Nicolas dropped to his knees to pet Skunk. The bitch kept eating up the miles on her treadmill, and she arched her back slightly, as if to return the caress. Under his fingertips he could feel the bands of muscle moving in time to the galloping pace. Skunk could have taken his hand off in a single bite without warning, but she never would, no, Nicolas was sure of that, because the day he’d presented her to the paranza with that name, the name of the female marijuana plant, the fertile plant that gave birth to others, the bitch had clenched her jaw. He’d seen it. She was his.
“You’re a beauty,” Nicolas told her, increasing the pressure of his fingertips on her back. The harder he pushed, the stiffer her back became, in a sensual exchange of pressure and the release of tension.
Skunk’s first dogfight was scheduled for the following night. Right up to the very last minute, Nicolas had been uncertain whether to confirm her presence; after all, Skunk had never faced off with another dog, she could get badly hurt, she could even be killed. But she was ready: his dog couldn’t be one of the world’s losers, she was certainly a world-beater. She’d kick their asses, all of them, he decided as he filled her bowl, she was going to be a champion.
The fight was scheduled to take place in Marcianise. The dogfight ring had been set up in a pit, six feet square, that years ago had been readied as a resting place for tons of garbage, but had never been used. It was one of those places that seem to exist only if you believe in them, like Hogwarts, and only when you become the owner of a fighting dog.
Nicolas arrived as the sun was setting, and the headlights of the cars and motorcycles parked facing the pit all started flicking on. He parked off to one side and, with Skunk on the leash, he headed over to that hole in the earth. Smooth walls, sheer, impossible to scale, so much so that the trainers of the fighting dogs had to climb down and up on a ladder, like painters. And every time they went down there, the mockery started to rain down from the audience up above—“Go on, give him a bite!”—after which the trainers could climb up out of the pit and the real battle would begin.
Anyone could be hiding among the ordinary spectators and the dog owners, from retirees who spent their days at home or at church but who had a private lust to see limb ripped from limb, all the way up to a rival gang member, an enemy of Nicolas. Atop the rampart that years ago had been a wheat field, the people were all equal, all the same, and all of them had their heads turned down toward that hole in the dirt. Any other place in the city, ’o Gialluto and Nicolas would have drawn guns and started shooting the minute they saw each other, even if it was a chance encounter in the aisle of a supermarket. But here, ’o Gialluto was no longer a Faella, no longer Micione’s brother, he was just the owner of a fighting dog. With one hand on Skunk’s powerful neck, Nicolas waited for ’o Gialluto to arrive, and while he waited he watched the first dogfight.
Facing off were a rottweiler and a Dogo Argentino, but a bigger one than Skunk, certainly a male. The two animals wasted no time studying each other, they just lunged into the fray. All around Nicolas, people started shouting and cheering them on: the rottweiler was more aggressive, he’d make hamburger out of the Dogo, no, the Dogo was just parrying his opponent, don’t you see how it’s staying on its back paws? Kill him. Accìrelo. Rip him limb from limb. Staccace ’a faccia. Take his face off. Rip his throat open. Tear his ear off. Nicolas felt as if he were sitting in the front row of an ancient Roman amphitheater, singing the praises of the gladiators in exchange for sweat, blood, and dirt.
Then the rottweiler and the Dogo slammed together, jaws wide open, the first vertical, the other horizontal, forming a violent cross. Nicolas prepared to hear an explosion of shattered fangs and torn fleshy tissues; instead what he heard was a loud clack, as if gearings had meshed and then ground to a halt.
The trainers descended into the pit, warily circling the two animals locked together, searching for the best point of access, and then lunged at the beasts, lifting their rear legs into the air. The dogs instinctively broke apart, and then resumed the fight. The furious combat didn’t last long, only until the two challengers stopped sinking their teeth into each other, exhausted like a pair of gladiators who had decided to spare each other, to spare themselves. No winner. Jeers and whistles from the disappointed audience.
The next bout was announced by the chattering of the spectators.
Scar tissue from the most recent wounds glittered in the headlights: these were a pair of veterans, the two dogs in the ring, even Nicolas understood that. They stood at the corners of the pit for a good solid five minutes, indifferent to the shouts of the onlookers. But when they lunged together at the center of the ring, the fight didn’t last long: the cane corso went for the bull terrier’s throat, and the dog hesitated an instant too long, unsure whether to dodge the attack or attack in response, and in a second he was on his back. The cane corso went for him, getting in a couple of solid bites, but by doing so he exposed his throat, and the bull terrier took that as an opportunity to rip out the other dog’s jugular.
The night went on like that, an assortment of bouts, bets, and lacerated flesh.
Nicolas watched the remaining dogs, and was starting to feel anxious, and that anxiety quickly infected the dog. He didn’t see ’o Gialluto. It was the audience that announced his arrival. Everyone started shouting: “Totò! Totò! Totò!”’O Gialluto’s dog, the Belgian shepherd that was going to face off with Skunk, had finally arrived. Their turn had come.
Nicolas caught a distant glimpse of ’o Gialluto’s jaundiced skin, which seemed to glow a phosphorescent yellow. Neither of the two spoke a word, they had eyes only for the dogs they were taking down into the pit. As soon as her paws hit the dirt floor, Skunk started to snarl, tensing every muscle in her body, the nape of her neck, the neck itself, thighs, hocks, her whole white coat swollen with fibrous protuberances.
Skunk lunged at Totò, who elegantly sidestepped her, dodging each attack, ensuring that the Dogo slammed against the walls of the pit. Nicolas followed each move, teeth on edge, and every time Skunk slammed into the wall his hands went to his head, fingers yanking his hair till it hurt, but each time she immediately charged back into the fray, nothing daunted. On her fifth charge, however, while the Belgian shepherd dodged left, Skunk skidded to a halt and whipped around in a new direction. The two dogs locked in a whirling melee of limbs and fangs, kicking up a cloud of dust into which, for a few seconds, they both vanished from Nicolas’s sight. When the cloud subsided, Skunk was panting and looking up at her master, tongue lolling. Nicolas took a step closer to get a better look; that chunk of flesh dangling from Skunk’s lips couldn’t be hers, it was too rubbery. Then his gaze shifted to Totò, writhing on the ground and spitting out gobbets of blood. Skunk had ripped his tongue out.
“Skunk!” Nicolas waved his arms up and down, as if trying to incite the mob. “Skunk! Skunk!” But the dog stood impassive. Whereupon Nicolas simply flung himself into the pit without bothering to use the ladder, and rolled on the ground, arms wrapped around his championess.