Desolation Road

7

There were three Gallacelli brothers: Ed, Louie and Umberto. No one knew which was Ed, which was Louie, and which was Umberto, because they were triplets and as mutually indistinguishable as peas in a pod or days in a prison. They grew up in the farming community of Burma Shave, where the citizens held three common opinions about them. The first ws that they had been found abandoned in a cardboard box on the edge of Giovann’ Gallacelli’s maize field. The second was that they were something more than triplets, though what that something might be no one was prepared to say for fear of offending the saintly Mrs. Gallacelli. The third was that the Gallacelli boys had swapped identity. at least once since infancy so that Louie had grown up to be either Ed or Umberto, Umberto Louie or Ed, and Ed Umberto or Louie, and all possible successive permutations of further swaps. Not even the boys themselves were certain which was Ed, which was Louie, which was Umberto, but it was certain among the folk of Burma Shave that they had never seen such identical triplets ("clones,” oh, dear, that’s it said, it just popped out, you know, that word you’re not meant to mention in front of their parents): or such devilishly handsome ones.

Agneta Gallacelli was a squat toad of a woman with a heart of warm milk chocolate. Giovann’ Gallacelli was tall, thin and spare as a rake. Ed, Louie and Umberto were dark-eyed, curly-haired laughing love gods. And knew it. And so did every girl in Burma Shave. Which was how the Gallacelli brothers came to depart from Burma Shave in the small hours of a Tuesday morning on a motorized railcar they had adapted themselves from a farm delivery truck.

There was this girl. She was called Magdala, Mags for short. There is always a girl like her, the kind who flirts and plays and messes around and leaves no doubt that she is one of the boys until the boys are boys, when they, and she, realize that she isn’t one of the boys at all, not at all. For Mags her moment of realization came two weeks after her trip round the more out-ofthe-way fields in the back of the Gallacellis’ delivery truck. For Ed, Louie and Umberto it came when the truck was peppered with bird shot as they drew up outside the Mayaguez homestead to inquire why Mags hadn’t been to see them for so long.

Fraternal solidarity was the polestar of the Gallacelli brothers’ lives. It did not waver when confronted by a resigned father and a furious neighbour. They refused to say which of them had impregnated Magdala Mayaguez. It was entirely possible they did not know themselves.

“Either one of youse says, or ye all marry,” said Sonny Mayaguez. His wife gave weight to his demand with a shotgun.

“Well, what’ll it be? Talk, or marry.”

The Gallacelli brothers chose neither.

Anywhere else in the world no one would have lost one wink of sleep over a silly little girl like Mags Mayaguez. In nearby Belladonna there were counted on Tombolova Street alone eighty-five abortion parlours and twelve transplant-fostering bureaus for silly little girls in just her situation. Belladonna, however, was Belladonna, and Burma Shave was Burma Shave, which was why the Gallacelli brothers chose Belladonna over Burma Shave. There they earned ten-dollar diplomas in farm science, law and mechanical engineering from a hole-in-the-wall universuum. They would have lived there contentedly for the rest of their lives but for a sad misunderstanding with a knife, a drunk shuttle loader and a girl in a bar on Primavera Street. So they ran away again, for there was still some law in Belladonna where the next best thing to a totally honest police force is a totally corrupt one.

They were drawn down the network of shining steel rails that covered the world like a spider’s web: the farmer, the lawyer, the mechanic. Ed was the mechanic, Louie the lawyer, Umberto the farmer. With such qualifications they could have made it anywhere in the world because the world was still young enough for there to be more than enough work for every hand. But the place they actually made it to was Desolation Road.

They bounced off their railcar grimly sweaty but still devilishly handsome and swung into he Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel. They banged on the service bell one after the other. Heads turned to look at them. The Gallacelli brothers smiled and waved.

“Ed, Louie and Umberto,” one of them introduced themselves.

“Looking for a place for the night,” explained another.

“Clean beds, hot baths and hot dinners,” said the third.

Persis Tatterdemalion emerged from the beer cellar, where she had been fitting a fresh barrel.

“Yes?” she said.

“Ed, Louie and…” said Ed.

“Looking for…” said Louie.

“Clean beds, hot…” said Umberto, and all at once, all at the same instant, they fell dreadfully, desperately passionately in love with her. There is a theory, you see, that states that for everyone there is one person who will fulfill their love perfectly and absolutely. The Gallacelli brothers, being the same person multiplied three times, of course shared that common, unique love, and the absolute fulfillment of that common life was Persis Tatterdemalion.

The next morning the Gallacelli brothers went to see Dr. Alimantando about becoming permanent residents. He gave Umberto a large patch of land, he gave Ed a shed where he could fix machines, and because he could not give Louie an office or a district court or even a corner of the bar to practice his art, he gave him a piece of land almost as big as Umberto’s and advised him to take up animal husbandry, that being the closest thing Desolation Road could offer to jurisprudence.