As God Commands Read Online Free PDF Page B

forced
to bow down and admit that I'm your God."
    "Yeah, like last time, when you made pasta with a sauce of clams
and sand."
    "There's nothing wrong with a bit of sand in clams."
    Cristiano, as usual, fell into a reverie as he looked at him.
    He thought that if his father had been born in America he would
definitely have been an actor. Not a pansy actor like the guy who played James Bond. No, a hard man like Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson.
Someone who went to Vietnam.

    He had the face of a tough guy.
    Cristiano liked the shape of his skull and his ears, which were
small and round, not like his own. The square jaw and the little
black dots of his beard, the small nose, the cold stare of his eyes and
the little creases that appeared around them when he laughed.
    And he liked the fact that he was not too tall, but well proportioned, like a boxer. With a lot of bulging muscles. And he liked
the barbed-wire tattoo around his biceps. He wasn't so keen on his
beer-belly and that lion's head on his shoulder which looked more
like a monkey. But even the Celtic cross on his right pectoral wasn't
bad.
    Why can't I be like him?
    They didn't even look like father and son, except for the color
of their eyes.
    "Hey! Are you listening to me?"
    Cristiano looked at his watch. It was very late. The first bus had
already passed. "Look, I've got to go!"
    "Okay, but first you've got to give a kiss to the only man you've
ever loved."
    Cristiano laughed and shook his head. "No! You're disgusting,
you stink to high heaven."
    "Look who's talking! The last time you took a shower you were
in primary school." Rino shoved the cigarette into an empty beer
can, grinning. "Come over here at once and kiss your God. Remember
that without me you wouldn't have existed, and if I hadn't been
around your mother would have had an abortion, so kiss this Latin
male."
    Cristiano puffed out his cheeks, muttered "Jesus Christ" and
brushed his father's rough cheek with his lips. He was about to
move away when Rino grabbed him by the wrist, used his free hand
to wipe his cheek and gave a grimace of disgust. "Ugh! My son's a
faggot!"
    "Fuck off!" Cristiano started laughing and hitting him with his
backpack.
    "Ooh yes ... Again ... Again ... I like it..." Rino sighed idiotically.
    "You bastard..." And the blows rained down on his shaven pate.

    Rino rubbed the back of his head and then suddenly turned
menacing: "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Not on the
head! You idiot! You hurt me! You know I've got a headache!"
    Cristiano was taken aback, and stammered, "I'm sorry ...I didn't
mean to..."
    With a sudden movement Rino grabbed the gun from the bedside table, yanked Cristiano towards him, bringing him crashing
down on the bed, and put the barrel to his forehead.
    "Fooled you again! Always keep your guard up. You'd be dead
by now," he whispered in his ear conspiratorially.
    Cristiano tried to get up, but his father held him down with his
arm. "Let me go! Let me go! You asshole..." he protested.
    "Only if you give me a kiss," said Rino, proffering his cheek.
    Reluctantly Cristiano kissed him again, and Rino yelled out in
disgust: "It's true! My son is a faggot!" and he started tickling him.
    Cristiano giggled and tried to break free, gasping: "Please ...
Please ... Please ... Stop it..."
    At last he managed to escape. He retreated from the bed, tucking
his T-shirt into his pants, and picked up his backpack. As he went
downstairs Rino shouted after him: "Hey, that was a good job you
did last night."
13
    Forty-five-year-old Danilo Aprea was sitting at a table in the Bar
Boomerang finishing his third grappa of the morning.
    He too was tall, but unlike Quattro Formaggi he was large and
had a stomach as swollen as that of a drowned cow. Not that he
was exactly fat; his muscles were firm and his skin as white as
marble. Every part of him was square: his fingers, his ankles, his
feet, his neck. He had a cubic skull, a wall-like forehead