"Any reference to existing people or real events in the story that follows is purely coincidental"
"... the humor starts to fly around the city. A 'sign mint-green promise me whiskey-bar, a juke-box whispers: 'Uasciuariuà'..."
Goods Bocu, Sergio Caputo
' What do you serve? The usual? ' asked Oswald, with his characteristic courtesy.
'No' I replied, with my typical air of laconic.
A bar a little 'kitsch, as are all the bars that we can not - objectively - describe as' a nice bar '. With a luminous very flashy, but no one seems to notice the traffic of the day, rather than the lust of the night, apart from its unique ' aficionados'.
A counter embroidered with mirrors that reflect and multiply in a multitude of diamonds dulled by time and oblivion. Mirrors everywhere, even to the ceiling, chairs red and purple taste of everything for free 80. High stools, a TV set on a shelf, high, low tables, the process in the lower right looking the jukebox. A fantastic jukebox, of course, 80, who plays only Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Level 42, Chic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Imagination, U2, UB40. To name a few. I studied him for a good night I had little sleep and even there I found 'and I Rino' of Segio Caputo. Again: amazing.
But back to Oswald, to his and his typical kitsch bar courtesy. Osvaldo is a bartender of 63 years. I did not say 'a man of 63 years': it has more the appearance. Only a bartender or a senator, can carry a show off as his own. That makes his typical kindness, his bar kitsch and its teaches electric blue more pulp. Pulp is the typical adjective I can, and I could, I give to my look and my laconic irony do. But believe me, I could never think of not seeing Osvaldo Tarantino's cinematic masterpiece, and its reporting that sometimes danced kidnapped by vortices air of a ceiling fan is a bit 'tired. And his jukebox and purple and black and red chairs. And his round-heads as his belly. And yet the old hooker that disintegrated cigarette butts in an ashtray sitting on her tiny ass huge. And the smell of rancid. There was a beautiful fauna by Osvaldo and I were a bit funny ' all. I spent all the hours for brioche and cappuccino for a coffee, a sandwich, a beer ... or maybe more than one, for a good rum. The characters were a bit 'always the same at different times and so colorful that I could write long, but this is not my goal. There I was talking about my dear bar kitsch, the dear Osvaldo with his courtesy and do my laconic observer.
But to think a moment, I just can not leave out my story in the description of a very colorful character who every day did step down at the bar. At 7:45 every morning Thomas asked for a bottled beer. 'A Raffo, Ossssvaldo! Bella fressssca eh? and supported his pennies stacked on the counter when he could pay. But no ... if you talk about Thomas, his sibilant s, his nervous tics and its aimless wandering, we night.
I was telling you that bar of pulp that I attended, the operator of his Oswald and carried the time that I was going to sit and observe and write with my look and decided womanizer.
It is well ... like the time I missed the trip with the football team for those two Calabrian ... oh God no.
I drank it willingly, in that bar with the kitsch neon blue and metal ceiling fans and the blue lamp hanging from the mosquitoes that stick-side window. I drank alone in that place when there were existential reasons, such as problems with women, or having to watch from the stands to my team, or the stress of university exams. Mix with beer and other spirits of the long soliloquies I hugged the toilet bowl. What good times. But because an alcoholic is so fascinating? Then instead I drank with friends because I was happy. Or maybe we were sad but did not know. Buy beer at the supermarket or the storage of beverages and tinkling we walked away with bags from the town to rave under the moon and the Milky Way. Bucolic images that I can not remove from memory. The bar Osvaldo disgusted with my friends, so we just went by myself. With them went to the Irish pub and we broke through the liver with gallons of cider. And sometimes we threw darts at him. Those were good times. And when at night I stop before returning home to Oswald, he stared into my face and asked me, in the Apulian dialect, 'Na birr, uagliò?'. She knew there was something that kept me on the brain and that made me restless, and I did not want more than a dark beer, a stout-bodied and alcoholic. I told him about something, with his head in his hands and elbows on the counter, and he listened patiently, perhaps looking at the corner of a game for Milan. Do not say anything most of the time. That was what I wanted, who did not speak and who watches over me while I was incapable of discernment. He liked to listen to me because I spoke good Italian, and almost none of his regular customers did. He smiled at my shit and spent all the time a piece of cloth on his neck and forehead. It was a beautiful place that bar so kitsch, pulp and dare I say, with a sign flashing and mirrors everywhere, operated by Oswald with his reporting, the smile like a piano keyboard and a friendly courteous done heavy lines in dialect, and lots of patience. I also loved that guy who never spoke shady and set a lithograph of James Dean as he teased the incisors with a calling card. He was wearing a t-shirt, was always the same, with the inscription: "My heart beats only for the slices of horse." One of the few times that I was over there with another friend of half drunk, I was talking to this religion, Christs and Madonnas and logs of happiness, and he - without saying a word, took off his shirt and let us see the tattoo that occupied the full back: the Virgin Mary and an inscription all around: "Madona protegimi. Yes, you read that right. Find out more Later that had him tattooed in prison .
When I presented myself in the company of a woman Osvaldo took me a little 'to do the pimp around and gave me of her, pretending to be too servile. I asked in Italian, 'What the servant, the usual?' and I wore the usual Tennent's with the usual courtesy.
'No' I said that time, displacing the stomach and faithful friend, who stood still, thrilled and thoughtful.
'Today I want a blonde. Media. Indeed, very beautiful '. said, smiling at the beautiful creature who accompanied me, with a tone and intent that would have seemed comical kitsch only out of that bar. Out of this romantic, bucolic and pulp, with round woven wicker chairs, the neon blue electric hood and cigarette smoke.
'Okke' he said with an air of laconic guappo.
'From now on I will ask only blondes in this lovely bar in the suburbs' said I beamed with kindness and inexplicable.
