          “Fabrizio . . .” they both started.

          He picked up his fork and knife and shoveled the vegetables into his mouth.

          “I’ll shut up. Don’t worry.”

          “Well, you’d better,” was all his father could say.

          The rest of the evening got no better. Fabrizio ate in mopey silence, argued with his siblings about which television program to watch, neglected to do his homework, read car magazines until midnight with the light on, and then fell asleep.

         School on Tuesday was a catastrophe: he got a D in technical studies, a D-minus in Italian, and a flat out F in Mathematics. His math teacher Dottor Gallina tried to speak to him during the mid morning break.

         “Fabrizio, now what is it you don’t understand here?”

         “I don’t understand anything. Nothing at all. I hate math.”

          “Well, I’m doing all that I can to explain it and make it as easy as possible. How much time are you spending a day studying?”

          “None. What’s the use? I don’t understand it.”

          “Well, if you never open your book, you’ll never understand anything. Now, unless you start studying, there’s nothing I can do to help you. It’s as simple as that.”

          “But what’s the use of studying something if I just don’t get it?”

          “That’s precisely the point. You don’t need to study something you get, now do you?”

          “And so there would be no reason to go to school?”

          “No, there wouldn’t. So, why are you in school at all?”

          “Because I have to come here. I have to. My parents make me.”

          “What would you rather do?”

          “I’d rather sit at home and watch television.”

           The math teacher looked Fabrizio straight in the eye. How many of his students were just like him? What could a teacher possibly do to help them? Fabrizio had entered a nationwide peer group where the standard sources of self-esteem were still as external as they had ever been: expensive shoes, a moped, a fashionable, pretty girl friend, vacations at the beach or skiing. But these sources of self esteem had become unattainable; young men and women worked less and less outside their home as they grew up and never learned the value of money. Twenty years ago a boy like Fabrizio could have made some pocket money harvesting or working in the fields a few weeks a year, or running errands for a shopkeeper or a business man. But these jobs, those odd jobs, no longer existed. There was no way Fabrizio Ceccarelli was going to have any of the things he wanted unless he got a job and there was no way he was going to find a job. 
          Dr. Gallina knew Signor and Signora Ceccarelli: they were a hardworking plumber and town hall clerk who were just getting by month-to-month with dignity, with seven mouths to feed. Fabrizio played no sports, took part in no extracurricular activities, and he didn’t even seem vaguely interested in music. Where would Fabrizio find passion? His teacher hardly knew. Signor Gallina barely knew what to say to him or to the other half of Fabrizio’s class with his same mindset. They never even got angry. They simply did not care about anything and said so all the time.

          “Well Fabrizio, I wish I could help you. I think my problem is that you don’t really care about my helping you. That’s the case, isn’t it?”

          “Help? All I want is for you to pass me. Is that too much to ask for? I mean, that’s what everyone expects of me.”

          “It’s too much to ask if you can’t do long division and you aren’t willing to try. That’s all that I expect of you. I don’t think asking to try is too much, really, do you?”

          “Gosh, everybody’s got all the answers, don’t they?”

          “The only people who have answers are the people who ask themselves questions. Until you start to ask yourself a few questions and try to look for the real answer, and not the convenient response of ‘I just don’t care,’ you won’t find any answers. I do wish I could help you, but I can’t because you don’t want my help.”

          “All I want is a passing grade. That would help me.”

          “Without working for it? All you want is a free lunch, which is what you’ll get at home. You won’t get it here. You might as well not come to school at all.”

          “And what would I do?”

          “Stay at home and watch television. That’s what you really want to do, isn’t it?”

          Fabrizio sat there in silence. God, did the teacher ever make him feel stupid. Why couldn’t people leave him alone?

          The math teacher stood up. “Well, I guess that’s as much as we can say to each other, unless you have something I can do for you, and don’t say ‘pass me in math again.’ I can’t pass you unless you put out some effort, and that appears to be asking too much of you. I hope you find something you like Fabrizio, something you like to do, and not something, that’s done for you. But I’m being unfair. You need to lead your life the way you see fit. And I don’t fit into the way you want to lead your life. Math doesn’t fit either and neither does school. If you need something, if you want to talk, I’m here.”

          With that, the math teacher gathered up his books and walked out of the room.

          “God, what an asshole Dr. Gallina is!” Fabrizio sat in his classroom and looked at the writing on the board. He looked at the cross over the teacher’s desk. Then he looked at the posters on the wall.

         “On Tuesday next it’s Carnival

           And so we’ll eat until we’re full.

           At Valentino’s Pizzeria
          At eight o’clock there, we’ll see ya
          In mask comic or tragic

          We’ll make midwinter magic

          So on your calendar mark Mardi Gras

          We’ll sing and dance and party - Ha! Ha! Ha!”

          The poem rhymed but apart from that, it was pretty lame. Why even bother to go? Because, the only thing nerdier than going to a class party was staying at home and watching television. Fabrizio resigned himself to going.

          When he got home for lunch, his little brother and sisters were dressed like a bear and Snow White and a bunch of grapes they were jumping and dancing around the kitchen with his mother and Edvige, laughing and singing.

          “Where’s lunch?”

          His mother smiled at him and laughed. “Oh, we’ll get to that in minute. Aren’t Lina and Vincenzo and Samuela just adorable? These are wonderful costumes, Edvige.!”

          “You should see mine.”

           “Oh, I have. I took it over to Alessio’s house since Edvige said you didn’t want it.”

           “What! Who told you I didn’t want my costume, Edvige?”

           “You never put it away. I told you if it was still hanging around I would take it to Morena’s brother. So we did.”

           “Well, you’d just better get it back because I need it tonight.”

          “Too late, Fabrizio.”

          The mother came to the rescue:

          “Oh Edvige, it’s not too late. Nobody was home so I hung it on the line in the back of their house. I bet it’s still there Fabrizio, if you want to go get it.”

         “And walk around town holding a costume in a bag. I don’t think so. It would make me look like a prick.”

          Fernanda Ceccarelli was definitely dismayed by Fabrizio’s vulgarity and was about to light into him when she looked at him again. He was so pathetic, so unhappy, so downtrodden. What had she done to rear such a miserable person? Her heart flew out to him in his loneliness.

          “I’ll get it for you.” And with that, she wrapped a scarf around her head and put on her coat and gloves and made her way out the door. The singing and dancing had stopped of course, but Vincenzo and Lina and Arianna were still jumping up and down in their own tiny cosmos of excitement.

          “Well Edvige, aren’t you going to get lunch ready?”

          Edvige grumbled but she went into the kitchen and put the water on for the pasta. The only reason she was starting lunch was that Fabrizio would reprimand their mother when she returned from picking up the costume, and that would hurt their mother.        Romagnol men! The best you could hope for from them was that they spend as much time as possible at the bar talking with their friends and as little time as possible at home. The only positive thing they ever did was bring home a paycheck and make sure the car was running. For the rest, they were all pretty worthless. One thing was certain; Edvige was not about to marry a Romagnol.

          Fernanda was flustered when she returned. Alessio was already trying the costume on and liked it. It was not easy to get it away from him, but she cajoled and pleaded and managed to get it back.

          “Of course he was happy with it; it was perfectly free and he didn’t have to do anything to get it!” Fabrizio’s criticism was right on target.

          Fernanda and Edvige looked at each other in the eye and headed into the kitchen to put lunch on the table. The little bear and Snow White and the grapes laughed all the way through the meal and squealed at all the carnival desserts Fernanda pulled out for them. Edvige and Fernanda laughed and joked with them as Fabrizio ate in stony silence and he got up from the table without saying anything.

          “Fabri, where are you off to?”

          “I’m going to take a nap. I’m tired; school is taking the blood right out of my veins.”

          “Should I wake you up?”

          “No, but you could be quiet, it‘s the very least.”

          While they were clearing the table, Fernanda and Edvige had a slight altercation.

          “Well, you know, if he had to do something for himself, he might be a little more appreciative.”

          “Edvige, men can’t do anything. Don’t you know? Can’t you see your father? That’s not their place.”

          “And ours is just to wait on them hand and foot? I don’t think so.”

          “Edvige, that’s not the problem, really. I don’t know what to do about Fabrizio. I had a long conversation with his Math teacher this morning – you know Professor Gallina?”

          “And what did he say?”

          “Oh, Fabrizio needs to find something that interests him.”

          “Mamma, that’s not going to happen until he stops watching television. That’s the only thing he does, apart from eating sleeping and pretending he’s going to school. Maybe if you restricted his television use he might change.”

          “But that’s the only pleasure he’s got and it would mean taking it away from Vincenzo and Lina and Samuela too, and it would be unfair to them.”

          “Unfair to them? They have to watch his programs.”

          “Oh but, he’s older, and he does get to pick.”

          “Mamma, I don’t know why you’re taking Fabrizio’s side.    He’s ruining himself.”

          “I feel so sorry for him.”

          Fabrizio couldn’t sleep and had decided to get one of the fried batter chestnuts from the kitchen where Fernanda and Edvige were speaking. He heard Fernanda’s last sentence. It stopped him dead in his tracks.

          “Does my own mother think I’m a worthless nobody?” He  blinked back a tear and walked back to his bedroom to commiserate with himself in the dark world of the tepid sheets and blankets on his single bed. He eventually fell asleep.

          When he awoke, it was dark. He turned to look at his alarm clock and it showed seven o’clock. The appointment in the pizzeria was at eight: he needed to get dressed. He turned on the light and pulled on his costume and then walked to his sister’s room for his makeup. Edvige was charmingly dressed as a fetching gypsy with scarves fluttering everywhere and gold hoop earrings swaying every time she moved her head. She was wrapping a shawl around her arms when the doorbell rang.

          “I’m coming! Tell Mirco I’ll be right down – he doesn’t need to come up.”

          “Edvige.”

          “Oh hello Fabrizio. That costume looks pretty good on you. I’ll see you later. Mirco and I are off to the square.”

          “But I need you to put on my makeup!”

Edvige looked him straight in the eye. Lord, he was arrogant.

           “No ‘please,' No 'hello’, No ‘what a nice costume’, No ‘I hope you have a good time,’ You know Fabrizio the only time you ever talk to me is when you need something.”

          Fabrizio looked at his feet. Why was Edvige such a bitch?

          Edvige looked at Fabrizio. Why was he such a pathetic little prick?

          “All right Fabrizio, put on your skull cap and let’s see what we can do. It shouldn’t take that long.” Edvige took off her shawl and in the space of five minutes had made him up, down to the maudlin tear dripping down his cheek. As he continued to look at himself in the mirror in stony silence, she threw her shawl around her shoulders and waltzed out the door.

          When Fabrizio looked up, she was gone. Gosh, she could have at least said goodbye. She was just a cunt. Girls were like that. There wasn’t much you could do about it. His mother came into the room.

          “Fabrizio – don’t you look . . . adorable! I’m sure the girls will all be falling over you, trying to cheer you up!”

          “How much money are you going to give me? I need to pay for my pizza.”

          Fernanda was slightly disappointed, but she slipped him a 5,000-lira note. “Here – this should pay for ice cream too, if you’re hungry. Now, go out and have a great time! It’s Mardi Gras and you’re only young once.”

          Vincenzo and Lina and Samuela waved at Fabrizio as he walked out the door. He didn’t bother to turn around and look.

          The streets of the city were populated by other people masquerading. There were plenty of gypsies and a man that had been hung and even a woman dressed up like a giant garlic clove with a green face. People were laughing and shouting, occasionally throwing confetti, or attacking one another with frothing cans of shaving cream.

          It seemed to Fabrizio that he was the only person walking alone. He also noticed there must have been at least three other “pee-a-rose” as his sister had called him, all in the same white costume with the same white makeup and same pathetic little tear.  He felt even more like a chump.

          As he crossed under the gate to the city, a large arch with a painted Madonna inside its hidden arches, he heard guys laughing. He turned to look and saw they were not in costume. They were wearing dark clothing and scarves just the right length, huddled in one of the corners of under the arch, smoking cigarettes, of course. He looked closer and recognized Simone, two years ahead of him at school.

          “Hey there, sad clown! Sad sack, sad piece of shit!” they all laughed at him.

          Since there were seven of them, there was not much use of Fabrizio getting angry or trying to pick a fight. He simply bowed his head and hunched his shoulders and walked down the confetti-strewn street. He looked even sadder and more pathetic. He felt a lot worse, too. Fabrizio was just about to turn right and take a side street to walk back home when he heard someone run up behind him and tap him on the shoulder. It was Simone.

          “Hey bud, sorry about that. I guess we hit a little too hard.”

Fabrizio looked him in the eyes. Simone was the best-looking guy in his class, with short curly blond hair, beautiful skin and bright blue eyes. He wore cool belts and boots, and his jeans were always, how could you put it ? – just right. Fabrizio was surprised Simone even bothered to speak to him, but Fabrizio knew he had to be cool, so he shrugged it off.

          “Oh it’s alright; this is a pretty fucking stupid costume, anyway. You weren’t wrong about what you said.”

          “No man, I want to make it up to you. That was no way to treat anybody. Come on back and have a cigarette with us.”

Fabrizio had never smoked and he had never had any intention to smoke. He didn’t like the smell, but there was no way he was going to refuse such a cool offer, so he went back to the huddle under the arch where Simone gave him a cigarette. The other guys were laughing and hitting each other on the shoulder while Fabrizio tried to pretend he knew what he was doing with the cigarette. He didn’t inhale which helped, and the cigarette actually felt kind of cool in his hand. The other guys picked up on all of this and played cool. The last thing they meant to do was to judge somebody else or hurt them or make them uncomfortable. They were just out for a good time. Like just about everybody else around them, they were at peace with themselves this evening.

          “So, Fabrizio, I think you’ve seen everybody here at school except for Stefano. I mean, you’ve seen him around town I’m sure, but he’s finished technical school and he’s already working in the rubber factory. He’s cool.

          Stefano stretched out his hand and then went through an elaborate set of moves, slapping the back of his hand against the back of Fabrizio’s, slapping his palm upward and then downward, grabbing his fingers against his and curling them around and finally grabbing Fabrizio’s thumb in his fist. Stefano was so smooth about it that Fabrizio only had to smile which he did easily enough. It wasn’t really a secret handshake, it was an initiation into a new cycle of life. Fabrizio started to feel a little better.

         “So, where are you off to, Sad Sack?” Stefano asked with unspoken comradeship that turned the offhand insult into an inoffensive form of masculine affection masquerading as false familiarity and contempt, as Byzantinely complex as it was genuine.

          “Oh, my class is meeting at Valentino’s for pizza and then we’re going to try and go to a discotheque.”

          “That sounds like fun!” Everyone sniggered, and Fabrizio was relieved.

          “I didn’t think much of it either, but I wanted to get out of the house. It is Mardi Gras after all.”

          “Fuck Mardi Gras! You don’t need to get dressed up and hang out with a bunch of kids to have a good time, now do you?”

          “Well yeah, I did except until I met you, there was no one for me to hang out with.”

          “Well, guys, I think we can treat Fabrizio here to a great time. I’ve got some beer back at the house and if we can scrounge up a few more cans, I’ll put on some spaghetti and we can have a bite back at my pad.”

          Fabrizio thought of the five spot he had in his pocket, he thought of the pizzeria and all his classmates and what they would be doing. Going back to Stefano’s apartment sounded like a lot more fun. He felt in his pocket for the bill and it pulled out.

          “Well, I was going to spend this tonight for the pizza, but spaghetti and beer sound a lot cooler. Let’s go!”

          “Have you got a bike?”

          “No, I didn‘t have that far to walk.”

          “All right, hop on with Simone. You pick up the beer and I’ll go back to my apartment and put the water on.”

          The seven guys mounted their mopeds and sped off in different directions. Fabrizio’s costume flapped in the wind. It was little cold, but this was the most fun he had had in months. He wanted a moped so bad, but his parents wouldn’t get him one. Hell, they hadn’t even replaced his bicycle after he forgot to lock it up and it had been stolen.

          Simone stopped at a little piadina stand behind the hospital and picked up a whole bag of beers and Fabrizio stood Simone a half a piadina too. After all, Simone was paying for the gas. Then they drove off beyond the marmalade factory to the area behind the fruit and vegetable market, filled with warehouses and empty streets this time of night. Simone stopped the moped and they got off in front of a large industrial door. Simone shouted: “Stefano! Open up!

          Stefano looked down from a window high above them. “There you are!” He turned back inside and yelled “All right you guys – dump the pasta!”

          Stefano disappeared inside the house and they heard the electric click of the lock on the door as it opened up. Fabrizio and Simone walked down a long cold hallway with a bare bulb burning up high and climbed the stairs at the end. When they got to the top of the flight, the door swayed open and Stefano smoking a cigarette, took the beer from them and let them in.

          Fabrizio had never seen a pad like this. Old car seats were lined up against walls and naked women beckoned to him from posters above them. The concrete floor was covered here and here with old pieces of wall-to-wall carpeting, in various little samples of cleanliness. A low flat table sat in the middle of the room; it was strewn with car magazines and holding a bowl with lemons. The other guys were sitting around talking and smoking on the car seats, and having a good time.

          “Good, now that you’re here, maybe we can get something to eat.” Stefano passed out the beers and in the corner one to the guys was busy stirring the pasta pot and a pan filled with oil and garlic.

          “Like it hot?”

Everyone screamed: “Yeah, the hotter the better,” and the guy dropped five red chili peppers into the oil which sputtered and popped. Fabrizio popped his beer open and took a big swig. Gosh, this evening was turning out to be a lot better than he had ever imagined.

          Simone walked over to Stefano and whispered something in his ear.

          “NO MAN, no, not until we get the food cooked; then we’ll do as much as you can handle.”

           Fabrizio took another swig of his beer. He was starting to relax a little bit and the guys motioned for him to come over and sit with them.

          “Want a cig? Here” – and soon enough Fabrizio was smoking again. One of the guys was rolling his own cigarette and after he licked it, he rolled it into a slightly conical form that was a good three times larger than your normal cigarette. Stefano motioned to the guy who handed over the cigarette.

          “I tell you what: let’s eat first. The pasta is just about ready. If you start to smoke this now, we’ll never get a bite to eat 'cause everyone’ll just zone out.”

“Ooh man, I just want a little toke.”
“I tell you what t if you can hold off I‘ll get you something even better.

         The cook was draining the pasta and when the other guys saw the big clouds of steam rising above his long dark hair, they all stood up and walked over to the corner of the room that performed a role as kitchen. One guy handed out plates and forks, while the cook mixed the pasta with oil sauce and doled out the spaghetti. It smelled delicious. Even Fabrizio was hungry at this point.    Everyone tromped back to the low long coffee table and sat around it almost as if it were a trough, they grunted and slurped up their dinner and swigged their beers. Fabrizio sat down and set his plate near a bowl of fruit. When he finished eating, he stood up to take his plate back the sink and along with a spoon he picked up that was sitting underneath the bowl of lemons.

          “No man, leave that there. We’re going to need it later,” Stefano instructed him.

         Simone smiled and looked at Stefano. “You scored some! Wow, I’ll wash the dishes if you want.”

          “No, no, that’s not necessary. But, you’re going to have to pay for it tonight. This cost me some.”

          “How much do you want?” all the guys were putting their hands in their trousers feeling for their wallets.”

          I only got one two doses so we’re going to have to split them among the eight of us. Ten a head will suit me fine.”

          Fabrizio quickly realized they were talking about drugs. Hash maybe, or cocaine. Everyone was throwing money on the table and Stefano was counting it.

          “Well bud, are you in with us too?”

           “In for what?”

           “For this” Stefano opened up a piece of paper to reveal a brown powder.

          “Oh, hash,” Fabrizio, responded trying to act cool.

          “Man, you ain't never seen no hash, have you?”

          “No, I guess this is my first time.”

          “No, this isn’t your first time, because this ain’t hash. Something better, a lot better – H, Horse, Heroin! Smackety Smack, Smack, Smack! You ready for Lady Harriet?”

         Fabrizio knew he couldn’t back down now. If he did, they might think he was going to rat on them. There was no way he could run off either, given the deserted streets and the fact that he did not even have a bicycle. Mainly though, he was embarrassed.

          “Gosh, well, I don’t know. I’ve never done it and I don’t know what to do.”

          Stefano flashed him a big warm smile. “Hey bud, it’s cool. We’ll show you. And I tell you what, since it’s your first time, you’ll be my guest. How’s that sound?

           “How about if I just look for starters?”

           “That’s cool, too.”

           Stefano took a spoon off the table and wiped it with his napkin, and then poured some brown crystals into it from his handkerchief. He held a lighter underneath the spoon and the crystals melted and soon started to bubble. Holding the plastic covering of a syringe in his teeth, he ripped off the plastic and plunged the needle into the bubbling brown mixture, and drew it up into the canister of the syringe until it was full. He first handed it to Simone.

          “All right, just take about a quarter of that, all right? There needs to be enough for everyone.”

          Simone had wrapped a belt around his upper arm and was holding it with his teeth. He kept hitting the inside of his elbow with his index finger and middle finger and stopped to stick the needle into his arm. When he did this, he smiled straight up at the ceiling, in utter bliss. He pulled the needle out and without looking, proffering it to the center of the room. Another guy took it and did the same. Then two more followed suit until the hypodermic needle was empty.

          “Well, it looks like we’re ready for a second round. Now Fabrizio, this doesn’t scare you too much, does it? Nobody went crazy or vomited or started shouting at the door or tried to scrape lizards off their bodies. It’s just a great natural high. The stuff comes right from a flower, I mean, how dangerous can it be? It’s hardly a chemical mixed up in the lab. Whaddya say, my sad little clown?

          Fabrizio was scared. Stefano saw Fabrizio was scared, and the last thing Stefano needed was for someone to go apeshit in his apartment with all the heroin he had there. So he very slowly slid over on the couch next to Fabrizio and said: “Here, why don’t you just look at how it’s done again. And then if you want to, I’ll give you a shot. If you don’t, man, that’s cool too. You can have another beer. Are you cool with that? And if you change hyou mind, I'll leave you a little tiny bit.”

          Stefano gave him a big pat on the back. Fabrizio hunched his shoulders a little bit and tried to act as cool as he could, but he was really uncomfortable. He knew he would have to take a little hit, or they might beat him up because he could rat on them to the police. Better just to play along that was for sure.

          “Okay, let’s see.”

          Stefano took another spoon off the table and wiped it with a napkin and then with half a lemon. Then he pulled a small pink balloon out of his pocket. He turned it inside out and a chunk of something about the size of a child’s button popped out into the spoon. It smelled faintly like vinegar. Stefano took the syringe and sucked up water from his glass and squirted it into the spoon. Then he took a pink lighter and heated the bottom of the spoon. “This’ll make it dissolve better., He pulled plunger out of the syringe and stirred the solution, dunked it in the glass of water put it back in the syringe. Then out of his other pocket, he whipped out a piece of cotton and rolled it into a ball about half the size of the chunk. He dropped it into the heroin. It puffed up like a sponge. Stefano placed the tip of the syringe into the center of the cotton and slowly pulled the plunger back until all of the heroin was sucked up into it.

Next, he rolled up his shirtsleeve and pulled a belt around his upper arm and wiped the inside of his elbow with the piece of lemon. Then he laid the needle flat on his skin and slowly pushed it in and sucked in a little gasp “There’s a little burn, but just for a second.” He pushed the plunger of the syringe in, and then pulled it back out, just a hair and Fabrizio could see that blood entered the body of the syringe, and then Stefano pushed the plunger halfway down. He sighed as he lay back against the sofa.

          When Stefano turned to look at Fabrizio, he wasn’t there anymore. He must’ve gone to the bathroom, or so Simone reasoned. Therefore, he laid back and lit up a cigarette and surveyed the room.

         Fabrizio was outside. He had felt like he was going to faint and needed some fresh air. He didn’t really want to smoke, he really didn’t want to shoot up heroin, but he really did want to have cool friends like Stefano and Simone. People who wouldn’t treat him like a loser. He shook his arms up and down and stamped his feet. It was getting cold. He turned back to the door and walked in.

          Edvige and her boyfriend were driving by just as he walked in the door. “Oh my God! Mirco! That’s Fabrizio!”

          “No, it’s not. There must be a million Pierrots out tonight, my little gypsy cupcake.”

          “No, no. That’s my brother; I recognize the costume because I made it. Whose house is that? He’s supposed to be at the pizzeria tonight with his class.”

          “Well, it looks like Stefano Tassinari’s moped is parked out front. Now, let’s leave him to himself and go get a pizza.”

          “Stefano Tassinari! No, not the guy who flunked out of the last year of technical school whose brother works down on the loading docks at the fruit market?”

          “Yeah, that’s him. How many can there be?” Mirco was looking for a parking place so Edvige and he could eat a pizza at La Vie en Rose nearby.

          “Mirco, we’ve to go get him. They’re all drug addicts.”

          “Now you don’t know that, you don’t know that it was Fabrizio either. So . . . “

          Though the car had not come to a complete stop, Edvige had opened the door and was getting out, scarves flowing and earrings flashing in the cold breeze. She started to the run back to the house where she had seen her brother, and Mirco was screaming after her. “Wait, wait! You just can’t go barging into somebody’s house.”      Edvige was not paying any attention and had broken into a trot, her jewelry jingling in agitated tintinnabulation that seemed all the more grotesque as her heart was racing.

          Mirco got back in the car, reversed it, and pulled back into the street following Edvige. She was a sweet girl, but she really needed to think about herself sometimes, and maybe him a little bit more. He pulled up alongside her as she was running and rolled down the window. “Do you want me to drive you?”

         “No, no, we’re almost there and I don’t think I could sit down and calm down. Just wait for me if you don’t want to come up.”

          Mirco parked the car, while Edvige rang the doorbell and then ran up the stairs into the apartment. Seven guys were sitting around totally strung out, listening to music and grooving to the harmonies of the universe. When the gypsy appeared in scintillating scarves and dancing earrings, they thought they were hallucinating.

          “God, this is great stuff! Damn Stefano, where’d you find it?”

          No one even bothered to get up or ask any questions. Edvige saw the lemons on the table and the syringes and the beers and the cigarette papers and the plates of half-eaten spaghetti.

          “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Then she saw her brother. He was lying off to the side, the syringe still in the crook of his arm. There was a small puddle of drool near his mouth, but he was smiling.

          “Okay Magic Gypsy Woman, have you come to read our fortunes or to sing and dance with your tambourine?” Stefano lit a cigarette and looked at her with a smile.

        “I have come… I have come…” She fainted.

         Mirco waited about ten minutes and then decided he needed to go in. When he got inside, he found everyone quite peaceably sitting around the low coffee table, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. Edvige had been laid out on the bed, face down.

          “What happened to my girlfriend?”

“Oh her. She fainted. She must not be used to smoke. So we grabbed her by the arms and legs and put on the bed. That floor can get pretty cold. You want her? You should go ahead and take her.” They then returned to their conversations and Stefano came up to Mirco and said: “Hey man, you’re not from Cesena but I still know you. Aren’t you Iuri Ghibellini’s brother, Mirco? Didn’t I meet you in Rimini?”

         “Yeah. Poor Iuri, He got a bum deal, that’s for sure. Oh God, what a mess! What’s that guy’s name over there on the floor, the one in the pathetic get-up?”

          “Fabrizio. He’s unhappy, but he’s still pretty cool. He bought us all a round of beers. Want one?”

         “Might as well.” Mirco took a swig and looked at Stefano.                “Listen man, we’ve got some bad shit going down here. That gypsy woman over there is his sister, and when she wakes up, she’s gonna start screaming bloody murder about her brother, and the cops will come and it’s gonna be a bad scene. So let’s try and avoid it, whatcha say?”

          “Okay man, whaddaya want me to do?”

          “Ask a couple of guys to help me carry the clown down to the car and put him in the back seat. Then, I need you to get all your buddies into the other room while I wake the Gypsy up and get her out of the house. It’ll only take five minutes. All you need to do is turn the television on in the other room and open a buncha beers in there.”

          “I think we can do that. That sounds cool.”

          “Damn, how much stuff have you all been doing?”

          “Not much, but it’s pretty good so you don’t need much. I’ve got a couple of hits left if you’d like to buy some.”

          “No, it’s too rich for my blood, but I’ll take some hash.”

          “Here, try this little booger on the house. It’s kind of laughy; I think you’ll like it.”

         “Okay, now let’s get the kid into the car.”

         Stefano requisitioned two guys who stood up and helped Mirco take Fabrizio downstairs and load him into the back seat. In the meantime Stefano turned the television on in the other room and opened some more beers. When everyone got back, Stefano appeared in the doorway and said: “Carnival in Rio! You won’t believe the fucking hooters and asses on these celestial maidens.    Come on!”

          The guys disappeared into the other room and Mirco closed the door. He walked over to Edvige and sat down beside her on the couch and pulled her up.

         “Edvige! Edvige! Come on! Wake up! It’s time to go.”

          Edvige opened her eyes and looked right into Mirco’s face.

          “Oh my God! Where am I?”

          “You’re nowhere. Just forget everything and come with me. Everything’s all right but we need to leave real quick and quiet if we don’t want no trouble.” (Mirco knew the only real trouble tonight might come from Edvige).

          “Where’s Fabrizio?”

          “He’s waiting for us in the car. You were right. It was Fabrizio… Now, come on, let’s get out of here before something bad goes down.”

          “But Mirco, I saw him with a needle. . .”

          “Edvige, will you listen to me for just one second?”

          But Edvige wasn’t going to be quiet.

          “I will not! You just listen to me . . .”

 They had reached the door to the apartment and Mirco shut the door quietly behind them and then turned to look at Edvige straight in the face. His eyes were bulging out of his head, he had lost all the color in his face, and his jaw jutted forward in a grimace of terror. He slowly raised his right hand as if to strike Edvige and she immediately fell silent. Without moving his jaw, he spoke very slowly, syllable by syllable as if he were speaking to a deaf person or an idiot.

          “We’ll talk later. Don’t talk now. Because you don’t know what the fuck you’re up against. Okay? And don’t worry: I’ll get you home safe and sound.”

          Edvige was stunned into silence. She had never been so scared of anyone in her entire life. Then Mirco apparently returned to normal. When they got back to the car, Fabrizio had awakened from his torpor and was wiping his mouth with his long floppy sleeve. “Hey guys how’s it going?” It was the first time he had been nice that Edvige could remember. He was high as a kite, but he was nice.

          “Oh we’re fine.”

          “Fabrizio, what were you . . . “

          “Edvige, knock it off,” Mirco hissed in a low, menacing tone that Fabrizio would never have picked up on. Then Mirco continued in a relaxed manner. “Fabrizio sounds like he feels fine and what he was doing was his business. Now, buddy, shall we drop you off at your pizzeria or do you want us to take you home? We’re late as it is, so just make up your mind.”

          “Oh, just take me to the gates of the city and I’ll walk. I’ll be fine. I haven’t felt this good since last summer.”

          They drove back to the gates of the city and when Fabrizio got out of the car, Mirco got out, too.

          “Okay Fabrizio, I know you’re feeling pretty good, and it’s nice that you feel pretty good, so I’m not gonna ruin it for you. Do you know where you been this evening?”

         “Sure, I’ve been to Stefano’s.”

          “No kiddo, you ain’t been nowhere. You ain’t seen nobody and you ain’t done nothin’. ‘Cause if you dare tell anybody what you’ve been doing tonight, and who you’ve seen and where you’ve been, I’ll see to it that you end up in reform school. You got that? You don’t know who my father is, you don’t know who my sister-in-law is, and you don’t know that all I gotta do is say the word to them and you’re behind bars.”

          “What’s the matter?”

          “You just do as I say and there won’t be any problems. Are there any problems?”

          “No, I feel really good.”

          “You know, you actually look good, too. You know why?”

          “No, why?”

          “Because you’re smiling. That makes a big difference. Now you keep that smile on your face and you walk into that pizzeria and see who is left and you smile and you talk with them. You be cool and you’ll be fine. Then, you walk home. And you smile and get into bed and pretend that everything is fine. You got that?”

         “Yeah, but everything is fine. I just love pizza.”

          “Good. You’ve got it. Cause if you take a wrong step, you’ll take me down with you and I’ll see your ass fried in rancid lard before you take me down.”

          “Mirco, I’d never take you down. You’re cool. I’m cool. The whole world is cool.”

          “Remember that. That’s a good thing to remember. Good night.”

          “Good night. And thanks for giving me a lift!”

          Fabrizio’s loping silhouette in white stumbled against the darkness of the night and Mirco lit a cigarette as he made sure that Fabrizio was headed in the right direction. Then he got back in the car and slumped his head onto the steering wheel, holding onto it with his hands.

          “Okay Edvige. Let’er rip! Do you want me to take you home?”

          Edvige erupted into hysterical screaming. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BROTHER? DID YOU SEE HIM WITH A NEEDLE STICKING OUT OF HIS ARM? DID YOU SEND HIM BACK INTO THAT DEN OF INIQUITY? OH MY GOD! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? WHY DID YOU STOP ME?”

          She began to pummel Mirco’s shoulders, but he just sat there, slumped over the steering wheel and took it. Edvige calmed down after about five minutes of pounding, and Mirco took his handkerchief out and gave it to her. She dried her tears. He now spoke to Edvige with calm resignation.

          “Have you got all of that out of your system now? Do you wanna scream some more? Wanna hit me a couple more times? Because now, is the time to do it. I can take it. No? Are you finished? Are you ready to listen to me? Okay, I’ll explain a few things.

          “We had to get out of that apartment as fast as possible and just as unnoticed. Those bums were all ten sheets to the wind on all kindsa junk and as long as we left them alone, nothin’ was gonna happen. They probably don’t even remember we were there, and you know why? Nobody screamed or punched at them or took their beer away from them or swiped their dope. And Edvige, you don’t want them to remember who you are. You don’t want them to remember who your brother is. They ain’t nothin’ but trouble, but only, if they know you. If they don’t know you, they’ll never bother you. But if they know who Fabrizio is, you can be sure as Hell you’ll start seeing them hanging around the street in front of your house, and you’ll never be free of them. Until you start taking Fabrizio to the emergency room and then to the cemetery.”

         “Holy Madonna in heaven Mirco! What are you talking about?”

          “God Edvige, I really didn’t want to talk about this on our third date. I just want you to know I wasn’t leading you on about me. I was waiting to see whether you could accept me for what I am. If it’d looked like you couldn’t, you’d never have found out what I’m gonna tell you.”

          Edvige was terrified. “Oh my God! Don’t tell me you’re in the mafia. In the drug trade! OH MY GOD!”

          “No I’m not, but if you don’t calm down I’m going to take you to the station and put you in a taxi. Now, if you cannot control yourself, that’s what I will do. That what you want?

          “NO. I JUST WANT YOU TO TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON!”

          “All right, Edvige. If you scream at me like that one more time, you’re walking. That clear?”

          Edvige bit her lips and felt the pressure building in her veins. Her head shook as if she were about to have a conniption fit. Mirco turned the key in the ignition and started up the engine. It looked like he was going to have to take her to the station. Edvige summoned up all her nerve and just barely breathing said: “Tell me what’s happening.”

          Mirco put the car into reverse and backed out of the parking place. “Here, take a look at this.” When he put the car into first and the car lurched forward, he rolled up his left sleeve with his right hand. He turned the light on and directed Edvige’s eye to the inside of his upper arm.

          “Good heavens Mirco! What happened to your arm? Were you in an accident?”

         “Yeah, I was in an accident. For about eight years. I’m a heroin addict, Edvige. I’m clean, but I’m still an addict. Why do you think I got such bad teeth?”

          “Oh my God! Take me to the station! Right now!”

          “That’s where we’re going. I haven’t shot up nothing for four years now. I spent five years in and out of Muccioli’s community in Rimini. I was in charge of raising and butchering the hogs, which is only slightly prettier than addiction but a goddam thousand light years better. I just got out last year, and left Rimini where I hoped I could leave my past.”

         “I can’t see you anymore.”

          “I know that. It’s not a problem. You’re a nice girl Edvige, and you should have just what you want. I don’t really need you; what I need is enough money to get all my teeth capped. But, that’s neither here nor there. What’s here is your brother Fabrizio. He’s in deep shit now.”

          “Don’t you talk to me about my brother like that! “

          “Oh no. You’re gonna have to hear this once.”

          “I won’t listen. I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!” Edvige clapped her hands over her ears and started mumbling to cover any words that Mirco might possibly utter. Mirco shook his head, raised his eyebrows and parked the car on a dark side street. There was not much to do with someone who won’t listen, except wait. After a while she stopped.

          “All right, Mirco. Can we just sit in silence?”

          “No. I gotta talk about myself and I need to talk about Fabrizio. If you aren’t willing to listen, then you can get right out of this fucking car and walk all the fuck way home by your fucking self.”

          Edvige paled at Mirco’s vulgarity and shrank back into herself.

        “Or if you want to listen to me, you can keep your brain open and your fucking mouth shut for just five minutes. Then if you want, I will drive you to the station, put you in a cab and I’ll give the driver enough money so you can go meet your friends at the pizzeria.

          “All right.” Edvige was trembling. Mirco really scared her. But she had no idea how much more he was going to scare her in the next five minutes.

         “All right Edvige. This is really important to me. I want you to promise to keep my addiction a secret. I’m trying to start a new life here. I’m clean. Can you promise me that?”

          Edvige was looking out the window. “Certainly, I can promise you that. Can you promise me something else?”

          “I think so. What?”

          “I want you to promise not to tell anyone what happened tonight.”

          “That’s easy; I wouldn’t want anyone to know.”

          Mirco now spoke with great calm as he started up the car and wended his way through the dark streets to the station.

         “You ain’t got no idea about what to do with Fabrizio, ‘cause you don’t know where he’s headed. But I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. He’s gonna become a heroin addict. Your family won’t admit to Fabrizio’s addiction as it grows week by week in the months to come. I saw it happen to half of my friends in Arezzo; their families flat out refused to see any problems. The real trouble was that everyone pretended to be normal and happy and they pretended that their drug-soaked sons and daughters were just going through a phase of sullen adolescent misery and that they really were maybe just experimenting with heroin, maybe once or twice. “It’s all just part of growing up in the modern world isn’t it? And really, if it helps him, we can afford the little money he might spend, as long as he doesn’t turn into a real addict.

          “This ain’t just part of growing up. I’ve watched living things grow, and I seen what happens to them. I spent three years raising hogs and slaughtering them. It wasn’t pleasant and it wasn’t easy but it really wasn’t very complicated. All I had to do with the pigs was feed’em and make sure they didn’t catch cold. It’s useless to expect anything else of hogs; they don’t make no eggs or milk. Even oxen and horses help plough the fields before they’re completely worn out, and when they’re worn out, we turn them into t-bone steaks and glue. Pigs are the only animals on a farm that only produce themselves. The only thing pigs do produce is more pigs. They’re absolutely worthless until you slaughter’em. That’s what pigs are like, and people can turn into pigs. When people are pigs, they’re not good for much except sausage and bristles for brushes. I seen it happen, a dozen times, to all sorts of different people. Stefano is going to turn Fabrizio into bologna, and there’s nothing I can do about it. You and your family can’t see that you’ve let your brother turn into a complete pig, and you just kept shoving food down his gullet until his brain has turned to fat mush. It was easy. You’ve taken care of all of his immediate needs and by doing that, you’ve removed any crumb of self-reliance he had, and you know what Edvige, that deprives a person, a real person who is not a pig, not a pig just yet, that deprives a guy of any self-esteem whatsoever. Oh, Fabrizio complains and whines and moans that he isn‘t treated right or he doesn’t have enough or he gets too much.  But the plain fact of the matter, is that you’ve turned your brother into a pig. And it’s too late to do anything now.”

          “Here’s the station, Edvige.”

          Mirco parked the car behind the cabs at the entrance to the main hall. Edvige was staring straight ahead, stony faced. She would never never never never never see Mirco again. Never. She looked straight through the windshield as she spoke.

          “You’re right Mirco. I never want to see you again, but you’re right about Fabrizio being a pig, about not doing anything for himself, about having such low self-esteem. But a pig is worth a plenty. My Grampa always told me that the pig was the only animal on the farm that he used every part of. I mean, he got ham out of a pig and sausage, but he also got bristles for brushes, and casing for salami and, every last piece of its hide was rendered into cracklings. He even boiled the hooves down to make glue and gelatin. So Mirco, pigs are worth more than just fattening up and turning into sausage. Even a pig is worth a lot and it’s even worth every ounce of it. Nothing in a pig is wasted. So there!”

          Mirco looked at Edvige, her curls wildly creeping out from under her scarf, the little smudge of mascara that had formed on her cheek under her eye, her resolute chin, her beautiful plump lips, and he sighed. He smiled a wry smile and responded: “Oh I know all that. The only problem is, you can’t get any of those things from a pig, until you slit its throat and hang it upside down over a big bucket, because you don’t want to lose even one drop of his blood. A pig is no real use Edvige, until it’s dead. Unless of course, you’re selling feed. Or heroin."

        A chill ran through the right side of Edvige’s body, from her occiput down her neck around her breast and winding down her torso and around her thigh until it spread through her calf and petered out at her ankle. She shook her head quickly, then slowly turned and got out of the car and walked resolutely to get in the first taxi. Mirco went up to the driver and motioned for him to roll the window down. “Here,” he said, giving the cabbie a 5,000 note:          “Take the lady anywhere she wants to go” and he walked away.   Edvige did not turn to see him walk off.

          Mirco got in his car and drove back to his little one room apartment. He fixed himself a dish of spaghetti with oil and garlic and chili peppers and sat down to watch the television. Who knew how long he could stay in Cesena? As long as he kept his job, and that meant as long as no one found out he’d been in the community in Rimini for four years. People were just starting pay attention to a disease passed by needles. That would not sit well with customers in the butcher shop, even though Mirco had taken his tests and they had all turned up negative. His brother had not been quite as fortunate. Damn! If only Iuri had cleaned up six months earlier, he wouldn’t be wasting away in a hospital bed.

          Mirco’s thoughts turned to Edvige. She would probably blab everything to her mother and her girlfriends anyway, and Mirco would have to move. He was lucky he hadn’t really settled down too much, so it shouldn’t be too hard. But there was no way to get around the events of the evening.

          Actually come to think of it, Mirco probably didn’t have anything to worry about Edvige talking about him. She would probably just as soon forget the evening and deny she had seen anything or heard anything at all.

          “Edvige? Why are you home so early?”

          “Hello Babbo. Things just didn’t work with Mirco tonight. He . .”

          “He didn’t try to put his hands on you, did he?”

          “Oh Pa, don’t worry about that. I can take care of myself. It just isn’t going to work out. I really don’t want to talk about it. Is Fabrizio back yet?”

          “Good heavens Edvige, it’s not even ten o’clock yet. I don’t expect we’ll see him until at least eleven.”

          “Well, I’m going to bed.”

          “Are you all right?”

          “I’m fine; I’m just a little tired.”

          “Are you sure Mirco didn’t . . .”

          “No Babbo, he didn’t. He’s just not my type, that’s all. And we both realized it about a half hour ago. We just had a really stupid, really big fight.”

          “Well, we know you’re too pretty for him to be your last chance. All the same, a butcher would be a good thing to have in the family!”

          “Oh Babbo,. . . .”

          “Now don’t tell me you don’t like a little piece of bacon now and then.”

          “What!” Edvige was taken aback by her father’s reference to pork. She recovered, and turned to say good night. She remembered her father had grown up on a farm.

          “Do you want to know what we fought about?”

           “No, I don’t want to know, but if you tell me, I'll listen.”

          “Well, believe it or not, we were fighting about farm animals.”

          “I wouldn’t fight with a butcher about animals. He’s bound to know a lot more than you do.”

          “Well, let’s see if Mirco knows more than you do. He said, he said, several times that the pig is the only animal on a farm that produces nothing except for itself. Now, is that true?”

          “Oh Edvige, of course it isn’t. Even you should know better than that.”

          “How so?”

          “Think! What’s your favorite thing that your Nonna cooks for you when we go out to the farm?”

          “Her potatoes fried in lard?”

          “Well, not exactly. What does she always fix for you to eat with the potatoes?”

          “Rabbit. Oh Pa! That’s the perfect answer. A rabbit isn’t worth anything until you kill it and skin it.”

          “Well, I am a few years up on Mirco. Anyway, as long as he didn’t put a hand on you. You sure you’re all right?”

          “Now I am. Good night!” Edvige bent over and gave her father a goodnight kiss. She felt better.

          “Goodnight.”

          Fabrizio arrived pretty much unnoticed at the pizzeria. Everybody had just about finished their pizzas and they were ordering dessert, so he had a big old piece of trifle. His classmates were laughing and joking and for the first time in a long time, Fabrizio was laughing and joking with them. He felt really good. He smiled at the girls sitting around him, and they smiled back. “Poor thing,” they would say later in the halls at school when he returned to his usual everyday persona. “He really is pitiful. And hardly good looking enough or smart enough or even just plain nice enough to really feel sorry for.”

          When he came down off his high, he went home late, after eleven. His father was waiting up for him.

          “Did you have a good time?”

          “Yeah, I did.”

          “Well that’s nice. What did you do?”

          “Oh everybody ate pizza and told a buncha stupid jokes, but it was okay, but I had a great dish of pasta with oil and garlic and peppers. It was better than any pizza I've had in a while. And I had a great piece of trifle. Anyway, I’m going to bed.”

          “All right! You sleep tight.”

          “Oh Babbo, can you do me a favor?”

          “Sure!

          “When Edvige gets in, can you tell her to come in and speak with me?”

          “Edvige’s already back. She and Mirco had a fight.”

          Fabrizio paled. “Well I’ll see if she’s still awake. Good night!”

          Fabrizio knocked gently on Edvige’s door.

          “Leave me alone.”

          “Edvige?”

          “Fabrizio, is that you? Come on in. Well, did you have a good time this evening?”

          Fabrizio cracked the door open and turned the light on. “Well, like yeah. It was fun.”

          “I’m glad to hear you had fun.”

          “Uh, and you? Did you have a good time?”

          “Well, not really, but it’s okay.”

          “Did Mirco, like, say anything?”

          “Well, actually he did, but he was wrong. I’m just going to have to forget him.”

          Fabrizio started to relax. He didn’t remember exactly everything that had happened, but he did know that Mirco knew everything. It appeared that Mirco hadn’t blabbed the whole business to Edvige.

          “Well, good night!”

          “Good night, Fabrizio. And by the way, I’m sorry I didn’t make you a better costume.”

          “Oh, it was all right. You did the best you could.”

          “I’ll make it up to you next year, just you wait and see.”

          “Why? What have you got in mind?”

          “Something a little bit cooler. Something a little bit easier to wear and something the girls will like a little bit more. Something funny. “

          “Well, what is it, Edvige?”

          “It’s a surprise. Anyway, let me get to sleep. Sweet dreams!”

Fabrizio turned and shut the door without saying good night and without turning the overhead light off. Edvige really didn’t mind. She clicked on her bedside table night light and walked over to the door, turned the switch off, and shut the door to her bedroom. As she walked back to bed, she looked at the row of dolls and toys she kept on the shelf over her bed. She picked one off the shelf, kissed it and snuggled in between the covers to drift off to sleep. She turned the light off and burrowed down into her pillow, tightly clutching a white plush version of the Playboy bunny. He was replete with a red brocade smoking jacket, black silk bow tie, and glossy faceted black glass eyes that stared vacant and blind into the dark night from the warmth of Edvige’s bosoms.