Sicilian Tragedee by Ottavio Cappellani Read Free Book Online Page B

somebody gets hurt in the fistfights that follow.
    Cagnotto likes Capomulini a lot, he likes to suck out those raw sea urchins with the sun in his face, the sea whipping under the chair, the smell of salt in the air.
    The customers who have finished eating wouldn’t dream of getting up and vacating their tables; they laugh, they stretch, they close their eyes and catnap, their faces turned toward the sun to catch the midday rays.
     
     
    Has he said something wrong?
    Has he made an irremediable error in his courtship?

    Has he acted too possessive?
    Is he just too fat?
    And if he is just too fat, what’s the use of all the talk about art?
    Is Bobo using him?
    Is he looking for a part as an actor in his next production?
    What next production, if he doesn’t even have a proposal yet?
    Cagnotto feels fat, in love, and penniless, he has no idea what his next show will be, and in order to take Bobo out to lunch he had asked Sailesh, the Indian who comes to clean his house, to go down to the Monte dei Pegni to pawn two Rolexes, five rings, and two chains. (Sailesh had been arrested coming out of the pawnbroker’s, the police alerted by an employee who had had a bad experience with an Indian, and Cagnotto, to his burning shame, had to go down to Via Sant’ Eupilio at ten in the morning to try to explain to the carabinieri that he had given those objects to the Indian himself. “Of my own free will.” “Of your what? Okay, so these watches are not yours?”)
    No! Bobo can’t be. He can’t be just the latest salesclerk aspiring actor who fakes an interest in a famous director to get a part. No, impossible. Cagnotto has gotten to know Bobo in these days and … yes, it is all too possible.
    Cagnotto grabs a quick look at Bobo out of the corner of his eye. Bobo is staring with loathing at Capomulini.
    Oh, fuck. This is not the attitude of a man in love, thinks Cagnotto.
    When you’re in love everything, even things that are old and worn, seems beautiful, fresh in the light of the new sentiment that transfigures the everyday, endowing it with poetry, or something like that.
    Cagnotto swipes his middle fingertip across his forehead.
    He looks at it.
    Filthy and oozing with sweat.
    He wishes he had a salt cube.

    Salt cubes don’t exist, he thinks.
    In the very moment that he begins to pass out he finds a parking place, and revives.
     
     
    Cagnotto has ordered boiled cod.
    Bobo has an octopus salad, a shrimp salad, and one of masculini , as Capomulini’s raw anchovies are called.
    That’s what he’s doing to him, he’s eating him alive, as alive and raw as a piece of sushi. Cagnotto looks at the sad, solitary codfish. To cheer himself up he calls the waiter, and seeing that his love is now certainly destined to remain unrequited, orders spaghetti with sea urchins, sparacanaci , minuscule fried mullet, and fried shrimp and calamari.
    Bobo has done nothing but stare at the sea without participating in the conversation. Looking distracted and rather rude. Even a bit sour.
    This, thinks Cagnotto, is the moment when I should exhale, raise my eyebrows, look at him with disdain, and spit out at him how dishonest it is to play around with the feelings of a poor theater director, especially when he’s in obvious trouble.
    But hey, you can’t see that I’m in trouble, can you? Because you can’t talk about work, can you? Because your secret aim is to make it in the theater world by grabbing on to my coattails, isn’t it?
    See, I’ve unmasked your game, Bobo.
    Cagnotto thinks he should grab his napkin, toss it with rage on the table, and walk off without paying the bill.
    Wait, who’s crazy here?
    The cold white wine, the fried calamari, and a gust of salt air, rotten wood, and wet rope stir his groin.
    Look at the facts, thinks Cagnotto, calming down. I’m in Capomulini with a really nice piece, young and moody, and everybody’s seen me. And I should let feelings spoil the party?

    At this point first I lay him and then I