On Earth as It Is in Heaven (28 page)

“Go on.”

“Umbè, this Hernandez is really good, he's a good defensive boxer, and he's fast. There's only one way to win the match and clean up on the bets, and that's to make sure . . . how to put this . . . that Hernandez shows up for the fight dead tired.”

Those words flashed straight through to my uncle's brain.

“Dead tired!” he shouted.

He started dancing around on the tips of his toes, loosening up his arms in a series of straight-ahead air punches.

“Tell me everything you know about Hernandez.”

Franco told him every detail he'd stored up in his mind: the way he moved, his most successful punches, the color of his shorts and his shoes, his perfectly beardless face. The harder he tried to reconstruct Hernandez's personal tastes, the brighter the flame burned in Umbertino's eyes.

He remembered that he had long black hair, slicked back with brilliantine.

“So he likes to get all fancied up. Fine, fine.”

A tattoo on his left forearm, a woman, maybe the Virgin Mary, framed by knife blades. A small scar on his left cheek and four larger scars on his dorsal muscles.

“So he likes fighting in the street. Good, good.”

He'd taken note of the way that, after winning a bout with a terrifying right cross to his opponent's face, the minute the referee counted ten, Hernandez climbed onto the ropes and raised both arms.

Umbertino finished his sentence for him.

“And undressed with his eyes every single woman in the audience.”

“Yes.”

“Magnificent.”

“What are you thinking?”

“All hail pussy, praise be to a fine piece of ass.”

“Amen.”

“So, Franco, now you understand clearly that we're going to bet as much money as we can on Hernandez to lose and Salatino to win?”

Franco couldn't believe his ears.

“Are you saying you know how to make sure Hernandez shows up for the fight dead tired?”

“Better. I know how to make sure he shows up ground to a pulp.”

Franco was beside himself with glee.

“How? How? It's the one thing I can't figure out.”

The predator smiled with knowing ferocity.

“
La Porca
.”

Franco exploded into a howl of joy and embraced my uncle in a transport of genuine jubilation.

This was how the missions came to be.

“
La Porca
.”

A pair of rock-solid tits. An ass that, in its fullness and pliancy, was a triumph of the life force itself. And her mouth, dripping with lipstick, prominent, fleshy, a living invitation to sin. When she swung her hips down the street, men went home with sprained necks. While it is true that she was not exactly a classical beauty, it is equally undeniable that she could lay fair and unquestioned claim, without any possible challenger, to the top ranking when it came to sheer carnality. She sprayed a fine mist of sex. She winked broadly at any man who crossed her path, she leered double entendres, she took pleasure in the greedy looks that clung to the slopes and curves of her body. She fed her vanity with the continuous, unconcealable chain of consternation that followed in her wake. Heads of households went head over heels for her. Between her legs, months of hard-won savings were abandoned. Her cleavage was strewn with the wreckage of mortgages. Promises of matrimony lay shattered on her lips.

“You took one look at her and the only thing you could think of to do was fall to your knees and beg her to let you take just one bite, anywhere, ass tits thighs arm, it was all excellent heaven-sent flesh. She was
La Porca
, youngster. She won thirteen fights for us. Pure hot flame. You took just one look at her and your eyes were scorched.”

It was thanks to
La Porca
that they discovered how there is always a hidden crack, in even the most elaborate of strategies, capable of ruining everything.

One afternoon the door of the gym swung open and the boxers all turned to look, attracted by something inexplicable but irresistible. Even the sound of the door opening wasn't the usual creaking. Something unique was about to happen. First of all, in that sweat-drenched air, the scent of a pungent perfume could be detected. Then—headscarf, sunglasses, lips smeared with lipstick—
La Porca
made her appearance. A skintight black dress, bare legs, high heels. At her throat, a necklace with a tiny fish pendant, swimming blissfully through the softest sea of flesh. Every pair of eyes in the room was on her.
La Porca
headed straight for Umbertino, stopped right in front of him, lifted her left foot, swayed her ass voluptuously, and thrust her tongue deep into my uncle's mouth.

Everyone in the gym was holding their breath.

The general level of envy for Umbertino had just shot up to historic highs.

And, in fact, he was the one who broke the silence.

“Oh, hey, let's get out of here because, with the possible exception of Franco, it stinks of faggots.”

La Porca
followed him. Ten footsteps, ten clicks of her high heels on the floor, ten nails driven into the hearts of all those present.
La Porca
, an absolute thoroughbred, managed to meet the gaze of every last boxer in the room, only to discard them all, leaving each alone, abandoned to the squalor of his solitary drudgery. The door closed behind her. The boxers were baffled. In the ring, they'd taken punches—some of them lots and lots of punches—but they'd never been this dazed, so stunned: it was a foreign experience. They weren't ready for that massive charge of sheer sexuality.

Confounding expectations, Umbertino suddenly came back in. It was Maestro Franco, however, who took the floor. He unleashed upon the still dumbfounded boxers a very serious tongue-lashing.

“You no-good lazy bums, get over here, in line, and right now. What is it exactly we're doing in here, kids? We're boxing. And if someone feels like fucking up, is this the place to fuck up?”

The boxers were stunned, uncomfortable, intimidated.

Franco came to a halt in front of a guy from Trabia, a baker.

“Answer me.”

“No, Maestro, this is not the place to fuck up.”

“Exactly. Not the place to fuck up. So now, who wants to explain to me why you're all such complete and total fuckups? Will somebody answer me? Is this any way to behave?”

The one who finally spoke up was Gulì, a well-behaved young man, the son of a seamstress who'd been widowed at a tender age. Her husband was killed when a bridge he was working on collapsed: caught in the rubble, he was brutally crushed. Gulì was a middleweight, a kid who could really take a punch, not much of a fighter but a first-rate sparring partner: there was no need to make believe when you were sparring with Gulì, you really could lay into him with all your might. He always got back up again. His nickname was “Old Faithful.”

“Maestro, I can't figure out exactly what you're saying we did that was so wrong.”

Franco snarled.

“Ah, you can't figure it out, Old Faithful? There isn't one of you who understands? No? Fine: then every one of you, strip naked, right now.”

The boxers were more generally disconcerted than dubious.

“Men, didn't you hear what I just said? Strip off your clothes, immediately: no, even faster than that.”

Old Faithful was the first to comply. He was a guy who truly had no fear of pain. He'd already stripped off his T-shirt. It was only in that instant that Umbertino decided to turn up the heat.

“Oh, hey, Porca, come on in.”

The uncontrollable flame of their yearning to see her again, just once more, only once, rose high. They wanted to glimpse her and all her luscious flesh, just begging to be bitten. And through the door came
La Porca
: a cigarette in her mouth, a slit skirt open to the crotch, the blessed holy fish between her breasts.

“No question, that woman won a bunch of fights for us. It was something incredible to behold, you could hear everyone's heart pounding away, thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump. Kid, it was like a tom-tom concert.”

“And then?”

“And then your uncle Umbertino spoke again.”

“Strip down, boys. Strip down now or I swear I'll lose my temper for real this time, and I'll have every damned right.”

T-shirts, shoes, shorts, socks, underwear: every last article of clothing flew off.

Between the legs of all the boxers, there reigned one general, tyrannical erection.

“Look at that, Franco, it looks like there's going to be an explosion, heh heh, look at that, they've all snapped to attention,
brava
Porca, it worked just the way we hoped, heh heh, you really are the best . . . What's that you say? There's one who . . . ?”

Palazzolo.

Fuck: always was a weird one, Palazzolo.

Umbertino rushed over to him with all the motherly concern you might feel for a baby bird that's taken a tumble out of the nest. He cradled Palazzolo's head in his hands.

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“You really aren't sick?”

“Really.”

Umbertino slowly moved his fingers over his student's temples, almost caressing him. Palazzolo felt the heat of an ominous calm.

“Palazzolo, my boy, look me in the eyes, I'm your one and only maestro, you need to confide in me completely, so answer me truthfully, and before you say a word, swear that you're not lying to me.”

“I swear it, Maestro.”

“On the head of your mother.”

“I swear it on my mother's head, Maestro.”

“Are you a homo?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You're not a homo?”

“I swear it on my mother, Maestro.”

“Fuck.”

Umbertino's fingers were motionless on Palazzolo's temples. Now the only movement was in his voice. The hurricane seethed in every syllable.

“All right now, Palazzolo, do you want to explain what the fuck this all means? How can it be that the twenty-five of them have hard-ons while you have a complete famine between your legs? Can you explain it to me? Because if you're not sick and you're not a homo, then I must be losing my mind.”

Palazzolo had nowhere to turn. He was naked, he was clearly the only one who wasn't aroused, and his head was imprisoned in Umbertino's viselike grip. He knew he was lost in any case, so he decided to play the card of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“Maestro, I have a fight in two weeks. You're the one who told me not to fuck up, so ever since you gave me that order, I just stopped thinking about women, that's all.”

“Slow down, Palazzolo, hold on. Take it easy. Whoa there. Let's start over from the beginning. Are you telling me that, instead of getting a hard-on like any mentally sound citizen, you actually manage to prevent a boner?”

“Yes.”

“Are you also capable of getting a hard-on at will?”

“No. But keeping it limp at will, that I can do. You ordered me to do it.”

Umbertino let go of the boxer's head. In silence, with an indecipherable expression on his face, he took a couple of steps in Franco's direction but then, a sudden interruption in his train of thought, and Palazzolo's head was cradled in his hands again.

“Palazzolo, give me an honest answer: this friend of mine, this woman, this fine piece of ass, wouldn't you happily slide a foot and a half of hard cock into her?”

“Maestro, no, not today.”

“Why not?”

“You ordered me not to. I have a fight in two weeks.”

“So, what you're telling me is that, after the fight . . .”

“After the fight, no disrespect intended, I'd fuck your friend in a heartbeat.”

“You like her?”

“Once again, no disrespect intended, she's insanely sexy—
è troppo porca
.”

Umbertino slowly let go of his head and raised the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand.

“Two things, boys. First point: none of you better dream for so much as a split second of laying a finger on my girlfriend here. Is that clear, or are you all having your ears rebuilt?”

“We understand perfectly, Maestro.”

“Second point: Franco, we have a problem.”

Franco had taken a seat on the wooden bench. He nodded that he was ready to hear the news.

“There's a factor we forgot to include in the equation. There's a whole third group, aside from the two well-known categories we considered: boxers horny for women and, on the other hand, those poor bastards, the homos.”

“Which is?”

Umbertino pointed to Palazzolo, the bug in the system.

“The monks.”

“Fuck, it's true.”

How could they have failed to foresee this? There are those who are less susceptible to the temptations of the flesh. The existence of a figure like the Monk clearly undermined the future success of the missions. Umbertino felt a bottomless spring of sadness welling up within him. There are boxers in this world who are insensible to the charms of a first-class slice of prime veal cutlet. Suddenly the world looked deeply wrong and unjust to him.

Franco got up from the bench, jamming his cap onto his head.

“Go ahead and get dressed, boys.”

“But take your time,” added
La Porca
, as she leaned comfortably against the door, biting her lower lip.

From the way a boxer stood in the ring, from the way he walked down the street, Umbertino and Franco found topics of discussion. They reasoned and they excluded, they argued and they approved, they pondered endlessly to figure out a personality profile, to divine the inclinations, the type of dish that might most appeal from the many on offer at the giddy buffet of sex.

Hernandez was the first mission. He was a high-strung, wiry, loose-limbed braggart, and Umbertino reckoned he was the sort of man who'd be willing to cut off his arm in exchange for a fiery night of passion with a bounteous Junoesque odalisque who radiated sex from every square inch of her flesh. Hernandez was part
Indio
and dark-skinned, so a big blonde was in order. The law that opposites attract was sure to make fantasies multiply. Hernandez was a swaggerer who feared nothing, so the right woman would be one whom every other man was bound to undress with his eyes—provocative, fleshy, pneumatic:
more
. Hernandez would take pleasure from the feeling that every other man on earth must envy him. First, a throbbing erection of the ego, and then she'd take care of the rest. She'd lightly brush his elbow with one hand—“Want to buy me a whiskey, handsome?”—and laugh helplessly at anything he said, look him right in the eye, unblinking, for a few split seconds, no more, while her hand—“Oh, silly me”—rested lightly on his chest, caressing it languidly—“What do you say we drink another, champion?”—and she'd laugh and laugh until her forehead was pressed against his neck. At this point you can see the inexorable physics of attraction kick into gear: he's bound to brush his hand over her hair while she unleashes the sucker punch that's bound to lead to a total KO, rubbing her tits against his chest; then, biting her lips while the spark between the man's legs builds into a roaring fire, she'll lean over and pour gasoline onto the flames, whispering into his ear: “I'm getting wet.”