OPERAMERTA

Whenever Mikey Stefano had just whacked someone he'd always pay a visit to the opera house shortly after. It had become as much a ritual as the late night supper of Sausages Fra Diavolo he'd routinely enjoy at Patsy's, his favourite Italian restaurant in New York.

In the past he'd tried going to church after a hit but it just didn't quite sit right with him - too many pure memories of his late parents taking him to mass and the unsullied innocence of his choir boy youth, long before he later became awash with the blood of sinners on his own two hands. Watching the great operas of Verdi, Puccini & Giordano at the Met, however, he felt as if he could far more easily purge himself of any remaining guilt inside him. His Italian peasant logic was simple - by commiting to watching the great immortal works of opera, he felt exonerated from his murderous acts, as if if the contrast between his blood soaked profession with the sublime art on the stage acted as some sort of magic eraser.

His favourite opera was Rigoletto and he would often find himself openly weeping when the hunchback jester sang to his dying daughter by the banks of the River Mincio. The irony never occured to him that he could so easily cry at a make believe death on stage whilst being completely divorced of empathy with his own victims as they pleaded for him to spare their life.

Speaking of personal, Mikey had struggled to properly settle down with a woman in all of his 48 years on earth. He'd never found a woman to match the greatness of his late mother, Maria (God rest her soul) and never one as loyal as she either. He also felt no ragazza he'd ever dated lived up to those beautiful women on the opera stages he so admired. Why couldn't they be more like Mimi, Gilda or Tosca, he'd often think to himself. Here were women willing to die for their men, so in love were they with their guys. He admired greatly that level of devotion. It was all or nothing at all, just like Sinatra once sang.

Sitting alone in the Gods, Mikey preferred to be amongst his own. He knew he could afford one of those opera boxes if he really wanted to but he also knew that kind of ostentatiousness would stick out like a sore thumb for a mob guy like him. He didn't need any extra attention put upon him, especially after he'd just given Joey "Fuck Face" a pair of cement shoes.

Watching La Boheme, he felt at home, remembering all those times he heard his father singing along to it on the radio whilst making one of his legendary Cavatelli with Pork Ragu.

Mikey was never happier than listening to act one of La Boheme where the poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimi sang their individual arias before launching into their ecstastic duet 'O Soave Fanciulla'. But when the scene ended, he felt a sadness in his heart that he would probably never experience a connection that perfect with a woman in his own life.

But as the onstage couple reached their vocal climax, he suddenly noticed a hand placed on his knee and was taken out of his immersion in this scene into the reality  of his own seat.

"What the fuck?!"

It was only after he uttered those three immortal words that he found himself immediately undone by the owner of the hand staring back at him whilst surrounding audience members shushed him.

"Hey! Get da fuck out of here with your shushing!"

Turning back to face the culprit of the incident, Mickey was face to face with the person sitting alongside him.

"I'm sorry. I forgot myself. The music is just so beautiful."

A woman, the most beautiful woman to Mikey's eyes, was sweetly smiling back at him and had now removed her hand from his knee.

"I honestly don't know what came over me."

Mikey, still trying to temper his aggravation with the shushers all around him was suprised at his calm response.

"Puccini. Puccini is what came over you."

The woman beamed as Mikey now noticed tears in the corners of her eyes.

"Yes. You're so right. Puccini is like a God to mortals like me."

"He was mortal too, you know? He killed ducks. Did you know that?"

But before she could answer, the curtain began to raise for act 2 and Mikey and the nameless woman became absorbed in the opera once more.

No further contact was made between the two of them during act 2. Marcello's and Musetta's hysterics in Paris didn't lend themselves to further accidental intimacy between the two strangers.

But act 3 was an entirely different matter.

As the delicate flutes and harp accompanied the sound of guards singing at the beginning of the wintry scene outside the gates of a snow covered inn, Mikey felt his heart pumping hard which seemed incongruous with the sparse serenity of Puccini's music. His pulse hardly ever raced this fast, but right now he could feel the surge of adrenalin through his veins.

He waited what seemed an interminable amount of time before looking across at the beautiful woman sitting next to him. She quickly averted her gaze from him.

She still hadn't gotten over her clasping of his knee in act one, but sensed that perhaps there was an element of destiny with her unconsious impulsive gesture.

It wasn't until the lovers onstage were in the process of saying their farewell that Mikey opened his left hand as way of invitation for the woman to place hers in his.

At first it wasn't forthcoming but eventually he felt her slender hand slide on top of his palm and their hands locked for the remainder of the opera. She wasn't to know the evil actions of the hand she held, only that she had found a companion who shared her love of opera.

As for Mikey, he couldn't be sure anything would last longer between them than the opera itself but was pleasantly surprised when the woman agreed to join him for a late supper at Patsy's.

"I didn't catch your name, by the way?"

"Clarissa."

"Hey, that's a nice name. Clarissa. Yeah, I like that."

Sat at his favourite table in the restaurant, Mikey was a perfect gentleman, making sure that Clarrisa had everything she wanted from her drink to the best dish he thought to recommend for her.

"You really got to try the sausage here. It's something else, I'm telling you."

Clarissa smiled.

"I'm a vegetarian."

"You are? Does that include chicken?"

She nodded, laughing at his childlike way of talking.

"Well I'm sure we can find something that'll work for you here."

After ordering food, the sound of Jimmy Roselli singing on the restaurant stereo drifted through the place and Mikey felt sure that there was something bigger at play here than just a chance meeting. This felt like some sort of divine intervention.

"I just knew something good would happen going to all these operas."

Clarissa smiled.

"I know what you mean. It's an energy thing. You gravitate towards beauty and you find even more beauty."

"Hey. I found you, didn't I?"

At which point he put his hand out for her to hold.

"Eh. Your tiny hand ain't so frozen. It's pretty warm."

The couple laughed, comfortable with Mikey's bad joke and their mutual sentimentality.

What Mikey failed to notice, so bedazzled was he with Clarissa, were the assassins watching him from a booth at the opposite end of the restaurant.

Walking Clarissa home to her apartment, snow began to fall just like it did in act 3 of La Boheme.

"I wish I could sing like they do on stage. I would sing right now."

"Why don't you?" she suggested.

"I'm too embarrassed. How about you? I bet you have a sweet voice."

Clarissa shook her head.

"Come on. Sing for me."

"I did actually train to sing opera for awhile but I was told I'd never make it by this stuck up conductor at my first audition. I never got over it."

"Who the fuck was that guy? I want his name."

Clarissa could see that Mikey was deadly serious but urged him to calm down.

"Let me hear you sing. I'll be judge of whether you could make it. I heard plenty of opera."

Finally, giving in to Mikey's wish, Clarissa began to open her mouth to sing ...

"Si. Mi Chiamano Mimi"  

She stopped suddenly, her mouth frozen in shock as blood appeared through her white blouse where her heart was.

As she fell to the ground, Mikey caught her in his arms as a car speeded away close by.

Mikey found himself powerless to keep her alive as she struggled to breath, his hands now covered in her blood and he found himself unable to stem the endless crimson rivulets.

Weeping over her dead body, Mikey had gone from playing the part of Rodolfo to Rigoletto in just a few hours.

Dedicated to Ray Liotta 1954-2022