Finding the Thing Within (22 page)

Those eyes were focused so intently on those two that he could see nothing of the surroundings. They went on kissing and touching each other for a long time. Sandro was stroking Lorenzo and Lorenzo was doing the same. At this point there was nothing else to do but leave so he took the same way back on autopilot and went away. Driving back, he decided that it couldn't end like this, that he shouldn't give up! The clock in the car showed four-thirty. The shops were reopening after lunch so he drove to a client's electronics shop, and asked for a long-range listening device and batteries.

"What are you up to, Rosario?"
"Nothing, an experiment."
He chose a suitable device for its purpose and left.

The next day he brought a pocket radio, tested everything and went to the beach early. He parked away from the road and went for the umpteenth time along that road which he now both loved and hated. The space normally occupied by Lorenzo was free of course, it being so early. He positioned the bug under a rock and went away in the direction of the forest. Now the only thing to do was wait and hope that no one would take that space before Lorenzo. It didn’t happen. After waiting over two hours he was finally rewarded, Lorenzo was coming down the road in the right direction, settled, stretched the towel, stripped and headed into the water for a dip.

There was nobody around, only him and the sea. Turning on the radio Rosario tried to listen, but could only hear the sound of Lorenzo drying himself with the towel, a sign at least that the device was working. Rosario had deliberately chosen a spot where he could see both the road and the Lorenzo rock. He waited about twenty minutes and saw a figure approaching from afar that looked like Sandro. And it was! Jumping from one rock to another he reached Lorenzo and kissed him.

"Hi Sandro, why are you so late?"
"Sorry babe, but I had problems with my father’s car, I think that the tires are worn down and and it’s probably time to change them. How are you, everything all right?"
"Yes I’ve already been for a swim, the water is perfect."
"I want to go in now, are you coming?"
"Ok."
Then they went. The bug was working well, he had paid a lot but it was exceptional quality. In the water the two traitors swam, laughed and kissed. Rosario’s blood boiled, but wanted to see the whole scene right to the bitter end, to where those two unclean monsters would go.
"How great, the water’s amazing. What day is it?" asked Sandro.
"It’s the twenty-ninth of October and the thermometer at home said 27 degrees. Hey don’t go so far, stay near me!"

Closer, closer,
Rosario repeated, silently slathering with rage,
He wants to be closer to Sandro, that's why he feels nothing for me.

"What did you do yesterday my darling?" said

Sandro.
"Yesterday? Nothing special, I got up at ten as
usual and started studying. Oh, I called Rosario and I told
him that I wasn’t going to come to the zoo, you remember I
told you that I was supposed to go to Catania with him and
his stupid friends?"
"Yes I remember, so you two are still in touch?" "Nah, I’ve finally managed to break up with that
poor deluded old fool, who knows what got into his head.
Poor thing fell in love with me."
"But you said that you loved him too, right?" "Well maybe, but only at the beginning, then he got
on my nerves and I couldn’t stand him anymore. What was
worst was that I tried to make him understand in every conceivable way that I wasn’t interested in him, either he was
stupid or...who knows."
"In love, he was in love, as am I."
“I love you too and now that he’s out of the way we
can be more relaxed. Recently, I can’t even stand his
smell."
Rosario watched, listened and wept, but that would
by no means be the end, it would not go so smoothly, on
his word. Not wanting to hear any more he switched the radio off, waited until they had gone and recovered his bug
and left. Lorenzo was dead to him. The death of love is like
the death of a loved one, it leaves the same torment, the
same emptiness, the same refusal to be resigned to the
emptiness. No matter if you’ve waited for it, caused it out of
self-defense or out of a desire for freedom, when it arrives
you always feel disabled, maimed. You seem to be left with
only one eye, one leg, half a brain, and you do nothing but
mourn that lost half of yourself: the person that made you
feel whole.
In doing so, you forget the guilt, the torment you inflicted and the suffering that you imposed. Regrets give
you the memory of a remarkable person, extraordinary
even, a unique treasure in the world, and it doesn’t help to
say this is an insult to logic, an insult to intelligence, masochism. (For logic doesn’t help with love, neither does intelligence nor masochism reaches the heights psychiatry.)
Then, slowly, it passes. Perhaps without you even being
aware, the torment dies, is dissolved, the vacuum decreases and the refusal to resign yourself to it disappears. You realize that despite everything, you still love
him and even more than before, but it becomes a dark
slash on your soul, an ugly, black bruise and you realize
that you are no longer the same person. Your energy is
blown, your curiosity weakened, your confidence in the future is crumbled because you’ve discovered that you have
wasted a part of your life that you can never get back. This is why, even if love is beyond repair, we go on
putting in all these efforts to try and fix it. And why even if it
is in a bad state, we always try to put off the moment when
we actually have to finish it. It could really finish. Then we
run to our guard, we take efforts to repair things, to stop
being intrusive, if you so accused, to support him fully, and
think: I need to, how I can let this opportunity escape.
What will I do? Yes, you think that you really have to break
up? You think of the things you did together, places you
visited, laughter and good times traveling, the loving gifts
exchanged and the joy that you thought was endless. You remain confident that the future will always fix
things, round them off, sweeten them and bring you back
the happiness you've always struggled in your search for,
and all of this we call “Love”.
“Oh my God, What must I do?”, he repeated as a
mantra. “I’ve got to do something!” He lacked even the
strength to turn on the car. Leaving the beach he almost
ran over a small child who was crossing the road without
looking, but he barely noticed. He came home intent on writing a barbed letter but turning on the computer he found a letter from Mr. Bassetti:

“Dear Mr. Mollica

I’ve just returned from my Asian trip where I saw several shows, and I must say that there are various products almost identical to that which you put forward. They are already available and can be purchased without problems. You will understand that in the light of this latest news there is no reason for our agreement to be taken any further. Please accept my warmest greetings.

Gino Bassetti.”

And that was it, the circle was closed. All was now lost, Lorenzo wanted nothing more to do with him. This latest news was an unexpected cruelty however. The sale of the patent had failed miserably, what remained to be done? A weaker man would have committed suicide, but not he, no, he was strong, or did it in fact take more strength to actually go through with it? He didn’t want to think about it too much and decided that there was no reason for him to die for Lorenzo. He braved himself and called:

"Hello!"
"Long time no see, right? Have you calmed down?

Yesterday morning it was like you’d been bitten by a viper." "I’m sorry, maybe I exaggerated! In fact I can not go
against the will of others. If you don’t feel like staying together, well, I can’t force you can I? So I’ve been thinking
and I’ve decided to accept your proposal of remaining
friends, you know that after everything, I still value your
friendship."
"Well, I can see you’re making sense now at least." "Yes and to put our new phase into practice I
wondered if you fancy giving me a hand picking olives in
the country?"
"When?"
"Tomorrow!”
“How long will we be?"
"There aren’t many, so if we go there early, we’ll
have collected them all in two hours."
"Okay but I have lessons in the afternoon so I’ll
come as long as we can be back in time."
"No problem, we can meet at the usual place, then
we can take my car, ok?"
"Ok, see you tomorrow."

***

That night Rosario barely slept, he woke up repeatedly, it must have been the stuffed peppers or the thought of meeting Lorenzo the following day, but he had a terrible night. In the few hours of sleep he managed to snatch he dreamt the same reoccurring dream with the monster. Rosario now considered him a friend and he asked for help, but the monster did not speak, but wept. It was sad, and had a huge, black cloak, and a big, stretched hat. His hands and feet were bloodied and Rosario was frightened.

"What is it?" he asked. "Why are you crying? I came to ask you for help but it’s you that is sad?”
“Forgive me, forgive me but I can't, I can't help you this time, you need to help yourself," and he turned and went away.

Part 27

The drive out to the country was quiet and reasonably friendly; Rosario, without showing too much interest asked Lorenzo if he had seen Sandro much but Lorenzo said that he hadn’t for several days. He seemed so honest that if Rosario hadn’t seen the previous day’s scene with his own eyes he might easily have believed him. Once arrived in the country, Rosario took an old ladder and net from the equipment room and pointed to a good place for Lorenzo to begin.

Lorenzo agreed, climbed up the ladder and started plucking olives from the trees. Along with the ladder and net, Rosario had brought a stick to beat the olive branches. Remaining at ground level, he also started picking. He started singing and occasionally looked at Lorenzo out of the corner of his eyes and when he was absolutely sure that he wasn't watching, he swung the stick and hit Lorenzo in the back with all the power in both arms.

Lorenzo shrieked and fell from the step-ladder, losing his glasses in the process. Rosario was straight on him and kept hitting him with full force until Lorenzo was on the verge of losing consciousness. Fetching the roll of duct tape he had remembered to bring, he bound Lorenzo’s hands and feet securely. He taped shut his mouth and dragged him to the house.

"Shit, he’s heavy."

He was twelve and a half stone but seemed like much more. Once Lorenzo had, with great difficulty, been hauled inside, he slowly began to regain consciousness. He mumbled and struggled, his head still bleeding. His eyes were frantically pleading him for an explanation.

"You bastard, you still have the nerve to say that you haven’t seen or heard from Sandro, isn’t that right, you bastard? What were you doing with him yesterday then, eh? What were you thinking when you were touching him, kissing him, eh? You’ve ruined my life and my whole... everything. I was fine before I met you; I didn’t know anything about love and wasn’t interested. You didn’t matter to me and so you did everything you could to make me fall in love with you. Now I’m suffering, really fucking suffering and you were probably all ready to forget me completely. But I can’t let you do that. You shouldn’t have run off with that salty fish of yours. 'Poor old man, Poor deluded old man.' You said yesterday, to your dear Sandro. I’d like to punish him too but it’s enough to have you.” and he kicked him in the head. He started bleeding profusely from the nose, but he didn’t pay any attention.

"What did I ever do to you, eh? I just loved you more than you could imagine and any strange behavior on my part was born of simple jealousy, but you, you stabbed me twice, first when you told me it was over and second when you betrayed me with that asshole." he went out and found a shovel. He chose the spot carefully, far from prying eyes, and began to dig a trench. The soil was dry and it made it hard to dig. His crazed mind was thinking about madness.

Is it crazier to act crazy or to be forced to act crazy? Are people who commit insane acts justified if they can show a good reason? Rosario certainly had a good reason! What reason could be better than his? He couldn’t let this
boy
toy with his feelings, with his life and destroy his life. His life was not something to be played with briefly and then thrown away. Life should be much more, joy and pain, beauty and feelings and freedom.

Lorenzo's had now come to its end. He cursed the day he met him. Two hours later, filthy with the mix of dirt and tears and sweat, Rosario judged the hole large enough to hold his lover’s body. He went and drew the body nearer the ditch. Then he pushed Lorenzo mercilessly, still alive but hardly breathing, into the ditch and began to cover it over with earth. When half of the earth had been filled in, he went to get a potted olive tree from the storehouse. He took it out of the pot, placed it in the center of the hole and filled in the rest of the earth around it.

When he had finished he wiped his tears with his dirty sleeve, looked at the olive tree and said, “You’ll certainly grow big and strong.”

He returned to the car, took the bottle of whiskey he had brought and drained nearly half of it. Then, before feeling the full effect of the alcohol, he threw a rope and over a ceiling beam, climbed on a chair, put the noose around neck and tried to kick the chair away.

He only had time to say, “Wait for me Lorenzo, I’m coming.”

The End.