Suddenly a drunk poor fellow made his way to pushing, overthrew the compass of tenders, grabbed a pile of cartamonete, spat and threw them into the air. On December 24, 1979 I spent the night at Rome's Termini Station. I was in my twenties, and I do not remember exactly what the trip came back. It was late, the large metal clock ticked past 21.15 hours and there were no more racing for my country, the youth hostel seats had sold out and no longer had any money I could pay for a hotel. I was tired, without which nothing good to fantasize, and I just wanted to go home with the first local train in the morning.
There was crowd that night, crowds of people coming down from the train or went, the more young people with backpacks on their shoulders, the less young people with the bags, shoulder bags, parcels, bundles. They were almost all happy and bright, with friends or relatives who embraced them when they returned, or greeted them warmly when leaving. A group of young Nordic, with long unkempt hair and loose jackets, had been lying behind the door, pair embraced, and exchanged tender kisses from time to time. Rare single men and women roamed the hall, or sat the chairs of the few bars open, watching the people who sadly passed.
walked slowly, dragging my backpack, looking curiously varied as humanity generally lower middle class, as it was then. Few people appear to be particularly wealthy, few faces from immigrants. Here and there one could see an old painted whore, or the young man who lives by their wits or petty theft, the gay men in search of adventure.
I was attracted by a crowd of people. All admired a kind of altar, on top of which the circle of railroad workers had set up a crib. Some little woman grew wide and put a bid in the bush. Businessmen they stopped a moment, pulling his wallet and threw their own notes to the first steps. Most commented on the beauty of the manger, even though he had nothing original, saying that the cave with the oxen and the donkey seemed real shame that the birthplace of Jesus with Joseph and Mary remained a bit 'hidden. Suddenly a poor man drunk made his way to pushing, overthrew the compass of tenders, grabbed a pile of cartamonete, spat and threw them into the air. He shouted curses and prayers to Jesus A railway worker who was grabbed round the manger by the collar and dragged him away, not until it has been stunned with two slaps.
continued walking for the hall, intrigued by all the faces, behind which lurked a story, a story, a life. The seats of marble from the ticket office closed there was a boy reading a book, a joint aspiration furtively, an elderly woman had her coat and pulled up her skirt to mend the stockings, and a gentleman scrutinized the passers-by with a grin murderess and another was wiping a brow of the eyes, I do not know if the tiredness or some irresistible nostalgia. For a moment I felt the sensation of being followed by three ugly mugs with dark glasses. Perhaps the station was full of fake travelers who surrounded the person with the intent to rob. Perhaps other bystanders were undercover agents.
When I walked in the bathroom I saw the wall of urinals occupied by shady types who exhibited their State, or pretended to spy on one of their pissing around and look for contacts. I went to the toilet and put my leg back, a reinforcement of the door, to block access to any stranger. But I did not have time to get out that a fifty-faced young malicious offered me to spend Christmas at home with friends. "I'm leaving" I said abruptly, and to avoid other approaches headed for a train, but did not rise. That guy was gone. An old man who was leaning forward on crutches for a time I staggered and almost fell at the feet, and since I helped him get back in the sixth could not stop to give thanks and praise me in the name of the Lord.
went back into the hall, and went to seek a seat in the waiting rooms. These were so crowded that people had to wait a long time 'before a seat is available. I was so tired that when I sat down and closed my eyes I fell asleep ...
... I felt that I was in country, in the cinema, and I had to cross the street but I could not, my bags were too heavy and curve could check a car, and had approached a person, which I could not see the face that I wanted to remove the luggage, and the voice of a speaker announced the departure Paris.
In the dream I knew I was dreaming. I loosened the grip of my backpack, which had slipped to the ground. A badly dressed old woman stood before me, standing, looking at me with astonishment. The announcer repeated the train left for Paris. The clock ticked past 23.35. So I looked elsewhere and I realized that something had changed during sleep in the waiting room. As in bathing in the evening when the beaches are empty and in place of the swimmers are their idols in the form of waste - cans, paper, plastic bags - so, in that waiting room, playing the crowd of travelers, the place was full of human waste: faces and bodies dall'indubbio aspect of bums, misfits, lunatics. A stench of unwashed bodies and the seriously ill in the room, and, along with the smoke made it impossible to breathe. A reigned strange, pathological silence, broken occasionally by a few phrases of nonsense, a cry, a cough phlegm.
The most spontaneous thing that came to do was to get up, because I had an unfortunate leaning his head on his shoulder and urged me to vomit stench. Almost ran toward the exit, but then I stopped and turned around to look better that strange circle of hell. All seats were occupied by outcasts, beggars male and female, dressed in rags, with Scarpaccia worn, his hair greasy and unkempt. Someone else was sitting or lying on the ground along the walls or in the middle of the living room. Those who slept occasionally stream, waving their limbs, and those who were awake were smoking, all with an air at all quiet, with eyes full of hatred and terror, some altercation with the shadows. I noticed a gentleman who seemed to have a decent air, well-groomed and shaved, adorned with a dark brown coat, had it not been for a pair of boots that he wore to work, holding a large basket on his knees Christmas, from which protruded nougat and bottles of champagne. As I watched this wretched humanity so surprised one of them staring at me with a disdainful expression, as if to accuse me at any moment of being a spy, an enemy.
came a barefoot girl, blacks lotus feet and covered with sores, dressed in worn male underwear, a shirt covered with a filthy tattered giaccaccia. He held a cigarette between his lips plague, and the smoke inhaled by alternating the movement to that of biting one's nails, a torment that was to give her pleasure. He had the look of a hunted beast. He paused a little to my side, so close that I could not feel the smell rigettante of his body, his rags that had absorbed the dirt Untere rancid places where he had slept.
An African tall and thin, which was previously dormant, suddenly sprang to his feet shouting: "Assez! Assez! Me laisser "He repeated the cry two or three times, and burst out laughing atrocious, then sad, then got up the lovely loden green, wearing it above his head, and then came out. A man had gripped the window, crawled slowly, his head facing the ceiling. Another with the face of an alcoholic, his eyes half-closed means, stood up, took two or three wobbly steps and then collapsed in the middle of the room, arms outstretched like a dead man. After a few minutes instead took up the back, while sitting and trying to reach with one hand on the opposite foot.
The girl meanwhile had started to rave. He said confusedly mating finished hatred, of men who had known her pregnant and receiving. I looked long into his eyes, and she, conscious of my eyes, raised his index finger, accusing: "You fucked hast! What hast fucked and even told me thank you! "I looked elsewhere, but since the poor thing went in the accusations, pretending nothing, I approssimai the door. At the same time three policemen entered. She turned the accusations and the index to one of those, and the soldier grabbed her hands in his gloved hands and held motionless until he was able to calm her down. The other cops were around the room, clapping her hands to make noise and awaken the sleepers, "Come, it's time to quit, it's almost midnight, and soon the baby is born! "Those who gave no signs of response and continued to stay in their place, were taken and put up a force. If someone showed particularly lazy or recalcitrant was grabbed and dragged out. Soon the room was released, and a worker on a coffee table using to wash and disinfect.
I watched the clearing operations hidden behind a kiosk closed. In the eyes of the police certainly did not want to demonstrate to the poor bunch of outcasts, but at the same time I did not go away completely and I wanted to know where the crowd of wretches would have found refuge. The police drove them not only from the Hall Aspect, but at the same station where the beggars could at least have a roof, with force if someone tries to protest. The man in the Christmas basket, which was put on the head as the commoners than once, in perfect Italian agent pleaded: "If you drive out where ... where can we go to celebrate Christmas ..." The flock of
outcasts found himself open, silent, without even trying to agree on a common program. For a while 'still stood, leaning on a fence that protects them from cold, but when they realized that the hands and feet froze, sprawling, sloppy, and always silent, they set each on its own unlikely to shelters. The high
African pulled his face from Loden and shouted: "Aller, aller!" Beginning to run zig zag, his head high as a gazelle. The girl from barefoot races hereafter called the "Jean Paule, mon amour!" The man who walked hugging the glass so proceeded side, keeping your palms forward as if he had a wall in front of him. Other dragging their feet, slowly, head bowed, not knowing where to go, in the unlikely hope of finding a basement, a hole, any shelter. A little man from the smooth skin of a child, I had not noticed that before I hit the elbow held in the neck four or five pots tied con lo spago, e camminando le cazzeruole sbattevano le une contro le altre, dando origine ad una primitiva musica.
Seguii per un tratto l’ometto, curioso di sapere dove andasse a riparare, quando calmò il vento e un leggero nevischio prese a scendere piano. Questa novità mi spinse verso piazza dell’Esedra. A quell’ora pochi passanti e rare macchine circolavano. Le strade, gli alberi, i bus parcheggiati cominciarono a coprirsi di un velo bianco. Raggiunsi via Nazionale, con le luminarie a luci intermittenti, i tappeti rossi sui marciapiedi, i vasi con gli abeti inghirlandati di festoni e palle color oro. Non c’erano appartamenti abitati in quella via, e non si sentivano voci di festeggiamenti in family. In the side streets every now and then appeared the signs of small hotels. A great hotel, the first of the Museum of Modern Art, held a vigilante on the door in full uniform, impassive as a statue. I would have liked to get to Piazza Venezia and find the Altar of the Fatherland covered with snow. Instead, in front of the Wax Museum, the sleet was softened water and temperature. Forward to Via del Corso. In the side streets you could see small groups family members who were returning on foot from midnight mass together under umbrellas. Continue even in small runs between a gate and another, until I came to the Galleria Colonna, the ideal place to stop and spend the night, as indeed had other young people, individuals or small groups looking for foreign artists, sdraiatesi in their sleeping bags in front of the bakery closed. I leaned against the base of a column, with his face to the obelisk of Piazza House. Was no longer cold, and exhausted as I felt that I should not sleep. Instead, I met with the bells do not know which church at dawn.
Gualdo Anselmi (written 80s)
Here in riassuntogli topics of the meeting yesterday. 
