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A premise seems necessary. I am here because I bought one of those toothpastes to counteract gum bleeding. I bought it within the limits of the law, at the established time, in an allowed store, lining up directly from my bed at home. I actually woke up (hungover) already in line, thinking about socialism, about the fact that the COOP a hundred meters from my window has the O's of its sign with LED lights that only work halfway. To not lose my spot in line, I had to set myself in motion at six and lower myself from the third floor with a pulley system. People lower and let their dogs poop on the street like in Rear Window, in the baskets. It wasn't like this that I had hoped for real socialism, with overpriced tuna cans looming from every shelf, the rancid breath of a bottle of Barbera d'Asti fighting with the coffee and the breakfast banana; pooping black every day.
I managed to find the toothpaste between the Palmera and the As Do Mar, I made it levitate to the cashier, and paid contactless an exorbitant sum.
[I will not talk about this justice overcrowding the streets. We will talk about it again when we are finally healed and we can organize an anti-fascist tuna pasta party at Parco 11 settembre, and we will sing songs of jubilation around the bonfire of self-certifications.]
In the same building as the COOP, on the upper floor, a smaller union continues to carry out its duties on a reduced-hour schedule. It occurs to me that one of my squatter friends arrived in Italy thirty years ago as a Cuban doctor, or at least that's what he tells us. I got distracted: it occurs to me that of the four jobs that contribute to maintaining me decently, only one will guarantee me a salary this month; as for the others, invoking union intervention would be like buying a Sailor Moon scepter online and expecting it to unleash powers.
The lessons I conduct on Skype are now experimental: I log in at 11 PM and continue indefinitely until I am the only one awake, usually around four. I will issue certificates only to the three faithful who will have accumulated a sufficient number of hours, yet to be determined. In the meantime, I drink, my students drink, we all smoke. Maybe that’s why my mouth is as if I chewed on plastic cups.
The toothpaste ad, which like all toothpastes has a name resonant with the early works of the successful Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, I saw during a commercial break in the first episode of Harry Potter. I find that broadcasting the entire series is a commendable escapist rush by the greatest private broadcaster in Italy, in such a difficult moment for the country; so much so that it inspired me to do one of those writers' lab exercises I still indulge in from time to time. It's an exercise reminiscent of Borges' story Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote: it consists of putting oneself in the shoes of Pierre Menard to try to rewrite (note: rewrite, not reproduce) a literary work (more realistically a portion of it) that one remembers more or less vaguely, to arrive at a new original that, although completely different in premises, in peritext, is textually equal in scraps to the archetypal original. It's the theoretical principle that supports the writing of Sciascia's Il Caso Moro. To fill half a day, I tried with Harry Potter, read at its time, but had to change the names due to copyright and burnt memory issues, lest someone decides to publish it. I'll show you the beginning.
Henry Foster.
Chapter I: in the house of the Balkans.
The Dustys live in an original English of those neighborhoods that would have garnered great success in the urban planning of worldwide suburbia, the low houses neighborhoods that with Italian practicality we would have called suburban houses and built in the countryside adjacent to urban centers to sell them to the qualified working class, full-time tertiary workers, state employees, and low-profile professionals. They are ground and first floors of council houses, with gardens that resemble more outdoor lounges, possibly garages, finishes little more than rough at times, sometimes carefully manicured.
Wilson Dusty is a hardware industry sales agent, his wife Begonia a housewife, his son Dustin attends public elementary school. A good portion of Mr. Dusty’s commissions are devoted to spoiling the offspring (he is a chubby, whiny child, perhaps suffering from mild attention disorder) so he develops the gift of demand without merit requirements, the first rudiment of social climbing. They lead a sober, decent existence, without jolts, in the canon of the small English bourgeoisie on the verge of conservative defeat and the explosion of Tony Blair’s new labor.
The Dustys concede nothing to the irrational, perfectly adhering to the paradigm of humanity that the malnourished magical community calls, not without disdain, the Balkan race.
And so on. I got distracted again. The toothpaste: the Parodontax toothpaste, I squeeze the tube, it's red. "Tired of seeing blood when you brush your teeth?": red toothpaste. I look in the bathroom mirror for the eyes of someone who has suffered yet another scam by capitalism and see myself looking fit, fresh, and lucid, anyone trying to guess my age always guesses lower, sometimes significantly. I happened to think I have a portrait like Dorian Gray locked in some garage, atoning for my vices and sins; maybe a doppelganger elsewhere daily tortured with a knife.
From the bathroom window, which overlooks the courtyard, I see fifty balconies. Between six and eight, I hear Mameli's anthems, rosaries, Bohemian Rhapsody, Nada Malanima, Gaber, Gaetano, the bells of all the Bolognese churches united, Modugno, grumbles, quarrels over an inheritance, Caruso.
Then I understand, then it's a fresco. I gather my saliva and spit into the sink: clean.
[I thank Napo for taking back the microphone]
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