2.6. Pee, Daddy! - Part II (The situation explodes)

(August 1998)

Code yellow. The wait is long, exhausting: I'll be very late, Antonia will be beside herself. As I sit on the plastic chair in the waiting room with the baby in my arms, I give her a call and make up some excuse to explain the delay, trying to sound completely natural. I tell her we went to visit Mayra at the greenhouse and that she entertained us with one of her desserts. She falls for it. I hang up.

Finally, our turn arrives: we enter the emergency room and are met by a portly nurse, almost Mayra's size, but lacking any of her maternal sweetness. She wears glasses, her hair tied in a tight bun on top of her head, and her classic white uniform - a short-sleeved tunic and pants -shows visible sweat rings under her armpits despite the air conditioning. She sits Martino down on a bed, removes the handkerchief, and examines his foot.

- How did the little one get hurt? - she asks inquisitively. I hold Martino's hand firmly in mine, which is shaking a little, and answer:

- He was taking a few steps in a stream and cut himself on something that was on the bottom.

The nurse looks me up and down:

- Are you the father?

Embarrassed, not knowing how to keep the child from hearing my answer, I nod, my head behind his shoulder. Unexpectedly, Martino answers for me:

- Unk Manu.

- Oh, so you're the uncle, not the father. And why did you say you are the father?

I shrug, resigned.

- How did you come up with the idea of leaving such a small child alone in a stream?

- The water there is shallow and almost still, there's a kind of pond... - I begin to justify myself, but immediately a wave of rebellion comes over me: "What the hell does this woman want from me? How dare she grill me like this?"

- Anyway, he wasn’t alone, - I continue dryly. - I was walking with him and holding his hand, and then there was my dog, too.

Your dog?

- Look, - I say brusquely, - the child wasn't alone, okay? I don't think it's worth wasting time on a trial: it's a matter of treating the wound, disinfecting it, and possibly giving him a tetanus shot, because I haven't been able to figure out what he cut himself on. Are you willing to do that or not?

- The tetanus shot, no doubt. You put the baby in danger - she insists, staring at me coldly. I hold her gaze: I say nothing, but I start to move toward the triage area, intending to request the intervention of another, less obnoxious nurse. Finally, she leaves to fetch gauze, bandages, disinfectant, and the necessary equipment for the injection.

- Now, - I whisper to Martino, picking him up, - this lady will make your sore spot go away. You'll feel a tiny prick, but it won't hurt at all.

Soundless tears flow from Martino's eyes: I dry them with my handkerchief and cover his cheeks with kisses.

- Ug-ly lady - he sobs.

I think exactly the same way he does, but I mustn't let him know.

- But no, darling, she's not ugly: she's a good lady who's taking care of your little foot now.

He hides his face in my shoulder. I hold him like that while the nurse administers the injection, which causes him to flinch slightly.

- Done, it’s all over now - I tell him, hugging him to my chest and stroking his hair.

The nurse observes the wound.

- I was afraid I'd have to stitch him up, but fortunately, with a good dressing and a tight bandage, we can avoid that.

I breathe a sigh of relief: we were also missing the stitches and the related anesthesia.

Martino stoically endures the dressing, without complaint: I admire him greatly; for such a small boy, he shows great strength of spirit. Meanwhile, I never stop holding his hand and stroking his head, not even for a moment.

Finally, I thank the nurse, who, while unpleasant, did a great job. She doesn't even answer me: she nods, turns on her heel, and goes back through the glass door. I pick up the baby and leave the emergency room, eager to get to the hospital parking lot where I'd left the Suzuki with Bella inside, obviously with the windows open and a bowl of water available.

- Is everything okay? - I ask Martino, after settling him into his car seat. He nods, but the downturned corners of his mouth suggest otherwise. I caress his cheek again, climb into the driver's seat, and drive off.

And here I am on my way home. I've done my daily stupid thing: who knows what Antonia will say to me soon, how many curses she'll throw at me, who knows if she'll let me carry Martino around again. Besides, I've done what I could: the wound has been treated, and the tetanus shot will ward off the worst. I caress his bandaged foot, but he pushes my hand away.

- Bad Unk! - he exclaims.

- You're right, Martino, - I admit, dejectedly. - I'm a careless uncle, but I love you. You'll see, your little foot will heal quickly.

Martino, offended, doesn't respond. I turn the stereo back on and put on the lullaby covers he loves so much, but the baby whines impatiently. I turn off the stereo and drive for a few minutes in silence. Suddenly, my cell phone rings: I've connected it to the stereo on speakerphone. Instinctively, I reach out to turn it off, but then I think that Martino is too young to understand. I don't want to be offensive to Gianni; I don't want to hang up on him. I pull my arm back and put my hand on the steering wheel, feigning indifference so as not to arouse suspicion in Martino, who's watching me out of the corner of his eye. Gianni's voice carries clearly through the car.

- Emmanuel, love, are you there? You're driving, right? I can hear the engine: put it on speakerphone, please, I don't want you to be in any danger because of me. I know you're not answering, but please listen to me. Don't hang up, please.

A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead, while Martino becomes strangely attentive.

- I think about you every day, you know? I never forget you for a second. I'd love to meet you to explain... explain some important things to you, that's all.

Martino lets out a little scream.

- Oh, but I sense you're not alone: is your little one with you? What an adorable little voice...

I bite my tongue bloody to avoid answering him. Meanwhile, Martino continues to chirp, and Gianni melts into raptures:

- God, what an adorable little creature... You're lucky, darling, to have a little marmot of your own. I'll never be able to have one... I... I only had you, as a marmot, and now I've lost you...

Gianni sobs softly. My embarrassment is sky-high. Suddenly, Martino bursts into hysterical laughter, like the one he greeted me with when he first saw me.

I hear Gianni stammer:

- Your little one laughs at me… Emmanuel, my love, I'm afraid I'll have to say goodbye. I'm becoming an unbearable burden to you: I'm drowning your life in ridicule…

Gianni cries silently, while Martino laughs more and more amused.

- Goodbye, my love: forgive me for everything - Gianni concludes with a sob, and hangs up.

Martino is still laughing.

My heart explodes into a thousand pieces. I immediately dial Gianni's number again: he doesn't answer. I drive in a daze for several minutes, blood pounding in my temples, dialing that number over and over again. It's voicemail; I leave him a terse, peremptory message:

- Gianni, call me back, damn it.

After a few minutes that seem like an eternity, I finally hear my cell phone ring. I take it off speakerphone and put it to my ear, heedless of any traffic regulations.

- Gianni.

- Emmanuel.

- Gianni.

Contact re-established. I take a deep breath and begin again:

- Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. The child...

- Oh, your adorable little child… what do you expect him to know, poor thing: he simply thought I was ridiculous, which in fact I am.

- You're not ridiculous. You hurt me, but you're not ridiculous, damn it! Do you understand?

- My love, it was precisely to explain some things to you that I wanted to see you again.

I sigh deeply.

- When?

- When you can.

- The day after tomorrow at four.

- All right.

- Where?

- I'm coming to Turin, I don't want you to run all the way here.

- No, not in Turin: I'd rather come to Milan. Where?

- At the Paradiso bar. Do you know it?

- No, but I'll find it.

- Do you still have long hair, love?

- No, Gianni, I cut it in the meantime.

- Oh no, please! I want to see you again as you were, my angel: and angels have long hair.

- But I can't grow it in two days!

- Get extensions, please: like that day we met, remember?

- Okay, I'll see what I can do.

- I am grateful to you from the bottom of my soul, Emmanuel.

- See you the day after tomorrow.

I hang up.

I'm drenched in sweat, my heart is beating haphazardly, no longer bothering to alternate systole and diastole. I slump back against the seat. I turn on the stereo and forcefully turn up the volume, not giving Martino any right to reply, and in fact he remains silent. I caress his hair.

- Does your foot hurt? - I ask him.

He shakes his head decisively, like a real man.

- What do we tell Mom? That you tripped over a sharp rock?

He shakes his head again.

- And what do we tell her then?

His response leaves me speechless:

- Emanue love.

He bursts out laughing again.

- Emanue love, Emanue love, Emanue love… - he repeats laughing, in a mocking tone.

He may be my son, but he's a cruel creature, and that's a trait he couldn't have inherited from me. I swallow my anger and frustration, trying to remind myself that I'm the one at fault: I wasn't careful enough and let him get hurt, so I deserve this and more. Besides, I'm happy that the child is back in a good mood and laughing, even if he's laughing at me.

And now, “Emmanuel love,” prepare to receive a dressing down from Antonia.

I sigh without saying anything else and concentrate on driving, comforted by Bella's presence in the trunk and the prospect of dinner with Carlos and Mayra.

But another, more intense joy is melting my heart like a popsicle in an open refrigerator: soon, very soon, I will see Gianni again.

 

 

2.5. Pee, Daddy! - Part I (It was supposed to be a nice trip...)

(August 1998).

- Please, Emmanuel, be careful: the baby is still very small. Please don't put him in danger.

A sense of impatience assails me at these words: I can't stand being treated by Antonia as some kind of mentally handicapped person, good only for occasional sex. I want to be respected, not treated with the condescension we use towards limited individuals to avoid making them feel too inferior. I want to feel the way Gianni made me feel, unique and precious; I realize how irreplaceable the hyperbolic admiration that only a gay man can have for another man is: no woman can make you feel that way. It truly becomes a drug, incredibly difficult to do without; and, needless to say, I've fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

But that, unfortunately or fortunately, is water under the bridge. My present is here, with this woman and this child, and if it weren't for the bitterness that envelops my days like a toxic smoke, I could almost say I'm happy; but there's no point lying to oneself: I'm not. After all, happiness is a chimera, one must be content with what one has, one must ask the gods not for what one desires, but to free oneself from desire, and so on. I'd like to at least feel serene, that's all: but the tone of indulgent superiority that Antonia always uses with me prevents me from doing so, irritates me.

- Antonia, I say to her, is it possible that you consistently take me for an imbecile? I know he's small, and it's not the first time I've brought him with me, I think?

- Yes, but before it was different: he couldn't walk yet, you put him in a baby carrier and took him for walks like that around the woods or to those strange places you like.

- Of course, I'm the usual loser who takes him around the woods or "to those weird places I like," which, coincidentally, you used to like too: not to San Sicario in the new cabin or to the pool at the villa. I wonder why, huh?

- Emmanuel, come on, don't start…

- Anyway, yes, I also took him around the woods and along the stream: so what? Sometimes I even took him to the mountains and once even to the sea, and nothing ever happened to him.

- Of course, because while you were walking, he was hanging on your back or your chest. But now that he's started walking, everything's different: he's in full exploration mode, he's never still. Even at home, he's constantly falling to the floor around every corner; I'd have to have a thousand eyes to keep an eye on him. So please, be careful.

- I'll be very careful. And Bella's there to help me: Martino loves to walk clinging to her fur, and she's very patient with him.

- Yes, she's a good dog.

Bella confirms with a bark and a broad smile, letting her tongue hang out. I often have the impression that my dog understands Italian, or at least grasps the general gist of what's being said. Martino gives me this impression now too: he understands many words and simple sentences. He's a very curious child, decidedly intelligent, he understands cause and effect relationships, and he's starting to construct two-word sentences, which, from what I've read, represent a fairly advanced stage in a child's logical-linguistic development. I've often heard him say "Mom food" or "Cat ball" when he wants a ball to throw to Gino, who plays with it like an expert soccer player, dribbling around obstacles and making him laugh heartily.

Of course, I don't have the slightest memory of what I was like at his age, but I think I was a rather silly child, the kind who enjoys sitting in their mother's arms and looking around with a dazed, dreamy expression. I loved playing in the garden, yes, I remember that perfectly: I learned to run very early, and I often scraped my knees from falling; but, according to my mother, I never cried.

Antonia finally gives me the baby: I pick him up. He paws the ground and squeals a little, wanting to walk on his own, but I don't let go: I place him in the front seat of the Suzuki, in his special child seat, put Bella in the trunk, go back to give Antonia a kiss, and start the car.

It's a beautiful, warm August day: I turn on the stereo and put in a record that Martino really likes: it's a lullaby reworking of some famous rock songs I loved and still love. I would never have thought, for example, that Nirvana would lend itself so well to cradle-themed covers, but that's not at all strange: there's almost always something childishly catchy about the melodic turns of Kurt's songs, a sort of self-consoling evocation of childhood memories. Martino hums Nirvana in his own unique way, confirming that he really is my son, and he seems quite at ease in his comfy car seat.

It's already half past two, so we can't go far. I'll take Martino to the Orco stream, where I often went as a boy with his mother to study: it's nice to see those places again. Now that I've re-established a relationship with Antonia and our situation has, for better or worse, reached a point of equilibrium, it no longer hurts to return: in fact, I'm happy to take my son and my dog there, even if I realize with a sudden pang of bitterness that Saucepan remains irreplaceable to me. I love Bella very much, but it's a different relationship, external, so to speak. Instead, that poor grayish, faded animal was a part of me, a sort of canine alter ego. This thought clouds the serenity of my mood a little, veiling it with a hint of melancholy. Besides, lately, I've been constantly sad, even when I pretend to be cheerful.

I still suffer from Gianni's loss. I suffer doubly because I shouldn't suffer. I'm here with my son and I wish I were in the arms of a man who could be my father: what kind of man am I? What kind of father can I possibly be?

For weeks, for months now, I've been fighting against myself to forget him. He himself helped me a lot, treating me that indecent way. So yes, I suffer, but I bear the pain stoically. Unfortunately, I know full well that it's his daily phone call that helps me endure it: every time my cell phone rings and I see that number, my heart does a somersault. Now I've changed my attitude: I no longer hang up immediately, but listen silently to what he has to say, without answering. Then I hang up. This way he knows I've heard him: I don't want to make him feel humiliated or rejected. I love him, damn it, and I don't want him to suffer any more. But no, I won't go looking for him again: I'll let our wound bleed peacefully, drowning us both in a lake of melancholic torpor. We drown holding hands: it's a way like any other to stay together.

And there it is, my stream, where it widens smoothly and peacefully into a cove next to the grassy bank I so often chose to study, alone or with Antonia, but always in the company of Saucepan. Fortunately, Bella shares Saucepan's tastes and wags her tail happily, while I lower Martino onto the grass and lead him by the hand toward the water. He trots beside me with small, still slightly unsteady steps, holding on to Bella's tail with his other hand. We sit on the bank and I pick him up; I watch the calm flow of the water, blue and transparent, my chin resting on his red curls, and I feel a strange emotion come over me. Suddenly, the baby fidgets nervously, putting a hand on his pants near his genitals. Antonia put him in a diaper before handing him over to me, and I also have two spares in the Pluto-printed bag I carry with me, which is entirely dedicated to Martino's things. However, I have the impression that he's trying to tell me he wants to pee, and not in his diaper. In fact, he whimpers:

- Pee, Daddy.

I'm astonished: not so much by the message he's communicating to me, which reveals a precocious ability to recognize bladder urges and an equally precocious desire to control them, but by the last two syllables. Anyway, I indulge him, help him get up, and carry him to an area sheltered by bushes (an unnecessary precaution, but my son and I are very reserved types), pull down his shorts and diaper, and help him, supporting him, to pee "like a man," as he desires. Finally, he seems very satisfied and smiles as I pull his shorts back up and lead him back to sit on the edge.

- Martino, I tell him, you were really good at asking to pee like the grown-ups, you know?

He nods with conviction.

- But you also said something else… you didn't just say "pee", did you?

He shrugs, as if it were no big deal.

- What did you say, Martino? I insist.

- Pee, he replies.

- Yes, but what did you say after that?

- Pee! he repeats.

- I understood you said "pee," but then you said something else. I didn't hear it clearly. Can you say it again?

- Peeeeeeeeee!, he blurts out exasperatedly, as if he wanted to end the conversation once and for all.

I sigh in resignation. I'm sure I heard correctly, but I won't hear anything from him; he's closed himself off like an oyster. I'll carry this doubt with me for who knows how long.

- Come on, I tell him, let’s go take a walk in the water: it’s shallow and calm here.

Bella, as usual, immediately grasps the meaning of my words and is happy to comply: she dives into the stream and splashes heavily among the smooth white stones of the riverbed, kicking up splashes and attempting to snap up some passing fish, obviously without success. I accompany Martino to the shore of a small natural pool with blue-green water, just over twenty centimeters deep: it seems like the perfect place to take him for a swim.

- Fitsch!, exclaims the child, pointing to some barbel or chub fry.

- Yes, there are little fish, I confirm smiling.

I take off my sneakers and slip his shoes off, placing them on the dry shore. Then I take his hand and walk toward the water, trying to persuade him to walk into the small blue pool, but the boy balks and resists.

- Come on, Martino, come with Uncle Manu.

- Eat!

- Yes, I'll give you your fruit puree later, but first we'll cool our feet. Look at Bella jumping in the water!

Unconvinced and hesitant, the child lets himself be persuaded and begins to take a few steps beside me. I try to get him to place his feet on the larger, smoother rocks. Martino is beginning to enjoy the walk; we walk hand in hand with our feet in the water for a few minutes, when suddenly he lets out a little cry.

- What’s happening?, I ask him, alarmed.

- Ouch, foot!

I pick him up and my heart stops: his little left foot is bleeding profusely, injured by something I don't know what. I try to reassure him, but in reality I'm in a state of confusion and my heart is racing. I peer into the water to see what might have injured Martino's foot, but I see nothing: probably some damned glass, blending in with the blue-green transparency of the water. The child, of course, starts crying; Bella immediately stops her water games and comes to us barking.

- Shut up, Bella! Don't you understand that this way you're scaring him even more?

Bella immediately falls silent and wags her tail dejectedly.

- It's nothing, Martino, now your uncle will bandage your little foot and then we'll go get treated.

I pick up the baby and carry him to the bank. Then I take a clean cotton handkerchief from my pants pocket, which I luckily brought with me, and bandage his foot, trying to close the wound and keep it from bleeding too much. I know full well that to avoid tetanus, it's best to let the blood flow. But enough has already flowed, and I don't have time to waste. I run to the car with the baby in my arms, place him in his car seat, put Bella in the trunk, and rush to the nearest emergency room, which luckily is only a few kilometers away.

Martino, shocked, stopped crying. The whole ride over, I keep calling myself an idiot.