On Earth as It Is in Heaven by Davide Enia

outside of Palermo, in Bagheria, in the courtyard of a school, with only a few spectators. His opponent was a father from Siracusa, age thirty-three, tipping the scales at 298 pounds, with broad shoulders, giant hands, a hairy chest, and good eyes. Umbertino was no longer the trash-talking youngster who until just seven months earlier was slaughtering citizens in the alleyways of Palermo. He’d discovered new muscles. He was acquiring an impeccable technique. He danced on the tips of his toes and he was damned fast. He fought like a veteran, focused and measured. His maestro had made a few offhand comments to the effect that he might actually have a shot at winning something big.
    Il Negro didn’t show up in Bagheria. Umbertino never found out why. He finally tracked his maestro down late that same night at the Taverna Azzurra, drunk as a skunk. He sat down at his table without asking a thing. He sat there in silence, watching his maestro steadily destroy himself. The minute Il Negro finally passed out, Umbertino threw him over his shoulder and carried him home.
    He’d won the fight by a knockout in the second round. The Syracusan’s eyes were two puddles of blood.
    Il Negro stopped drinking, cold, the next day.
    â€œHe was all boxer in his head, so when he set out to do something he just did it, in a way that left everyone else with no option but to suck his dick.”
    He was there for Umbertino’s next twenty-one bouts.
    Unlike many other trainers, he almost never said a word. When they met at ringside between rounds, he’d ask: “How are you doing, Umberto?” The arrogance of the answer was enough to reassure him. Il Negro delivered his orders with a calm that would brook no transgressions. Generally speaking, his instructions never varied: to take a specific punch in a specific part of the body in order to test his opponent’s power.
    â€œAnd then?” Umbertino asked.
    â€œKill him.”
    Twenty-one bouts.
    Twenty-one knockouts.
    Il Negro explained the rules of boxing to him and the underlying logic of the division by weight into different categories. Umbertino trained and listened. Il Negro told him which attacks scored points and which didn’t and which ones were necessary to demolish the opponent’s fortress. Umbertino got better and stronger, growing from one fight to the next. Il Negro told him the story of the finest fights in a career—his career—that had been interrupted when he was drafted. He taught him to understand his opponent by the way he used his feet. Umbertino went on disfiguring every boxer who dared to challenge him. Il Negro told him about Billy Bob Bartelli, also known as “The Wizard of Brooklyn,” and Foster “The King” Monroe, a redheaded Scotsman with the finest footwork he’d ever seen. He confided in Umbertino the story of when he fought for the middleweight title and lost.
    â€œWhat about you, Umbè?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, what about me, Maestro?”
    There was no point in answering him.
    The Italian heavyweight title.
    The goal had been established.
    The first match in the legendary series of twenty-one consecutive knockouts by the boxer-trainer duo of Umbertino and Il Negro was in the summer of 1946. The last one came in December 1949. Between those two dates were a series of unofficial fights, all of which ended with the opponent flat on his back on the mat.
    They lived together, in the Vuccirìa, in Piazza Garraffello. They illegally occupied the upper floor of the still-intact wing of a palazzo that had been hit by bombs. They had set up a dignified little apartment there: two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a small terrace where they could bring women. With the prize money from the fights, they managed to get by.
    They started talking about whether it would be a good idea to start a boxing gym together.
    â€œThere’s not a fucking thing in Palermo, what do you say,