While the members of the paranza were aboard the train taking them back home, and Stavodicendo was speculating about the effect that his surprise return would have on his parents, Biscottino was behind the basso with Pisciazziello.
In that courtyard they’d spent days at a time making two-pronged attacks, running in parallel and passing the ball, tighter and tighter and faster and faster, lofting it back and forth through the air until one of them launched a thunderous shot into the goal and the other swerved to embrace his teammate. The goalpost twins. Biscottino was a player who never hogged the ball: he was always willing to pass to a teammate. When they played on the mini-field, or when they played in the classroom, balling up sheets of copy paper and Scotch-taping them into rudimentary soccer balls, kicking penalty shots between the desks, and even when they played in the piazza in front of the sanctuary of Loreto Mare. He lived for the assist. His greatest joy came when he was able to outrun and outfox both opposing defenders and goalie and then lightly loft the ball to the striker, but only when he was in perfect position, right in the goalmouth.
But today the ball seemed to be glued to Biscottino’s foot. He caressed the ball with the sole of his shoe, and then with a light touch lofted it into the air, cushioning its fall with his instep.
Pisciazziello started waving his arms, as if he were defending at the San Paolo stadium, but Biscottino didn’t even deign to glance at him.
“What’s the matter, Biscotti’, aren’t we friends anymore?” asked Pisciazziello. He felt guilty because he’d let slip the story of Roipnol to his mother and from that point on, things had started moving so fast that it wasn’t clear anymore just where they’d wind up. He knew that Biscottino was trying to keep Signora Greta calm by staying home, good and obedient, and having as little as possible to do with the Piranhas: he felt hemmed in. But what Pisciazziello didn’t know was that earlier that morning, awakening, his friend had been confronted with another surprise.
Since the day he’d murdered, he’d never again used it, his Desert Eagle, he hadn’t once taken it out of his bedroom. He’d emptied his Pokemon card holder and hidden his gun between the album’s rigid covers. Then he’d stuffed it under his bed, just far enough out of sight to escape notice, but still well within reach, close enough to feel it there, as he sat on his sheets; he only needed to swing his heel and he could tell that his weapon was there, available. But that morning, the swinging heel had encountered no resistance. Biscottino had dropped down, belly flat on the floor. There was nothing under the bed but dust. At that point, he’d walked over to where his mother was sleeping with his two younger siblings on the sofa bed, and he’d listened to the deep breathing of the three, only then beginning his silent search. He’d looked everywhere, even rummaging through his mother’s underwear drawer. He’d pushed away the wave of shame as he’d lifted and peered at bras and panties, and when he’d stumbled upon his father’s old shirts in the same drawer, shirts that Greta still held on to, he’d felt a lump in his throat. Then he’d searched in the bathroom. Nothing. The pistol was nowhere to be found. Biscottino had gone back to his bedroom and found his mother there, waiting for him. She hadn’t even let him open his mouth. “Now is the time to swear an oath,” Greta had told him. “What oath?” Biscottino had asked her. He was standing there in underpants and undershirt, his arms held before him, like a soccer player facing a penalty kick. Greta had stood up and pushed his arms aside to hug him tight, and then she’d forced him to swear: he would never fire a gun again in his life, not even straight up into the air. Biscottino had nodded, what else could he do?
Pisciazziello asked again: “Aren’t we friends anymore?”
“You could have kept your mouth shut, Pisciazzie’.” That was the response, and Biscottino’s voice was so faint and hard-edged it practically drew blood.
“What could I do? They did crazy things to my brother, you know that…”
“And now you can see all the comings and goings at home.” He lofted the ball back into the air and started dribbling the ball all on his own. Foot, thigh, head, juggling it and never letting it hit the ground. And never passing it.
“The social worker again?” he asked. For the past week, or nearly, that woman had been showing up every day at Biscottino’s basso, and a couple of times Pisciazziello, too, had crossed paths with her. She showed up every now and then at Pisciazziello’s house, too. A big tanned woman who accompanied every single phrase she said with a smile that smacked of mockery, and on the occasions when she had spoken to the two of them, explaining that she needed to speak to “Mammà” about “important matters” and “all alone,” she had uttered the words clearly and loudly. “We’re not babies,” Pisciazziello had told her, and in response she had given him a smile.
“Yeah, her again, I’m afraid,” Biscottino replied. “I’m starting to get scared, Pisciazzie’. What if now my mother tries to send me to boarding school? In that case, I’d rather wind up behind bars, adda murì mammà. And what the hell does this woman have to say? Every time she comes they talk for two or three hours. It’s a good thing she brings us food.”
“Ua’,” said Pisciazziello, “it’s not like she brings us free food.”
“Eh, maybe that’s why your mother’s here, too, talking with her, maybe she wants to get some free food.”
Foot, thigh, head. The ball still hadn’t hit the ground.
“I’m starting to get scared, too,” said Pisciazziello. He’d stepped closer to Biscottino to steal the ball, but the other boy slid it around to his side and defended it with his body. “For the next six months, my brother’s going to be living on nothing but smoothies, you realize? He’s always on edge, and not just because of the beating he took. He’s in and out of the house every hour of the day and night, and Mammà is out and about a lot more, and she’s always talking with your mamma, too.”
He stuck out his left leg to put Biscottino off-balance and then surprise him on the right, and so the other boy used his elbow to ward him off. Stalling for time.
“You didn’t say a thing to your brother, right?” asked Biscottino. He’d already asked Pisciazziello that question a thousand times, and every time Pisciazziello had answered in the exact same words: “Adda murì mammà, not a single word, and not even that!”
They battled for control of the ball for a while, until Pisciazziello suddenly retreated, but Biscottino remained planted on the spot, well balanced, and started juggling the ball again. “But are you sure,” he asked him again, for the second time since that whole thing with their mothers had started, “that Carlito’s Way doesn’t know anything? Look, it’s not in your interest for your brother to know, because he’ll put the blame on you, too, if he finds out I killed Roipnol. Your mamma knows that, right?”
“Don’t worry. Mammà understands that this is a huge problem for everyone. We’re not crazy, you know.” Pisciazziello swung his foot at a bowl full of cat food. “Biscotti’, in this whole mess, if there’s one person who can feel good about things, it’s you, because at least you had the balls to kill a boss. Even though I actually loved Roipnol and ’a Culona. They’d let me play on the computer, they’d take me out to go shopping.” He slid into thick dialect: “But now I’m friends with a guy who’s got a huge pair of balls.”
Biscottino smiled; maybe he’d be able to forgive him for his loose lips.
“I’m pals with someone who murdered a person,” Pisciazziello piled on.
“If a person gets himself murdered, it means he deserved it, right?”
Biscottino lofted the ball in the air just enough to get himself in position and get ready for a scissor kick against Pisciazziello. The impact was sharp and hard, a perfect pock sound, and his friend put both fists together to ward off that cannon shot. The ball lofted high and ended its arc right at the entrance to the courtyard. The two of them sprinted to take possession of the ball. Pisciazziello got there first and immediately passed the ball to Biscottino, who raced off, brushing against the walls, and then kicked a gentle cross that the other boy headed sharply into the goal. They’d made peace.
They stopped to catch their breath, sitting on the sidewalk. “Adda murì mammà,” said Pisciazziello, “inside, they’re talking about us.”
Biscottino pointed up to a long narrow window about a yard off the ground. He dragged a trash can over, laid it on its side, and climbed onto it.
“What are you doing!” exclaimed Pisciazziello, looking around.
“You said it yourself, Pisciazzie’. They’re talking about us inside,” said Biscottino. He grabbed the side casements of the narrow window and, levering up with one leg, hoisted himself up onto the foot or so of windowsill. He remained there for a few seconds, studying what part of the body he should try to insert first into that opening. He looked like a little bird perched on a branch.
Biscottino slid his legs through the narrow window, got a foothold on the toilet bowl, and leaped down onto the rubber mat without making a sound. He looked out into the courtyard in the middle of which Pisciazziello was still standing, motionless.
“Pisciazzie’,” he whispered, “you’re up to your neck in the same shit. It’s worth your while to come listen.”
In a flash, Pisciazziello was in the bathroom, his ears pressed against the door.
“He really screwed up, and it’s no laughing matter!”
The voice belonged to Pisciazziello’s mother, and he tried to flatten himself against the door, as if by adhering as closely as possible to the panel, the sound would reach him more clearly. He didn’t understand why he was at the center of the discussion; after all, he wasn’t the one who had pulled the trigger.
“Yes, he really screwed up, my boy Eduardo,” said Biscottino’s mother. Pisciazziello couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief, and he shifted slightly away from the door. Next to him, he felt his friend’s body stiffening and felt a surge of shame at his reaction. He put a hand on Biscottino’s shoulder, who looked over at him with terror in his eyes.
“The only thing to do is to cooperate with the police,” said Emma. The sound of shoes scraping on the floor. Mamma’s not happy, Biscottino thought to himself; he was all too familiar with that habit of hers, the way she’d scrape her feet on the floor, like an animal seeking shelter.
“You really think so?” said Greta. “Give me time, let me think it over.” More scraping, followed by the creak of the springs in the sofa. She’d gotten to her feet and now she was walking across the room. Pisciazziello and Biscottino stood up and turned toward the window, the only way out. Then they heard the sound of the kitchen faucet and a glass emptied all in one splash. They pressed back against the door.
“If we think too hard and long, we’ll just screw up,” said Emma.
“I know that’s what we need to do, but I have three children. Where would I go?”
The little half bathroom beat with the two hearts of Biscottino and Pisciazziello, pounding hard, and every heartbeat, which they could feel in their chests but also in their mouths, in their throats, in their wrists, just punctuated that back-and-forth between their mothers. It seemed like the background music of one of those thrillers they so loved to watch together on TV.
Biscottino felt a hole opening in the pit of his stomach. In the past few days, he’d thought of every possible outcome, except the possibility of having to leave the city. He would never again see Pisciazziello and the others, he’d never again play soccer in the courtyard. He felt a wave of fear much more powerful than the one that had swept over him when he’d set off to kill Roipnol. He retreated to the narrow window to get a breath of fresh air, but the hole in his stomach just kept getting bigger. And here came the cramps. He sat down on the toilet seat cover and pulled his legs up to his chest. The pain subsided a little.
“You can’t do these things halfway: either you do them or you don’t.” The social worker had taken the floor, interrupting the conversation between the two mothers. The woman’s high-pitched voice reached Biscottino clearly, as he rested his head on his knees. “And you should be happy to do them, because you’re saving your children’s lives.”
Pisciazziello wrapped his hand around an imaginary erect penis and pretended to jack off with it, smiling in Biscottino’s direction, who instead grimaced back: another cramp.
“I’ll get in touch with the police and I’ll start a conversation with them, I’ll start briefing them on the way matters stand, the situation … but you needn’t worry, because I won’t mention any names. But I’ll also tell them that you need to be convinced and that you naturally demand certain conditions,” the social worker continued. She articulated her words very clearly, the same as when she spoke directly to Pisciazziello and Biscottino. That wasn’t a good sign, thought Biscottino. “Where would you like to live, Signora Greta? I’ll take care of everything myself.”
If it hadn’t been so perfectly silent in the bathroom, they wouldn’t have been able to hear the whispered reply: “Venice.”
Biscottino felt his intestines sag downward, and instinctively he tightened his sphincter, clamped his butt cheeks together. A rivulet of cold sweat ran down his back, ending in his underpants. How could it be his mother was falling for the arguments of that bitch of a social worker? What did she even know about them?
“Eduardo needs to be kept out of this whole story,” said Greta. Biscottino felt he’d been reborn.
“And he’ll be kept out of this story, I told you: no names.” The social worker pressed the point home. “And the same for your son, Signora Emma. You need to be careful, too.”
Pisciazziello sat down on the edge of the bidet and looked at Biscottino. “You, too,” his friend whispered, pointing his forefinger right at him. “You’re ending up just like me, no better, no worse.”
“But it’s tougher for me,” Pisciazziello’s mother told the social worker. “Probably better, Signora Lucia, if we leave my boys out of it…”
“Remember that I’m on your side and the side of your children,” said the social worker in the tone of voice of someone who’d repeated the concept over and over again. “I want us all to come out of this situation together, like a team.”
Then Greta’s voice: “We’ll turn him into an informer, pentito…”
Biscottino’s and Pisciazziello’s hearts plunged into cold water, as they held their collective breath: “Never,” they said to each other, breath within breath.
That deadly word, pentito, rushed past outside the door like an avalanche sweeping away everything in its path: in the void that remained, Biscottino’s fart rang out.
The cramps had resumed. “I can’t take it anymore,” Biscottino said under his breath. The stench immediately filled the bathroom, and Pisciazziello lifted his elbow to cover his nose.
“Is there someone in the bathroom, Signora Greta?” asked the social worker.
“Those are just noises from the courtyard in the back, they do everything you can think of out there,” Biscottino’s mother promptly replied. Looking out the window, she’d noticed that the bathroom window was ajar.
“Greta,” the woman resumed, “it’s my job to protect people, especially minors like Eduardo and Rinuccio. But you have to understand that it’s up to them to let us help them. If you let them speak to the police, no one would hurt a hair on their head.”
A second fart was covered up by the roar of a passing scooter. Biscottino waved his hand in Pisciazziello’s direction: it was time to get out of that bathroom, they’d heard all they needed to hear.
On the other side of the door, the three women were all talking at once, interrupting and drowning one another out.
Pisciazziello climbed up onto the narrow windowsill while Biscottino gave him a boost, pushing from behind.
“Never!” Biscottino told himself again. He went out the window and started running through the alleys and vicoli, followed by Pisciazziello.