The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [21]
For the man could not use his hands and had not meant him real harm. He had come like a hugging bear to chastise a child, grotesque, human without being cruel. Larry helped him to a chair, gave him a glass of anisette to drink, murmured words of conciliation. The man struck the glass out of his hand and walked out of the flat.
THE NIGHT WORE on. Men came in, others left. Some played Brisk with an old dirty deck of cards, a convenience of the establishment.
Larry sat in the corner, subdued by his adventure. Then his feelings changed. He felt pride. People would think of him with respect, as a man to be wary of, yet not mean or vicious. He was the hero in the cowboy pictures, like Ken Maynard, who never struck a man on the floor. He grew drowsy, blissful, and then Signora Le Cinglata was talking to him in her strange, flirting way, in Italian, and his blood leaped awake. The time had come.
Signora Le Cinglata excused herself, saying she must fetch another gallon of wine and another bottle of anisette. She went out of the kitchen, through the rooms of the long railroad flat, and to the farthest bedroom. She had a door there. Larry followed her, mumbling that he would help her carry the bottles, as if she would be surprised or angry at his youthful presumption. But when she heard him lock the door behind them, she bent over to take a huge purple-colored gallon jug from among the many standing against the wall. As she did so, Larry gathered up her dress and petticoats in both his hands. She turned in her enormous pink bloomers, her belly bare, and gave a laughing protest: “Eh, giovanetto.” The large cloth buttons of her dress slipped from their holes and she lay on her back on the bed, the long, sloping, big-nippled breasts hanging out, the loose bloomers pulled aside. In a few great blind savage strokes Larry finished and lay on the bed, lighting a cigarette. The signora, buttoned up and respectable, took the purple jug in one hand and the clear, slender bottle of anisette in the other and together they returned to the customers.
In the kitchen, Signora Le Cinglata poured wine and touched glasses with the same hands that had fondled him. She brought Larry a fresh glass of cherry soda, but finicky that she had not washed, he would not drink.
Larry got ready to leave. Signora Le Cinglata followed him to the door and whispered, “Stay, stay for the night.” He gave her his big smile and whispered back, “Hey, my mother would ask for stories.” He played this role, the helpless dutiful son, when it pleased him to escape.
He did not go home. He went around the corner and back to the stable. He made his bed on straw and a horse blanket, using his saddle for a pillow. The restless moving of the horses in their stalls was soothing to him; the horses could not disorient his dreams.
Lying so, he reviewed his future, as he did many nights, as all young men do. He felt a great power. He felt himself, knew himself, as one destined for success and glory. In the world he lived in he was the strongest of the boys his age, the handsomest, the most successful with girls. Even a grown woman was his slave. And tonight he had beaten a grown man. He was only seventeen, and in his youthful mind the world would remain static. He would not become weaker, or the world stronger.
He would be powerful. He would make his family rich. He dreamed of wealthy young American girls with automobiles and large houses who married him and loved his family. Tomorrow before work he would go up to Central Park on his horse and ride along the bridle paths.
He saw himself coming down Tenth Avenue, a rich girl on his arm and everyone looking at him with admiration. The girl would love his family. He was not snobbish. He never thought they could be looked down upon, his family, his mother and sister, his friends. For he considered them all extraordinary, since they were really part of him. He had a truly innocent mind, and, sleeping in the smelly stable, cowboylike on a prairie of stone, fresh