We Want Everything Page 5

  I said, what fucking use is a diploma? No way am I interested in learning a trade. It’s obviously useful for making more money, to have a more comfortable life. But the most comfortable life means working as little as possible, eating well, getting laid. All right, I thought, I can do these things without a diploma, the main thing is to work as little as possible and to make money as quickly as possible. So I decided to do exactly that. I found a job on a building site. After a while I got pissed off with it and I got drunk and didn’t go to work in the afternoon, so they fired me and I went for a while without doing anything.

  I had a bit of ready money and I just hung around. Not like the year before at Corsico. Free time at Corsico was crazy: a town with two dance halls, three or four cinemas, the parish cinema. People meeting up in bars, playing cards or talking about sport. And the young girls, daughters of southerners who had the usual southern habit of taking a walk together while the boys waited for them somewhere out of the way to maybe lay them up against a tree. But there was no real rapport between people. If you had money to spend in the bar you were in, you were someone. The more you spent, the better you dressed, the more friends you had. If not you were left out, and that pissed me off.

  The city, on the other hand, for me, someone born in the provinces in a tiny village, was the ultimate place for all kinds of experiences. In the pensione where I was staying I saw people coming all the time, waiters, students, painters, jerks, bricklayers. There were all kinds of people of all races coming and going in that pensione. Then, going down to the bar I’d meet the type of people you saw in the newspapers, actors, singers: there were loads of singers hanging around there. There were those guys from the comic strips, the semi-pornographic ones like Men and Bolero. And there were lots of women and lots of actor types who hung around via Brera.

  I felt a provincial kind of pleasure, seeing all those people right there. Ah, they’re here, they’re alive, they’re jerks like me. I wanted to be friendly with them, I was hoping to see what the fuck they were like. I was always there waiting, but in fact if I wanted to get laid I went with the hookers who were always hanging around. I never managed to make it with any of the women I met in bars, even though I was always ready for any kind of adventure. I was always ready, I hung around those places, Gran Bar, another one, what was it called, Jamaica. And then there were all kinds of students to talk to and discuss things with as well.

  A lot of others, on the other hand, especially the painters, messed with you. They spoke French or English, even if they were Italian; if you knew French or English it showed that you had travelled or studied. In places like that they did this to show they were different, speaking French or English so they didn’t have to mix, to avoid types like me as far as I could see. But one night I was drinking with a friend who knew German, someone I had worked with at Alemagna, and we managed to raise a bit of hell. Someone was playing a guitar, and we were drunk and we started to sing in German, or rather, he sang in German and I just made a lot of noise. We met this character who wanted us to be furniture salesmen or cigarette smugglers. This guy was into everything, except he was a real prick. But I didn’t have a driver’s license; I didn’t know how to drive.

  Another night I met a junkie who wanted the key to get in so she could go to bed, she was calling to a friend from outside the pensione. I went down, she was out of it, I started to kiss her. She said: What, you want to get laid, but I don’t feel like it. This world seemed so strange to me; I liked this way of life that had nothing to do with factories, with the countryside, with religion. It was a world apart from the one I knew, which I liked. I was up for anything, even if I only ended up at the movies. Or if I ended up being a bit of a sleaze by trying to hook up with foreign women in the street or girls in dance halls, in the bars.

  It was the same thing with wanting to go to night school. I thought I might be able to meet girls who went to art school and get a bit friendly with them. I was looking for ways to make some moves, because in a city if you stay on your own you never manage to do anything, you’re stuck. You need a circle of friends, especially of women friends, to get on, to get rich. There were a lot of messed-up people in Milano, especially girls from small towns who ran away from home and came to Milano because they wanted to hang out with the hippies. One time I brought one of them up to the pensione but the landlord threatened to kick me out. Then I found a job at Alemagna.

  So I meet a girl who works in a factory, but she said she was a secretary. I didn’t care, I didn’t even like her. If I’d been down south I wouldn’t even have given a shit about her. It’s just that in Milano these bitches were used to getting someone to pay for everything. They sold themselves just like prostitutes, these girls, these wage-earners. But I went with this one because she paid her way and I paid mine. I was with this girl and I took her up to the pensione where I was living. But the landlord kicked me out the next day because he had already warned me not to take anyone up to my room. You weren’t allowed to take anyone up to your room. If you wanted to get laid you had to go to a hotel, you couldn’t bring a girl into the pensione. The pensione was only for sleeping. And so I got kicked out of the pensione, too.

  I’d made a friend at Alemagna and I went to stay at his place. I couldn’t handle working any more, I was fed up with it, and I went from one friend to another to eat. I went to visit them in turns. These friends liked me because I didn’t work much and I had a lot to say, and so I managed to go to the movies and to eat. In the evenings I went to wait for this girl to finish work, then we went for pizza. Anyway, that’s how I got by. And then I hung around the bars looking for someone who wanted me to work the black market or some other way of making money quickly, or to find a woman to fuck. I kept myself ready for any kind of adventure.

  All I found was an engineer who wanted me to guard a yacht he kept at Viareggio. Anyway, I’d acquired a heap of debts and quite a lot of friends in Milano. And in the house where I was living, my Sicilian friend’s place, I’d become quite good friends with his wife. It bothered me that he might realise and I thought of slipping away from Milano. In Milano I’d tried all kinds of work; sometimes I worked in the porters gangs. I went to some office, worked for two or three days, I threw myself into all kinds of things. I applied to Fiat to get away from Milano, because I had so many debts. I was starting to give my friends the shits, apart from this friend I’d made when I worked at Alemagna.

  Alemagna is a place where they give you a contract for a month or two, up to four months. I had a contract for two months and I started working in November. They gave us a hat like the ones cooks wear, an apron and a pair of pants. They gave us a more or less hygienic uniform. I was fired from there in a rather strange way. I was in a section where they made dough, and then they mixed it with this machinery. When the dough came out they put these plastic carts under it, like great big basins. The dough went in, we had to put a little flour in first, then the dough sat there to rise. It was pretty light work, all told.

  One day I was reading Diabolik in the pensione and I forgot that I had to go to work. It hit me at the last minute, I ran down, got on the Metro, arrived late. When you were late, even a couple of minutes, they docked you half and hour, they paid you half an hour less, so I decided to go in half an hour late. I went to have a shot of grappa, I got changed calmly, figuring I’d stamp my timecard a minute before the half-hour was up. Two minutes or half an hour late, it was all the same.

  Where you clocked on there was a kind of large glass cabin with warning lights for the ovens and all the sections. There were a couple of supervisors, and an Alemagna manager, the manager of my section. As I was going past he waves to me. I say: Yes, sir, what is it? Please adjust your hat, he says. It was a tall hat and I’d squashed it, I was wearing it like one of those Sardinian caps, a Sardinian shepherd’s cap. I was wearing it down over my eyes, with my hands in my pocket, and I was half an hour late.

  So he gets a little pissed off and he says: Adjust your hat. No
, it’s OK like this, why should I adjust it? Adjust it. And I kept on walking. He comes out of the cabin and says: Why are you late? Eh, I don’t remember why I’m late, I don’t know, I’m just late. You can be late for all kinds of reasons, I don’t remember. What do you mean, you’re late and you don’t know why? It’s because I forgot I had to come to work. Oh, you forgot that you had to come to work. This is quite serious. Well, do you know that now I’m going to suspend you for a day?

  I say: Listen either you fire me, or I’m going to work. I don’t deserve a day’s suspension because I was half-an-hour late, and I won’t take it. So either you fire me and tell me the reason why, or I’m going to work. I don’t deserve a day’s suspension and I’m not taking it. He says I have to leave, I call him a jerk and go off to work. He sends a security guard from upstairs to find out my name, then two more arrive and ask where I am. I say: Here I am. I warn these guys: Listen, if you want to send me away by force don’t try, because I might end up in jail but I’m not going that way. If they want to get rid of me they have to give me a month’s pay, because I have a contract for two months and I’ve only done a month, I’m due another month’s pay.

  But it’s only a one-day suspension, they say. No, I’m not up for a day’s suspension and I’m not taking it. Anyway, they say, go and talk to the boss in the office. I go, sit myself down in the office, the boss arrives, he says: What are you doing sitting there? Eh, I’m sitting here because I’m waiting for you. What do you want with me? You had better shift yourself and get out of here. I say: Wait a minute. They want to suspend me for a day, but I don’t deserve it. I was half an hour late for the first time and I don’t think a one-day suspension is right for being half an hour late.

  No, he says, that’s not why, it’s because you called the director a jerk. But that’s impossible, I didn’t call him a jerk, he obviously didn’t hear me right. I can’t help it if the director is deaf and doesn’t understand what someone says. All I said was I was going to work, and that I wasn’t leaving. Anyway, you have to go, he says. And if you don’t go, I’m calling the police. Fine, call the police. I’ll go to jail but I won’t give you the satisfaction of a suspension I don’t deserve because there’s no reason for it. If you fire me you have to give me a month’s pay, plus eight days’ notice. Oh, we’ll see about that. Yes, we will see.

  The guy makes a phone call and sends me to another office, where they prepare the documents, my work book, a letter where I give notice, all of that. They tell me to sign it. I say: I’m not signing anything; first I want to see the money and then I’ll sign. They tell me: Listen, don’t be smart or this will work out badly for you. You’ll end up inside for real and you won’t get a cent. I say: Look, that’s my business. I understand what life’s about, what work’s about, I really don’t care if I end up inside.

  But I had it all worked out. They couldn’t arrest me for that kind of thing. Alemagna couldn’t afford to look as crap as they would if an episode like this ended up in the newspapers: A worker arrested because he refuses a one-day suspension. And because they wouldn’t want that kind of hassle, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t end up inside and that I’d even get all the money. The jerk insisted; he threatened me a little and made out he was looking out for me: So where are you from? I’m from Salerno. Hey, I’m from down that way too, I’m from Avellino. He made out he was one of us, like he was looking out for me. He offered me cigarettes, then he went on: If you sign it, you’ll be able to apply to Alemagna some other time and they’ll take you on again. But if you go on like this they’ll never take you on here again.

  I say: Fuck, there’s so much of that kind of work I really don’t need to bother with Alemagna. You have to work, but you don’t have to be taken for a fool, and here they really want to treat me like a fool. What, I have to do whatever the director says to get work here again? I’m really not interested in that. The director has made a mistake, and I’m not interested in a day’s suspension. Now they want to fire me. Even better; pay me the month. The guy starts calling other offices, I don’t know, admin, personnel and so on. The management was insisting on the telephone: hang tough, threaten him again, then you’ll see. From three o’clock until seven o’clock, four hours of argument and drama.

  The office workers’ nerves were shredded. I didn’t move, didn’t leave the office, the guy was there with the paperwork ready, and they went on working out what they owed me. Every half hour they brought a slip of paper with a new figure written on it. Eighty thousand. And what’s eighty thousand, I say. It’s the rest of the month plus eight days’ notice. And what’s that got to do with it? You have to give me another month’s pay, another eighty thousand apart from last month’s money and the eight days’ notice. So that’ll be a load of money, not just eighty thousand lire.

  A drama that went on and on; the office girl was getting hysterical: Get him out! We can’t work any more! I say: I don’t give a shit, you can go on strike if you don’t want to work as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care; I just want my money. He calls again, says: this guy’s a real hard-ass, he’s not giving in, the clerks are pissed off, they don’t want to keep working. We just have to give him the money; if not, I’ll call the police, because I just can’t go on. What do you mean, call the police? Yes, I’ll call the police. Well tell him that, they said from the other end of the line, which I could hear because I was right there behind him.

  He comes over to me again: Listen, if you don’t take the money I swear, I swear on my father, on my children, on my children’s health, that I will call the police. I say, so call the police. That way we’ll be finished with talking. Because I don’t want to discuss it with you. You want to rip me off, what the fuck have we got to talk about, you and me? I’ve told you that I want the money, I don’t want to discuss it, it’s you who wants to discuss it with me. I’m not pissing you off, if anything you’re pissing me off. He phones again and says: Listen, I give up. I’m telling the clerks to give him everything because I can’t take any more. This guy’s a real hard-ass and there’s nothing else for it.

  OK, do whatever you want, you hear over the phone from the other end, because he was calling right in front of me. Then he goes to me: OK, you’ve won, see? You’re a real hard nut, well done, you’ve done it. Sign here. I say: Just a minute. First I want to see the money. Without the money I won’t sign anything. He gets the clerk to give him the papers, the work book, and he takes me to the pay office. They give me the rest of the month, the eighty thousand of the month still to come and the eight days’ notice. I sign everything and I exit Alemagna. Because of the director’s stupid remark I managed to get myself a month’s pay without working for it.

  Alemagna was in effect my second factory job in Milano. After two months’ work on a building site and a month at Alemagna, I was short of work. I worked in these day labourers’ gangs. They sent you to Siemens, to SIP, to Standa, wherever there were goods to unload. Even factories that needed workers for certain tasks went to these day labourers’ gangs, which was really a form of legal casualisation.

  For a while I did that kind of work. The only thing was, sometimes I didn’t get any. I went looking for that kind of work, for money when I didn’t have anything in my pockets, and sometimes I ran the risk of not finding any. One time when I was really broke, I only had a thousand lire left, I went looking for work. It was Friday, and I didn’t find anything. On Saturday they don’t hire — we’ll talk about it on Monday. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, four days and I only had a thousand lire. I ended up eating on Friday, and on Saturday I didn’t eat all day. On Sunday morning I thought about going to give blood.

  One of my friends had told me that they’d given him three thousand five hundred lire for giving blood. So I thought about giving blood myself, so that I’d make three thousand five hundred lire and could eat. I had a cappuccino to raise my blood pressure. In Milano you always have to have something to keep yourself going. I had a cappuccino at San Babila, in the Motta
bar, opposite the transfusion caravan that’s always in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, between San Babila and the portico. I went in and took off my shirt.

  They examined my chest and took a bit of blood from my finger. They took an X-ray and did the test to see if you have syphilis. Then they took my blood pressure, and it was really low. They asked me how old I was, if I’d had any diseases, what work I did. I’m unemployed, I said. These jerks asked me what diseases I had, without asking me if I’d eaten; a thing like that wouldn’t have entered their minds. They saw that I was twenty-five, that I had low blood pressure, that I was unemployed and it didn’t even cross their mind that I might be starving.

  They laid me on the bed, slipped the needle in and only a little blood came out. In fact it didn’t even half fill a flask, and then no more came out, it coagulated. They were scared when they saw no more blood was coming out; generally when you put the needle in blood spurts into the flask and fills it up in a minute, a minute and a half tops. I’d been there for three minutes and the flask wasn’t even half full and no more blood was coming out. They were a bit worried, so I said to the doctor: Listen, I need some money, at least a thousand lire. Why? Because I haven’t eaten and I’m hungry. Oh, you haven’t eaten, we’re sorry. We can give you some coffee and some Motta Buondí.10

  In effect I knew that you donated blood to AVIS,11 but I thought that if someone wanted money they paid, they gave you some money. Because all told you had given them goods, it’s not as if you hadn’t given them anything. The doctor told me: No, you donate blood here. It seemed strange to me, this obligatory donation. He said: Anyway, have some coffee. I didn’t eat the Motta Buondí, because I had worked at Alemagna, and I knew how I used to handle the cakes there. All up I didn’t have any great faith in Motta’s Buondí.