while Benito woke, “My favorite things” from The Sound of music became playing at the radio—crisp apple strudel; doorbells; sleigh bells; schnitzel with noodles—and he realized that the personal hell to which his immortal soul wererendered sounded an lousy lot like Austria. however he wasn’t useless, not pretty. A smock had changed the herringbone three-piece he nevertheless wore weekdays, even though two months in advance he had lost his office lottery pool, his mood, and his process, in that order. The glossy bracelet on his wrist examine St. Francis Memorial. relief flooded the blue channels of his circulatory device. there has been still time. He should still say his last phrases.
over the years, Benito had paid tons concept to his death. He taken into consideration himself a philosopher; others taken into consideration him an asshole. whilst he turned thirty, he commenced a nightly habit of recording his ultimatephrases on a notepad in case he expired in his sleep: the stop is a ballet with out track or dancing; the stop is relief. Benito had some thing, many stuff, in reality, to mention about love and sorrow and satisfaction and betrayal and forgiveness and beauty. The problem changed into that no person changed into in any respect inquisitive about listening to them. Which made his ultimate phrases a final risk to convert his disasters into information-building sports, a last gasp to storehimself from who he changed into. Who wouldn’t want to listen to the very last dispatch from a man strolling over the threshold? Whose ears wouldn’t perk to hear one soul’s solution to the question mark that punctuates each lifestyles? folks who had never paid him a second’s notion could lean in to hear what he had to mention as he crossed over. understanding this, knowing that a great finishing can redeem a terrible tale, Benito had struggled to cram the sum self-knowledge of his thirty-nine years right into a pithy single-sentence serving of awareness that proved once and for all, to all of the detractors, that Benito Picone did now not stay in vain.
“The quit is a drizzly nighttime and that i can't take my umbrella with me,” he stated in Italian to the reticulated ceiling tiles. not the most profound last phrases, however a bargain better than those of different super guys (Conrad Hilton: “leave the shower curtain within the bath”).
“That’s no Spanish I’ve ever acknowledged.” The sentence turned into driven through the crooked maze of an East Coast accessory. It came from the adjoining mattress, where a birdish girl propped on a half of-dozen pancake-thin pillows determined him along with her head at an inquiring tilt. She had the dazed pallor of a cave dweller dragged into sunlight hours. Had Benito now not simply uttered his ultimate phrases, he may have defined that Italian and Spanish weren’t the same language, but you can spend an entire life righting what americans were given wrong. He had only moments left.
Translucent tubes drew blood from one arm and streamed gray fluid into the alternative. A bleak epiphany: in the long run, he become no greater than a transit station for disturbingly opaque liquids. under the robe, bruised continents had risen from his torso. His left leg lay in a splint and a fats foam noose halfheartedly strangled him. His belly organs were as smooth as composting produce. What had befell? He should only summon a dream of flying geese. Then a silver Buick, hailstones, his soul vacuumed into the sky.
A nurse entered. Benito grew to become as an awful lot as the beefy foam headlock would allow. “You’re lucky to be alive,” she said, in a tone suggesting that she turned into no longer.
“but I’m death,” Benito clarified.
He hadn’t set out to die that day, but now that it became happening, he received it as the arrival of an extended-lost uncle he both loved and feared. He had no one on this facet of the earth to say goodbye to, nobody to put in writing his obituary, no person to attend his funeral but a susceptible-chinned landlord who could in all likelihood attain into the casket to frisk his pockets for spare change.
On the brink now, he seemed back and saw that the lifestyles he changed into leaving appeared lots like his condominium, a windowless cube of depression brilliant most effective for the reek of the clutter field that doubled as an ashtray ever due to the fact his cat had left him. The oddly worded English emergency commands alarmed through him: continue to the exit as quickly as possible.
“Please, get a pen and paper,” Benito urged. “You ought to document my remaining phrases.”
The nurse didn’t flow. She had a deadpan affectation, blunted over the years by way of the nonsense of patients like Benito. The fatigue of a double shift changed into struggle-painted in pink under her eyes.
“My vitality is seeping from me!” he insisted. “I see a shiny white light. I have to flow toward it, no?”
The nurse flicked the wall switch and the ceiling light went out.
“That higher?” she requested.
No, it wasn’t.
“The mild on the quit of the tunnel may well be a 60-watt incandescent,” the nurse stated, “however it’s not the one over your head.”
“but I’m dying,” he said, greater wish than lament.
“The worst you purchased on you is a broken leg, typically non-deadly among non-equines,” she stated.
“but i was hit with the aid of a vehicle,” he protested. “i was in a critical collision. I shouldn’t be alive in this clinic room. I shouldn’t be alive.”
The nurse, in no need of in addition convincing, switched on the mild as she left. The girl in the adjacent mattress turnedup the radio. It was Sonny Bono. sweet mortality, come unexpectedly.
the following morning, to Benito’s unhappiness, he awoke. The female within the adjoining bed stared at him.
“were you looking me sleep?” he asked.
“The television’s broken,” she said. She added herself as Marie.
They passed the subsequent days in quiet verbal exchange. Marie have been an 11-yr-old orphan, a nineteen-year-oldwidow, and changed into currently a thirty-year-vintage alcoholic and addict. She had no youngsters and wanted none. After a formative years in Maryland and an childhood in New Jersey, the palm timber lining the Embarcadero by no meansfailed to amaze her. She’d been picked up on the road the previous nighttime with alcohol poisoning, and the docs had been taking the possibility to observe a cardiac situation. Her honesty unsettled Benito, who suspected that intellectualnicely-being depended upon a facility for selectively disregarding fact. At one point, she asked him what it had felt like, thrown from the launch pad of a windshield up into flight.
Benito attempted to bear in mind the ache, the surprise, the pristine panic of the instant, but all he may want to keep in mind changed into an eerie weightlessness. “Like swimming, maybe.”
“Swimming?”
“What I consider swimming looks like. I never found out to swim.”
“Wait,” she said. “You grew up on an island and also you in no way learned to swim?”
Benito had already told her that as a boy he’d emigrated from Lipari, a barren volcanic island 3 hours by means of ferry north of Sicily.
“My mom was antique world Calabrese,” he stated. “To her thoughts, superstition changed into the most effective good judgment of an irrational international, and learning to swim would invite drowning as truly as traveling the medical doctor invitations disease. Her philosophy became that you needed to give up yourself to the Fates by using no longermaking ready for any disaster or misfortune, and that by imparting your humility and powerlessness to them, they mightmaintain you safe.”
“And you continue to were given hit by a vehicle,” Marie talked about.
“In the usa, the Fates are extra impressed with person duty.”
“Is your mom in San Francisco?”
“She’s lifeless,” he stated. He have been there while she went. Her final phrase were his name. “not unusual cold have become pneumonia. by no means went to the health practitioner.”
“simply because you’re wearing a prophylactic doesn’t suggest you’re not getting fucked.”
She had a point, but Benito wasn’t certain exactly what it became. He readjusted his casted leg, but couldn’t shake the reminiscence of air, of weightlessness. He’d constantly desired to learn to swim. a couple instances, he’d signed up for training at the Presido Y, and had once even gotten as a ways because the locker room. but whilst he’d changed into his suit and brought an honest look at himself within the replicate, he’d straight away thrown his shirt back on.
“Do you swim?” he asked.
“in one liquid or some other,” she stated.
by using the 0.33 day, Benito conceded that his broken leg could handiest kill him if he have been pursued with the aid ofa massive predator. The nurse informed the 2 patients that they would be discharged rapidly. Neither had coverage and that they have been required to appear on the billing office before departing.
whilst the nurse left, Marie pulled the IV from her hand. She stripped her gown with out turning away. She turned intoandrogynously streamlined, welded from knotted angles, a Giacometti with better skin. Her entire body hung from her clavicles. Benito’s surprise (while had he remaining visible a female bare?) fermented to an pleasure (while had he ultimate seen a woman bare!) that immediately diluted upon understanding that he become so insignificant a sexual being Marie hadn’t even concept to close the curtain among them earlier than undressing. She placed on jeans and an oversized T-shirt that irresponsible wash cycles had thinned to a gauzy translucence. there has been no indication she’d cast off both each time soon.
“allow’s boogie,” she stated.
Benito became unaccustomed to disobeying authority figures in uniform, even a nurse’s uniform. He changed into even much less acquainted with receiving invitations to boogie. He grooved on after her.
“Hurry up.” She held open the emergency go out for him.
A broken leg regarded like a reasonable excuse for a limp, however a early life of Catholic catechism and fascist educationhad conditioned him to publish to the imperative temper. the stairs stretched 4 floors. Benito gripped the handrail, gave his damaged leg a tomcat raise, and pogoed down on his exact foot. legs were barely sufficient to assist all of Benito whenhe turned into at his first-class, and he hadn’t been at his exceptional for the reason that 1954. His one appropriate leg turned into, as his father had often said of Benito himself, “just much less than adequate” Marie wrapped his left arm over her shoulder. It appeared profane that she should location her lovely neck within the stockade of his unwashed armpit.
At the lowest of the stairwell, she snipped their health facility bracelets with scissors swiped from the nurse’s station. Benito used all ninety-8 pounds of Marie as a crutch as they crossed the lobby. The deeply engrossed safety defend didn’t peer up from his humorous pages as they exceeded.
“lets?” Marie asked, establishing the door to a parking zone blotched in grey puddles. They stopped underneath a tree. The leaves shivered with the breeze, spattering droplets on them. “status under a tree whilst it’s raining continues you dry. status underneath a tree when it’s stopped raining continues you moist,” Benito stated.
“That’s a few real deep shit.” Marie rifled via her pockets, looking for bus fare. “you obtain any change?” she requested.
“in which are we going?” he asked. He had nearly stated you rather than we. they had shared a health facility room, however he wasn’t sure they were geared up to share the intimacy of a private pronoun.
“to procure any exchange?” she asked again, ignoring his question.
His pockets had been empty, shop for his apartment keys and a cemented wad of partially used tissues, but he patted them besides. they'd no cash for a bus and took a taxi alternatively, hoping Marie’s recluse neighbor might spot them the fare. because the taxi grew to become down Pine, Marie’s closing phrase jangled in his head: trade, trade, alternate.
A quartet of sharp knocks startled Josef Lavrov from his nap. Marie, almost surely. She turned into his only vacationer. He didn’t like visitors. The hyperlink of causality between those records turned into as outstanding on his horizon because the Golden Gate Bridge.
“I’ve introduced employer,” Marie announced as he slid away the safety chain. The bad guy at her facet turned into a flight of stairs away from cardiac arrest. His leg changed into casted in plaster and his voluminous thigh spilled over the pinnacle of the forged like a soufflé.
Marie made introductions earlier than borrowing a few greenbacks to pay the taxi.
“My leg,” Benito stated. “I need to sit down.”
The fats guy locked eyes on Josef’s maximum prized possession, a rococo 2d Empire-fashion eating chair. Josef had discovered it in the window of a Haight avenue consignment keep three months after his petition for political asylum have been cleared. Its darkish hue bespoke third world deforestation; its seat become goose down plumped in imperial redvelvet; its layout a work of calligraphy. He had pressed his nose against the Haight avenue keep window, incredulous that a chair built for royalty might be bought here, on the street, for each person to buy. not anything higher embodied how far he’d come from the featureless furniture of his place of origin. He had lived for that chair his first year in the us, saving one of the four hourly greenbacks he earned folding fortunes into clean-baked fortune cookies. Crest rail, ear, lancet arch, pierced slat, stile, quatrefoil, knee, cabriole leg, claw-and-ball foot: he discovered the English phrases for every part of that chair before he acquired the vocabulary for half of of what stuffed a grocery store vegetable aisle. On the primaryanniversary of his defection from the Soviet Union, Josef went to the consignment keep and purchased the chair with ones and fives.
It became in the direction of this valuable chair that Benito’s huge posterior descended.
Josef closed his eyes at the moment of impact. The chair infrequently creaked, each bit the masterpiece the consignment keep clerk had known as it.
“lovable vintage element you have right here,” Benito said with a light lilt to his accessory that Josef couldn’t pick out.
“Benito. this is what? Spanish?”
“Why does anybody think I’m Spanish? Italian. As in from Italy.”
“Ah sure,” Josef stated, snapping his fingers. “Of route, of course. With the pizza and the popes. Benito like Mussolini.”
Benito gave the impression of he’d been stuck passing fuel in a packed elevator.
Josef became overjoyed. “I comic story, I funny story,” Josef stated. “however inform the fact, your father names you after the dictator, no? He wishes with a purpose to come to be strong chief, brave man, yaytsa as huge as oranges. informthe reality, i am right, no?”
“i was born in 1935,” Benito stated softly. “Benito changed into a completely famous name on the time.”
Josef clasped his arms together, hardly ever capable of include himself.
“good enough,ok. you're named after for Mussolini. In Italy, this is perhaps excellent.
however no longer so much in the united states. Why don’t you call yourself for Benjamin or Benny?
“I considered it,” Benito stated. “but your name is your call. while americans visited Italy in the 1930s, they needed toexchange their names. Benny Goodman became Benito Bounuomo. Louis Armstrong have become Luigi Braccioforte. It didn’t appear any higher doing the opposite.”
“i'm named Josef because my father had very a good deal respect for Josef Stalin,” Josef confessed. It wasn’t the kind ofthing he freely admitted, however he felt an immediately affinity with this stranger who understood the load of a tyrannical namesake.
Benito leaned ahead, alert. “nicely, , Stalin killed many greater humans than Mussolini ever did.”
“incorrect aspect of records, proper aspect of world battle II,” Josef countered.
“Stalin became no top, this I realize, however Mussolini, he goes palling round with Hitler.”
“nevertheless, I assume the majority might agree that Mussolini changed into much less evil than Stalin.”
“Stalin destroyed fascism and stored civilization. Mussolini and Hitler played at the equal hazard team. No contrast.”
“I’ve always wanted to fulfill an Adolf,” Benito stated, stretching his palms in a ring above his head. “believe being saddled with that name? speak approximately mom issues.”
“An Adolf might be very marvelous,” Josef agreed. “i have never visible one in the wild myself. the usa isn't always their natural habitat.”
They mentioned the merits and disadvantages in their namesakes for several minutes. Josef surreptitiously peeked at his watch.
“looks as if Marie were given lost on her manner again,” Benito stated.
Josef suspected that Marie had taken whatever trade become left over from the taxi fare, if she paid the fare in any respect, and had deposited it on the corner liquor save. however he wasn’t inclined to deprecate his neighbor in front of a personnamed after Mussolini.
“So, how did you get to the usa?” Benito asked.
“i am a defecator,” Josef stated. Benito frowned and studied the scuffed rim of his idler. perhaps he’d never met someonewho had defected. Josef tried to place him comfortable. “Don’t be intimidated. It’s now not so glamorous or so risky.”
“No,” Benito stated. “I wouldn’t think so.”
Josef went on. “have you heard of Vyborg? No? famous for its taproots. that is all you need to understand about Vyborg. And that it's far on the Finland border. So, in Vyborg i used to be the bus motive force. regular i am riding the bus. i am a superb bus motive force, all people knows this. So sooner or later the city transport director says, ‘Josef, the following day are arriving some lackeys from the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy. You have to power them round.’ I do no longer needto do that. i'm very uncomfortable riding lackeys. however I say yes. That night time, i am as fearful as a chicken in a briefcase. What if the conferences pass terrible and that they blame it at the bus driving force? I do now not sleep at all. in the morning, I take glass of brandy to sharpen my senses. it's far no need. I go to sleep and i wake to a completely hugecrash. massive blond Vikings anywhere. 3 broken avenue barricades. a large number.”
“Wait. You drove into Finland?” Benito requested.
“First into Finland, then into the customs house. Very embarrassing. So i have two selections. Confess that I doze off even as driving important lackeys. Lose my task. perhaps go to jail. important international embarrassment. Or, say i'mdefecting. Your Yogi Berra, he advises whilst you see the fork in the road, take it. So, I take it. here i am.”
Benito regarded surely impressed. “My mother and me just took a boat to the big apple.”
In truth, Josef had misjudged the navy intelligence value of a municipal bus driving force and the way of life he shouldanticipate inside the West. He’d imagined the usa was full of mansions and sports activities vehicles and fantastic wealth. It turned into, of direction, they just didn’t belong to him or all people he knew. His most effective possession of actualcost was an antique chair that a fats guy become getting secure in.
a few minutes later, Marie again with a brown paper bag in one hand. Josef’s heart dropped a few centimeters. It turned into a cute afternoon, the clouds have been parting, this become no time to drink oneself to demise. but while she opened the bag all she removed was a white bakery container of pastries looped in barber-pole twine.
“We’re each named after lifeless dictators.” Benito stated, a hint of marvel to his voice.
“It’s important to discover your people,” Marie stated, and started out dispensing napkins.
The 3 met once more for pastries the subsequent Wednesday. and then the Wednesday after, and the Wednesday after that. over the years, their Wednesday evenings became a small rise of elevation that their weeks ascended toward and sloped from. In 1977, Josef tracked down the lady who had bought the other five eating chairs from the Haight streetconsignment shop. She had bought those five chairs as a birthday gift for her husband. considering that letting thosechairs into her residence, her husband had misplaced his task, pension, and fitness, nearly the whole lot but a head of hair so thick and exquisite the satan himself couldn’t pull it all out. Josef offered two chairs from her. She supplied him the opposite three free of charge, but Josef knew higher than to tempt horrific fortune by means of taking chairs he had no use for. They sat in the ones chairs the week Benito introduced he had found paintings and the week he announced he had been fired. They sat whilst Josef introduced he had pores and skin cancer and that they sat inside the waiting room while darkish hailstones of malignant tissue was eliminated. In autumn 1978, Marie believed she had bottomed out whilstshe pawned her father’s silver pocket watch, containing in its glass display the simplest photo of her mother she’d ever seen. “you suspect you're the treasured snowflake,” Josef instructed her, a heaviness to his voice that didn’t match his 2dlanguage. “however you're simply a chunk of water.” It took Marie all of 1979, 1980, and 1981 to string together a month of sobriety. She sold a six-foot tall Christmas tree and ornamented it with all her twenty-four hour chips. On December 13, 1982, the anniversary of her first yr sober, Benito and Josef gave her the pocket watch they’d bought again from the pawnshop. Marie opened it. The hazy image of her mother stared lower back however it become no longer her mother’s love she felt in that room. “I didn’t consider i was deserving of this,” she said, unable to meet their eyes. “It’s only a watch,” Benito said. She seemed to the 2 men perched on chairs healthy for beheaded French aristocrats. One smelled of mildewand nonetheless limped from the coincidence. the alternative handled the indefinite article because the superbintellectual mission of his life. “I don’t suggest the watch,” she said. together they went to films, all-night diners, and as soon as, in the balmy breeze of can also 1988, to Reno, where they played penny slots and drank loose fountain cola from plastic cups. In 1990, Marie taught Benito, on the age of fifty-5, to swim even as Josef heckled from the bleachers.
The cancer that were eliminated from Josef’s hands reappeared in 1999, and had already colonized bone, blood, and brainbefore it turned into determined. He died within the St. Francis most cancers ward months later. Benito and Marie had been simply arriving as he left. His remaining word became hiya. For an additional $800, the gravedigger buried him upright and uncasketed, enthroned in his favored chair. Benito spent his mornings strolling aimlessly via neighborhoods that regarded to get younger, richer, and whiter by the 12 months. youngsters, he believed, become a disorder typicallycured by time; regarding the latter two, he become open to tips. The year, decade, century, and millennium all becameover with the swipe of a second hand. He turned into sixty-5 years old and had in no way used a computer. He becomesixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-8, sixty-nine, seventy and he nevertheless had never used a pc. Wasn’t life speculated to have a development, a constructing closer to something? Wasn’t there a size beyond years to account for his time on this planet? He didn’t recognise, and that now not knowing felt sunken in him like the footprints of some thing sure that had fled longago.
On an April morning in 2015, Benito and Marie went to Pier 39 and watched slow sea lions spill into the water, their slick heads domed in daylight. “What time is it?” Marie asked. Benito glanced to his watch, however couldn’t speak. Invisible boulders pressed against his ribs. He raised a hand, the earth peeled away, blue sky anywhere. He changed into on his lower back now. Marie kneeled over him. She changed into pounding at his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He must talk. He need to say his very last words. He’d been ready his whole life for the opportunity. when he tried to speak, he discoveredthat her lips had sealed his. She turned into blowing air into his lungs. She was looking to breathe for him. It become this type of peculiar and unexpected sensation he forgot whatever words he may have stated. It almost delivered him returned. “Don’t go, don’t go, don’t cross,” she pleaded. In all his years, he hadn’t imagined that the remaining words of his life would be spoken by someone else. He hadn’t imagined he could die so cherished. All around jap vacationersflashed photographs of the white-haired woman conserving the lifeless man on that in any other case great April day.
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