Caerberus, Chapter Two. ________________________________________________________________________________________
Since the doctor decided to change strategy, on Friday became the day of the slides.
For months we have tried traditional therapies, but stains Roarsach, those symmetrical doodles are so successful with much more crazy than me furious, bouncing on his desk in a chant of dull thuds, and eventually ended up in a drawer under yawns.
And so ì the experimentation, as you call the doctor.
It is enough to comment on a postcard, because it decided to replace symmetrical with the scribbles slides coastal landscapes than fifty years ago. Thus I now pass the time contemplating the embarrassed expressions and childlike corpulent of bathers and their improbable pigiamoni horizontal stripes. All around, euphoric, children engage in games of beach balls with dark gray and white towels and iced drinks consumed in huge glasses.
A family has a huge table full of food in the sea. Two men in their sixties, very overweight, playing cards, drinking wine from a bottle lined with bark and hemp. Three boys bicker among themselves, contending the last slice of swordfish, while the mothers, with a smile two, try to calm them down.
Behind them, far away, the horizon over the sea in an expanding infinite line, indifferent.
Without my realizing it breaks the flow of visions to the screen and overwhelm me, tearing my morning ritual of boredom with the majestic fury of a hurricane. I see the thin look of the Rev. Vinnie un'ombrellone shine in the shade of palm trees, and is as if I were again the ì .
~ ~ ~
"Let's see ..."
Vinnie searched the pockets of the carrier that had hung on the chair.
"Here you go. Now I can perform marriages according to the rites of my church "
He exhibited ì his best smile and pull ò out his badge . "Reverend Vincent Del Vecchio, Liberated Church Of The New Born Christ, State of New York .
stared for a few seconds.
"Not is a joke you know? It is one thing you can do it too. Internet. You pay thirty U.S. dollars and ordained a priest. Obviously in Italy do not let you do anything, but in America can celebrate mass as any other priest, Catholic, Protestant, jew, muslim or whatever you like "
" What the hell are you doing? "
Vinnie seemed annoyed by the tone of my question with a wave and dry my tear ò the card between your hands to hide it in a shirt pocket. Call ò the maid to order, with my tacit approval two white martini with ice, and gave a deep breath, looking away, beyond the barrier reefs that protected the shoreline from the waves in storm.
We knew each other for a lifetime. We grew up together in the same neighborhood on the outskirts of Orissa: the same kindergarten, then mates of primary, secondary and high schools. And in the end the life or fate, as he said, a lover of stories and the emphasis of meaning, we were separated. I had continued his studies of mathematics at Milan while he stayed at home, in Oristano. He had never used the rhythms and rules of a quiet provincial life. For the people was a kind of debauched, a leaked: always on the edge, never a steady job, lived by their wits and, as stated proudly, with a certain style. In the summer he was a fisherman and seafood supplied the three most exclusive restaurants of our coast, in winter they arrange with business initiatives to limit the offense, always taking care to stay, even if only for a hair in the right side of the law. He was very proud of his success, everyone, even his three porn movies "The Trilogy of the piece of wood", who had just turned eighteen, and that yielded a good percentage of sales of video cassettes. In short, for a penniless, he could get away without too many sacrifices.
Besides, if there were his women. Many, of all ages, those with whom you can love, to show off those on the waterfront and those you can rely on when business was so good.
"Do you remember Lorenza, the daughter of the jewelry Ascanio? You need to remember, went to school to Parini! You know, she's back. She graduated in Milan and is now working with the Chambers of Chiaferri, quell'emerito dickhead who is also the commissioner of public works. Last Wednesday I met her at a party, all covered, really, if you see does not recognize it. We spent the evening together, and after we made three in a little place by the sea to drink Cuba Libre and remember old times. Lorenza, what kind. After drinking for good told me that he thinks a bit ': a school had fired me. Ah, love secrets. The secret loves me crazy, because they do not understand them. Well, long story short, last Saturday called me and asked me to accompany her to a walk on the plain of Achaia, he wanted to see an old monastery built into the rocks. Come on, tell me, there are wonderful scenes at their doorstep and do not go there ever. We neglect them just because they are quite far from where we get bored for a lifetime. "
Vinnie looked at me to check yourself carefully.
"Are you listening?"
Come on, I thought. Go ahead. The finish I know, but you continue.
"Now you know me, I'm not crazy about the stuff history. Not like you, I'm not a scholar, not a seer, not a mathematician like you. Your dinosaurs, if you ask me, I seem to be crap as a child. But one thing I can do. So listen. And from the tone of Lorenza already knew I had to wait more than a tourist trip. I've got the `feminine intuition, that I have to do is the only thing I took from my mother."
"So there you go to the monastery." I said, to bring it back on right path.
"But we've gone! Play: leave the car in front of the restaurant on Belvedere and we walk along the path. We are coming, but a thunderstorm, one of the good ones. An electrical storm. Let's just in time to reach the monastery before they unleash mayhem with the thunder and lightning, but when we can open the door we're already soaked. We laugh like kids to tears. While we laugh I start to caress her. Then kiss her. Then to undress her. She lets me do not help me with my clothes but helps me with small movements of the shoulders, arms, hips, neck. Let me do. "
" When I missing? I have to go to two! "
" E Stop it! I'm telling you something important! "
of stories like the one I had heard a lot going on. Long, detailed, dirty. Once Vinnie told me that at the age of eleven he had done his cousin, two years older than him, and ten more intelligent, cheerful Sunday morning to return from church. He liked sex, the Rev. Vinnie, with all its wealth of curious and shameful desires. For certain things, he said, one must look at the facts, and the fact was that Vincent, Vinnie for his friends, was a sex maniac with proven reliability, with its special, professional ethics: accept with serenity any drive that came from below, even the most strange, even for the cousin, or, if possible, even to his sister, taken at the right time, had no difficulty in handling them both, except that one had moved overseas while the other, the sister, her sister, Sister, well, that Vinnie was so ugly and stupid that only if Jesus Christ had been able to take.
"The details are important this time. Do not be hasty, you must understand the atmosphere. Everything perfect, the shadows, the wind whistling outside, she let me do that. The icons all around the monastery seems to smile at us, we promise protection, and the blessed little angels are watching us, the blessed, happily, the putti, putti. Suddenly, Bang! A bolt of lightning through the window and hit the statue, which explodes into a thousand pieces. What a racket! Imagine, by this time we do not feel good left ear. And Lorenza scare you. Indeed, it is terrified, cries, sighs, stutters a few prayers. When I try to calm her down, I plan on both eyes by crazy: "It was the Madonna! The Madonna has protected us with his body, has protected us from the lightning that would have killed. O My Mother, thank you. "
Vinnie took a moment before telling me the moral of the story. Was Mad for stories with moral him, he could do about it.
"It was there that I had the light. Lorenza looked, then looked at the head of the lady who rocked on the floor, with its glass eyes, then looks again and again Lorenza the Virgin Mary. That was the exact moment of enlightenment. The next day I did Reverend. "
The Rev. Vinnie took another sip, he had finally finished his story. Thereafter, six months would be bought his first Mercedes. From there to eight months would rent a suite at the Caprice, the hotel's most exclusive all along the coast of Salento. Of there one year would end up in jail for abuse of popular credulity, along with another half-dozen charges connected. He is one of those who in life have one great idea, and around that must must build their future. For them the norm, that government jobs and forty hours of settimali not an option. The Rev. Vinnie had no choice, and he knew it.
Immediately after emptying his glass, he decided to speak out.
"This is a land burned. Cursed land. Here the new millennium has not arrived and will never come. The era of communication call, this. But do not ever see here. Have you seen Lorenza? A college graduate, an intelligent girl, intelligent, of good family. A bolt of lightning and is ready to take the holy man or priest to confess, all spring for the promise that eventually everything will be fine. Do you know who is making money in this world? Sorrows, the old woman who does exorcisms with the hot potatoes. Christ, even my aunt calls it, if the headache lasts longer than two days. Do not go to the doctor, goes to her. And Don thrilled? He has a villa on the lookout. L `'ve ever seen? That holy man of Sun TV, that asshole incravattato with sunglasses with his face to ensure that advises malocchierie of love and by phone. "
" Vinnie "I interrupted, raising his hand in an instinctive gesture of defense.
"Okay. I agree. It is disgusting. But what I do with these stories of wizards and Madonna? Why are the stories to me? "
I seemed to see the fear in his new look by Reverend. Or perhaps it was distrust. "What can I serve you?".
"I know, I know," he said, after thinking it over. "To you only interested in mathematics. And dinosaurs. Christ: The dinosaurs . I swear if you do not find a more respectable hobby begin to avoid you in public. I will not see more around you. What else interests you? Chess, right? "
Vinnie accost ò his chair and lowers my ò tone of voice. Her eyes swept the Raiders in front of the bar area.
"But look a little 'me now, I I've thought of everything. I need one that I can be trusted as a brother's hand and has the electronics and microcircuits. It 's all decided, all organized. The next feast of the patron saint, Our Lady of Ripa begin to weep tears of blood. Verr à Pieraldo discovered by the bell, just before the evening Mass of the seven and a quarter. I know what type it is, always tells the priest his dreams, says they are warning. He says he speaks to his dead wife in a dream two decades ago. Now, thanks to his dream life of our little town will change completely "
I wanted something immediately objected, but he would not let me squeezing the forearm with both hands.
"After about a month will begin the religious pilgrimage groups from all over Italy began to organize trips and bus trips to the masses. The country will break out of Signoroni bejeweled willing to pay a fortune to see the miracle from the front rows. All hotels are full, the restaurants will make business of Gold, even the street vendors will fill the pockets. I did the accounts, a couple thousand head of travel and stay a tour for a peek into the world of the afterlife. What do you think of the slogan? "
He paused and I took the opportunity to shake off the lethargy in which astonished his talk I had thrown.
"It 's a joke."
"It' s all arranged. I told you. It all starts next month
"next month" I reflected, still incredulous, "Lord bejeweled and spendthrift. And I bet you'll be there to collect. True? "
" We we will. And a few others who finance the whole thing. The names of the others tell them to you in due course, but it's great people, important. Names that make an impression. "
I looked to see if her face still expressed a sense of fear I thought I had found in his forced smile a few moments ago. But Vinnie seemed at peace with himself now. He was gone and no one would stop. I wanted to ask other explanations, but he suddenly seemed eager to close our conversation. He began to rummage in the pockets for the keys of the wasp.
"Do not answer Today, God forbid. Think it over, do not ask for more. And when you've got an idea, call us. And call me the same even if you decide not. We go to dinner at a farm that I discovered recently. In any case, I recommend not to tell anyone. There are people in this big thing. Large and easily offended people "
finished his sermon, the Rev. Vinnie got up, winked and turned away.
I never did that phone call. Not even to say no and not even to say goodbye when I left for Milan.
The history of Madonna Ripa ended with the Rev. Vinnie in for a year and a half, the only one to pay in person, while the bell Pieraldo never accepted the fact that they were in the midst of a massive frame. He continued to preach his message of truth and justice even after the police found the chip that made the lady cry. Intervened when the story was already limping for weeks. The tears of blood had coagulated into the slot of the left eyelid so that the poor Madonna could mourn his despair over the fate of the world with only one eye.
Vinnie had already turned and was about to get on the wasp, when I called.
"You're crazy. Not only will the ladies with jeweled rosaries and cash under the mattress. Will all be. If it works, will be old, boys, singers, ministers, prelates "
" And we welcome all "
" burst into the village. A horde of desperate people. Curious and bored looking for answers. "
" Who will have already made our choice, have already decided what the world wants to live. We do not add anything. Tell them what they know. We will give them what they have. "
" The sick, Vinnie. Will also be sick. "
" And someone heal à well. "
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