On Earth as It Is in Heaven Read Free Page B

what the hell,” my uncle observed without a hint of irritation.
    Now that Tony had had a laugh, he seemed more relaxed. He began using the straight razor on the old man’s face.
    â€œListen, you all want to know how I found out he was gay? I swear it’s God’s own truth, on my mother’s sainted head: he told me himself. He said: Now, friend, I happen to like men.”
    â€œNo!” exclaimed the customer with the mustache.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThis world is going to hell.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œThey’re the curse of all creation,” murmured the old man, but gently, because if he moved his jaw too much he might get a new crease in his face. A straight razor doesn’t take indignation into account.
    â€œBut wait, it gets even worse. Then I realized that this monster had gone and offered me a drink from his bottle of beer. The selfsame bottle he’d been drinking from all this time with his diseased mouth, I mean.”
    â€œSo then whaddya do, Tony?” the old man asked with vivid concern.
    The barber faltered for a moment. He squinted, raised the razor, and decided to go ahead and confide in his little audience.
    â€œFrom that infected bottle of his, I had gone and taken a drink.”
    â€œFuck! Disaster.”
    â€œFuck is right.”
    â€œInfection!” said the old man, in a shrill voice.
    The straight razor hovered in midair, a warning.
    â€œListen, I’m gonna tell you the truth, I was terrified. That momo-sexuality of his might have infected me, an oral infection straight from the bottle. I was terrified.”
    â€œSo what did you do, Tony?”
    â€œWhat do you think? First things first: I broke that bottle right over his head, that piece-of-shit queer.”
    â€œGood work, Tony!”
    The old man’s voice had regained confidence; breaking bottles over the heads of faggots is the behavior of true men.
    â€œI thought I was ’bout to lose my mind.”
    â€œI can imagine.”
    â€œI had to do something to cure myself, immediately. So I thought it over and . . .”
    Tony looked around, as if he were taking care to shield the information from prying ears. He pronounced each syllable solemnly.
    â€œ. . . and I realized that I had to get cured, sooner than right this second, and so . . .”
    Each person in the barbershop listened with a heightened intensity. Tony filled his lungs to give greater emphasis to the rest of the story: the old man’s ears craned in the direction of the barber’s mouth to capture the words of revelation at the earliest possible moment; the customer with the mustache stood up and began tapping his foot to an irregular beat. Only Uncle Umbertino remained unruffled. He read his racing sheet and blithely ignored everything and everyone. A burning curiosity to learn whether and how poor Tony had recovered from this momosexuality swept over me, just as it had all the others. I lowered my magazine.
    Tony kept his eyes fixed elsewhere, staring out the shop window.
    â€œI.”
    He reckoned the time needed for his words to clarify. Each time he sensed that the tension had become unbearable, he deigned to dole out another word or two.
    â€œDone.”
    The old man’s neck craned tautly; the mustachioed customer’s foot trembled.
    â€œWent to see.”
    Tony watched us. When the silence had grown deafening, he laid down his ace.
    â€œPina.”
    â€œThe whore?” the old man and the man with the mustache cried in chorus.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThe whore in Vicolo Marotta?” they sang out in unison.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOne has the bedroom filled with mirrors?” they drove home the point.
    â€œYes.”
    At last Uncle Umbertino folded up his racing sheet and laid it on the pile with the others. Tony had one more spectator now. Flattered, he went on with renewed zeal.
    â€œâ€˜Pina,’ I told her, ‘I gotta make love now, right this second,