Sudden Death

Third Set, Third Game

Drunks and children urinate with the same glorious urgency: when they have to go, they have to go with desperate seriousness. And they pee profusely and noisily, in a foamy, vast, and happy way.

15–love.

The poet felt a twinge of pleasure at the base of his skull at the liberation of his nether waters. His fuzzy head was bowed, because a last ray of light in his mind advised him to avoid splashing his boots. He raised his face and moaned like a lion, transfixed with delight. Only then did the stream regulate itself, allowing him to turn some of his attention to the dark figure of the Italian capo, who was spilling his own waters on the venerable cobblestones of the Via dell’Orso.

He felt as if he’d been pissing for hours when he finally pulled up his breeches and leaned against the wall to wait for his companion to finish. Only then did he notice that the cold air was poisoning him. He breathed deeply, straddling his legs to find solid footing. He clung — discreetly, he believed — to the ledge of the tavern wall so that the city would stop spinning.

The capo slouched at his side when he was done pissing. The poet saw him as if from a distance, his contours smeared by a brain turned to wax. His new friend seemed untouched, though they’d been drinking at the same pace. He also seemed to be talking interminably. The poet couldn’t understand a word he was saying.

He made an effort to follow, feigning a probity he no longer possessed, and he gathered that the capo was saying something about the night and the river. He tried to stand up straighter and couldn’t: he lost his balance and caught himself by throwing an arm around his companion’s shoulders. The capo whispered in his ear what he had been saying all along without being understood. That they should go to the river, that the river cured all.

There’s a particular kind of suffering in the loneliness of the person who has already lost the battle against alcohol and surrendered in a waking state: pain, nausea, the fear that this all-consuming discomfort will be eternal. At the river, he thought, he might be able to vomit without disturbing the neighbors with his retching. The warm hand of the Italian holding him up around the ribs was like the last hope in a world where all possibility of pleasure had suddenly been voided. He let himself be detached from the ledge, arm slung over the shoulders of the capo, who neither lost his composure nor stopped whispering things for his own entertainment as he guided the poet slowly along the narrow street. It wasn’t healing that he’d found on the shoulder on which he was drooling. It was something at once less effective and more comforting.

15–15.

The boil of the river didn’t have the healing effect he had hoped for. Instead, the swampy dampness of the air made him feel even worse. He leaned on the stone balustrade, the city spinning in the hollows of his eyes, and breathed as deeply as he could. Since the situation wasn’t improving, he shoved his index finger against the back of his throat. His whole body began to convulse, hunched over.

First it was just a pain in his chest, a surge of shivers and tremors, coughs so deep that he thought they would shake his balls loose. He crouched down, and felt the grappa that was still slopping unprocessed in his stomach surge up with cyclone force. He managed to rise enough to vomit interminably over the retaining wall of the waterway.

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and blew his nose, which was running profusely, with his handkerchief. He rubbed his neck and slumped to the ground, resting against the balustrade. He smiled: no longer did he feel the graze of death’s teeth on his scalp, but he was still very drunk. Only now did he seek the capo with his gaze. The Italian seemed to have vanished after leaving him at the river. He fell asleep.

30–15.

He was woken by someone shaking him by the shoulders. It was the capo, eyeing him with a complicit smile. Are you all right, he asked gently. He lifted the poet’s face by the chin, gave him a few kindly slaps, pulled him by the ears. Stirred back to life, he saw that the man was offering him a jug. If I drink another drop of wine I’ll die, he said. It’s water, the capo said; fresh, I went to the fountain. This struck the poet as funny and he proceeded to rid himself of the sour taste of his own filth, spitting mouthfuls of water over the balustrade into the river. Finally he splashed his face and neck. The Italian took a branch of mint from his bag. Chew this, he said. The poet obeyed with the humility of the fallen who are on their way back to life. Though the effect of the leaves on his palate and tongue was too intense to be pleasant, he felt that the mint juices were opening blocked ducts.

He grew confident enough to stand again. They’re waiting for me at the Tavern of the Bear, he said to the capo, slurring his words. He took two steps, slipped, and fell like a side of beef. He was barely sober enough to catch himself with his hands and protect his head. As he tried to get up again, he saw the Italian doubled over with laughter. The very red face of the man who a moment ago had feigned commiseration struck him as hilarious. The capo came over, took him by the hand, and then the two of them ended up in the mud. Each tried to get up on his own, but whenever one of them had nearly managed it, the other brought him down again with his efforts. At last they declared defeat and lay on the ground together, belly up.

The street is too muddy, said the capo; we can’t go back to the tavern like this. They crawled back to the balustrade. There are stairs here, said the Lombard, pointing to one of the flights down the retaining wall toward the stream; let’s sit. They advanced clumsily until they found what they believed to be solid ground.

30–30.

They sat there next to each other, the edges of their knees knocking as they rocked with laughter at whatever was said. At some point the capo leaned back and rested his elbows on the step above, shook his head, and pulled a wineskin from his cloak. It’s Spanish, he said to the poet. I can’t believe you’re going to keep drinking. The Italian uncorked the wineskin with a defiant look, crooning a silly little song. He raised it, opened his mouth, and let the stream of wine soak his mustache. Give me a swig, said the Spaniard, his boldness fueled by oblivion. The Italian let a second stream fall into his own mouth, full and still as a pool, and left his mouth open, pointing to indicate that it was the Spaniard’s for the taking. The poet smiled before moving delicately to lap the wine with his tongue.

30–40. Break point, cried the duke.

He plunged his hand into the Lombard’s hair and pressed against his mouth. The capo’s response was muscular: he grabbed the back of the Spaniard’s head. The poet felt that he was returning to some long-lost place, a place where he had a guide. He followed as if on that tongue he might find something he had always lacked. The musky scent of the capo’s hair, the vigor of his embrace. The Lombard switched positions, rolling the poet underneath him and letting the full weight of his body fall on him. The Spaniard found an unexpected pleasure in yielding, as if the virtue of obedience had suddenly gained meaning. He felt the Lombard’s erection growing. He was carried away by curiosity, the need to touch that wild and living thing that threatened and flattered him all at once. He was curious; he wanted to reach the place where everything that was happening would become happy torture. He touched the Lombard’s cock. The capo pulled away from his mouth and began to run his tongue along his neck, his ears. He had to know; that was all he wanted: to know. He slid his hand under the Lombard’s sash, buried it in his breeches and felt the capo’s member against his palm, squeezing it, exploring it, intrigued by its oils. He moved his hand a little lower to investigate the testicles, that source of pleasing heat. Then he heard the duke’s unmistakable voice crying from the balustrade: What the fuck is going on here?

Cacce per il milanese.