The STEP OF AIS
THE PLATE "ONE" by Enzo Faenza
Francuccio was twenty years: after all, these, 'or into' alley, "one of many in Naples. His family of five persons, occupied for years a "pied'-to-earth", a "studio" that not long ago had been a florist's shop. The morning of the Assumption, the mother, to release the smell of so much humanity compressed for so many hours in a few square meters, but did not open the windows raised the portcullis. So every morning, with the creaking of the old gate, for Francuccio and family life resumed. And what a life!? Dad Gigino, physical disappointing, low, lean, with sunken cheeks De Filippo, was the holder of a record: in 60 years had never worked. Occasionally, good-naturedly, smiling, trying to invoke and plausible explanations adduced ... to 'war,' nephritis 'or' cowardly and sinnaco buciardo "... but then Assumption, mercifully, the stoppava and its curriculum to be returned Fourth Mystery of Fatima. Conversely Assumption was a beautiful woman and as a condemnation of divine punishment, had always worked. His life was spent to clean house in this or that lady, to wash the stairs of this or that building: the Vomero, a Mergellina in St. Lucia! It was in St. Lucia that one day the lawyer Ayala, yes, the famous lawyer, gave her a rose and whispered: "Assu you are female and Napule cchiù beautiful and ..." But she ran into the alley disturbed and confused. And it was there, "into or 'alley', when Cyrus, the elder son, who had taken" the place "in the Railways, he returned for the first time in Bologna Alfetta with flaming red! Cyrus, the great Ciruzzo! The only living native who had managed to escape from the "rubbish in alley" ... Where you are also stealing each other between the neighbors. Where Massimino, the old son of Totonno "Cuoccio and 'fierr" came and went on "vacation" from Nisida: the last time he was caught by police while three other peers, scorazzava happy for the center, driving a stolen Volvo ! Where Marisa, just turned 17 years, remaining as a prostitute, but, miraculously, "semprevergine"! Where Nicholas, or 'boss, tall, handsome, strong, with a ponytail, reviewing his troops and his lovers, his forearm showed that resembled the deck of the Nimitz, with the solemn tattoo: "Mother, forgive me for what I did! " Where Francuccio was perhaps the last hope ... He, in fact, unlike other guaglioni, also had political ideas, had the "big dream" that something could change and could remain living there, all in a dignified manner. And these ideas, and these dreams, they shared with Mariangela, a beautiful student of Salerno who was in love with him, hearing him play guitar and sing "princess" and "Light My Fire"! Li shared with many friends who lived "fore or 'alley', in other districts, other places of the beautiful and painful Naples.
That day I was invited to lunch at the home of Francuccio.
Assunta had prepared "everything" in the back room used as a kitchen and brought to the table steaming dishes with great emotion: it was the first time that a "student" dined at his house! We began to eat some tasty rigatoni "sauce" shyly exchanging a few words. Soon, however, the first course was over for everyone. Someone made the shoe and ended
Assumption that task well and, strangely, did not get up to go in
back room. Then Gigino poured wine into my glass, I poured more of the Assumption in his and, in turn, everyone else in them. We went to lunch so drinking, drinking, drinking! And we laughed, we laughed, we laughed and we beffammo, we beffammo, we beffammo and eventually stumbled, we hugged, we hugged, we hugged. Assumption is not never got up to go into the kitchen and the dish of rigatoni was "unique" in every sense!
My story ends here. I do not recommend you continue reading: the move in space and time often results in unnecessary suffering ... word of Sloth!
When I got back in the alley a few years later, I found the old abandoned flower shop with the shutters half open. I put a rush a passer-by who in turn asked me "Who Francuccio? Vuie maybe try Francuccio or 'mariunciello, or' communist?! What was stealing in the apartments? Is up to Bologna, and makes cleaning and integrated 'train! But what Mariangela !? She married Marisa and we had three children, but it is ... "ever virgin"!
23/12/2006
27/01/2007 THE STEP OF AIS
Bad Education by Enzo Faenza
That day came in three. The secretary of a vest and blue striped shirt, almost elegant, and the two janitors, one in blue scrubs along to the foot, from the primary hospital, the other with pants that reached almost to the throat, held up by a belt probably crumpled inherited from his paternal grandfather.
"What cazz 'Vonn' chist 'ogg'?" Fonzo immediately swore very, very upset
by the sudden appearance of the three. He, Fonzo, was my classmate:
the last one in the bottom of one of the many, large classrooms of elementary school
"Edmondo De Amicis." That hidden place, a few miles from the chair, was historically reserved for "dummies", the "repeating" the "malamenti" I was a special guest for my particular height. It was the place, that, together with the destruction and formation. As the teacher explained, there is traded in or bartered Panini stickers pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, notebooks and tires were stolen from the front rows of nerds. Once ricettata and was sold a copy of the catechism. He learned well, actually, the first elements of economy and trade. Every now and then, early and ill-controlled hormonal flows forced the greatest to hold the first, even practices, sex education classes. It was a place, that, so to speak, very visceral, a lot of material. How absolutely materials were the reasons why, Fonzo, I was very fond. In the morning, just arrived, always late, I immediately wondered how my sandwich was stuffed. The first rap of the day was traditionally his. On time, every day, was caught by the teacher, with puffy cheeks, and gulped half of my "breakfast". "Fonzo, how many times must I repeat that you have to wait to eat the recreation hour!?" And what is was "recreation"? An appointment mystic, a religious event, a second creation of God? Boh! In those years our mother tongue was a dialect and '"Italian" was a language often, very often foreign. And then Fonzo certainly could not wait a second creation of God: he makes-me! He belonged to a poor family and had told me that my mother every morning, so preparing some "breakfast", but they were too many, just too many of those who got up before it usufruiva, others were in hand. Fonzo liked me because I had given him the only "Bic" of his new life, with the cap intact, not chewed. Fonzo liked me because, occasionally, I passed, "under the table", a 'sticky toffee that filled temporarily and hypoglycemic phases ipoaffettive.
That day "came in three," the secretary pulled out a sheet and began to recite the names. One by one, some of our companions reached tame the chair. Someone whispered that they would go to another
classroom: they were too bright and disturbing the "peace", the good performance of a
class model (perhaps a school class?). That day was the year 1866, sorry 1966, a hundred years before the publication of the mythical, deamicisiano "Heart" ... and yet they came and were in three.
Ad un certo punto, nell'aula, improvviso ma assolutamente previsto , riecheggiò il cognome di Fonzo… ma Fonzo non si mosse
Il cognome fu ripetuto, questa volta con più enfasi… ma Fonzo non si mosse. Egli mi guardò negli occhi e mi tranquillizzò: "Io nun' me ne vac', io rest' cu' ttè!" I due bidelli, allora, ad un cenno perentorio del segretario, avanzarono gagliardi verso di lui.
Fonzo repentinamente si attaccò al banco, lo abbracciò come un cobra, cominciò a gridare come un forsennato. " Iatevenn', ricchiun', iatevenn'!" esclamò un' ultima volta… Fonzo non si mosse, fu portato via.
Io rimasi solo, in quel vecchio banco monoblocco, ma solo fisicamente:
con la fantasia di bambino,quel giorno, e per qualche tempo,seguii Fonzo… Nella realtà, invece, lo vidi, solo qualche altra volta, nel grande corridoio della scuola; lo vidi ancora, poi, qualche anno dopo, con un fisico da Silvester Stallone, mentre scaricava brontolando un camion. Poi, non lo vidi più.Un giorno, su un quotidiano, lessi che lo avevano arrestato: non ricordo dove e perché. Ricordo, invece, molto bene, che nel catturarlo i gendarmi, pardon i carabinieri, avevano imprecato il suo cognome ma…Fonzo non si era mosso, era stato portato via! Chi si muove o si muove troppo nella vita, è un perdente…parola di bradipo!
Ah dimenticavo! Ogni riferimento a persone, fatti o luoghi è assolutamente casuale: non è mai esistita una scuola elementare "De Amicis", io e un certo Fonzo non l'abbiamo mai frequentata, lui non è stato mai "deportato" o arrestato e, ancora adesso, nel 2007, nello spirito della nostra avanzata democrazia, nelle scuole, di ogni ordine e grado, le classi vengono composte
con un meticoloso sorteggio degli alunni!?
03/03/2007 THE STEP OF AIS
TWO TREES BEYOND THE WALL Enzo Faenza
For one reason I want to go back to being a child: to wash myself, once again, the face with the rose petals on the morning of the feast of the Ascension! The peasant grandmother filled a basin of water and made you fall into lots of freshly picked rose petals. We then grandchildren, in turn, hands together, eyes closed, the mixture attingevamo miraculous. The icy water, the smell of rose petals They grabbed wet to the skin: a strange sensation ran through our bodies and our souls ... until riaprivamo eyes ... And instantly reappeared grandmother smiling, satisfied for having made to reunite with nature ... the simple, ancient, joyful rite!
Now that grope in this present made of the city, made of concrete on each side,
where a smell of "roasting" from the industrial area forces me to amletiche reflections (appìlo or appìlo? That's is the question), but now that, while watching, touching, listening bradipamente, I happen to share the chirping of birds with the toilet discharge tenant upstairs ... now how am I still "reunite"? How can I ever annihilate, mingle with a nature which I now, and perhaps you, understand? Are not we forgetting any sense "natural"? The rain that can get wet and scivolarci hair on the face, the wistful sound of wind, the sudden and rapid pain of nettle sting, the absolute silence of a forest, a sky lit only by stars. I puzzling, therefore, those who want to preach to "retrain" the coast of Eboli (that of Battipaglia, around three or four pines, waiting patiently for a urination, collegial and focused, the new mayor and new administration for eufitotanasia ) now that, after the demolition of illegal housing is nearly back to its original purity, to a state that makes it again a "place" of nature! So let's leave this coast, "abbandoniamola" to itself: let the trees and animals that live there they reproduce, multiply wildly even undermining what we, in the past, we have built ... destroying. We return to a pine forest, a beach, a sea "free"! Unfortunately, however, can only dream ... or wait ... wait, even a few thousand years, you realize that the old Platonic thesis dealing with this policy the "philosophers" rather than the construction and dentists. O no!? Or maybe someone has already been released, managed to skip the "wall"? Yes, two living beings we have already succeeded in Battipaglia, being Domodossola. There are two "green", two young men, perhaps children of the wind, two splendid poplars. They were born and raised in an abandoned field, beyond the wall of the "new" public garden. Nobody has planted these trees, no one has ever cared. If no rain, if not the sun, if not nature! They are there ... silent ... perhaps clarify that, because we are idiots to believe they can restrict, fenced with barbed wire, walls, barriers of all kinds, plants, animals, rivers, and often ... the dreams and ideas of other men.
