ppoli61

@ppoli611674629039 · 02 Dec 2020

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A lucky man

#shortstory

“Hello, yeah? Tell me, Iole. Did you order the outfit? You did well. The twins' birthday? Yes, of course I remember the cake. Your husband? Did you get any disability points? Um ... how many? So many, but eh, wow ... "
Why had that "wow" come out of her so drawn and envious, Tilde wondered, and what was that sudden melancholy? "Well, well, I'm happy for you." She put the phone down with a growing sense of discontent.
"Tilde, love ..."
From the next room, Gino, her husband, threw her a kiss on the tips of his fingers and smiled with his toothpaste commercial teeth. He had just repudiated the tennis shorts in favor of the jogging suit. "I'm going out, love."
"Yes, go, go."
Tilde Tacconi went in search of a handkerchief because she knew that soon the lump in her throat would evolve into bitter tears. She looked out of the window at Gino who, as soon as he came out of the door, was already hinting at the elastic jumps of his run. She stared at him with all possible attention, shielded the sun with her open hand, squinted to see better.
No way. Gino was hopelessly young, handsome and healthy.
Every day, vivacious like a foal at the start, he punched out his card at the stroke of five p.m. After five minutes, he was already on the tennis court, where he never missed a shot. The idol of friends, jumped and darted on the layground, while the ladies threw eager glances at his Greek discus thrower muscles.
Tilde wasn't jealous, no. Tilde was ashamed.
A man who earned a thousand euros a month was ridiculous with that sailboat tan. The clerks, the scribblers, the obscure half sleeves lost in the basement of the company like him, do not have the audacity to be as beautiful and happy as if they owned yachts and racing cars.
The tears overflowed, hot and inexorable. How lucky were her friends, Iole, Vanda, Sirte, to have those bald and asthmatic, pot-bellied and colitic husbands, who walked around with the digestive in their pocket and the pressure pills in their wallet. All the fortunes happened to the others.
The husband of that tongue-tied Iole had raised his bronchitis like a small son, until he had a beautiful emphysema with all the trimmings, capable of giving you all those points of disability. Now, you know, in a month's time he would have made a big step forward and then she would have to listen to Iole boasting. Who knows how much she would have bragged about her new position! Damn her, her husband and those beasts of the twins.
What would it cost her Gino to get a little sick, maybe just a little to make her happy, to snatch a few points from the company's annual control visit?
Not at all.
Each time the doctor congratulated: "Congratulations, Tacconi, you have hawk eyes, perfect lungs and an athlete's heart."
And that idiot Gino would return home happy. "The doctor assured me that I am healthy as a fish," he informed her, squeezing her tightly to take her breath away, not understanding that those words were a knife to her.
Ah, but my mother had always said that Gino would never lift a finger to make a career! In those days, she, blinded by love, hadn't given her mother’s words any weight. She thought that in the end Gino would settke down, he would work hard to earn more.
Instead: nothing. Tennis and jogging, jogging and gym, gym and swimming pool. A sentence.
In the evening, after dinner, Tilde told Gino the good fortune that had happened to Iole Grimaldi. She told him how sad and unhappy she felt. She reminded him of his duties as a family man. She explained that the children at school were ashamed, having to confess to the children of lawyers and engineers that their father was a very modest corporate employee.
“But, love”, Gino defended himself, “the children grow up well, we have no debts, the house is owned. We are happy even so. "
"You!" roared Tilde, “you are happy! You are with that miserable salary, with these four pennies, with the rags your wife is wearing. Oh, of course, because the young gentleman has a good game of tennis and a run in the park. Ah, but Mom was right! Why didn't I listen to her? "
For hours Tilde cried, screamed, appealed to a sense of duty, revived the magic of their first meeting, threatened divorce. Finally, around midnight, a dazed and sleepy Gino admitted that, perhaps, it was a bit immature for a man of thirty-five to still be so athletic and healthy.
Tilde then rose from the sofa and disappeared for a few moments. She returned with a mysterious package, which she lovingly unwrapped. A bottle appeared and she held it up with shaking hands, like a relic. "Here, honey."
"What is it, dear?" he asked, yawning.
Tilde kissed him devoutly on the cheek. “Oh, love, it's nothing. It is a little thing that I kept in store for you, for when you decided. It costed a fortune.
“Yes, but what is it?"
“But, nothing, I told you. It's ... it's just raving acid. "
Gino opened his eyes wide, jumped catapulting the cat off the sofa. "Raving acid! But it's paralyzing! You've gone crazy, you won't want me to take that stuff! "
Tilde had run out of patience. Such ingratitude on Gino's behalf seemed cruel to her. She tried to keep her tone calm. “Come on, Gino, you won't feel anything. It will be a moment. It will give you a very slight deficit, and you will get some points. Come on, do it for me, open your mouth, look, I'll put sugar in it too, bee a good boy! "
Gino rolled his eyes, shook his head, tightened his lips, so much so that Tilde was forced to scold him harshly and remind him that if he didn't open that damn mouth, she would ask for custody of the children.
Before swallowing the sugar, wet with three drops of raving acid, Gino hugged his wife tightly. “I love you so much, Tilde. I love you and the boys. "
The next morning he woke up with all the symptoms of a facial hemiparesis. His beautiful left eye, of a spectacular blue, now stood there, half closed and encrusted with milky boogers. The mouth had dropped down a few feet, the tongue protruded a little at the corner of the lips.
The friends were very surprised and disappointed, the doctors did not understand the misfortune. Gino immediately applied and obtained the disability points. The advancement was automatic in his administration.
Not being able to play tennis, because of the eye that did not see the ball as before, Gino stayed longer in the office. The chief was pleased with his new zeal. They bought the fridge with the American-style ice crusher. Tilde bought some new clothes for herself and the children.
A few peaceful months passed, then, one evening, Tilde mentioned an apartment she had visited in the afternoon. It was in the historic center, she said, and also very bright. The boys would have separate bedrooms as they wished.
"But, love, we can't afford it," smiled Gino.
"No, of course, with what you earn now, we just can't, but if you could take another small step forward ..."
After half an hour Gino was there, with his tongue out, swallowing five drops of raving acid. During the night he had an epileptic seizure and they took him to the hospital. He healed quickly but his arm and leg were impeded. They immediately entrusted him with a sector of his own to direct. He got a mahogany desk and a secretary to take the place of his hand. They moved into the new apartment, the children were enrolled in a private school and Tilde bought herself a fur. On Sundays they would go for a walk on the Corso, Tilde strut in the new mink, while Gino trailed behind his leg like a broom.
And then the career continued. Every year Gino got a blow that crippled his arm, an eye, his speech, according to the number of drops his caring wife poured on the sugar.
Stroke after stroke, Gino Tacconi rose to the top of the company administration.


As every morning, Miss Elizabeth pushed the director's wheelchair into his pharaonic office. She lit a branded cigar and poured the pills into the glass. The director rolled his eyes, moaned thanks and swallowed a sip of water with a tablet.
"If you don't need me anymore, I'll go, director."
"Uuuughh ..."
“Good work to you too, sir”.
Director Tacconi was left alone. He inhaled a few puffs of the cigar, fighting the phlegm that clogged his larynx. Rolling his eyes, he could see the side of the desk where pictures of his family were on display. His children, now grown up, smiled proudly in their graduation hats. With maturity, Tilde had become, if possible, even more beautiful. The mountain outfit suited her, in the photo taken at Cortina with the ski instructor. He was really proud of his family.
Really, Gino Tacconi could be called a lucky man.
The cigar unglued from his lips and fell into his lap. He fidgeted in his chair just enough to slide it to the floor before it burned his pants. A tear, a single one, followed the contour of his nose before reaching his chin, where it swayed, undecided.
His hands were unable to dry it.