by Adam Schell
God knows, Luigi’s original intent for visiting the village was harrowing enough. He had not come to the far-off hamlet to shop or barter, as one might expect of a chef so inclined to bargains and petty thievery, but to inform the duke-in-hiding that his son, Prince Gian, missed his father dearly and feared that he was dead. But then the race started and Luigi Campoverde, snobbish, guarded, paranoid and peculiar as he may be, became totally engrossed in the action just like the Duke of Tuscany and all the lowly rimatori in the piazza.
What’s this? thought Luigi Campoverde, as his head and shoulders felt suddenly wet. There was wine everywhere. No sooner had the starting rope dropped and before a single donkey had taken a step, the entire sky turned crimson with red wine as each and every villager threw the contents of their goblets in the direction of the Cavalieri—no matter how far they were from the action. One could get drunk by drinking the sky, thought Luigi, as red wine continued to rain down. The donkeys and riders, dripping of wine, set off down the track and Luigi found himself startled again, this time by the sloppiness of the race’s start. Hardly ten strides into the race, the Cavalieri began to beat and pummel one another with their left hands. The action was more comical than brutal as uncoordinated blows missed their marks, slipping off noses and cheeks, heads and shoulders.
Wine bottles passed through the crowd so that no one need be empty of goblet for drinking or for tossing, and Luigi quickly refilled his travel goblet. Drunk and most unlike himself, he burrowed deeper into the crowd, managing to squirm his way closer to the action.
Unintentionally, Luigi found himself just a few feet behind the young Ebreo‘s grandfather, who, along with the other Nobiluomi del Vino, manned the Jeroboame wine bottle set upon the long table aside the track. He was surprised to see that while ten of the Cavalieri were nearly halfway through their first lap, the other three riders had barely stepped from the starting line. Why, he thought, would anyone choose such lazy donkeys for so important a contest? The crowd, especially those from opposing quadrants, found the three donkeys’ indifference rather hilarious and mercilessly heckled and drenched the desperate riders in wine and insults. Upon the track the other ten riders were rounding the bend on their first lap and it wasn’t looking so good for the Ebreo boy—Luigi didn’t expect it would go well for him.
Seated upon his trotting donkey, Vincenzo the pork merchant reached across his own body and secured a firm grip on the Ebreo boy’s collar and was now attempting to drag him off his donkey. The poor boy had a look upon his face of utter bewilderment; still, his legs and left arm clenched firmly around his donkey. “Look at that!” Luigi pointed and shouted to no one in particular as the Ebreo‘s donkey suddenly dropped his cazzone.
“Ay!” The crowd gasped in amazement at the simultaneously pathetic and awesome sight of the old donkey’s colossal cazzone dangling and bouncing between his gnarled knees. (Marveling at the size of a donkey’s cazzone was something of a village pastime.)
You idiot, thought Luigi, as he watched Vincenzo vainly look to the crowd, they’re not cheering for you! It was just enough of a pause to allow the Ebreo boy to reach out and cuff his left hand around the heel of Vincenzo’s boot. “Ay!” the crowd erupted in near-unison as the Ebreo boy quickly sat up, swinging his left arm and Vincenzo’s right foot in a wide and skyward motion. From the look upon his face, Vincenzo’s mind seemed unable to fully grasp what was happening to his body as his own foot suddenly swung above his head. And, just as predicted, in a spectacular backflip that tossed his feet over his head, rolled him backward off the ass of his donkey and pitched him face-first upon the hay-and dirt-strewn track, Vincenzo fell off his donkey, a mere seven strides short of one lap.
“Bravo!” the crowd exploded in a spontaneous show of emotion based not on any affinity for the Ebreo, but on the sheer uniqueness of the move. None of the villagers had ever seen a donkey-heel-flip before. Luigi noticed a look of delight upon the old Ebreo‘s face and was utterly surprised to discover he was clasping the old man’s hand in an act of shared drunken joy.
The hand-holding didn’t last long, as a jostling in the crowd knocked Luigi to his right. Instinctively, Luigi looked to his left and witnessed a mad scramble by the crowd to grab what had just been Vincenzo’s wine bottle. It appeared that once a Cavaliere was off his mount the prized wine inside his Jeroboame bottle was up for grabs. And before Luigi knew what was happening, a pair of youths were pouring wine directly from the enormous bottle into every nearby mouth, open or not.
“Uh-oh,” sighed nearly the entire crowd. Quickly, the youths lowered the bottle from Luigi’s mouth and all three returned their full attention to the track. The crowd could see what was about to happen. Nine Cavalieri rounded the final bend and trotted speedily (donkeys do not gallop) toward the wine table and straight toward the three Cavalieri whose donkeys had yet to move from the starting line area. The three were sitting ducks! But it was the actions of the stout troll that caught Luigi’s eye. What was his name? Luigi scanned his memory—the one who’d accompanied the truffle merchant that day. Ah, yes, Benito. He was the one who led the charge, with the most cunning and vicious efficiency. Rather than attack uomo a uomo, Benito encouraged one of the other riders, Cavaliere Sette, to attack first and then he attacked Cavaliere Sette just as Cavaliere Sette was about to dislodge sitting-duck Cavaliere Tre. That’s a lot of numbers, yes, but suffice it to say that with a most untender face grip, Benito made certain that both riders Seven and Three were rudely tossed from their donkeys. Maybe he’s not as dumb as I first thought, mused Luigi. And like that, the pack of thirteen was down to seven.
With four Cavalieri now dumped from their donkeys, another wild scramble ensued and Luigi found himself pushed and bumped until he was virtually on top of the old Ebreo. He had never been so close to an Ebreo before. Odd, thought Luigi, he doesn’t have horns or smell like a goat. “Like Purim,” Luigi overheard the old Ebreo say wryly amid the sea of noise as Nonno handed a full wine goblet to his grandson. Luigi didn’t know what the word meant, but it obviously had some meaning between them as it took the edge off the boy’s panic-ridden face. “Like Purim,” the boy answered as he grabbed the goblet and quickly drank down its contents.
“Blah!” went the Ebreo boy.
Luigi reared back, fearing an explosion of vomit when the boy pulled the drained goblet from his lips and threw his mouth wide open as if he’d just drunk a cup of fire. The old Ebreo grabbed the goblet from his grandson and brought it to his nose to smell; he winced and Luigi clearly saw the fine remnants of hot pepper flakes. Figlio di puttana! Luigi thought, someone spiked the boy’s wine bottle. The old Ebreo gritted his teeth and leaned in toward his grandson. “Not a peep,” Luigi heard the old Ebreo say with a look that carried far more meaning than any three words might. A look that even inspired Luigi to stand up a little straighter and stiffen his resolve. To applause and shouts the Cavalieri finished off their goblets and headed back onto the track. Even the old Ebreo smacked the donkey on the ass and gave it a push. “Ride hard, Meducci,” Luigi swore he heard the old man say, though he doubted it immediately.
Again, Luigi felt a jostling on his left side as four Jeroboame wine bottles were lifted from the Nobiluomi‘s table and held up to the crowd. Pairs of men held the bottles shoulder-high and began to sift their way through the sea of bodies, pausing to pour the prized wine directly into the mouths of a hundred villagers. Delicious, thought Luigi, as he set a hand upon the neck of the bottle, steadied his lips to the smooth glass and did for a third time what an hour ago would have struck him as utterly appalling: share his lips upon the same bottle as a hundred foul-breathed rhymers. Such is the way of feasts, when it is so often the tightest wrapped who come the most undone. And as the laps mounted and the Cavalieri fell one by one, Luigi pressed his lips to every bottle lifted from the Nobiluomi table, no matter whose lips preceded his and, gratefully, greedily drank down the succulent juice.
This was different wine, he thought—the best he’
d ever tasted. It warmed his joints and made his body feel so wonderfully fluid that the swaying of the crowd gave him the sensation of being an infant, secured with a soft shawl between his mother’s large and bouncing bosoms. This was different wine, he thought—sweet as honey, rich as butter—and it defrosted his mind and melted the ice that encased his heart. And as the laps mounted and the Cavalieri fell, while the Ebreo boy bravely survived, Luigi found he was falling in love with him and his sweet grandfather, and wanted more than anything in the world for this boy to win the race. Oh, Luigi mused, savoring his final thought before we leave his eyes, if only somebody had loved me the way this grandfather loves his grandson.
Attraverso Gli Occhi dell’ Eroe: “Ay!” Davido heard the entire crowd groan in unison. Why, he thought, why are they making that noise? But then came a feeling from the depths of Davido’s stomach, and he understood why. I am afraid, thought Davido, a portion of his mind oddly detached from time and the immediacy of his experience, that I shall not enjoy spicy food again for quite some time.
Much happened in the shared blink between our stranger’s and our hero’s eyes. As to be expected in a tale such as this, by the final lap the race was down to Davido and Benito. Benito had been a scourge upon the track, leveling nearly the entire field and doing what needed be done to protect the Ebreo. And Davido, despite the fiery bucketful of hot-peppered red wine sloshing about his belly, had managed to outlast much of the field. Two things had worked immensely in Davido’s favor to keep him in the race. The first, obviously unbeknownst to Benito, was that capsaicin, the chemical that makes some peppers hot, has a slightly mitigating effect upon alcohol. So much so that Davido, not an especially prodigious drinker, would have surely come undone by his ninth goblet had Benito not added crushed hot pepper to his wine. The second was that Ebrei did not subscribe to the same superstitions regarding left-handedness as Cristiani and allowed their children to favor whichever hand to which they were naturally inclined—a fact that made Davido defter at deflecting blows than many stronger riders were at delivering them. This was not to say that Davido didn’t absorb a good many whacks—he did—and survived a few near-calamities, some with the last-second assistance of Benito. But Davido had done well for himself and even managed to undo another rider in the ninth lap using the same heel-flip technique he’d utilized earlier with Vincenzo.
At the point our tale returns to the track, Davido and Benito had drunk their last goblet, dismounted their donkeys and wrestled their way to the foot of the Drunken Saint statue, a mere arm’s-length from victory. They were on their knees, engaged in a desperate, drunken, one-armed battle. Davido pushed with all his might to squirm and free himself from Benito’s clasp upon his collar. Benito’s smell was horrible, his clasp like iron and the manner in which he mumbled to himself—bizarre and horrible things—was rather terrifying. But they were drunk (capsaicin or not), drenched and slippery with wine and sweat, and it was not easy wrestling with one arm tied behind one’s back.
Suddenly, now, Davido felt Benito’s clasp upon his collar release. Instinctively, Davido’s body reacted. He stretched forth his left arm, his whole body lengthening to touch the statue and claim victory. Then Davido heard a noise—a deep, empathetic groan. He felt his torso go limp, as if all the breath in his body had been suddenly plunged out. Some part of him, a part that seemed to be a few feet removed and a witness to the event, told the other part of him that he’d been punched in the stomach. This same part told the other part that, with his left arm outstretched, his rib cage lifted and his belly bloated with wine, Benito’s blow was solid and devastating and that something awful was now about to happen.
Oh, you foul, vile, cowardly, murderous idiot, shouted La Piccola Voce from inside Benito’s head, what a stupid place to punch this boy! For nearly all the other Cavalieri and many in the crowd too, the effects of ingesting good red wine tainted with Fungi di Santo was rather delightful. As the laps and goblets mounted, colors grew brighter, sounds more crisp and clear, touch more titillating, experience more immediate, observation more nuanced and emotions more inclined to laughter and goodwill. And as Benito bested nearly the entire field—one by hair and one by ear, one by nostril and one by neck—even for the vanquished there was sublimity. Muscles worked as never before, so that even the most portly felt like Hercules battling valiantly through one or another of his Twelve Labors. Hands and fingertips, though engaged in harsh battle, felt as alive when brushing against the coarseness of a man’s beard as they ever felt upon the softness of a woman’s fighetta. Human thighs conjoined with the animals they rode created a sense of bestial unification so overwhelming that, by the sixth lap, four of the Cavalieri felt as if they were a new breed of centaur: half man, half donkey. Even the pain was glorious.
But poor Benito felt none of this delight. The Fungi di Santo had transformed the little voice inside his head into a raving demon. It turned the faces of the other Cavalieri into his face, only worse—with horns and fangs and thick eyebrows that squirmed like maggots upon raw meat—so that in beating the other racers he was beating himself. Moreover, in the ninth lap, when Benito’s eyes caught sight of the dangling cazzone of the Ebreo’s donkey, the phallus grew and came to life like a serpent. The huge serpent cazzone slapped upon Benito’s cheeks, writhed over his ears and pissed on his face. The serpent cazzone cursed and mocked him for defiling the other knights’ donkeys and for sabotaging the Ebreo‘s red wine. Not man enough to win by merit, taunted the giant pink donkey dick as it tried to slither its way up Benito’s nose.
And then, when he and the Ebreo dismounted and battled to within inches of victory, La Piccola Voce tormented him from inside the Ebreo‘s stomach, moving Benito to punch the boy in the unwisest of places and then mocking him for doing so: Eat his vomit, you horrid, murderous coward. The little voice rang so loudly through Benito’s head that he did not hear the voluminous, disgusted groan of five hundred villagers. Open your mouth and swallow his vomit, the voice screamed, and Benito dropped his jaw in acquiescence. Eat! it shouted as a crimson torrent of predigested red wine and hot pepper exploded from the Ebreo‘s mouth directly into the face and open mouth of Benito. Eat, it is the meal you most deserve!
Sobbing & laughing, Part I
“Anche Il Santo ci beffa,” Davido heard or dreamt through the blackness, the Saint mocks us too. He could not quite place the voice, but there was something familiar about it, something that made him think or dream of a cow. He wondered, or dreamt, if perhaps he was dead. He wondered why an angel would say such a thing?
It was the voice of Mucca, and she, along with Augusto Po, Signore Coglione, the Cheese Maker, Bertolli, six Ebrei from Pitigliano, Vincenzo, Bobo the Fool, Luigi Campoverde, Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, the Good Padre, Giuseppe, Nonno, Mari and roughly four hundred and eighty-two villagers and peasants were standing in a tightly packed circle around the statue of the Drunken Saint and the two prone, vomit-splattered and semi-unconscious Cavalieri. “The Saint mocks us too,” Mucca repeated.
It was frighteningly quiet in the piazza. All the drunken revelry of a moment ago silenced by the conundrum of what they’d just witnessed. The Ebreo had clearly won. No doubt, with his arm outstretched, he’d touched the statue of the Drunken Saint, then fallen over and passed out. IL FESTA DEL SANTO UBRIACO HAD BEEN WON BY AN EBREO!
Standing there, looking down upon the mess (though far enough away so as to not tarnish his shoes), Augusto Po wondered if it was a legal victory. There were no formal rules regarding such things, yet technically speaking, the Ebreo did vomit up his goblets before he’d touched the statue, which could be grounds for disqualification. But then again, he’d been punched in the stomach, and considering the current state of Benito, Po thought it best to hold his tongue. Still, his was a sentiment shared by most, and the very confounding root of the matter. Was it better to have a seemingly virtuous and little-known Ebreo who had just vomited win the beloved race, or a well-known, entirely unvirtuous boor, who had j
ust eaten vomit?
Of course, the six Ebrei from Pitigliano wanted Davido to win. So too did Luigi Campoverde, as well as Giuseppe and Mari, though for very different reasons. Bobo, on the other hand, could have cared less who officially won. To him, the mere fact that the race had come down to Benito and the Ebreo was in itself a gloriously sacrilegious victory. And as if that weren’t enough, to have the Ebreo vomit directly into the open mouth of Benito lent the affair an exquisite poetry that not even Bobolito could have dreamt up. Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci, all too used to humiliation, felt tremendous empathy for his friend Benito, but the Ebreo boy looked so much like Cosimo’s beloved courtesan that he could not help but hope the boy would be declared the victor. For Nonno, there really was no question: the Cristiano should win. Certainly, grandfatherly pride was a factor, but for Nonno a controversial defeat was better than a Pyrrhic victory. Of course, during the race he’d wanted his boy to win, but now that the race was over Nonno was calculating the long-term implications, and by those criteria he saw more harm than good coming from an Ebreo victory.
“Acqua,” shouted Giuseppe as he pushed his way through the crowd, “water!” Giuseppe never was one for group consensus.
The crowd made space for Giuseppe. They were relieved that the current quandary might be settled by someone. Not that it was Giuseppe’s decision to make, but he was the only one speaking up, and as the village’s largest employer, Captain of the Twelfth Hour—for whom Benito rode—and the supplier of wine for this year’s race, his opinion carried a certain magnitude.