Fernando Royuela - A Bad End

It isn’t the sleep of reason but the unreason of Providence that finally engenders us monsters. Then it crosses our paths and abandons us to our luck, to our resilience. Frank Culá possessed the hidden strength of the weak and showed it in his use of contempt. He and I were to an extent similar, and so we tried not to cross paths beyond the necessary shoulder-rubbing that suited us both. In this way, year after year sped by for all of us who shared acts, because, things being what they are, I abandoned the shit in the cages and passed over to the ring with the wild animals; as Di Battista had ordained, one had to make the most of one’s dwarves.

A hunchback climbed aboard in Cuenca; he was prepared to work for nothing, for the mere pleasure of seeing the world. He had no known name, and pudgy Di Battista decided to baptize him Mandarino, in memory of a cousin of his from Calabria who was shot down by the partisans. “Mandarino, go off dove li animali e aiuda titch with ze raka and ze forka so ze shit non li arrivi to ‘iz neck.”

Mandarino was built like a beanpole, and one of his legs was too short to touch the ground, so he made up for it with a thick, raised heel made of pinewood worn down by the pebbly paths he’d trod. He walked with a slight stoop in his right shoulder, and despite being so skinny, the plump cheeks that protruded under his eyes like a frog’s were strangely fleshly. His whole body seemed lopsided as he walked, particularly if one kept an eye on his groin, which was quick to stir with an unheard-of thrust that gave a perpendicular aspect to his movements. He was amazingly well endowed. Mandarino started to help me with my chores. He spoke sparingly and initially seemed like a born mute, because he used gestures rather than his tongue when he wanted to communicate. As time passed, he started opening his mouth and even came out with bad-mannered patter, so we quickly concluded he was mad. I wasn’t worried by that, so long as he gave me a hand and did it well. “If you hit the bear in the stomach with a stick, he soon feels like taking a piss. I like watching animals piss, because it takes my thirst away. Rain, rain, don’t go away,” and without more ado he’d start raking up poo that he piled into panniers. I’d look at him perplexed, and the most I saw would be golden piss streaming down his trouser leg while he sang. I don’t know whether it was prompted by lunacy or biological necessity. Mandarino was always involved in one of two visible activities: pissing himself, or pleasuring himself with his hand. He’d do either and not blink an eyelid, and there was no mystery involved beyond the phenomenon he treasured between his legs and the unlikely nature of his behavior in public. It was hardly charitable to reproach him, given his dimwittedness and the fact he spent the whole blessed day sharing the degenerate habits of wild animals.

I’ve not eaten a hardboiled egg in twenty-five years. I soon became sick of the sight of them. On the other hand, that bastard Di Battista loved them. One sopping wet morning, he summoned me very early for a parley in his caravan. I’d not even drunk my breakfast glass of water. It was evident that he was in a big hurry. “Mandarino ‘elpin’ you bene with quello della merda degli animali?” he asked. “He does his tasks,” I replied as calmly as I could. “Ascolta: I’vva pensato a nice nano like youa would bringga ze profitto megliore jumpin’ aroun’ ze ring zan pulendo la merda dell jaule. Don’ youa agree, Gregorito?” “I don’t know,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders. “Ciai fame; non hai fatto collazzione?” he asked again.

Hunger always gives bad counsel, and it can be disastrous if you let yourself be guided by an empty stomach. My belly had suffered far too much. My guts had been wiped clean as a result of all that fasting with only a few bizarre snacks to eat; a slice of melon puréed in milk, or a hunk of dry bread with some red pepper rubbed over the top were sometimes tidbits enough to assuage a day’s hunger. Nonetheless, such penury could turn to abundance overnight, and then we’d pay homage by stuffing ourselves and shaking off the harsh prescriptions of our usual wretchedness for a few hours. I’ve never been short on hunger, and perhaps that’s why Providence had the bright idea of inspiring me to set up a pizza delivery business, which is why I’m wallowing knee-deep in loot today. Pudgy Di Battista knew what he was doing and tempted me, given the starving state I was in, with the attractive prospect of having a full belly. I wasn’t black, but I was hungry. Hear me out, and the comparisons I make won’t seem gratuitous. The black children in Africa nurture a tarantula in their chests that nobody chases away, the tarantula of starvation. They eat air and die young and aren’t even buried, and the cycle of catastrophes is thus continued. These are the times we live in, times to end time.

Pudgy Di Battista stirred from the chair where he was resting his buttocks and soon returned with a trayful of boiled eggs. He placed a bottle of cognac on the table, filled a glass to the brim, stared me in the eye, and asked me how many eggs I thought I could swallow in one sitting. And being, as I say, naturally hungry and not having eaten breakfast that morning, I gazed at the tray, didn’t blink, and started chewing eggs nonstop while he gulped down his bottle just as quick. I can’t remember if I downed ten or fifteen eggs, but the truth is in the end I was stuffed and satisfied as never before. “Molto bene, nano, molto que molto bene,” said pudgy Di Battista, who was well and truly plastered. “Yourra belly nel future sera una fontana di riquezza per tutti noi. Fromma domani youlla perform in ze act with ze fratelli Culí-Culá and beforra ze pubblico youlla stuffa tutti le ‘ard-boiled eggsa you can. Per te, ‘unger ha acabatto. Go and dechirleso a elli from mi,” and he burst out laughing like a madman from hell, oozing so much wine it even colored his tears, big teardrops he wept as he laughed so pathetically.

To begin with they just chased me around the ring, me clumsy and stumbling by nature, the Culí-Culás in hot pursuit, thrilled by the possibility I might bash my nose on the ground and spill my soul out, as had almost happened when I nearly knocked myself out tripping on one of the cables securing the safety net for the trapeze act. Then came the eggs and farts. In full view of the spectators, I ended my whole-day-long fast on hard-boiled eggs, gesticulating with gusto, and a chorus of guffaws from the audience, who surely thought it hilarious to see a dwarf like me dispatching a stack of what hens had laid. What’s more, the banquet was accompanied by a concerto in C major of belches that had neither rhythm nor tune. Don’t imagine that the general public hasn’t always laughed at the same gross doings. Before, they used to do it in the big top, packed together and making the wild animals go crazy with the pong from their sweat, now they guffaw at them in their kitchen-diners, the scant three by six feet they generally inhabit, breathing in the stink of the family and greatly helped by the inestimable remote control, the real crook on which the whole woolly flock depends. The act we performed totally lacked imagination and hid no double meanings, although its cheeky barrel-scraping could have triggered the indignation of the righteous men who in every era cherish establishment thinking. That act was well below my capabilities, if only because of the silly way it was choreographed, so I had no choice but to come up with something within the range of the three of us. I pondered over it for three months and finally suggested it to Frank Culá. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled in that sly way of his and accepted right away. “You’ve a good head on you, dwarfy, and that’s why I find you interesting. You and I will do great things together, you just wait and see,” he said, rushing off to tell his partner.