Arthur’s dream

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07H44DYF7 

 

I

And then I woke up

one morning

thoughtless

with no reasons to stand

no reasons to stay

paralyzed by nothingness!

And I suddenly understood the junkies

Looking for something,

belonging to another world!

II

Yes, I woke up

Or perhaps I was still sleeping

With none to love

None to hate

And nothing to fight for;

With no bother,

no pleasure,

no compromising,

nor boredom or satisfaction;

no hunger,

no thirst.

III

And so I communicated

telepathically

To give Elem a date

in that pub

and she came,

yes she did

only for me!

But soon she went away,

without telling me why. 

IV

And since then I look for a telephone number

A police’s district

A little bit of peace in my mind

And everything to forget

in this bed

without Elem.

Recuerdos de un Italiano en Londres-15

 

https://www.amazon.fr/Solo-como-una-piedra-Recuerdos-ebook/dp/B09Z6C5LKC/

Una vez, por ejemplo, hubo una cola larga y ordenada de clientes que esperaban ser atendidos en la máquina de helados, hasta el borde exterior de la acera.

De repente, Bob dijo que tenía que ir y hacer una llamada telefónica. Y al decir esto, mostró a los clientes una moneda de diez peniques, manteniéndola en alto entre el pulgar y el índice de la mano izquierda y silbando, con el labio superior ligeramente curvado sobre los dientes, en una serie de disparos de glotis: “Me vuelvo en un minuto! “.

Después de que desapareció en la tienda intenté hacer mi mejor esfuerzo para servir a los clientes. Cuando regresó, viendo tanta gente todavía haciendo cola, me preguntó amablemente, para dejar de lado, trazando un semicírculo con su antebrazo izquierdo y tomó una docena de conos, él fue capaz de llenarlos todos girando hábilmente la mano debajo del grifo de helado, al mismo tiempo que manejaba la palanca con la mano derecha, y mientras yo luchaba para tener los  helados en ambas manos y distribuirlos, los clientes, lo miraban con admiración. Y parecía que estos clientes tendrían la magnitud, porque había más y más detrás de ellos, y el show de Bob se repitió hasta que la máquina pudo seguir refrigerando.

Pero cuando se mantuvo alejado por más tiempo, solía preguntarme, con un gesto significativo del índice frotado en su pulgar, si tenía billetes, a los que llamaba en su jerga graciosa “wonga”.

Fue en ese momento de mi primer noviciado en Londres cuando comencé a amar a los ingleses.

Recuerdos de un Italiano en Londres-13

https://www.amazon.fr/Solo-como-una-piedra-Recuerdos-ebook/dp/B09Z6C5LKC/

Pero si Soho es el corazón palpitante de Londres de noche, el turismo es el gran negocio en el resto del West End: un gran centro comercial y comodidades en cuyas venas corre un río infinito de personas, motorizadas y con dinero, que atrae a un reemplazo continuo de nueva vida de las arterias invisibles del inmenso metro subterráneo de la metrópoli de Londres. La presencia de esta masa de plancton metropolitano había permitido en esas calles el surgimiento de una variada fauna de vendedores, incluidos los puestos de frutas, que se establecían principalmente a lo largo de Oxford Street. Sus frutos, tan hermoso y llamativo que parecian falsos, se destacaban más por la calidad y la forma que por la cantidad. Los "vendedores de fruta" en realidad vendían a los transeúntes, lo habitual para un "almuerzo rápido", o para turistas ocasionales, una manzana roja californiana, una "Granny Smith" sudafricana verdosa o incluso un pomelo siciliano, un plátano o , quizás, al más sofisticado, un avogadro cortado en dos mitades, provisto de sal y cuchara de plástico. Mientras que las pocas amas de casa o restauradores en la zona, que se encuentran en la calle Berwick cercana, encuentraban precios más baratos y mejores opciones. La "London Fruits Sellers Company" (de la que dependían estos vendedores de frutas en particular) era sin duda una empresa con todos los documentos adecuados: permisos de comercialización municipales; Licencia de ocupación de suelo público; tarjeta de seguro médico e incluso pagos regulares y sustanciales al Gran Socio Estatal: el voraz Fiscal de la Corona. La cumbre corporativa estaba compuesta casi en su totalidad de financieros judíos, eternos y expertos, siempre en busca de inversiones y ganancias, mientras que la organización en el campo, por así decirlo, estaba en manos de los ingleses. Todos los vendedores ingleses venían del barrio "East London", una ciudad en la ciudad, el mejor Londres, para aquellos que eran legítima y auténticamente londinenses.

La concentración en el este del Támesis de los descendientes de los antiguos habitantes de Londinium había ido junto con la expansión de la capital inglesa.

Expulsado hacia el este por la ampliación del núcleo antiguo de la ciudad (así como de Holborn, Seven Dials y Covent Garden), que se convertirá en los siglos en la rica milla cuadrada, desalojada del oeste para hacer espacio a ricos y lucrativos edificios, la gente más pobre de Londres encontró refugio cada vez más en el lado este de la ciudad, fusionándose con los descendientes de los hugonotes, los judíos, los romaníes y los ingleses más pobres de la actualidad, mudandose a Clerkenwell, Finsbury, Shoreditch, Wapping, Limehouse, Hoxton, Stepney, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Shadwell, Aldgate, Millwall, Hackney, Rotherhithe, Mile End e Bow, que se convirtieron en otro Londres, el único real y original, en contraste con los ricos y turistas de Londres. Y mientras Harrod's, Selfridges, Marks y Spencer y los bancos más grandes de Londres estaban ubicados donde una vez ellos vivieron, encontraron refugio en el East End, lejos de la caótica y contaminada Nueva Frontera. Y cuando cruzaban esa cortina invisible que los protegía hacia el este, entraban en la "Ciudad" o la "Ciudad", pero Londres ya estaba detrás.

The real story of Patrick Winningoes-4

 

https://www.amazon.it/real-story-Patrick-Winningoes-Salvatore-ebook/dp/B0B244SFNQ/

During the war I had the opportunity to deeply analyze the causes of those disastrous events. I had been, it is true, in the years immediately preceding the war completely devoted to my studies, in a way that I could call purely scientific of the phenomena which stand at the base of the human life, but it was not certainly in the fore coming years of war that we had to seek its reasons and inmost causes. The roots of hate and evil sank their extreme appendixes in the most tangled and lavish meanders of human mind. These deleterious feelings, so inherent to human mind, were to be conceived like the principal causes of that huge bath of blood.

 

From this premise I puzzled out that the basic beliefs of the national socialist philosophy were correct: the humanity, in order to be saved, needed a superior race to be raised over the others for leading them to salvation. But German race could not certainly be the chosen one. Not even any other among the existing races could be that, because it had to be a race who didn't know, in their hearts but goodness and love.

 

With a greater fury than before, I addressed all my energies against the hateful enemy: I challenged death ten, hundred, thousands of times, always defeating the adversary.

 

Little by little, I started perceiving what role it was reserved to me in the history of the world and the contours of my destiny assumed more and more its clean and precise outline.”

 

While pronouncing his last words Mr Winningoes, who had gradually been increasing his excitement during the narration, lifted up the right hand, tensing his forefinger as an accuser, and his eyes rotated a couple of times halting eventually in an insane expression of craziness depicted on his face. He remained for indefinite time with the lift forefinger, staring into space, with his muscles tended as if they had wanted to get out of standing. He seemed a statue of marble, immortalized in a grotesque pose. This sudden explosion of apparent madness came unexpected. Before we had the time to interact, however, the man seemed to recover himself. He looked around, lost and embarrassed and, grabbed a glass of water, voided all of it in a hit. The water seemed to calm the man. His eyes showed now a serene light and he looked like being almost absent, lost in his thoughts or perhaps looking for recomposing the interrupted line of his story. He pulled the refreshments trolley and picked up a carafe filled with a golden colored liquid.

 

- “Have a drink, please. It is cognac from Charente, one of the few things that I appreciate of French people.”

 

This way saying he poured some of that liquid in a short, carved wine glass, explaining us that a cognac, to be really good, has to leave, if slightly rotated, a thin layer of color inside the glass.

As soon as I had drunk, I immediately felt a comforting warmth. On the warm’s alcohol wave I thought that that man surely knew so much indeed about life. His theories, nevertheless, yet quiet abstruse to me, showed however a sort of suggestive charm.

I imagined my brain imploding together with George’s, melting with it and flying, as a winged rocket, in the endless universe.

 

London for ever - 20

Unlike Oxford Street, it was the evening the most intense time in Leicester Square. And if during the day the streets were simply trafficked, at night, at certain times, the human crowd proceeded like a sea tide, moving from one point to another of London by night, and  passing through the square, seemed for a moment to sway, in front of me, as uncertain whether to proceed or to go back. Then it resumed its unstoppable flow, like a river of lava that exceeds the elbow of a steep ridge, finally aiming at the valley.

These real human traffic jams occurred especially in coincidence with the conclusion of the performances of the numerous theaters that are located in the square, mainly from Friday to Sunday. Another topical moment, in which the streets were animated dramatically, was that between 23.00 and 23.45, that is at the time when, depending on the days, close the countless pubs in London.

Of that immense crowd, while I waited patiently close to the machines to fulfill any requests, I was amused to imagine the origin, the wealth, the cultural level, the reason why they were in London and in that square, at that time.

If they spoke to me, to ask for an ice-cream, a drink or even for some  information, then it was even possible to identify their exact nationality: each people, according to its mother tongue, has a particular vocal conformation that manifests its peculiar traits in the emission of sounds of the English language.

 Even the clothing and the way of handling money were elements  from which to derive, if nothing else in general, the origin of my patrons. For example, it was usual for an Englishman to pay you the amount of ice cream (which cost thirty pence at the time) by remarking the payment of the coins, while some Arabs preferred to pay with the bills, sometimes without waiting the rest. And if Westerners, in general, preferred to satisfy their thirst by buying a can of Coca-Cola inside the store that housed our machines, the Orientals chose to quench their thirst with the orange juice that I prepared daily, of which they could observe the contained since before the mix in transparent plastic cups, in plexiglass containers of the refrigerating machine.

The North Europeans consumed more, where the Mediterranean, a bit 'for the climate (however, and increasingly stiffer than theirs), a bit' for the unfavorable exchange, consume less, with the necessary exceptions, of course.

From my ice cream station I was surprised to observe, not without some admiration, the discipline with which the English stood in line at the box office to buy tickets for the various shows. Two other things struck me in that context: the trust and impassivity that, even very advanced people of age, showed in the booking for events that would take place in a few years and the immovable determination with which the girls refused to get the ticket paid by their boyfriends.

20. to be continued...

London for ever - 19

One of these was the "black giant". 

He was a tall, thick Jamaican, always wrapped in a heavy gray coat; he was constantly turning the length of the square, scratching his curly, woolly head, or his back and legs and never saying hello to anyone. 

Once, and it  was the only one, he came up to ask me for an ice cream.

 I served him a cone with some cream on it. He maybe thought  I was expecting the money, because he attacked me with a load of arrogant phrases, in his incomprehensible Jamaican dialect. His eyes were red and swollen. 

After the first series  of insults he gave a tremendous bite to that poor ice cream, swallowing  almost half of it. Then, seeing that I had remained impassive, he still uttered some bad words, with less conviction than before and went away. 

I hoped so much that I never had anything to do again with that energumen, at least  for fear of his undesirables guests. 

But as I saw him, in the distance, resume his scratching all over his body, I realized that there was no danger: the fleas were very fond of him.

19. to be continued...

Memoirs of London - 17

17.

Another distinguished member of  the group was "Old Jerry", one who boasted of having left a leg in what battle I did not know well and proudly displayed numerous decorations of the British Imperial Wars of which he had taken part. He always greeted me happily and was the only one who always drank but good brand of whiskey.

One day, after I had not seen him around for a while, he told me that he had escaped from the "shelter", where some of his relatives had him locked up. He told they  had stolen all his  money and did not even leave him a small amount for a drop of wiskey and hence, as long as he lived, he wanted to live free to do what he wanted, after so many had seen and survived from; and significantly touching the prosthesis, limping but cheerful, he reached his companions who already called him from the benches in front, foretasting  in the throat a sip of good branded whiskey.

More mysterious was instead "Colby", a Welsh still distinguished guy, despite his  vagabond life was going on  for several years. It was said of him that he was in the service of the "Metropolitan Police". One morning a band of the "Salvation Army" passed through the square, with great sounds of trumpets, drums and songs praising the Queen, the national heroes, God Almighty and Divine Mercy, with the chiefs leading the march in high uniform, strutting as general, and in the queue the women volunteers,  with an angelic and inspired face, with the hair gathered in a cap, like so many nuns and the chest of drawers hanging on the neck with the inscription "thank you".

Colby had noticed the arrival of the Salvation Army just as he made his way to his favorite benches in the center of the square. It must have seemed risky to expose him to the square, because, like a hunted prey he took  refuge inside the room, hiding  behind the ice cream machine. Not seen, from there, he made gestures to the  joyous and glorious  parade, moving the index and the middle fingers of the right hand from the bottom upwards and then crossing them by way of an oath and pronouncing outrageous and unrepeatable phrases in their  regards.

 - "The last time they put their hands on me" - he told me as soon as he saw the danger escaped - "they even tried  to convince me that milk is better than my slop; but I told them, you know, I'm tired of being imposed and I do not want to be redeemed by them! Furthermore those kind of generals in the front are a bunch of sexual maniacs and the women on the rear do not even serve to suck my cock! "

17. to be continued...

Memoirs of London - 16

16.

There were, all around Leicester Square so many public places, each one with its own peculiarities. For example the "Cafe Paris" behind his seeming normality, kept a secret known only to a small circle. It was frequented by old and rich women in search of gigolò or any handsome young man in order to forget for a few hours, their loneliness and their time, perhaps ran  too quickly; or "The worm", a meeting place for gays and lesbians; the "Cokney Pride", where was played  the  traditional London’s music. 

Just in front of my pitch used to gather  a group of tramps.  They sat very often in a circle on the benches, right in the middle of the square.   The benches were set all around  a circular flowerbed in  care to Mary, a girl with no age, brown skin and black hair, stained teeth partially broken on the front. As  a young woman she had been a maid at Buckingham Palace and had been sacked for his drinking  or stealing; or perhaps because of an unwanted pregnancy; her friends called her "Queen Mary" or simply "Queen". With her I had more frequent contact, for  she was fond of ice cream.  I presented one cone to her, from time to time. Afterwards I knew many of them. Each one with his own story.

Miss Rambling, an elderly paralyzed lady who juggled with her wheelchair in London traffic, better than a gymkhana champion, was the only to be  strictly abstemious.

 The others guys and girls, including Mary, were all heavy drinkers. They drank alcohol in place and more than any other liquid drink, including water and milk. However, not everyone had reached the terminal stage of alcoholism.

Max, for example, was sloping slowly but inexorably on the verge of addiction. It was increasingly difficult for him to "hook" in  the Cafè Paris, from which he portrayed his only source of income.

As a young man, as shown by some of his youthful photos he proudly showed, he resembled Clark Gable and of his original beauty only remained in his face a distant halo, distinguished by black mustache, still well-groomed and thin, on a  vaguely sensual lip. But when he was in  group with the tramps, with a bristly beard on his reddish cheeks and crumpled clothes, he looked more like the shadow of himself than that of the American celluloid myth he had looked like in his youth.

 Max had played at the races, one by one, all the properties inherited from his family. He often talked to me about horse racing and sometimes, in the transportation of his story, he said with rage that he would succeed on  redeeming at least one country house in Wales, where he would finally retire for a quiet and sweet old age.

The others, for the most part, were however much more battered and unkempt. Hair without care, black face, of that black that only the road can give; always dirty and torn clothes; beltless trousers  and laceless shoes, signs of their frequent go to and  from places of forced hospitalization, if not from the Royal English Prisons.

They always had the inevitable bottle of liquor or wine in their hands or pockets, or, in the lean periods, a concoction they called "sloppy drink", or more simply "slop" of which I could never understand exactly which ingredients it was made of.

"A Stuff" - Joe,  an ex-boxer,  once told me,  - "that when you drink it, it kills you kindly".

16. to be continued...

Memoirs of London - 15

15.

Chapter Three 
Leicester Square 

In the  morning, right in that day,  when all the white collars and secretaries in London were already at work, as previously agreed, I called  the Office to find out what would have been my place of work. Lucky gave me a hand: Jim, the guy who led a great selling point had forfeited the day before and that  made  vacant the position he occupied in one of the most important squares around the West End. 

When I got to the shop in Leicester Square I introduced myself to  an  Eastern Arab manager whose  name was Ibrahim.  He gave  a careless glance at my badge and  showed me my positon the back of the store, where I found the machine "Carpigiani", the milk to make the ice-cream, the  cones and some chocolate bars they called flakes to be served as "optionals" squeezed in the cream on top of the ice cream cone.

 In addition I had provided, right next to the ice cream machine, a dispenser with two trays, one for the orange juice and the other for the lemonade that I made it myself with running water and concentrated juice.

 Taken up position at the front of the store and, proud in my white apron, I began my new adventure of ice cream seller  in the Brian Brook Company.

Leicester Square is a square not far from Piccadilly Circus. You get access from there through  two short but commercially important streets: Coventry Street and New Coventry Street.

In the way to the wide  Trafalgar Square, instead, heading south, all  around the National Gallery, in a street called St Martin,  there is another special category of street's traders: the itinerant painters!

Students from the Academy of fine arts in London and from  the High  Artistic schools around the world, amateurs, skilful men  in the art of painting and portraiture; young emerging artists and old decayed artists; aspiring artists or assumed, all converge in this corner of London to offering passers-by the result of their inspiration onto canvas, for a fee that can range from a few pounds for a portrait or a caricature done right there, to much more  expensive  portraits in different  styles and subjects, with the hope  to leave to his descendants  maybe the equivalent of a Van Gogh. Although few tourists, to be honest, had the courage and the business acumen to invest and bet on the pictorial talent of those strangers, anonymous exhibitors;  and not least, it is certain that everyone, including the merely curious, breathed some fresh air authentically Bohemian because, beyond the artistic value of those painters not sedentary, passers-by were to appreciate the skill, ease and freedom with which they expressed in their art their existential anxieties, actual or alleged that they were.   In the more immediate vicinity of Leicester Square there are plenty of  box offices, theaters, pubs, discos, restaurants, clubs, bars and nightspots, bureaux de change and clothing stores; the latter, mostly, are the property of Indian and Pakistani traders, open seven days a week, from nine in the morning until late at night. The presence of several offices of the change machine was a safe attestation of cosmopolitan  London especially for the attraction made to foreigner visitors by this place.
.. to be continued...