Living in Paradise

My life is a story of tragedy heaped on adversity. But only if I say it is. A lot of people ask me: how do you do it? Do what? I ask right back.

First of all, getting out of this place gave me a reason to wake up in the morning. Take a look around. If coming in here for lunch is all you have to look forward to, I say: get yourself a travel agent. As for all the shit that’s hit the fan since the first time I saw Paris, there’s nothing to be done but work, which is life itself. Once you decide not to kill yourself, you have to live.

A lady friend lost her son. I learned from her. When her heart was broken, she went to the office. Like a dog, this bitch worked. She worked in his memory, she worked for the people who were left, and she worked to blind her sadness. The trick is to not turn your grief into anger, which is the hardest part. So that’s what I try to do: work like a dog and try not to be angry all the time.

I also learned from my mother, who was constantly angry, like anger was her best friend, always over for coffee. Mostly, she was angry with me. I could drop your jaw with the memory of those beatings, which might bother a lot of people, but in my case turned out to be a blessing. I wanted to escape from a very early age.

Forget details. None of it makes any sense, unless it’s a guilt trip, in which case it all makes sense, but only to you, and who cares about you? You and your shrink are the only ones that really care, and your shrink is the only one to profit from the endless search for cause and effect. You don’t get shit except self-awareness, which is good for what, I don’t know. Ego I don’t need. As for a showdown with my mother, I tried that once.

After an emotional run-in with a couple’s therapist, who was collaborating with my first wife to get to the root of my problem, I was finally induced to confront my mother, which I later did, blubbering on the phone, long distance. I remembered some oozing welts, the taste of blood in my mouth, my swollen face in the mirror. I demanded an explanation. That never happened, she said. I was speechless. Then she allowed: well, maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t, but it’s not my problem anymore. It’s yours.

Life doesn’t offer many epiphanies, so you can only imagine my gratitude. I was set free. Prior to the conversation, I had explained to the therapist that I’d forgiven my mother long ago. Who wants to spoil Christmas? I asked. I said that I never lacked love, since my mother had five sisters who all offered the same loving explanation – one I’d accepted at an early age: my mother had bad nerves. That was enough for me. I just wanted to mark the time and get the fuck out of there. As for what happened and what didn’t, I made a strong case for repression, which I felt had been unfairly characterized as a bad thing.

So perhaps the therapy was good in the end. Still, it didn’t stop me from getting a divorce, which can also be seen as a good thing, since the argument we’d been having for fifteen years was finally put to an end. But no amount of therapy can prepare you for tragedy. Adversity you might overcome, but tragedy is beyond your control. It defies understanding.

Maybe that’s why I can’t talk about it – who died and how, the when and the where. You rarely hear me mention it. But know this: it never leaves my mind. It is the definition of me. Everything I do is informed by the sure knowledge that what you determine is nothing. You can lose your heart in one beat - all that you love, alive in one person who simply disappears. From that minute on, you wait to die.

In the meantime, you better live. That’s what my other son said, just before we lost him. He said: If heaven exists, this is it. We made it; we’re here. So you better live like you’re in paradise. Otherwise, it’s hell.

Requiem

The boss of all bosses lived in a hole in the ground. I know. I met him. Forget the guys in the papers. Sure, they all live in holes in the ground - every time they catch a sociopathic drug dealer who happens to be Sicilian, the guy is usually in a bolthole with a TV and a fridge, like pre-death. But the boss lived there because he liked it. He was like a woodchuck. He looked up to everybody. But nobody was ever confused as to who was the boss.

On the way over, my driver asked me: Do you know why he’s the boss of all bosses? Because he has no enemies. Then he drives for a good ten minutes before he says: And none would deny it.

I’m on my way in for some caciocavallo, and not because I was looking for it. It came looking for me. I tasted it in Naples and put in an order. I thought that was the end of it when my guy there says that if I want the cheese, I have to go to Sicily to sign for it. Why ask questions? I love Sicily.

The boss had a cavern of cheese - huge balls, sagging by a thousand ropes, creaking in the dark. I don’t know what other people pay, but I paid next to nothing. On the other hand, I only wanted a few kilos, none stagionato. It was giving the money that was important, like an offering. But I do know that an aged cheese can run into serious money.

I mention it because the boss just died, and people are devastated. Seriously, the guy had no enemies. He was also 89, so it’s not like it came as a surprise. But now they have to find a new one, which for these people is like a Pope search, with a lot of voting followed by some smoke. One thing is for sure - he’ll be old. But they won’t be picking a German ex-Nazi who’s a stickler for the hocus-pocus. Unlike the Catholics, these guys have a memory for more than dogma. And they don’t go in for child molestation, demonic possession, or funny hats. They’re looking for a guy everybody loves, a guy who gives more than he gets, a guy who is wise in the way that only truly a satisfied person can be. Good fucking luck.

The thing is, the new boss won’t know he’s the boss until people start showing up to buy whatever it is he’s raising on some dog-patch farm in Sicily, and start to offer him money. So he’s got to be pretty good at making whatever it is he’s selling, which is invariably something to eat. Because people don’t want to pay money for something they can’t cherish, despite the advice they’re seeking or the justice they deserve. People want a good memory. I can still taste that caciocavallo.