There must be something immoral, if there is a piece of the city that if it weren't for the headlights of a car you wouldn't even see. Where the street lamps don't give any light and even the sliver of moon seems to have gone out. And if you accidentally look inside you find the crumpled existences of those who keep their life in a backpack and have an overpass for a roof, and they say it almost apologetically that they haven't lost their faith, but the problem is - evidently - another: "God is one, we are many".
The invisible ones
No, poverty doesn't go on vacation. That in an endless and sticky night you meet a naked man under a fig tree who says he's hungry, and two young girls who come to barter their bodies and dignity ("because sometimes there are no alternatives"). And then you think that hell isn't so otherworldly: you end up touching it with your own hands, when you decide to spend an evening knocking on invisible doors, braving the heat that is even more ferocious under the bridges, while you try to slalom between the stuck lives of those who make the right move and that's what will come. Certainly not today.
Prayers and shame
Half an hour after 8:00 p.m., the first encounter is with the angry eyes of Giuseppe, 71, rosary around his neck, a past as a bricklayer and one that never ended with drugs. "Today is not my day," he says while thanking and blowing a kiss with his hand from the bedroom set up under the Asse Mediano; with ivy as a wall and a mouse as a roommate. Last move, after the eviction from the shack erected in the courtyard of the former Motel Agip, which is also awaiting rebirth. The oppressive heat gives no respite, not even when eleven minutes after 9:00 p.m., the last mass of the evening having long since ended, in Viale Sant'Ignazio there are still people praying. "I'm thrown out on the street like a dog. How does it feel? Impotence»: Stefano, originally from Sant'Antioco, lowers his gaze, an ex-wife («Thank goodness, otherwise they would force me to pay her alimony that I don't even have for myself») and resides on the second bench to get off. You make friends, even among desperate people. And it's a competition to see who is worse off; with the assortment of misfortunes that you end up confessing to your cardboard neighbor. This is not the case for Matteo, who arrived from Ponza and ended up on the street for «family stories», and if you try to delve deeper you find yourself faced with an adamant «long things».
Drugs and Despair
It continues to grow, the camp of desperation that sprung up too many summers ago under the overpass of the 195; front post and far away from the civilization that runs fast above your head. With the noise of the engines bouncing on your brain and between the concrete pillars, while Luna and Marta go home: a tent and a companion each, one of whom is temporarily absent "for old things". They have come to do the oldest job in the world: the second one has hoop earrings and says she hasn't been there for five days, while the other, in full withdrawal, also fights with monsters of flesh and blood; those that are not the result of substances.
The pain
Daniele has a grenade tattooed on his arm and lives in Piazza del Carmine. Roberto has chosen a house with a sea view, inside the Port. "Ciao sa sposa, mi manca mia moglie", he cries, showing the face of Christ on his chest. The one who does not listen to his pleas in the face of the pain of losing his wife killed four years ago by a hit-and-run driver. Then it really makes you believe that hell on earth exists.
