The Wall
Andrea Andrea has sixty years.
Just today.
A warm sun decides to celebrate and then comes out on top of a cloud of microscopic confetti of light flooding the road. Pat the face of Andrew, first the forehead, cheeks round, but dug by the plow passes age. A ray
warmer touches his eyes still closed.
Annoyance forces Andrea to open them, repeatedly slamming his eyelids still impregnated with vague dreams, without rhyme or reason.
Shoes. For over thirty years
the first thing he sees when he wakes Andrea are the shoes.
Dozens, hundreds of shoes that go up and down the sidewalk.
There are shoes in a hurry, almost running. Other lazy crawl, others proceed in steps, discarding the shoes that are broken down and meet them at a quick pace. Some
recognizes, Andrea. Those shiny
lawyer with the firm on the street corner, those with thin heels secretary owl always ironed shirt and skirt, those courts, and crossed by cracks of old black dirt, the boy's record store.
Luckily it has not rained last night.
Andrea hates having to wake up suddenly, quickly drag and the fury that has cardboard as a mattress and the carpet worn using as a blanket. He hates to run away, slip into the underground subways, or worse, in the lobby of the station.
It 'full of fools and pieces of shit, there. Shits and criminals. People
Which takes her pants, if you have a heavy sleep.
Andrea launches a full-mouth yawn, focus better, look at the digital clock is on top of the billboard advertising, which marks either the time, date and temperature.
must own that you raise, it's almost nine.
Andrea does not love lounging in the morning.
stood up grunting with the effort.
The baggy pants and the pockets lateral tear. The coarse and heavy flannel shirt over chess. And a couple of amphibious purple feet, found at the Grand Emporium, the municipal landfill. All he
, Andrea wears it.
And do you know, Andrea, of course I know.
knows that is aging.
know what day it is.
Sa who is now sixty years.
But above all, knows that no one else knows. Andrea
officially does not exist. No longer exists.
to anyone.
not always gone well, Andrea.
His life has not always been so similar to that of a dog shit left to dry on the pavement.
Andrea threw out the first tears the dawn of the three forty-seven of May. A knowing, perhaps, those tears would be kept for other occasions. It would need more later.
In theory, born two years after the war ended, with the frame of a city of smoldering rubble and broken lives, is not what defines a great shot of her ass.
In theory, yes. But not to Andrea.
Life Andrea has always been a little pier in theory.
Andrea's father was rich, very rich.
rich before the war, full and rich during the war after the war.
usually works this way, for the rich. They always are.
And Andrea's father was so rich that he had been sent to the front, like everyone else, but he soon found a way to turn the most horrible of human experiences in a kind of tourism at high risk.
in those days - and even after, it seems - the most effective way to not be included among the thousands of faceless names that should fire, crawling on the ground, divided spongy and tasteless cakes, die, holding his guts coming out of the belly, in short, the best way to be a soldier without being a soldier, was to pay, pay very good officers.
as large sheets of notes and the father of Andrea had to have several.
had been in Greece before, then in Yugoslavia.
But always in the back, with ridiculous tasks of the office, pat touched by accomplices of lieutenants. Or, at worst, a Pelara potatoes in the kitchen tent.
an ambush, in fact.
Then, when things were made too bad, too bad for an ambush, the notes had been left him still enough to corrupt anyone who gets parasse front and managed to escape, making a circuitous tour through Austria, the ' Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria again, to arrive in Switzerland at the end. Bringing with them 'what would become the mother of Andrea, a beautiful girl from Budapest, high, blackberry, docile and lips of silk. Aesthetically
really disproportionate and stocky man with a double chin. Excessive, but certainly not insensitive to the strange Italian lisa in uniform and without two buttons that everyone, somehow, smiled and left the pitch.
After the war, the future parents of Andrea took to Italy.
The father was not a deserter to be shot and then returned to do what they could do better, grind money, it damn easy already having a lot 'by, and those with a stream of ideas, a way for unscrupulous business.
And above all, a very thin moral threshold.
The successful man in a perfect world refugee, filled with nothing but misery and despair.
The mother first became married.
Then she became pregnant and began the exciting career of his wife and, of course, the mother of Andrea. Already
: Andrea.
That boy's name for a plump and curly bimbotta. What
oddity. In Hungary it is normal
, always said the mother of Andrea.
will also be normal in Hungary, but here, at school, I take all the piss , would gladly have answered Andrea. But
challenge - and say ass - in the fifties of last century it was a verb forbidden to minors.
Especially good for families to minors.
So Andrea, Andrea, the girl, he gave his name as a boy without a word and took the piss of the offspring of the upper class. A barter
acceptable after all, in exchange for tons of toys every week invaded his daughter's room lucky.
Andrea's father was rarely at home.
was always busy, always working, always around the world. Morocco, Russia, Scotland, United States, wherever your company finding markets.
Every time she came back from his travels, Andrea was a doll and a new dress typical of those faraway places and full of magic for a little girl locked in her own world, filled to the brim by mom, school and parish. A protective
world.
A beautiful world, without anguish, without fear.
full of friends, the sunny afternoons and petulant, caresses and yawning.
a happy world.
Only a little 'tight.
From small to Andrea's unique problems of social interaction came to Carnival. That having a boy's name, a wealthy family, a life marked by the obligations of a certain part of upper class society, are things that do not prevent a child's wish for a normal dress like a princess, or fairy - as those of all other always said Andrea - Holiday on Thursday and Fat Tuesday, which filled with noisy kids villas in the hills people.
But no.
Andrea's parents believed the Carnival the best opportunity to show off their rank, to emphasize what the father was respectable and important to update the same caste on the new countries of the world colonized by the company.
Then, with deliberate cruelty, but relentless, just those imposed by Andrea folk dresses bought around the world: complete with kilts and bagpipes of Scotland, the kaftan - with lots of brown greasepaint smeared on her face - from the Morocco, the embarrassing cowboy outfit, complete with wide brimmed hat and spurs.
memorable was the celebration of Carnival of fifty-four: seeing her dressed in the fur, the jacket embellished by grommets and boots, peers spent the whole afternoon to make up songs Andrea, the little Cossack .
Those little shits.
However, the name and carnival celebrations aside, things went just fine for Andrea, in those years.
It certainly could be called his childhood happy.
Then the clothes stopped coming.
His father had decided that, ultimately, with the same arguments with which he deceived the mother of Andrea, he could afford a wagon compliant secretaries. And since the divorce in Italy was late in coming, simply and suddenly, he disappeared.
Someone said he went to live in Canada, but did not change the substance for Andrea.
Dad was gone.
And with him a lot 'of dolls, parties and security.
Andrea grew quickly. It grows quickly when you have to run.
He made beautiful, Andrea, filled in the right places.
And the smell of his youth for a while 'he was able to cover the smell of gin that was the room where the mother was closed more often.
Just for a while '.
Then when the empty bottles spilling over from under the bed, up out of the room, Andrew decided he'd had enough. And who cares of the house, the memories of those three pounds in the bank account still not drinking from the mother. He escaped at night
Andrea, and ran with Julius, a porter and off like a closet with a beautiful voice heavy smoker.
three years were wonderful.
with empty pockets, but with a heart full of honey and butterflies.
Andrea and Julius.
A and G.
I wrote on a wall of the warehouse where he worked Giulio, surrounding the two initials with a huge heart and from the perimeter uncertain.
Only initials.
they do not think that we are two gay , said Julius.
Well ', he had just said gay , Giulio.
Here, at last.
There he thought he was looking for, here it is.
The best memory of his whole life.
Andrea now knows what to do.
knows how to celebrate. He knows how to exist.
For some, Andrea has been important. And now it will be again.
least for herself.
enough to go back to the wall, then faded heart, those two initials prisoners and happy.
Just to shout to the world to be alive. To be passed here.
Andrea takes cardboard, folded it into the carpet. The
against the wall, near the bins. The scavengers are well aware that his stuff is, which is the bed of the tramp who smells of alcohol, do not ever take away.
You walk down the avenue. The bottle is wrapped in a paper bag of bread, Andrea keeps it in his hand as if it contained all the gold in the world.
In the mouth, a paste that smells of rancid garbage.
But today it does not matter. Today the air that inflates the gown brought her a gift. That memory, his birthday cake.
No matter where on earth is over Julius.
No matter smeno have a whole life away camping on the street.
now in the mind of Andrea has covered all the excitement of impalpable glaze and intoxicating.
Now the wall will tell you that there's more.
not seen him since the end of the story with Giulio. But the hour of revenge has come. A sixty-one years that the wall will return the piece of his presence.
As he walks slightly bent to one side, Andrea plunged back into his life.
But it's worth looking back at last. No more fighting back nothing.
The path that is making walking and memory travel hand in hand. One supports the other, every step of Andrew, today, it's worth two. The
hitchhiking to England. Another step, or rather two. The barrel
taken by the police as he tried to climb over the fence to the concert of Patty Smith. Another step, or rather two.
The cold of that night spent naked with a thousand other people at the pond that the City had set up with the companions of LSD. Another step, or rather two.
Katmandu view over the back of a pickup truck stopped on the way out of pity. Another step, or rather two.
Sex and the era, without ever and ever without feeling any emotion, another step, or rather two.
Then the darkest years, where those who had lived only utopia was no longer a human being, but a sin to be expiated, to be shut in the closet of the horrors of history.
But no matter, really does not matter now.
The memory walking bent to one side, puffing hard work and shit that gallops in the veins, which enters and exits the pump to feel tired Andrea somersaults in the middle of the chest.
Okay, so berissimo.
's all bloody, bloody and beautiful. In a few minutes
Andrea will return.
that was enough.
The wall is on the other side of town.
no longer had to see it, it should no longer remember. It was another banana peel to throw away. And Andrea was only boxes that used to sleep.
Better then use the distance as a closet.
Just think back to Andrea today that air has a very good taste, even when soaked in wine on the taste goes bad.
Only now trudging down the street sense.
Only now, Andrea, have a place to go. Tira
slimy that you print a gob of spit on the ground with a snap liquid.
Turn the corner.
The climb to the piazza of the store does not weigh more. Every step it is really two. Andrea
in gasoline happiness. The best fuel the world. Inexhaustible.
A smile stretches the corners of the mouth. He feels open cracks in the edges of the lips. How long have you not smile?
Skip the square, slips into a dark alley. The boys perched on the parked scooter look like a circus animal.
Go fuck .
Another step that is worth two.
Two other avenues of trees.
The race at breakneck speed with the local supermarket clerk who follows her and cries son of a bitch, another step, or rather two.
The thought that the salesman was right after all, not even really know it, another step, or rather two
Turn right, two more blocks.
discs of the Sex Pistols and the Clash hidden under his sweatshirt when the anti-theft devices do not yet exist. Another step, or rather two.
The entrance to the disco by the back door of the two paid mouthpieces of the gorilla slimy that garrisoned the back door. Another step, or rather two.
Some hundred meters.
The toilet bowl that is filled with splashes of acid slurry, the contractions of the stomach where it can not send more than down, and then hunt up all of a sudden. Another step, or rather two.
The blister of pills bought at the park in exchange for a Toxic dose. Another step, or rather two.
Twenty meters.
only twenty meters. Of breath, regurgitation sent down the esophagus. Veins that throb at the temples. Andrea sweats.
If you only remember that this is called emotion. Here
the corner, the last place to turn, a basket overflowing with paper marks the finish line. Andrea Giulio
think. For him, it existed. Only for him.
And now there will, again and again.
Another step. Last. Andrea
around the corner.
A mall as colorful Harlequin fills the eyes.
The store is gone. The wall is gone.
A and G are gone. There is no longer the heart is drawn.
There is a fast-food yellow as piss, there on the ground floor.
Julius is gone. There is nothing. There are more steps.
The sun makes a great light, today.
Strange, he thinks that the pimply boy standing behind the counter of the fast-food restaurants.
could have sworn I saw a homeless person on the street corner. A matter of seconds, maybe less.
Instead there is only a heap of rags, a heavy sweater, a pair of tattered pants, a flannel shirt. And two amphibious purple absurd.
People throw away all .
Fellow of the boy's pimply ago Oh, you spellbound? Have you seen a ghost?
The boy shakes his head as if to release the hallucination.
other side of the city's street sweepers thrown in a trash compactor truck cardboard and old carpet.
The ghosts do not exist, he thinks the boy spotty.
Then beat the ticket for two and a cheese-coche burgher.
