Racconto: "Memories and Stories" - parte 2

Glauco, the owner of the pub, had gone out to smoke a cigarette some minutes before. Now, he came in but was not alone. Following him, was a woman with a two year-old boy. Nobody in the pub had ever saw neither of the two new entries. We didn’t investigate and returned to our chatting while Glauco, whit a strange look in his eyes, went to the kitchen. I think I was the only one to notice that look. Part of the writer in me had never died, though I had stopped writing years and years before, about in the same period in which I started using heroin. I think that when I quitted using, which happend one year and a half before this story starts, after a vortex of light, darkness and dazing that I didn’t want to remember... when I quitted using, I was saying, I must have thought that that event would mark the beginning of a new era of writing, writing and writing, but it lasted only for some weeks. It’s not that I didn’t like it anymore... I just didn’t have anymore inspiration, or at least, no more inspiration that I could turn into more than one or two sentences in notebook. I firstly must have thought that it was only lack of practise, then I realized I had a writer’s block, and decided to wait for it to pass. I was still waiting, more than one year later. But it was only a weak hope, that night. Some days before, I had tied up all my papers in a box and put it with other old things, where I couldn’t see them at least that I wanted to. It hurt too much to see them. I couldn’t bear it.

My thoughts were interrupted as I saw Glauco hurrying himself to the table where he had made the woman and the child sit, with two plates of soup in his hands. I noticed that the woman, while she took the plates and thanked him, had tears in her eyes.
The never-really-dead-writer part of me started wondering the reason of these tears. I had noticed the expression in Glauco’s face, before, so maybe something bad had happened to someone else that they both knew, and now the woman was crying for that. Or was she a friend of Glauco, and had found her husband with another woman, and then hurried to meet the only person that could help her face that? This would explain the presence of the child, too. The third hypotesis to come in my mind, taking care of the state of her clothes, was that she was a homeless. But then, why was she here? Trampers don’t usually sleep in these streets, so Glauco did probably see her during the day and told her to come, but this would never be typical from Glauco, so I had to discard this theory.

Then, I experienced it again. The block. It came as a discomforting feeling, after which everything looked a shade darker. It was an almost imperceptible feeling, but it was enough for me to know that, after it came, it was impossible to imagine or write and feel good like before. For some minutes, it was impossible to imagine, write and feel good like before.

Glauco was talking with the woman now. I slipped back into the conversation at my table, and felt better after a few second. That was what I liked of that pub. It gave you warm.

I felt the need to smoke a cigarette. I sat up, and Strimpella and another of the men at the table came with me. We went out and we lit our fags.

It was cold, outside. The air had a kind of subtle, cold, sharpened smell, the one you can smell only when it’s sure that it’s going to snow. Macerata was quite as usual, for an inter-week night. Not a car in the streets. At least, not a moving one. I had always thought, before actually living there, that at least there should be traffic. Yes, sure, you can find traffic at midday, or at seven, but no way for you to find a car driving past the streets by night. It’s mathematical. The only cars around us were those parked in the car park a few yards from us.

Glauco came outside and lit a cigarette again.

« How’s ‘t goin’, tonight?» he asked, and received a choir of muttered “well, well”.
« Listen, I neew your help.» he said.

We asked for what.

« For the woman who entered a few minutes ago.»

He started telling how they met, and we discovered that in everyone of my fantasies there was a piece of truth: 1) a person they both knew was involved in the story beside the woman’s tears, 2) that person had in fact a relationship with another woman, and 3) she was a homeless.

« Who’s she?» Strimpella asked.

Glauco hesitated before answering, and held the anger aside.

« She’s Tognazzi’s wife.» he said.
We assimilated that information, and soon we could see horror appearing in each other’s face.

« Fuckin’ son of a bitch.» swore Strimpella, angrily, and added two or three blasphemies to better show his feelings.

Continua la piccola storia del nostro anonimo protagonista Maceratese e dei suoi amici. Chi è questo Tognazzi che non sembra andare simpatico ai clienti del pub? Da parte, mia rimando ogni commento su questa parte della storia a giovedì prossimo. Voi che ne pensate finora?
Questo esperimento nasce dall'esigenza improvvisa di scrivere in lingua straniera, ma anche dal desiderio di migliorare l'uso e la conoscenza della stessa, che al momento ancora non sono al livello che vorrei raggiungere. Quindi se avete notato qualche errore di sintassi, qualche passaggio che poteva essere scritto con più fluidità (in questo racconto non ho avuto bisogno di particolari forzature, ma su un paio di frasi di questa puntata ho delle piccole incertezze), o qualsiasi altro tipo di errore, sia esso di battitura, un refuso, qualsiasi cosa... vi prego, fatemelo sapere. :)
Ci vediamo giovedì!
---MICHELE GIULI---