Who is Lou Sciortino? Read Online Free PDF Page A

customer passes, though, they keep still and merge into the darkness.
    No customer has ever noticed them.
    They wait until there’s nobody in the store; then they take off like squadrons, even though they give the impression of only ever being one fly, the same fly. If Uncle Mimmo kills one of them with his newspaper, another comes out of the corner and takes the place of its fallen comrade, perfectly imitating its flight and buzz.
    In order not to fall for their tricks, Uncle Mimmo has to keep count of the corpses.
    *   *   *
    â€œIf I’d told the sergeant about the crossbow,” Uncle Mimmo goes on, “then the robber would have seen the sergeant talking to me at the cash desk and might not even have come in. There was a crossbow under the counter.”
    â€œThere was a crossbow under the counter?” a third man asks.
    Uncle Mimmo looks up, slowly. “Every afternoon after lunch,” he says, “I clear the table. After I clear the table, I sit in the armchair, in front of the TV, to get a couple hours’ sleep. I always do that, you know: sit in the armchair in the afternoon, with a blanket over my knees if I’m cold, turn on the TV, and fall asleep.”
    The listeners nod, but they’re getting impatient.
    â€œSo I can get to sleep easier, you know,” Uncle Mimmo goes on, “I put on the afternoon show on Antenna Sicilia, the one with Salvo La Rosa. Sometimes they have that comedian on, you know, the funny one, but this afternoon he wasn’t on, Commander Fragalà was on.”
    â€œThe one who owns the gun shop?”
    â€œThe one who sings?”
    â€œThat’s the one. First he sang an aria from L’Elisir d’amore, then Salvo La Rosa sat him down on the guest couch and interviewed him about the new pump-action rifles, the ones he just got in. The Commander said things are great in America, you can go into a shop, take a look at what’s on the shelves and in the windows, then go to the salesclerk and say, ‘Wrap up this pump-action rifle for me, please,’ and he wraps it up.”
    â€œIt’s true,” Pietro, who’s retired, says. “I saw it in a movie.”
    Uncle Mimmo makes a gesture with his hand like he’s saying, What did I tell you? Then he nods thoughtfully. “The Commander complained to Salvo La Rosa that things in Italy aren’t so easy.”
    â€œOf course they’re not easy,” Cosimo says, “but here we have people you can go to who’ll sell you anything, even a submachine gun. The one with the Russian name.”
    â€œOh, sure,” Uncle Mimmo says. “But who the fuck goes to those people?”
    They all make resigned expressions, one with his hands, one with his face, one with his legs.
    â€œI’ve been thinking about that,” Tano says. He’s also retired, but helps out in the bar from time to time. “In my opinion, the reason they don’t come to you and ask you to pay protection is because you’ve been in the neighborhood all your life and everyone knows you. Maybe they like you and think they’d be showing a lack of respect if they came and asked you to pay protection.”
    â€œYes,” Cosimo says, “they think they’re doing us a favor. But look how things end up.”
    â€œPrecisely,” Uncle Mimmo says. “So then you gotta think about self-defense. But whaddaya do with no permit to carry a gun?”
    â€œExactly,” Cosimo says indignantly.
    â€œAnyhow, I was thinking about these things this afternoon, and I decided I had to get hold of something, anything … I don’t know, a knife, a hammer … whatever, because you never know during a robbery … Of course, I’m not saying somebody comes in with a submachine gun, you’re going to pick up a hammer, because then the guy just starts laughing, but let’s say he’s distracted … right?…