Alessandro had had enough. He stepped off of his rowing machine and wiped his face with the towel hanging around his neck. "Stop it, Dandoli", he said.

Pietro - overweight and with hanging tits standing out under his sweaty shirt, turned slowly and looked Alessandro up and down. "Did you say something, fag?" He held his palm behind his ear. "I heard a feeble whisper."

Alessandro twisted his mouth. "I said stop it. Do you need a hearing aid?"

Pietro showed his best baby-face, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "Not at all, boss. We've had a nice talk. Gondi wanted to show me the ... rowing machine."

Mario's eyes darted through the room. He saw Lauro, still standing stock-still and tense, rubbing his stomach. Ivano, the little ferret with eyes too close together, was sitting nonchalantly upon a chest. He noticed Sandro's clenched fists.

Pietro and Ivano whistled. "Woohoo, a shower together!" Ivano jumped down from the chest and pranced with a limp wrist through the room. By the strap of his gym shirt Mario pulled him closer to his chest. "I said, no trouble, Dandoli", he hissed. "Your tobacco ration is cancelled for tomorrow."

Ivano grumbled, but gave in without a fight. Pietro clapped his hands and laughed at Ivano. Mario, briefly closing his eyes, said with calm voice: "Your ration as well, Zardi." Pietro pulled a face. Then a sly grin appeared upon his moon face as his little eyes darted agilely between Mario, Alessandro and Lauro. It was all too clear what he was thinking. Then he hurried to follow his buddy Ivano out.

Lauro nodded absentmindedly and rushed out of the room.

Mario sensed the hurt, although Alessandro's voice was indifferent. He stepped to him and took Alessandro's shoulders. Automatically Alessandro draw back and threw a nervous glance to the monitors. Mario set him free and beckoned him to follow. Outside Mario said with a low voice "It's the same situation that brought you to jail, Sandro. You must not be provoked by that stuff again."

Alessandro stood at the foot of the stairs. "So I should put up with this shit? They don't understand any other language than to punch their mouths. I've learnt to know them, believe me. "

Alessandro stood and stared. First into nothing, than at Mario's arse, walking in front of his nose. He repressed his urge to be comforted in a foreign bed, by a foreign man. Sometimes it was all right. But most of the time Alessandro was glad if he could figure out his pain for himself. No need to show weakness like Lauro.

He crossed his legs and watched them one after the other, sitting in a circle. He smiled.

Again he watched the faces in the round. "An incident yesterday made me change the topic for today." He gave a brief glance to Lauro who blushed and had his head bent down to his chest. "Our topic for today will be: The right is with the strongest."

Alessandro moaned inwardly. What was this crap about. In the imagination of the do gooders and therapists that the world might appear as a doll's house, that they can paint and trim with their enthusiasm. Where they could shove the puppets wherever they wanted them , but in reality it didn't work that way. Mario was one of those people, believing in the good of all humans. Alessandro didn't do that anymore.

Mario leaned forward. "Interesting. And who do you think is responsible for that?"

Alessandro shrugged.

Mario's eyes lit up. "That's the point, Benno. What's the task for the trade unions?"

Someone suppressed a laugh.

Mario raised his brows. "He isn't? You all belong to the grey mass who hide because you want to be left alone. But that's not the meaning of this institution. You all have more or less quite a record, starting by repeated theft to manslaughter. It makes no sense to balance the deeds out against one against each other and to elect those who have done the most, as leader."

Alessandro thought Mario had no sense of reality. Or it had got lost behind these walls. Besides, I would have to be their leader then, he continued. And heaven may protect us from a violent, perverted gay as leader.

Alessandro shouted inwardly with laughter. This couldn't be true. "How's that?" he said aloud. "When one is lost for arguments then there will be peace? But, Mario! That's crap! If we are lost for arguments and words, then the war starts. Don't you understand? It works this way all over the world, in a village or in a metropolis, at home or in the big wide world. You can't improve the people."

Mario leaned his forearms upon his knees. "Stick together and take responsibility for each other. You aren't here to be hurt by your fellow prisoners, but to learn something for yourself. During your stay here you should use it to ponder who you are and what you want in your life. Dandoli and Zardi can only hurt you as long as every single one of you is alone. As soon as you are together, you are strong."

Alessandro followed Mario's gestures. He was right of course. But still: the world followed different rules. Mario started from false assumptions, namely that there would be no resistance. But resistance challenged resistance. Dandoli and Zardi and all their mindless and mediocre buddies wouldn't give up. The problem was much deeper. It wasn't about a show strength. From Luca he had learnt that weakness could be a strength too and that sometimes taking a detour was the shorter way.

Elmo whistled to himself, turned and presented his cock, that was rock hard because Elmo had clutched the root of it. Alessandro had hardly seen a similar, exciting length before.

Exciting? One look into Elmo's stupid, lecherous face, and he knew that he would never be turned on, the length could be as extraordinarily as it wanted. Elmo rubbed his palm up and down, until the veins appeared and the piece of flesh between his fingers went dark red like a well- hung piece of beef.

The laughter echoed from the tiled walls. Alessandro saw that Lauro had turned off the shower and hurried to the exit. Others followed. So much for Mario's attempts at conversion. But he saw Benno was still standing and watching. He had forgotten to rinse off the soap that covered his body.

Quick as lightning Alessandro turned and groped for Elmo's cock. He clutched it painfully hard and tugged Elmo with it close to his chest. "You nasty piece of a ratfink. Go and fuck one of your buddies, but leave me alone."

Elmo laughed high pitched in anger and fear. He stepped backward and bumped into Benno who stood behind him with folded arms. "Go to the girls and show off with that."

Elmo, suddenly unsure, slid around Benno and snatched up his clothes.

Alessandro"


Alessandro heard the closing of the iron doors. One after the other they were shut closed and locked twice - so the nightly ritual went. At least they were greeted with a 'good night' when it was Guiseppe, the night guard. The heavy bunch of keys clattered from afar.

Alessandro, lying on his stomach, folding the written letter, didn't turn when his door was shut and locked. For a brief moment he thought he couldn't breath anymore. He feebly answered Guiseppe's wish, then he rested his head upon his forearms.

It was July and the cell was sticky. He could only tilt the window slats; in front of it there were grates. Almost eight months he'd been here now. To be exact: seven months and thirteen days. That made it all in all about two hundred and fifty days. That made it all in all... definitely too many minutes. Slowly he rolled to his side and was confronted with Luca's face on his drawing. The wide, dark eyes, so bright and soulful. The sensitive mouth that let escape a pearly laughter if Luca wanted to. And during their time together he often wanted to. And therefore Alessandro would do the hell and not tell Luca what really was going on here. That everything repeated itself. That again he was confronted with homophobic behaviour that made him feel so helpless. Helpless and angry. He couldn't control himself. Sometimes. He felt the same boiling hate he had felt that night in October when he had challenged Raniero Riefoli and his gang of stupid, drunken bastards.

Now he was dead and Alessandro still didn't know what to think. Talking about it with Mario and the group was useless to a certain extent because Alessandro didn't know himself what to feel. He should be aghast about himself. He was a murderer no matter if society called it manslaughter resulting in death, or an accident resulting in death or self-defence. It really didn't change the fact that a human was dead because of his deeds. Because he had taken a stone and crashed it on a human skull. How could he ever forget the sound?

And yet Luca's love was there as ever. Unchangeable and steady. Neither Franco nor Claudio, Tristano nor Rosso; not even Vito had mentioned the incident again. They were all acting as if Alessandro was at a summer camp and would come back as if nothing had happened. But that was just self-deception. Alessandro knew very well that he was changing his personality and that he would return to Luca as stranger.

Alessandro's eyes stroked Luca's face. For Luca's birthday he had given him a hand-made shirt, one of his first tailor's pieces. It didn't look that bad and it fit more or less. Alessandro gave a brief snort. Last year he had given him the precious lapis lazuli and this year... his hand searched under his pillow and produced the deep-blue lizard. He sat it upon his palm and watched it. The green serpentine-eyes seemed vivid and the stone shimmered with a silky surface. He wondered how long Luca had needed to polish it. Clutching the figure in his palm, he turned onto his back, turned off the light and closed his eyes. It was useless to ponder about his boyfriend. It just gave him nightmares. He'd rather think about the incident under the shower. It was nothing new for Alessandro that the guys were daring him. Apparently they thought for him - the fag - the daily shower must be a nightmare to see the naked guys and never been allowed to lay hands on them. Pah. They weren't not as half as alluring as they thought they were. And the rest were cowards, considering Mario's words of sticking together against the flock of bastards. Mario should know that the hierarchy within a prison is important to survive. No matter if this was a youth custody or an ordinary jail.

Benno was the only one Mario's words had fallen on fertile ground. Alessandro's lashes fluttered. Benno - the big baby with the rosy skin and the bald head - looked like a hooligan but he wasn't as half as threatening as he looked like. He had repeatedly dealt in drugs and his last sentence had lead to this imprisonment.

Alessandro's thoughts went on to Lauro, the kleptomaniac. Nobody had heard him ever talk about his past, his family or his friends. Mario said Lauro's lawyer had pleaded for absence of criminal liability because of a psychological disturbance, but the psychiatric report had explained Lauro was absolutely sane. Motives for kleptomania are different and very controversial. Mario said they argue about the term compulsion or addiction. And some say kleptomania is a substitution for suppressed wishes. Considering that Lauro had stolen things he didn't need, like a golden lighter, expensive cosmetics or a cashmere scarf, they assumed, Lauro did it just for the sake of doing it.

Perhaps he got a hard-on when he put something furtively into his pockets, Alessandro thought half-grinning before he drifted off.

Here are some paper clippings I hope you will receive. It's about the expedition to San Clemente, Rome. You remember the institute had sent out a group of scientists and archaelogists to examine the cemetery to possibly find the grave of Masaccio. Well, they weren't allowed to open all of the graves because of the sanctity of the corpses , but they were digging every other centimeter. Most likely there wasn't a single distinguishable bone left from Masaccio when he was buried in wet ground and earth. But read for yourself :-)"


Hastily Alessandro unfolded a sheet of a newspaper that had passed the censor.


"... It had been the final day of the expedition when the inside of the Santa Catherina- chapel was examined once more. By the recent renovation - though yet five years ago - two tondi with angel's heads had been found behind the altar that had hidden them for probably six hundred years. Both of the frescoes couldn't be assigned to either Masaccio nor Masolino. Since the diary of Masolino da Panicale had told us, Masacio's younger brother Giovanni had been with them for help (and entertainment) it is considered that it was him who drew the frescoes.

Expedition leader Professore Vicente Befano examined the wall and decided to have it x-rayed which showed a cavity holding a longish, let's say parcel. Befano saved the frescoes and decided to open the wall to discover a mummified corpse. Attached to the corpse was a leather bag with paint-stones, a collection of brushes and crumbled paper. According to Befano the scientists believe, that Masolino and Giovanni returned to give Masaccio a decent grave. And what could be easier as to lay him to rest in the chapel of his works..."