Everything on the Line

by Bob Mitchell

  Giglio watches in awe as his prize pupil and the apple of his eye scrambles to reach unreachable balls in this swampy humidity, to pound unrelenting groundies, to construct points with implausible creativity. He is thinking of how proud he is of Ugo, and of how this extraordinary young man who cannot hear, and his archrival Jack Spade, have clearly established themselves as the two best players in the world, and arguably ever, although they may be a year or two away from putting this argument to rest for good and surpassing the towering accomplishments of the most dominating players ever (“The Magnificent Eight”), namely, Bill Tilden, Don Budge, Pancho Gonzalez, Rod Laver, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, and Jaden Gil Agassi.

  Dink!

  Giglio’s reverie is interrupted by a gorgeously conceived and brilliantly executed drop shot that comes out of nowhere and catches him uncharacteristically flat-footed and unawares.

  “Bravissimo,” Giglio signs to Ugo. “Now, before we hit the showers, may I have a little word with you?”

  Ugo’s favorite part of the workout session.

  Perspiration is streaming down from Ugo’s hair and face as if its source were one of those “fake sweat” gadgets they used in the old comedy routines. But he doesn’t much mind, because here comes one of those lovely lectures.

  “Okay, ragazzo,” Giglio signs, “can you tell me which part of your body is totally unlike that of anybody else’s on the face of the earth?”

  Ugo giggles like a schoolboy at the first silly answer that crosses his mind and, after ten seconds of quality thought, gives his mentor a stunned look, precipitated by his ignorance of the correct answer and his not having a clue as to where this is going.

  Giglio turns Ugo’s right hand palm-up, puts the tip of his index finger on the tip of Ugo’s pinky, and draws on it a series of imaginary concentric circles.

  “Impronta digitale!” Ugo says.

  “Yes, your fingerprint! Now why do you suppose I’m asking you this?” Giglio asks Socratically.

  Ugo thinks, because that is what Giglio has always inspired him to do.

  “Because,” Ugo signs, “my fingerprint makes me unique?”

  “Esatto,” Giglio says, smiling that proud smile. “And just like your fingerprint is different from everyone else’s, in the same way your whole spirit and essence should be unique. And that is why we have been placed here on earth, to do our own unique, distinctive thing. Just think of your fellow countrymen alone. Dante! Petrarca! Leonardo! Michelangelo! Verdi! Ferrari! Fellini! Pavarotti! Each one did his thing as no one else had before and left his fingerprint on the world. And this should be true not just for celebrities, but for every human being! And you, caro, you too are leaving your fingerprint on the world, your gift, through your special way of playing tennis. And do you know how? It is not that you hit the ball harder than anyone ever has or are stronger or faster or more consistent or have more heart. You have all of these qualities, certo, but what makes you so special and unique is…”

  Giglio places his right index finger on his right temple.

  “…what you possess up here. Instinctively, like no one now or ever before, you have a feeling for what is happening on the court, for creating intelligent points and being one step ahead. It’s as if you are playing tennis like a great chess grandmaster, one or even two steps in the future. Even in practice, every point for you is well conceived and tactically purposeful, as if you hit each shot not simply to keep the ball in play, but to prepare for the next one and then the next one, and so you almost always know what shot I will hit and where. It is a rare tennis game that you have, because you are capable like no one else of visualizing how a point will develop in advance and then, using your creativity and your imagination, you are able to create un bel gioco, a beautiful game. And if those words sound familiar to you, they are the same that are used to describe o jogo bonito, the beautiful game of soccer played by the Brazilians for nearly a century now. And this, carissimo, is your unique fingerprint…it is playing…Ugo Bellezza tennis!”

  Giglio Marotti, exhausted from the workout, the heat and humidity, and the force of his passion, is toast.

  A blushing Ugo smiles, towels off his drenched neck and brow, and looks down proudly at the tip of his right pinky.

  * * *

  “It looks like Monte Vesuvio!” Ugo signs to Giuseppe Gravina.

  Giuseppe and his wife, Maria Signorile, are old friends of Gioconda and Giglio’s and tonight, in their sprawling flat on Via Monte Grimano, are hosting them, Ugo and Antonella, and their ever-faithful mastiff mix, Micromega.

  Giuseppe nods to Ugo in agreement and continues his artistry on this Saturday afternoon in the northeastern section of Rome. On the kitchen table is a visual that indeed resembles Mount Vesuvius. In the middle of the wooden table, Giuseppe has just poured a giant mound of farina semplice di Lazio, a local golden flour. He then hollowed out the middle of the mountain to create a twelve-inch-in-diameter crater, inside of which he cracked eight raw eggs.

  Giuseppe gently squashes the eggs in circular movements with a fork. Little by little, centimeter by centimeter, the crater of eggs comes in contact with the surrounding mountain of flour as he meticulously combines the two elements, the eggs growing thicker with each circular hand movement and the rim of flour growing thinner.

  Giuseppe Gravina continues this tedious procedure for another ten minutes with the precision of a watchmaker and the concentration of a tennis line judge, until the flour has at last absorbed all the eggs, the mountain and crater have disappeared, and he is left with a mammoth flax-colored blob.

  Next comes the painstaking stage of kneading, Giuseppe smushing down the blob with the butts of both his hands, then squeezing it between his palms, over and over. After which he separates it manually into a dozen minihunks, then kneads the minihunks as painstakingly as he did the original mammoth hunk. The muscles in Giuseppe’s biceps and arms ripple and bulge, just like those in Michelangelo’s David and Dying Slave.

  And now there is the flattening of the minihunks, which Giuseppe effects in a specialized machine by inserting them once, then again, then again, until they are perfect. And the flat strips are inserted into a second specialized machine, where they are cut into thin strips, which are the final product, the ultimate fettucine, left to dry on the kitchen table with a sprinkling of flour on top and then placed lovingly on the backs of the four kitchen chairs.

  Ugo is watching in awe and thinking of what Giglio always told him about process and how Giuseppe has just created his own masterpiece by struggling physically and mentally, at each stage, and by putting his heart and soul and effort into it every step of the way and by overcoming the bumps in the road (uncooperative minihunks, obdurate bubbles, impudent creases) and despite these bumps—perhaps because of them?—Giuseppe performs his art with great joy and gusto, constantly singing and smiling and joking with Ugo and Antonella.

  After the three couples have enjoyed wine and lively conversation and a little romp outside with Micromega, the fettucine has dried, and Maria Signorile lowers it gently into a large pot of boiling water. The ragu-and-tomato sauce is bubbling, and the guests are famished.

  “A tavola,” Giuseppe and Maria shout in unison.

  The guests are seated, and the dining room table is filled with a meal fit for a re. Giuseppe’s lovingly made fettucine, of course. Pomodori e rughetta (simple Roman salad). Fichi e prosciutto (grilled figs and ham). Zucchini alla Romana (zucchini with Romano cheese, garlic, and a touch of mint). Pollo in agrodolce (Roman-style sweet and sour chicken).

  “Vorrei fare un brindisi ai nostri cari amici ed a mia moglie stupenda!” Giuseppe says, raising his glass of Nebbiolo. Everyone raises their own, toasting the dear friends and of course Maria, the stupendous wife of Giuseppe.

  As Giglio Marotti twirls his fork around a mass of fettucine strands, his mind wanders to the Foro Romano, which he and Gioconda had visited just this morning, and the memory of all those broken columns and remnants of temples, b
asilicas, and arches is making him think about how things don’t last forever, and for that matter life, and here today gone tomorrow and sic transit gloria mundi and carpe diem and live in the moment and there is so much yet for him to do while he is still a relatively young man, like see how much more he can help Ugo perfect his beautiful tennis game, and what about his deepening feelings for Gioconda? and maybe…

  “Ed a Giuseppe Gravina, mio marito stupendo,” Maria says, raising her glass of Chianti. Everyone raises their own, toasting Giuseppe, Maria’s stupendous husband.

  As Gioconda Bellezza chews gently on a fig, her mind wanders to this afternoon’s walk with Giglio and to the plaque in front of the Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte church on the cobblestoned Via Giulia with that death-as-a-winged-skeleton image and the Latin inscription Hodie mihi cras tibi, “Today me, tomorrow you,” which at first frightened her but now she is thinking how much meaning the sentiment really contains and how more and more it is so important to seize the day and enjoy the moment after everything she’s gone through in her life what with her husband’s untimely death and Ugo’s deafness and now she is thinking of that deep and probing look that Giglio gave her right after they saw the plaque on the church and did it have anything to do with the plaque itself and with the two of them seizing the day? and maybe…

  “Un altro brindisi a mia mamma favolosa,” Ugo signs, raising his glass. Everyone raises their own, toasting Ugo’s fabulous mom.

  As Micromega the dog digests a strand of fettucine that Giglio has just snuck under the table and into his pleading mouth, his mind wanders to when the next strand of fettucine will be delivered into his pleading mouth and maybe…

  “Ed anche a mio figlio ugualmente favoloso,” Gioconda signs back, raising her glass. Everyone raises their own, toasting Gioconda’s equally fabulous son.

  As Antonella Cazzaro munches on a chunk of zucchini, her mind wanders to the unassuming San Pietro in Vincoli church where she and Ugo were this afternoon and she is thinking about how she walked into the church and meandered down the right-hand aisle and near the end on the right, ah, eccola!, there it was, that amazing statue of Moses created by Michelangelo and how she’d seen it in books but there it was in person and as she was looking at it a Japanese tourist puts a coin in that machine and instantly lights illuminated the statue so you could see it more clearly and in detail and how she just stood there staring at the stone tablet in Moses’s right hand and the muscular arms of the great Jewish prophet and how she felt something powerful welling up within her and then a great big tear rolled down the side of her right cheek and she is thinking about how she looked at Ugo then and how he looked back at her and what strange and wonderful feelings she is feeling more and more for him and maybe…

  “Ed anche a Giuseppe e Maria per questa cena splendida!” Giglio says, raising his glass. Everyone raises their own, toasting the hosts for this splendid dinner.

  As Ugo Bellezza spears a chunk of luscious chicken with his fork, his mind wanders to this afternoon and that scene in the San Pietro in Vincoli church and that big tear rolling down Antonella’s right cheek and he is thinking about how touched he was by her sensitivity and how special that moment was and how much he loves her and how much more deeply he is getting to know her every single day and maybe…

  * * *

  Ugo Bellezza and Antonella Cazzaro sip alternately from the same glass of San Pellegrino, their healthy version of a celebratory cigarette. They have just made love for the very first time.

  Made love being the operative expression, as opposed to other words that might describe the act as an act and, at that, from a purely bestial or mechanical perspective.

  To the contrary, their passion was extraordinary, even oxymoronic. A gentle passion. An unselfish passion. A sweet passion. A giving passion. Thanks, in large part, to both Giglio and Gioconda, who have taught Ugo to understand the carnal shortcomings of the male of the species and in so doing to respect the beauty of the female body. They have both spoken openly and honestly to him for many years about this, using as prime illustrations the innocent ardor of statues of nude couples, especially Rodin’s The Eternal Idol and The Kiss.

  And now, for the first time, Ugo has appreciated it in the flesh.

  Making love to Antonella has made him feel as if a statue from his formal education were coming alive, transforming itself from white to pink and from hard to soft and from cold to warm.

  But most amazing to him was the perfect smoothness of Antonella’s skin, just like those Rodin sculptures. Well, maybe not perfect, but even that tiny mole on her inner right thigh, when he caressed and first became aware of it, felt beautiful, much like some palpable, pardonable, even lovely imperfection in the marble surface of a statue.

  The two lovers are lying in bed, gazing into each other’s eyes with profound contentment. Antonella smiles sweetly as her fingers caress first Ugo’s beating chest, then his perfect lips, and her hand, for no ostensible reason, follows a path that leads halfway up his aquiline nose, then across his cheek that has relocated itself upward due to all this smiling, then to his right ear. She caresses this ear, this beautiful ear, this ear that is perfectly formed, this ear that is so soft to her touch, this ear…that cannot hear.

  And for the second time today, Antonella Cazzaro weeps.

  13

  Win or Tie

  A WITCH’S BREAST MIGHT SEEM LUKEWARM if compared to the air in Columbus, Ohio, on this Saturday morning of November 25, 2051.

  Ira Spade has shlepped twenty-one-year-old Jack out here in polar temperatures to train for the sizzling hot Australian Open, employing this unusual tactic of reverse logic in order to expose his prize possession to the most extreme possible conditions and toughen him up mentally even more than usual.

  Following a brisk twenty-degree morning jog along the frigid banks of the Scioto River, the wind whipping in their faces and turning their cheeks and noses the color of Jonathan apples, Jack and Ira return to the home of the family hosting them, Ira’s drinking buddy from the good old Ohio State days, Spike Devlin, and his gum-chewing wife, Sadie.

  As the shivering father and son walk in the front door that is flanked by an American flag on the left and an Ohio State flag—red with a big gray O in the middle, on which a green buckeye leaf is resting—on the right, Spike greets them in his scruffy yellow Bevis and Butthead pajamas and his shabby black leather slippers.

  “So, how was the run, boys?” Spike inquires, stroking his bushy, prematurely gray mustache.

  “Grrr-r-r-reat!” a shivering Ira answers, doing his best impression of the famous breakfast cereal feline.

  The boys remove layers of windbreakers, sweatshirts, turtlenecks, and long johns and sit in their THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY T-shirts in front of the roaring fire that will remain in use nonstop from now until the end of March.

  The Devlin living room, spacious and cluttered, features a long wall flanking, and running over, the fireplace. Hanging on the wall, from left to right and all askew, are a golden plaque honoring Spike’s twenty-five years of service to the Olentangy Construction Company; black-and-white glossies of Ohio State Heisman Trophy winners ranging from old-timers like Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and “Hopalong” Cassady to the most recent recipients, Jamaal Jenks and Ndwiga Mbaki; Ohio State collector’s item programs from the 1950, 1955, 1958, 1969, 1974, and 1997 Rose Bowls, as well as the Ohio State-Michigan football games of 2038 and 2049, which OSU won by identical scores of 63-0; a framed THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY dinner plate; and a color photo of sixty-five-year-old legendary OSU coach Woody Hayes throwing a punch on the sidelines at Clemson nosetackle Charlie Bauman at the end of the 1978 Gator Bowl.

  In the place of honor over the fireplace, handsomely framed quotes attributed to the revered Coach Hayes hang in all their glory:

  “I never saw a football player make a tackle

  with a smile on his face.”

  “Football represents and embodies everything

  that’
s great about this country, because

  the United States of America is built on winners,

  not losers or people who didn’t bother to play.”

  “There’s nothing that cleanses your soul

  like getting the hell kicked out of you.”

  “Show me a gracious loser,

  and I’ll show you a bus boy.”

  “That will take care of you, you son of a bitch.”

  And, finally, Ira’s personal favorite:

  “Without winners, there wouldn’t even be

  any goddamned civilization.”

  On one of the side walls hang multicolored signs drawn and taped by Big Buckeyes Booster Sadie Devlin, anticipating this afternoon’s classic, brutally savage annual gridiron tilt: “GO BUCKS!” and “GO SCARLET AND GREY!” and “BEAT THE LIVING CRAP OUTTA MICHIGAN” and “BLUE REALLY SUCKS!”

  On the coffee table sit a football autographed by all the 2051 OSU football players and staff; a gray-and-scarlet THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY ashtray, in which repose three slightly poisonous, bitter-tasting, but highly cherished buckeye nuts; and a framed photo of the beefy and neckless Devlin twins, Skip and Shep, posing proudly in their Ohio State football uniforms.

  In the background, a Kuriyoshi SurroundSound Polyereo System plays a continuously looped, goose bump-producing recording of the pulsating Ohio State Fight Song “Across the Field.”

  “So, you boys wanna little pick-me-up?” the buxom Sadie asks, jaws aching from masticating five sticks of Juicy Fruit, as she plops four THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY mugs of steaming hot chocolate on the coffee table.

  “I see you’re looking at that old photo of Woody punching that Clemson player,” Spike says to Jack, whose face is returning to its original pre-walk hue and whose cockles are being slowly warmed by Sadie’s toasty brew.

  “Well,” Spike continues, “here’s the poop on that. Good ol’ Woody was a winner, a flat-out winner. And he understood better’n anyone that in order to be a real winner in this world, you couldn’t be a nice guy or a namby-pamby. Nosirree, you had to be a through-and-through bastard. And that bastard was a real sonuvabitch!”