Read Who is Lou Sciortino? for Free Online

a different brand. He poked his head out of the corner where the flies were, holding the aftershave in his hand, then disappeared again.
    Uncle Mimmo relaxed.
    Then the door creaked open and there was the usual rush of air that, Uncle Mimmo knows, continues even when the door is closed again and the customer comes in.
    â€œPlease wait outside, and I’ll serve you next,” he managed to say before turning and finding something cold and hard under his nose, and a face in front of his eyes, a face he couldn’t see clearly, being farsighted. The face whispered something. Uncle Mimmo didn’t understand. The face screamed, “The money, old man!” Fuck, Uncle Mimmo thought, a robbery!
    He’d never been robbed before. He was seized by a sudden panic. He thought about the crossbow, the sergeant, then nothing … With his free hand, the robber pressed the key that opens the cash register. The register went TLING and then TA-TANG, making the whole counter shake. The sergeant, with another aftershave in his hand, heard the TA-TANG. He looked up, then peered back out of the corner with the flies. He saw what was happening. It was only a split second. He rotated one hundred and sixty degrees, simultaneously taking out his service revolver, gripping it in both hands, and removing himself from the line of fire. He lifted the gun close to his nose and his glasses, pointing upward, his elbows bent and loose but ready for the impact, his back against the wall, or rather against the shelf of the men’s toiletries section. A can of shaving foam fell to the floor with a thud.
    Uncle Mimmo heard, in this order: the sergeant shouting something, but too loud for him to understand what; a tremendous bang that exploded in his left ear; a buzz spreading inside his head. He opened his eyes wide as spattered pieces of the sergeant’s brain hit his face.
    Like almost everyone, Uncle Mimmo had seen the footage of the Kennedy assassination on TV, with all those little pieces of brain rolling across the trunk of the convertible like foam from the soap in a car wash. At that moment, in the store, absurdly, he had that scene before his eyes, and, equally absurdly, thought it was obvious the President of the United States couldn’t have died with a little red dot on his forehead like the ones the Indian women put on like tattoos. And yet, or so it seemed, even a Neapolitan sergeant (but was he really Neapolitan?) wearing glasses died this way, spattering brain matter all over the place as if he were the President.
    The guy who’d fired the shot must have thought something similar, because Uncle Mimmo heard him say, “Fuuuuuck!” Then he saw him run out with his rifle case in his hand and wondered how he’d managed to put the rifle back in the case so quickly, how he could be so … clear-headed!
    â€œIt was a fucking rifle, not a pistol, that’s why he spattered!” Uncle Mimmo said in a loud voice before collapsing onto the stool.
    *   *   *
    â€œAnd if it hadn’t been for that bang, I’d have recognized the son of a bitch: minchia, he had a face that looked like it had fallen in a baking tray and been put in the oven!” Uncle Mimmo says now on the street, raising the collar of his jacket and saying goodbye to his friends.

“WHERE’D YOU GET THIS MEAT, TONY?”
    â€œWhere’d you get this meat, Tony?” At Tony’s barbecue, Uncle Sal is trying to lighten the atmosphere in his own way. “I nearly choked! I told you a thousand times to buy your meat at Tano Falsaperla’s, he’s got family in Argentina!”
    â€œHe was closed, Uncle Sal!” Tony replies, too cheerfully. “But you’ve given me an idea, you know? For the next barbecue, I’ll get you a nice asado! ”
    Uncle Sal smiles, pleased with himself.
    The whole family is at the barbecue.
    First of all, Tony’s wife, Cettina, in a showy green