“Now we’ll go swimming,” Caciotta repeated contentedly, “and after we’ll go to the movies.”
“What’s playing in Tiburtino?” asked Armandino.
“The Lion of Amalfi,” said Caciotta, lounging comfortably on the dusty, dirty stubble.
He was in a good mood because of the hundred and fifty lire he had in his pocket. From time to time the buses from Casale di San Basilio and Settecamini passed along Via Tiburtina, under the silent sun that obscured the hills of Tivoli beyond the scorching countryside. An odor of rotten apples from the bleach hung over everything, sticky, like an oil slick spreading from the factory—which looked like a spider, with its walls and tanks—down the banks of the Aniene, to the asphalt of the street and the stubble burned by a fire that couldn’t be seen because the light of the sun was so strong.
“Hey, Borgo Antico!” Riccetto shouted protectively to Genesio’s middle brother. He came off the bridge onto the path, erect, his chest bulging under the white undershirt as he walked along—his swagger such that, seeing him, a boy from Tiburtino shouted: “He’s coming!” “Borgo Antì!” Riccetto repeated, in a cheerful, mocking voice, from the edge of the embankment, since Borgo Antico paid no attention, and, as if he hadn’t heard him, was crouching on the dirty shore, his scowling face turned toward the water. Riccetto began to undress, making a show of it. He piled up his clothes under his feet, in no hurry, then he put on a bright pair of trunks and, finally, took a cigarette out of his pocket and lighted it. He squatted in the burning-hot dust, and again peered down the slope, at the swarm of boys. Mariuccio sat next to him, hugging his brothers’ clothes tight against his ribs. “Borgo Antì!” Riccetto started again. “Try again,” said the little one, confronting him, sniggering. But the other paid no attention at all. “Give us a song, Borgo Antì,” he shouted. Borgo Antico didn’t even turn, but stayed motionless in his position, with his face like chocolate, shiny and dark. “What, he sings, too?” said Sgarone, sarcastically. “Of course,” answered Riccetto, equally sarcastic. Borgo Antico remained silent, and Genesio, too, stayed quiet, as if he hadn’t noticed anything. Mariuccio, the smallest of the three brothers, said, “He doesn’t feel like singing.” “Hey shithead,” said Riccetto to Borgo Antico, “is your throat dry, huh?” “What’ll you give him?” Genesio asked suddenly. “I’ll give him a cigarette,” said Riccetto. “Sing,” Genesio ordered his brother. “Now he’ll sing,” Mariuccio announced. Borgo Antico shrugged his thin black shoulders and his birdlike face grew even thinner against his chest. “Sing,” Genesio repeated angrily. “What should I sing?” said Borgo Antico in a cracked voice. “Sing ‘Luna Rossa,’ come on,” said Riccetto. Borgo Antico sat up, hugging his knees to his chest, and began to sing, in Neapolitan, in a voice ten times as big as he was, so full of passion that he seemed a man of thirty. The other boys, who were down in the mud behind the hillocks of the embankment and hadn’t been heard from for a while, came up to listen. “Wow, how he sings,” said Roscietto, while all around the river only that voice could be heard. At the best part, when they were all standing still, a new lump of mud hit Caciotta in the head; he hadn’t made up his mind yet to go swimming. “Who was that?” he said again angrily. “Let me see what you got in that hand,” he said, observing Armandino, who, with his dog nearby, was hiding one hand behind his back. Armandino looked at him, ironic and lightly fearful, with an expression of defiance and pretended indifference. He was silent for a moment before showing his hand: then suddenly he pulled it from behind his back and held it out to Caciotta, palm open, but Caciotta leaped behind him and, seizing him under the arms, forced him to stand up.
Armandino, who wasn’t expecting that, nervously pushed the hair out of his eyes, still watching Caciotta, insolent and a little scared. “What do you want, loser,” he said. “What do you have under there?” Caciotta asked, his rage increasing, as he picked up a handful of mud that had been packed and rolled into a ball. “Stop being a pain in the ass,” Armandino muttered. “It was you, right?” said Caciotta. Armandino jumped, pointing his open palm at him, with the fingers outstretched. “Look at him, will you? Who gives a fuck about you, jerk!” he said, but taking a dozen steps farther back, just to be safe. Caciotta looked at him wordlessly, choking with anger, and moved toward him threateningly. Behind him, the boy had the whole field and the shores of the Aniene through which to escape, up to the dredge, the tavern of the Pescatore, Tiburtino: but instead he remained motionless, as he was, slightly hunched, red in the face and ready for anything, to get satisfaction, maybe even to catch it. When Caciotta got close, he bent down suddenly, almost weeping, grabbed a piece of dry shit that was lying in front of him, and threw it in his face. But he couldn’t immediately get away, because, in a fury, Caciotta had leaped at him, and as he was turning grabbed him by the back edge of his underpants. Armandino ran away with his underpants hanging in shreds over his bare bottom. He went a good distance, amid roars of laughter, beyond the bend in the river, and, sitting there, while Caciotta returned with ill-concealed satisfaction to the others, he turned the underpants around: anyway, he didn’t give a damn if they saw him in front, what mattered was for his rear to be covered. Meanwhile, assembled at the top of the embankment, they were all still laughing derisively. “Look, even Piattoletta’s laughing!” said Bégalo, who, in the meantime, having come up from the river with the others, saw Piattoletta with his mouth open. As soon as he heard those words, Piattoletta stopped laughing, and started back down the slope. But Begalone’s hand stopped him. It was impossible to give an idea of the difference between Piattoletta and Begalone. Begalone, freckled and red-headed, with those squinting eyes, could certainly be considered the most cunning member of the group: and in fact so he absolutely considered himself, while, with a patient expression, he seized Piattoletta by the neck, without a glance. And so what, he had spent the night sleeping half in Salario and half at Villa Borghese, amid prostitutes and faggots, or on the trams picking idiots’ pockets. The other, instead, had come to the river after spending the morning with his grandmother raking through the garbage amid the stinking fields and shacks where the sewer of the Polyclinic empties into the Aniene. So now, pushed to the ground by Bégalo’s hand, he squatted in silence, like a beast playing dead, but ready to start whining under his filthy white cap, which was hanging down his back. Only his two fanlike ears kept it from falling over his nostrils.
“Piattoletta’s laughing, too, that scumbag,” Begalone repeated, pretending a lighthearted air of protectiveness, and hitting him hard with his hand on the small bones of his back. Piattoletta, shaken by the blows, looked at him. “You’ll break him,” said Riccetto. “What, you feel like joking?” answered Begalone, mocking. “And how am I going to break this hunk?” And he hit him again on the shoulder blades. Piattoletta laughed a little, twisting his mouth.
“You know why he was laughing?” said Sgarone. “You know? Because he saw Armandino’s butt.”
“Oh yeah?” said Begalone. “That bastard! I had no idea you needed to lower the shutters when he was nearby! You like the backside, eh? They can go right ahead and kill you, you and that Arab, your father!”
Piattoletta pasted his head to his chest, looking around out of the corner of his eye, while they all laughed.
“What do you mean, the backside,” said Tirillo, shaking his stomach, legs spread, against Piattoletta’s nose, “this is what he likes, the faggot.”
“Go give it to your sister,” whispered Piattoletta, who was already crying. But Tirillo hit him two or three times in the face with his naked lower belly, then rolled in the dirt. “Forget it,” said Begalone, “now he’s gonna say a few words in German, right, Piattolè?”
“What, he’s German?” asked Riccetto.
“Damn,” said Begalone, “he’s German, English, Moroccan, go ask his mother!”
Piattoletta was bathed in tears, and he let them slide down his face and neck without drying them.
&
nbsp; “You have to see how he speaks German,” said Sgarone. “Say a little something, Piattolè.”
“Come on, say something,” cried Begalone. “Damn you and your grandmother, too.”
“If you don’t say something,” said Tirillo jumping up, “we’ll make you a hole in your ass like a shed.”
“Yeah, why does he keep it small,” said Roscietto.
“Cut it out, stupid,” said Begalone, squeezing Piattoletta, “because now if you don’t talk some German we’ll throw your clothes in the river and send you back naked to Pietralata.”
Piattoletta went on crying. “Where’d he put his clothes, this shithead,” Begalone asked. “Down there, in the mud,” cried Sgarone, and ran to get them. “And the hat,” said Begalone tearing it off Piattoletta’s head, so that he remained naked, shaved, and marked by white scars.
Begalone made a pile of the clothes, and holding them high with one hand jumped into the river and crossed it. When he reached the other side, below the bleach factory drain, he shouted to Piattoletta:
“Now if you don’t talk to us in German you’ll come and get these filthy clothes tomorrow morning!”
“Talk, it’s nothing,” Riccetto said to him cheerfully.
“Damn you,” Sgarone shouted at him, giving him a kick in the back. Piattoletta began to cry harder, his monkey’s face increasingly distorted and disgusting: but at the same time he decided to speak. “Ach rich grau riche fram ghelenen fil ach ach,” he said quietly, as he wept.
“I can’t hear you! Speak up!” cried Begalone from the other bank. “Ir zum ach gramen bur ach minen fil ach zum cramen firen,” Piattoletta repeated a little louder, and immediately started crying again. “Now go like the Indians,” Begalone shouted. Piattoletta obeyed instantly, and, bathed in tears, which continued to flow from his tightly closed eyes, he began jumping up and down, waving his arms and crying: “Whoo, whoo, whoo.” Begalone stuck the clothes under a bush and jumped into the water, shouting: “Fuck if I’ll bring them back.”
The sun had gone down a little, in the direction of Rome, and there was a kind of coal dust in the air. “Let’s go,” said Genesio to his little brothers. He got his clothes from Mariuccio and put on his pants, which were slightly torn at the hem from the dog’s biting. “Damn,” he said through clenched teeth, looking at them. “What’s mamma gonna say?” said Mariuccio. Genesio didn’t answer; he dug another half cigarette out of the depths of his pocket, and when they were a little farther along the path that led up the slope of Via Tiburtina he lighted it. “Wait for me,” cried Riccetto just then, seeing that they were leaving. The three boys turned sideways, and stood without moving for a while: they were unsure whether to stay and wait for him or not. “Let’s wait,” Genesio said softly, his face dark, and, without even looking at what his brothers were doing, he sat down cross-legged in the dirt, smoking, eyes lowered.
Riccetto dressed calmly, one sock at a time, singing and shouting at those who were diving, some head first, some feet first; finally, after putting his clothes on inside out two or three times, he was ready. He stood up and, step by step, coming lazily from behind, he passed the three little boys from Ponte Mammolo, who were waiting for him, and, comically nodding his head, said, “Let’s go.” They went single file on the path along the Aniene, climbed up the cliff that rose almost sheer above Via Tiburtina, and turned onto the bridge.
Riccetto went in front, in his undershirt, plump, shiny from his swim, still with his tough-guy walk. He was happy, and he sang, a mocking expression in his eyes, his wet trunks dangling in his hand. The three little boys followed, Genesio with his licorice skin and his coal-black eyes by himself, canny, and the two others trotting along like puppies, as if they were following in a procession with Riccetto at the head. They turned off Via Tiburtina onto Via Casal dei Pazzi, which led between the great flat spaces of the tilled fields, with their zigzagging furrows, and the small, whitewashed buildings, the construction sites, the stumps of houses. There wasn’t a soul, and under the sun that was cooking the asphalt of the street and the countryside only the voice of Riccetto, singing, could be heard.
The workers who were digging trenches for sewers along Via Casal dei Pazzi, because it was election time, were napping belly up, lying in the shade of a low wall. “Look!” cried Mariuccio in his little bird’s voice, leaning over to look inside the holes where the winch chains dangled. Borgo Antico ran to look, and he, too, marveled at the depth; Genesio gave a contemptuous glance. “Come on,” said Riccetto, seeing that the three had stayed behind, occupied in observing, one by one, the line of holes that, with their sawhorses, ran the length of the street.
“You’ll be in deep shit with your father,” Riccetto cried cheerfully, waving one hand energetically up and down.
“Who pays any attention to him,” said Genesio hoarsely.
“Yeah, it’s just a rumor,” Riccetto said, teasing, still waving his arm. He was alluding to the beatings the three brothers got every day from their father, who was a spiteful, boorish drunk. Riccetto, who had worked as a laborer with him since the spring, in Ponte Mammolo, knew him well. They turned onto Via Selmi, leaving the row of fenced-in holes that vanished in the sunlight.
“Now you’ll get a black eye!” Riccetto kept saying, enjoying himself.
“Yeah sure!” said Genesio, wounded to the quick and not inclined to accept those predictions of Riccetto’s: but he had no arguments with which to defend himself, and Riccetto took advantage of that to have some fun.
“Especially if he’s been drinking,” he said, in a sad voice, “he’ll grab a stick to beat you, then he shows you what he can do!”
“Cut it out,” said Mariuccio, who was still too small to say “Fuck off,” looking up at him uncertainly. “Yeah, you can joke,” said Riccetto, “but soon you’ll cry!”
“Cut it out,” Mariuccio repeated, uncertain if he should joke, too, or be offended. Riccetto sang a little song, as if he had forgotten the three brothers, and then he said gleefully, “I wouldn’t like to find myself in your shoes!” pressing his lips together and pulling his head between his shoulders as if to avoid a volley of blows.
“Cut it out,” Mariuccio said again, resentful. Genesio was silent, taking the last drags on the butt, reduced to a single ember, and kicking the pebbles of Via Selmi, which ran between meager vegetable gardens, half-built houses, and armies of laundry.
“Here we are,” said Riccetto sarcastically, when they reached the end of the street, near the Pugliese’s house, which was one-story and unstuccoed: but now they were adding to it, and around it was scaffolding, and, on the packed earth of the garden, a puddle of mortar and piles of plum-colored sand. None of the workers were on the job yet. Riccetto was the first, and he approached calmly. The Pugliese had just beaten his wife and was sitting on the steps of the house, his face blotchy and his eyes menacing, shiny as a dog’s. The three boys had seen their father from afar and were keeping their distance, between the mounds of dirt in the street and the knocked-down walls, awaiting the tragedy. Riccetto instead went into the garden, tranquil and good-humored, took the comb from his back pants pocket, wet it in the fountain, and began to comb his hair, handsome as Cleopatra.
* * *
“The dogs, the dogs!” cried Roscietto, emerging from beneath the embankment of the Aniene, with the whole pack of boys. Zinzello, the carter with the Rudy Vallee-style hair, and Miccia, with two adult German shepherds, a male and a female, were approaching, in fact, along the path from Tiburtino. Arriving at the bend in the river, they stripped, took some soap out of their pockets, and, chatting, went into the shallow water to wash, while the dogs romped among the cut stalks of grain.
They paid no attention at all to the kids or to the older boys. Zinzello, with his face as hard as a stone, and Miccia, a big man, with a beard that blackened his fat cheeks, had both begun to sing as the cold water ran over their backs, and ignored the bo
ys who were playing with their dogs.
Armandino’s dog, in fact, was growling, but he kept his distance, with his tail squeezed between his haunches, and, spinning around so as never to show his wet side to his two colleagues, curled up and lay down.
All the boys, including Piattoletta, had gathered around.
“His ass is trembling,” said Roscietto, mockingly.
“He’s a puppy, after all,” said Sgarone, taking his side.
“What do you mean a puppy, stupid,” said Roscietto, his voice quivering, “he was born before me!”
Armandino went pzt with his tongue, raising his eyebrows with an air of pity: “He’s not even a year,” he said.
“Well?” said Roscietto. “Why should he be scared of another dog?”
“What do you mean scared! You’re making me mad!” Armandino burst out.
He went over to his dog, grabbed him violently by the collar, and dragged him toward the other two dogs, who, growling, had started to prowl through the stubble.
He leaned over him, and softly, so that he could barely be heard, began to provoke him, angrily, dripping saliva:
“Come on, Lupo, come on, Lupo, come on, come on!”
Lupo trembled at the goading of that low voice that barely reached his pricked ears. With his chest forward, he was all a vibration, like a revving engine. Suddenly Armandino let him go.
The boys stood watching, almost in silence. Of Zinzello’s two dogs, the male was smaller and thin, and seeing Lupo all excited, sicced on him by his master, he lazily beat a retreat, toward the center of the field, returning every so often to bark and growl.
The Street Kids Page 16