The Bastards of Pizzofalcone by Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar

hand had shot out and seized that little asshole by the throat, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
    Ten days’ suspension. And that idiot of a commissario who kept saying to him, foaming like a pig at the corners of his mouth: Roma’, you’re through in this precinct. Clean out your desk, you’re not coming back here. And that’s the way it was.
    Ten days shut up at home. With nothing to do. He’s a guy who doesn’t read, doesn’t listen to music, doesn’t watch TV. What would he watch TV for? To watch stupid movies, with cops who are faker than Aragona, that sunlamped kid who’s a parody of himself, only now he’s his coworker. Of course a guy would lose his mind, Romano thinks to himself. Of course a guy would do things he wouldn’t do normally.
    Giorgia. No one but her, to keep him company. And irritate him even more, with those sidelong glances, the way she watched him secretly all the time. How long had they been married now? Eight years. No children, the kids never came, and it was no one’s fault: tests, hopeful journeys, figuring out when she would be most fertile, hearing her weep into her pillow at night while she was pretending to sleep soundly. And then silence. Lots and lots of silence. Tons of silence, hanging in the air like some foul stench, like some intolerable miasma.
    You cling to your work, in cases like this. Especially if you’re good at it, capable. Above all if that work is something you care about passionately, the work you’ve wanted to do ever since you were a little boy. And then all of a sudden his job goes to hell in a handbasket. Even his job.
    The night before, Romano came home but Giorgia wasn’t there. She’d gone out. Maybe she’d gone for a walk, or to see that idiot father of hers, her sweet loving daddykins, so she could cry her heart out about her miserable fate.
    The apartment was empty and dark. Cold. After his first day spent in the dump, after becoming a Bastard of Pizzofalcone.
    When she got back, not even half an hour later, he was sitting in the dark, sunk in silence. She’d come over to him, murmuring some excuse or another; to him, who’d expected to have her support at such a difficult and complicated moment. If she hadn’t looked at him, if she hadn’t spoken to him, it would have been better. Instead, with that fucking whiny voice of hers, so full of sympathy, she’d murmured: forgive me, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
    Do you feel sorry for me, Giorgia? Do you think I’m pathetic?
    His hand had spoken for him. Before he could think, before he could even begin to imagine how to construct a reply, his hand-animal had lashed out. And he’d hit her, with a back-handed smack, straight on those lips pursed in compassion. Now, the morning after, sitting at his new, useless desk, Warrant Officer Francesco Romano, whom his old coworkers had secretly called Hulk, felt the little cut on the back of his hand inside his pocket. The little cut made by his wife Giorgia’s left incisor, which, luckily the smack he’d given her hadn’t broken.
    He hadn’t budged off the sofa all night long. He’d heard her sob and sob, in their bed. He’d waited, absurdly, for her to tell him: it’s okay, come back, nothing’s happened. Come to bed. Let’s forget about it. But she hadn’t told him any such thing.
    When the first light of dawn had become visible through the window, he’d gotten up and gone into the bedroom. She’d finally fallen asleep, a handkerchief knotted around her fingers, wrinkles around her eyes. Her upper lip was swollen where he’d hit her.
    God, how much he loved her.
    God, how much he hated her.
    The door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman stuck his head into the joint office, with that disgusting enthusiasm of his:
    â€œRomano and Di Nardo, come see me. We have a complaint for you to go check out.”

XVI
    L ojacono