The Night I Became a Real Man
translated by Tom Di Salvo

The night I became a real man is something I remember quite well.

That night Mestre, my city, the most beautiful city in the world, was stark and sparkling in springtime. It was already ten p.m. or a little later and the streets were empty, enlivened solely by the light of the streetlamps and the glow of drawn blinds reflected by the asphalt under a fresh, inebriating shower scented by the fragrance of mimosas.

Martha came for me. She was a young girl I had met at the university, who was having boyfriend problems, something like that. She wore a very short miniskirt with black stockings that looked good on her, notwithstanding she wasn’t tall and not overly pretty. She wore very thick glasses and her nose loomed large and a bit vulgar on her smiling, attractive face.

“You coming down?” she called out. Leaning out the window of my parents’ house I said: “yes”.

Martha had a red Citroën 2CV and drove it with considerable skill, manipulating the stick-shift knob with erotic determination, while her black laced legs danced between the clutch and the brake pedal; this slip of a girl looked like an Amazon breaking in a stallion and I envied her, yes envied her, and therefore wanted her.

“Where’re we going?” she asked, and it was just too much for me that she should be able to talk, have on black stockings and shift gears at the same time - God, what a monster!

“What about the Distributor?”

The Distributor was a beer joint a couple of hundred yards from the hospital, on the other side of the tracks. There you could hear the train whistle in the distance as the orange light of the lamps lit and glanced off the wooden tabletops. Young men in red plaid flannels and girls in denim miniskirts, drinking dark beer and munching on hotdogs, sat around those tables, while the smoke closed in like a cloud and bluesy music played ­ all of this gave you the feeling of a nocturnal saloon for tired, disappointed and love-sick cowboys, or some dance hall late in the Louisiana night (a young black waiter was serving sandwiches); one thing was sure: you were somewhere in America.

With a ridiculously easy-looking maneuver Martha parked the car between a black Mercedes and a mauve colored BMW. She turned the key to kill the motor and said “here we are”; then she spread her thighs to open the car door ­ it was then my belly gave a spasm of remorse.

To me she seemed a little too cheerful for someone who just opted out of a five-year love affair. When you’re twenty, five years seems an eternity. I realized this when she ordered a double whiskey:

“Whoa, you’re one tough woman, hah?”

“Tonight I want to exaggerate a little”, she whispered with a mischievous smile.

“Sounds good, but remember you have to drive home”.

Martha lived out in the boondocks, in an old grain storage barn turned country house. I had been there once for a party: dogs were everywhere, the Tequila was flowing and the sofas were incredibly comfortable.

“If worse comes to worst you can drive me and keep the car,” she said with her nose in the whiskey glass.

I froze.

The whiskey had the strange effect of fogging up her glasses, which she took off, revealing two great big eyes somewhat circled like a turtle’s, the color of bark, pointed straight at me, apparently waiting for a compliment.

“Nice eyes you have, really.”

“You should know that when I drink I can’t resist a compliment.”

“So what happens?”

“Mmmh.”

Talk about dialogue! Who was writing this soap opera? In any case my attention was totally focused on her black stockings. They seemed soft and fine, and she was voluptuously crossing her legs under the table. I took my time with my Corona, like a real tough guy; suddenly, her glance fizzled out in mid-air. It took a while to understand whether it was an attitude intended to restore her dignity, whether the whiskey had addled her brain or the ghost of her ex had suddenly floated to the surface.

“What’s up Martha, a moment of meditation?”

“Reflection, more than anything...”

“That’s the beauty of whiskey. It makes you reflect.”

“No, I was just ... thinking.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been with Andrea for five years, and here I am now flirting with you.”

“Andrea? Some name! People with names like that are usually unbearable.”

“Go on!” And she mimed me a slap.

“Sorry. You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay then.”

“That’s life.”

“That’s what my granny says. She also says: 'life is a drag'.”

“Your granny’s very wise.”

“My granny!? To hear my mother tell it, she’s been daffy since she was twenty.”

Here I thought she’d laugh, but she started crying. The evening was taking a dangerous turn, and I’ve never been a great consoler of souls in pain (not even those wearing black stockings). I had no idea why she was so broken up over somebody named Andrea. I watched as her tears ran down the sides of her big nose and all I could do was pat her on the shoulder and tell her “come on now, don’t be like that” and other famous quotations. That’s how she told me her story. It seems that Andrea was a sun-tanned gym membership product and an IT guy. He was an amateur and collector of period models of something I don’t even remember, let alone what period. They’d known each other since childhood and had always been in love and got on well, until something had snapped in her, he no longer amazed her ­ “excuse me, how did he amaze you before?” I don’t know, it was the little things ­ and so they had started to quarrel over every little thing, any excuse was enough for an argument, and she could no longer stand how rigid, smug, and immature he was and couldn’t understand that she had other needs, that she need to grow and that instead, with him, she felt closed in, trapped, she felt she was being smothered ­ “what does personal growth mean to you and what subtle means did he use to clip your wings?” Yes, yes, clip my wings, you’ve understood perfectly, that’s what he was doing, maybe only unconsciously, I’m not denying that.

If I play my cards right I can have her, I was thinking, while below deck Long John Silver hoisted sail and the blues played sadly in the background.

We headed for the exit. The night was soft and fresh. The train was whistling and the aromas were wafting in the breeze. To reach the parking lot you had to cross a little wooden bridge over a creek ­ that’s when I pounced on her little birdlike shoulders, turned her clumsily and kissed her.

She went completely limp, it was a very technical kiss, as I remember, something demanded by the situation, maybe better if in a different place and at some other time ­ but I was young, dammit, it was a beautiful evening, and I was dying to have a woman!

When we finally came apart our beery and whiskey breaths mingled mouth to mouth:

“I didn’t think you’d get to it so soon...” she whispered hoarsely.

“To kiss you?” I asked in the same voice.

“Mmmh.”

“It’s that you seemed so vulnerable...”

“What do you mean, that you kissed me out of pity?”

“No, not pity, fondness I would say.”

I kissed her neck and slid my hand along the middle of her back (but the material was coarse and the going was rough) while she sighed with her eyes closed and stroked my hair ­ but neither of us seem to believe in it all the way.

“Can we go talk somewhere?” I asked distractedly.

“Another joint?”

“How about the car...”

She smiled beautifully and gave me a smack right on the lips:

“Don’t you think it’s a little early to be talking in the car?”

Damn, she’s on to me. I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks but tried to stay cool and confident. I tried to kiss her again and pulled her into my groin so she could feel the virility of my desire ­ but she gently put a hand on my chest and said:

“We’ve gone a little beyond my understanding of a first date...”

I blushed again:

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No, you haven’t offended me, just the opposite...”

“It’s that I really like you.”

“I like you too.”

Well, dammit, let’s do it! Life is short! It’s springtime! My blood is boiling! I feel like tearing off your stockings and swallowing you whole, like a chicken dumpling!

“That’s why it’s better for us to go home,” she concluded with a smile that left nothing unsaid.

“Maybe we’d better,” I sighed, pulling the least convincing I.D. card smile of all time.

She turned the ignition, put the car in reverse and looked at me. I put my hand on her little knee all veiled in black, and she let me. Then she had to work the clutch so I moved my hand. I was mad and horny, and I needed to say something, but I could only picture her to myself naked, and how small and hard her boobs would be, two little boulders, and how fabulously hairy she would be under the mound, how firm and rosy her ass ­ and I thought that what was needed was a little patience, maybe only until next time; a question of a little caution:

“When can we see each other again?”

No reply. I was tense. I tried to explain myself better:

“Because I had a nice time with you and I’d like to see you again.”

“I don’t know.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow... no, tomorrow I can’t.”

“I understand.”

“It’s that... you know...tonight I’ve realized how much Andrea still means to me and I didn’t feel right being here with you, so soon....”

“It’s called guilt. Don’t be duped by guilty feelings. It’s a trap, the hysterics of the swindler we call conscience.”

“Why is conscience a swindler?”

“Because it passes off as moral acts what in reality are acts of cowardice.”

“So you’re calling me a coward?”

“We all are, my dear. We’re afraid of breaking with the past; after all, the past is all we have. What still binds you to Andrea, or whatever his name is, is a wonderfully rosy past, which is really wonderful and rosy because it is past and you’ve forgotten it; at the time, odds are it didn’t seem so wonderful to you.

“But we had so many dreams in common!”

“You mean a future. You see, what still ties you to him is a past that no longer exists and a future that will never be. And, in the name of those nonentities, your conscience is keeping you from living a present that is real and, if you’ll allow me, very gratifying.”

“Maybe because it isn’t right.”

“Or maybe because you’re afraid that I, Andrea, you yourself and the entire world will condemn you as an ingrate, superficial and flighty: five years with Andrea and puff, all of a sudden you kiss the first guy you see on an exquisite evening in Spring. But I ask myself: why do we give the past with such fatal and ridiculous moral importance? Is it because five years are more important than a single night? I know that damned Viennese doctor has something to do with it!”

The asphalt was slick. There’s an S curve that takes you from Piazza Barche to Via Forte Marghera, and Martha took it so fast that the red 2CV kept going straight (good thing there was no one in the other lane); Martha hit the brakes and the car spun around twice before ending up on the sidewalk with a thud. Thank God there wasn’t a soul around.

I looked at Martha and she looked at me ­ her glasses were all crooked and I sensed a look of terror in her eyes ­ it was only then that I felt my heart beating again. The more I looked at her mouth, tense and down-turned, the more I felt my stomach knotting up and saw flashes of the city dizzily spinning in my brain. Then she fainted and I grew calmer. Somehow I realized that we were safe and that it was up to me to act like a man. Meantime her skirt had slid high enough to show her black panties beyond the veil of her stockings. I thought I could make a virtue of necessity. I thought she might be grateful if I helped to dispel her fear. I slapped her with renewed optimism, while outside it was beginning to drizzle and the street lamps were glowing in the empty streets. I heard a cat meow, and two cars passed us rather indifferently, probably thinking that ours was an improvised and temporary parking space on the sidewalk for a couple that was making love or saying good-by.

Then Martha came to. She looked at me as if she had just left the womb. She was dumbfounded. I gently caressed her face and said that everything was all right, that nothing had happened, that she should relax, and other tender things ­ all the while I was taking in how the seams of her black stockings were describing magic circles around her filly’s haunches, and a little black triangle was peeping obscenely from between her thighs. I felt like diving in head first!

But she might have thought this a bit indelicate.

“How stupid of me!” These were her first words.

“It could have happened to anybody, the road is so slippery.”

“Now it’s raining again!”

I thought she might start crying again. I told her:

“Shall we go to a bar and have a stiff drink?”

She sounded almost annoyed:

“Maybe I’ve had too much to drink, no?”

She closed her legs and pulled down her skirt. We got out to check the car. No damage done. We were about to take our places again, when she said:

“Please, can you drive?”

It was then that I felt real fear, and my heart started galloping like a stallion at sunset and I was paralyzed with fear under a rain I no longer noticed.

The fact is I did not drive. I had always been afraid of driving: better to get into a box full of poisonous snakes than drive. Better to face King Kong on a bad moon night than drive. Better to dare the Siberian winter naked or the tropical summer in a sweat suit than to drive. I think I’ve made myself clear. Oh, by the way, I had gotten a drivers license!

And that had been the most beautiful day of my life. Never had acing a college exam or the conquest of a girl or any other success up to then ­ I did okay, without too many complexes ­ given me such deep, unalloyed joy. It had taken me three years. Three years in which my parents had had to shell out zillions of dollars for my driving lessons; during which I had failed exams and scared driving inspectors shitless; in which I had given up so many times and cried for shame in a corner of my room ­ until one day my father picked me up bodily and stuck me behind the wheel of his grey Honda Civic. It was always torture for me: my arms and legs were paralyzed and cold sweat trickled down my shirt as my father said: “turn the ignition... clutch... no, that’s the brake! Okay... put it in reverse now... take you foot off the clutch and step on the gas...” Christ, how was it possible to keep all those concepts in mind simultaneously!!! My brain sent the messages with great deliberation and often in a language my feet did not understand, and I was left like a bird caught in traffic ­ the traffic! What incredible angst!!! The other vehicles seemed enormous monsters a hair’s breath from the sheet metal giant I was piloting, and from one moment to the next I saw them crashing and crushing me to death forever.

One day at a Yield Sign at the end of Viale San Marco, where you pick up the San Giuliano, I saw a VW bug, grim and threatening, coming on the left. It was really a long way off: I could have gotten out, gone to the corner bar, had a coffee and sandwich, and finally gotten back to my car in time to see the little monster pass by ­ What did I do? I slammed on the brakes and BAM! I was immediately rear-ended by the blue Golf behind me.

(“Oh, Proserpina and Hades, why didn’t you intervene immediately to take me from this world as one takes out a useless and ugly flower, why didn’t you open a precipice in the earth to kindly swallow me up?”)

I didn’t dare look at my father. I expected to see him green with anger and shame for his idiot son ­ but my father has always had this unnerving peculiarity: he goes into a rage over small things but he’s as calm as a monk at the most critical times. He tapped on my pulse (nonexistent) and with the calmest voice in the world he whispered:

“Stay calm, nothing’s happened.”

I made myself as small as possible behind the wheel. My heart was beating wildly and my head felt as if it would explode. From the rear view mirror I could see the following scene play itself out: the driver of the blue Golf, a little woman about 55, was in shock as she left her car. She looked in amazement at the bumper of the Golf (there was a headlight bashed in, but nothing more) and then at the bumper of the Civic (a mere dent) and at my father (a look of regret on his huge, kindly face, arms thrown open as if to say: What’s to be done?). The woman stammered:

“But... but... why did you slam on the brakes?”

“Lady, there was a car coming on the left.”

“But... but... it was so far away!”

“You can never be too careful.”

“Careful my foot, will you look at this now!”

“Lady, you see the S? My son is a student driver...”

“Well, as a student he’s not too bright! The VW Bug was in Canada!”

My father is like that. Up to now he had been unflappable, but his son had been insulted and his intellect called into question (justifiably, as it happens); now he set his jaw and his voice sounded tense:

“Look here, you just concentrate on keeping a safe distance, and I’ll worry about my son. Now shall we get on with the friendly accident report for the insurance company?”

And they got right to it. When my father came back to the car he was beaming: “Heeheehee! We got ourselves a new bumper!”

“But we didn’t need a new bumper!”

“Well, it had a couple of scratches.”

“But that other car was really in Canada...”

“Well, not really in Canada, let’s say New York! Heeheehee! Come on, start the car and let’s go!”

“Let’s go? Sorry Dad, I can’t do it. I’m still in shock!”

“Come on now, don’t be a pussy!”

And so we went and, shortly after that, about a month before my date with Martha, with my intestines in knots and the veins in my neck bulging to the breaking point, after passing the written exam, I also passed my road test.

I remember that we were driving along a road full of potholes without my missing a single one. The old, pot-bellied driving examiner joked: “You like the holes, right?”

My dad was sitting next to me and let out an overstated laugh that also got the examiner laughing contentedly, and I tried to laugh too and could do no better than hah hah and said: “Sorry about that, I realize I’m a little nervous; usually I’m never nervous.”

And the examiner believed me and said: “Okay, go into the office and sign the documents, you’ll have your license in about a month.” As soon as he left I burst out crying and hugged my dad.

But a month had gone by and I had done no other driving, what’s worse, I had decided that I would never drive again. What did it matter to me? The license finally, the candy pink license that drove me wild with happiness each time I slipped it out of my wallet and ecstatically looked at both sides, the license that conferred social respectability with its official confirmation that I was not an incompetent fool (I was like everyone else, I was a driver!) ­ I had that license. Here it is kids, shining like a peach blossom against the blue spring sky: so if you don’t see me driving, it’s because I prefer not to; it bores me, and traffic wears me out ­ but I could.”) I’m not a conformist. I don’t need to drive to prove my manhood, just the opposite, I love girls who drive ­ I was born to sing madrigals next to a little blond tearing along at a hundred miles an hour.

Now Martha was eyeing me, under a cold and constant drizzle, and I think she guessed at my discomfort, I think she thought that I was unwilling to drive out into open country. I stalled for time by asking:

“But how will I get back?”

Her face was wet with tears, or maybe it was the rain, but she didn’t seem to notice it. She was gathering herself in from the cold and seemed to be in despair:

“Well, maybe you’re right...”

(continued)