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Rating: I would have liked to start this story with "Once upon a time" like in fairy tales, but I won't, because in fairy tales there's always a happy ending, "they all lived happily ever after", whereas here the epilogue is bittersweet. The grand master of ceremonies of the story, needless to say, is His Majesty Time, which forever steals pieces of life but with crafty clemency grants the benefit of memory.
School year 1985/86.
Here I am, fifteen years old, shy and alienated, I'd say awkward if I weren't driven by self-indulgence. Coming from the province, emancipation in terms of clothing and tastes, in general, is conspicuously absent. In the classroom, I feel like a mountaineer in Formentera. I am all too aware of it, but in case I forget, my "classmates" are there to remind me, like that day when they claimed that my corduroy pants had been made from the curtains at home or when they asserted that my sneakers, having four stripes instead of three, were more precious than Adidas. And then the episode of episodes, the one branded on my mind: two female students sitting behind me draw my attention with a question of vital importance:
"Gianè, p'cce da dò scenn e da dò n'gapp? (Gianele, why does it descend here and stick there?)
One of them slides her hand from top to bottom on her friend’s chest and then, repeating the movement in reverse, finds an obstacle stopping her. My face burns, embarrassed I mumble incoherent things, and they giggle amused, my clumsiness is directly proportional to their brazen composure.
Over time, I too came to understand "the physics of bodies" and refined my tastes, although convinced of the classic unassailable "clothes don't make the man," but there is one area where I was a forerunner, an early adept, and there's no need to add which one. Yes, indeed, I am awkward, I have corduroy pants and enviably unremarkable shoes but, unlike my classmates, salsa has never been electric for me! Tie!
Undetermined day.
14:00 hours.
End of lessons bell.
I have half an hour to cover just under a kilometer to reach the bus that will take me home. Most of the journey takes place on via Re David, where in the block before the turn onto Estramurale Capruzzi, at number 1/I is Murales. A store of second-hand clothes (later turned ethnic) is a mecca for those who love to dress alternatively. As mentioned before, I was unaware of all this and would have continued to be if my ears hadn’t caught that thing, that sound, the surprise.
Drip drip drip drip drip... [cit.]
The race against time not to miss the bus (my hunger threatens me with death) forces me to proceed briskly, not lingering too long on the shop window, but I resolve that at the first possible opportunity I will set foot in this temple. And I do, at the first plenary assembly, systematically boycotted. It must have been a few days later because upon entering I noticed that the Cure still floated in the air. When did I discover the name of the band? The next day in class, humming the tune in a weird way to the only person I was connected with, a goth to boot. Thoughts after forty years are a bit confused, but I distinctly remember the dim lights that harmonize with the environment, those hanging clothes that arouse my curiosity, and the music that captivates me. I get lost in the band names on the t-shirts, names that I gradually learn to know and appreciate. I buy the Cure’s one. The shop, together with New Records, becomes a regular stop on my daily wanderings, my second home, and that mystic incipit, with the three harmonics in sequence, the background noise of my days. Days that burn like the fire of Cairo, seduce me so elegantly, and never try to deceive me [Object] Time is my ally, youth and vigor are on my side, the future bright. I daydream about three imaginary boys in my real world.
Undetermined day.
Indeterminate time.
Decade 2000
"Waiting for the telephone to ring, and I’m wondering where she’s been and I’m crying for yesterday
and the tap drips drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip"
Smith waits for a Godot, or rather a Godot, that will never arrive, crystallized in the time of a song. Oh yes, because only in songs or poems can you afford to wait indefinitely for someone or something. Unfortunately, not in real life, time waits for no one, changing horizons and scenarios. Ten years later Murales is no longer there, it has changed street and number, and the magic has dissolved. It will change several more times before eventually emigrating permanently to the province, bidding Bari farewell forever.
Number 1/I of via Re David today bears a sign that reads "Upholstery and Draperies." I scrutinized the store trying to mentally recreate what the arrangement of the shelves was like and the owner inside became suspicious. I wanted to tell him how important that place was to me, talk to him about the Cure (maybe he knows them, maybe he doesn't), about school days, the girls who play at embarrassing me with their breasts, the breathless runs not to miss the bus, and that eye always inevitably on the shop window. I wanted to tell him a thousand things, but I said nothing. After all, he is not there to listen to an incurable romantic but to wait for customers, possibly wealthy ones. So, it all comes back, each of us waits for something. Only today Godot happened to me, standing in front of a window full of fabrics, waiting for a time that will not come back.
"and the tap drips drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
It’s always the same"
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