Don Camillo meets Hell’s Angels

by Giovanni Guareschi

  Don Chichi was saddened and indignant and said that it wasn’t possible for human beings to live in such squalor.

  “Father,” the woman replied, “we really don’t mind. It would be enough for us if the landlord would fix the roof, which leaks all the time, and put a window in that wall, because it’s always dark as night in here.”

  Piletti’s house wasn’t far off and Don Chichi went there with his jaw set. He found the old farmer in the stables and attacked him immediately. “Don’t you think it’s your duty to do something for those poor people?”

  Piletti spread his arms out. “And what can I do, Father? I went to the Mayor, I went to the police, and they all said I’d have to deal with it myself. The only thing left to do is rip the roof off the house, but I’ll have to wait till spring to do that.”

  “Rip the roof off?” Don Chichi shouted, horrified. “Your duty is to repair that roof, put some windows in, build some sanitary facilities—in other words, make that shack fit for human beings to live in!”

  Piletti gaped at him. “That slut with her tribe of mewling bastards snuck in one night from God knows where. I found them camping in my woodshed one morning, and when I tried to get them out of there, the woman started to scream about that was no way to treat victims of the flood, and since the babies were yelling as if I’d tried to tear out their insides, I had to let it pass for the time being.”

  “And you don’t feel the slightest responsibility toward those poor souls who had everything taken from them by the fury of the waters? Didn’t you see the devastation wrought in the flood areas on your television?”

  “Of course I did,” the old man roared, “but the floods happened three years ago and these people arrived here last June!”

  “Poverty is the same every year, sir!” Don Chichi affirmed. “Here is a poor widow with nine children and society has very clear duties toward those poor people!”

  “Well, I’m not society!” Piletti shouted. “I’m only the tiniest fraction of society, and it’s not fair for all of society’s burdens to weigh on me alone. Those people appropriated my woodshed, they steal from my orchard, they eat my chickens, they burn my wood, they milk my cows, they make off with my linen—and you say I should fix their roof and put a window in their wall and make the woodshed comfortable to live in? Listen, we can barely scrape together a living ourselves, and me, my wife, and my daughter work like slaves on this farm!”

  “That poor widow is young and hearty,” Don Chichi observed. “Why don’t you give her work?”

  Piletti let out a wail. “Father, this past summer, when it came to the tomato harvest, I had her and her oldest children working, I paid them union wages, and those ingrates denounced me as an exploiter of widows and orphans. They had an inspector from the Department of Labor come around, and between the fine and what those brats ate, it cost me a cow. As if that weren’t enough, when I reported the forcible occupation of my woodshed to the police, it was to protect myself against further lawsuits from the Department of Labor, who were about to prosecute me for not giving a salaried, resident employee a contract, working papers, health insurance, profit sharing, and a whole slew of other rubbish!”

  “But it’s the state’s duty to defend the workers’ rights!” Don Chichi protested.

  “And I suppose employers are a bunch of good-for-nothing bums who scratch their bellies for a living!” the old man roared.

  “Christ has said, ‘Woe unto those who deny the worker his just due.’”

  “I know,” the old man shrilled, “but that doesn’t say his just due is a Rolls-Royce! All these workers who come in to pick ten grapes for you suddenly aren’t satisfied with a Fiat or a Volkswagen and want you to provide them with Rolls-Royces to drive to work in!”

  Don Chichi was indignant. “Shame on you!” he exclaimed. “Making fun of the miserable conditions of the working class!”

  But he left, because at that moment Piletti had introduced his pitchfork into the argument and seemed prepared to hurl it as the clincher to his side of the debate.

  * * *

  Don Chichi felt himself entrusted with a sacred mission, and after describing the plight of the widow and her orphans, he said, “Don Camillo, we disagree about many things, but here you must stand beside me. Insofar as we can, we must help those poor people.”

  “Don Francesco,” the older priest answered, “I have one or two things to say on the subject, but I will restrain myself. Now that woman has nine children. We can take the youngest ones into the parish orphanage and give them clean clothes and something to eat.”

  “That’s something at least, Don Camillo, but I think about that poor boy who was walking barefoot talking to the angels. He seemed quite sensitive and intelligent. Let’s take him in with us. He can be the altar boy, he can bring around announcements to the people in the parish, he can keep the church and rectory tidy. We’ll give him decent clothes and food and what little money we can spare. Father, he said the most beautiful thing to me when I asked him how they managed to live: ‘We don’t know how, only the Good Lord knows, but it’s enough for us that He knows.’ That boy hasn’t let poverty and hunger and hard luck embitter his heart, which is what usually happens. His misery seems to inspire him, in fact, and bring faith in God, and it lets him talk to the angels. If we were to help him, we would nourish a calling in him that would probably make a fine priest one day. A true priest of the Church of the Poor, because he was born and has lived in poverty. Don Camillo, remember Matthew, where Christ identifies himself with the poor: ‘I was hungry and you gave me to eat … naked, and you covered me … as long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me.’ Don Camillo, remember Matthew and then remember Mark, Luke, and John: ‘Whosoever shall take a child like this one into his arms, shall take me in as well…’”

  Don Camillo remembered Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but forgot the rest of it.

  * * *

  Marcellino proved out what Don Chichi had predicted. He was a perfect altar boy and sang joyfully in the choir. He haunted the rectory all day long, always ready to jump on his bicycle to do an errand. He was gentle in manner and in looks, and on Sunday when he carried the collection plate through the pews, his smile squeezed coins out of the stingiest churchgoers. He spent long hours in the church talking to the angels or reading books Don Chichi lent him.

  One Sunday morning, after Mass had ended, Marcellino came up to Don Camillo in the sacristy. Holding out the collection plate full of money, he said in a sweet, humble voice, “Father, it’s time to talk about cuts.”

  “Cuts? What cuts?”

  “My cut,” Marcellino answered, smiling. “I collect the money and I have a right to a share of it. I deserve fifty per cent of it, but I’ll settle for forty-five.”

  Don Camillo gaped at him, perplexed. “Marcellino,” he said finally, “did the angels tell you this?”

  “No, Father,” the boy admitted, “I talk about other things with the angels.”

  “That puts a different light on things,” Don Camillo said, showing him the door with a kick on the seat of the pants. “Try not to let your face be seen around here ever again.”

  Marcellino disappeared without a word, but his mother turned up that afternoon. She was in full fighting trim and came forward in traditional battle phalanx, the youngest child in her arms, the four- and five-year-old daughters clinging to her flanks, and the other four children bringing up the rear guard. They invaded the rectory, and with dramatic gestures she pointed to her unhappy tribe, saying, “Father, you are ruining us by sending Marcellino away, just now when my poor Citti has lost her job in the city.”

  Don Camillo spelled out the predicament more clearly. “She didn’t lose her job, she lost her fourteenth job, and now she’s going to have to change her line of work.”

  At that time, slogans were all the rage, and a very popular one was, “The employer is always wrong.” For that reason there were people like the aforementioned Ci
tti, who got herself hired and after a while behaved so badly that her employer was forced to fire her. Then she would hotfoot it over to the unemployment bureau and denounce the employer for countless infractions of the labour laws. Instantaneously, officious functionaries would descend on the employer, confiscate his ledgers, put all his worldly goods under lock and key, and uncover unforgivable breaches of the labour laws, which they punished with enormous fines and “adequate compensation” for the deprived worker. It was a very ingenious system for avoiding work while still counting on an income and, more important, for making the despicable employer suffer. Citti had pulled this stunt fourteen times and had always gotten away with it, so that now, understandably, nobody would hire her.

  “It’s not her fault, poor dear, if all she’s ever found is dishonest bosses,” the woman protested. “You can’t throw Marcellino out—I’m a poor widow with nine children to feed!”

  “Nobody forced you to bring them into the world,” Don Camillo pointed out.

  “Father!” the woman exclaimed indignantly. “I’m not one of those sluts who uses the pill!”

  “I’m sure,” Don Camillo said calmly. “You’re just a slut who’s brought nine children into the world without ever having a single husband, and then you presume to demand that society should support you. Get out of here!”

  The woman left howling, vociferously supported by the squeals and whimpers of her seven children.

  Don Chichi, who’d been watching the scene without comment, now protested vigorously. “Don Camillo, a poor woman who’s protecting her young ones shouldn’t be treated like that.”

  “She’s not a poor woman and she’s not defending her young ones but asking them to defend her. Too many people bring herds of children into the world, only to hide behind their hunger and suffering. What a filthy racket that is!”

  “But it’s not the children’s fault!”

  “I’m not blaming the children for anything,” Don Camillo said, “I’m only saying there’s no point in encouraging, or worse, praising—which is what happens all the time now—their appalling parents. What we must do is prevent them from turning their children into so many enemies of society.”

  * * *

  Two days later, a furious functionary from the Department of Labor descended on the rectory.

  “You,” he said to Don Camillo, “had in your employ a thirteen-year-old boy and you made him work on holidays.”

  “Serving Mass is not work,” Don Camillo said. “It’s voluntary participation in a religious rite.”

  “Any activity producing something is work,” the functionary declared.

  “The Mass produces nothing concrete or material. It is a spiritual process,” Don Camillo said.

  The functionary laughed. “The theater doesn’t produce anything tangible either. However, it is an amusement, and so there’s such a thing as Actors’ Equity, whose members are protected by the labour laws. Unionwise, Mass can be considered a theatrical performance. The boy performed a function essential to it and should have been paid accordingly for his labour. And in fact he is entitled to overtime for working on holidays. He should have been given severance pay, and furthermore he should have had the proper working papers for employees of public institutions, as well as a Social Security number, and you should have taken out health insurance for him.”

  The functionary was the typical bureaucratic bully who was accustomed to see employers shake in their boots. Therefore he was a bit taken aback when Don Camillo showed him the door, saying, “I understand your problem and I will say a prayer for you.”

  “You’re quite wrong, Father, if you think you can get away with this!” the functionary shouted.

  “‘To err is human,’” quoted Don Camillo, as he swung the door shut on the functionary’s nose.

  Naturally, the bulletin board outside the Workers’ Home carried a fierce attack against Don Camillo, who while preaching neighbourly love proceeded instead to drive a poor boy out into the cold without giving him his just due.

  Peppone didn’t let well enough alone and hired Marcellino as delivery boy at his electrical appliance store. He complied with all the union rules, giving the boy all the papers and insurance necessary, and he made sure that everybody in town heard about it, too.

  Marcellino behaved like an angel, so much so that one day Don Chichi pointed it out to Don Camillo. “You see, Father, I was right. Marcellino is a fine boy and you just didn’t understand him.”

  “That’s possible,” Don Camillo admitted. “I wonder if he can see angels among the iceboxes and washing machines?”

  The truth was, Marcellino no longer saw angels, but he was still very perceptive and he saw, hidden inside a washing machine, a certain tag marked “Confidential” and took it home to study more carefully.

  Then he let Peppone know that if he wasn’t given 150,000 lire, he would be forced to bring the tag over to the district tax collector, who made a hobby of uncovering this sort of “Confidential” registration tag.

  Peppone couldn’t allow himself to be accused of not respecting his duties toward the working classes, and he decided to take the money over to Marcellino’s mother himself in order to recover the registry tag.

  He found the poor lady confined to her bed, in the throes of bringing her tenth child into the world.

  Yet Another Tale About The Great River

  One Friday night at about eleven o’clock, Flora received a phone call from Tota, one of the Scorpions’ girl friends. “Flora, what have you done to Ringo?”

  “He kept bothering me, so I told him to jump in the river,” Flora explained laughing.

  “He’s blown his top and is determined to get even. He knows where all Venom’s boys live and he’s coming over to rout them out one by one and tear them to pieces. The attack’s set for tomorrow; as soon as they cut out, I’ll call you.”

  Flora knew how nasty Ringo could become when he forgot to be a human being, so she scampered over to warn Venom’s three lieutenants.

  The three rural toughs shrugged their shoulders and said they didn’t know what they could do about it.

  “Well, for one thing, you can go round and warn everybody. Tomorrow morning everybody should wait for me at the Macchione at seven sharp.” Then before she went home, Flora knocked on Peppone’s door.

  Peppone was getting ready for bed and said in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to talk about electrical appliances at that hour.

  “Neither do I,” Flora said. “Just give me Venom’s black leather jacket and help me load his motorcycle into my pickup. Tomorrow a bunch of Scorpions are coming down here to start a punch-up.”

  Peppone’s ears turned red. “Not those lunatics again? I’ll let the armoury know and we’ll arrest the lot of them and put an end to this!”

  “Don’t get mixed up in it,” Flora said. “This is our business. Just hand over the junk and go to bed and dream of Stalin. Maybe he’ll give you some good numbers to play on the lottery.”

  At seven the next morning, the gang of rural longhairs was gathered in the deserted Macchione valley. Without Venom they felt like powerless schoolboys. It was freezing cold and they had lit a huge brush fire to warm themselves up; but fear is the kind of chill you can’t drive out of your bones with bush fires.

  They talked the situation over and after an hour they reached a decision: to climb on their cycles and head for the hills.

  Just then they heard the powerful, familiar sound of a Harley and everybody jumped up.

  Flora floated inside Venom’s jacket and was even more lost on top of the enormous Harley: still, the sight gave everybody the shivers.

  “They’re on their way,” Flora announced. “Thirty of them, so that makes us even. They’re coming by different roads so no one will notice them, but the plan is to join forces halfway along the highway, and what we’ll do is wait for them behind the embankment wall and when they turn up, we’ll scalp them all! Okay, lets go!”

  Flora was insp
iring. The first thing she did was perform a dangerous and tricky spin-out, then as she pulled on to the highway, the boys could see the white skull and lettering, and everyone of them cheered and shoved off with an energetic kick, ready to set the world on fire.

  The tip-off was spot on, and the first few Scorpions to reach the highway were taken care of in a flash. But when the bulk of them arrived, the fighting got rough. Flora was giving orders from the top of the embankment wall. She had spotted wire barrels filled with rocks, intended to reinforce the river wall, and since her men were losing their nerve, she called up four of the rural longhairs and gave them each a pair of pliers. “Cut that meshing,” she ordered. “It’s time to bring on the artillery.”

  The four country hoodlums obeyed Flora as unhesitatingly as the French army had obeyed Napoleon, and this was obviously going to be the turning point of the battle. “Listen to me, men,” Flora shouted as soon as she saw their hands full of rocks as big as melons, “you see those balloons covered with long, greasy hair that the Scorpions have tied to their shoulders!”

  “Flora,” Ringo shouted, “I warn you, if I get my hands on you I’ll brain you!”

  A big stone bounced off his ear: an inch more to the right and that would have been the end of the head of the Scorpions.

  The young man went white. “Oh, so you want to fight dirty, eh!” he shouted. “All right, we can play serious games too! Men, let’s see those blades shine!”

  The Scorpions pulled out their flick knives; the rural longhairs drew back and suddenly they all were swinging bike chains. In another minute, somebody would have been killed. The two gangs were lined up face to face, waiting motionless for orders from Flora or Ringo to attack and begin the massacre.

  But the order never came, because a thunderous voice exploded into the silence: “Drop all that filth you have in your hands!”