Go back On the road
Jack Kerouac wrote his “ On the road “ in the Seventies.
I did mine in the late 1949. Because a car or a backpack aren’t enough to say
you’ re on the road. You can go on the road just with your heart, your soul,
your mind. That’s how I went looking for my “on the road” !
Childhood in the Fifties was made of nothing. I
remember us being guys with the same problems, we were all children of the same
underrated class of workers: State employees. We had many
characteristics in common: sheets with holes (as big as your feet, depending on
the size); a cover with an iron-shaped burnt stain ; the TV of the neighbour (one
in all the building), so that everyone was there everynight. We let him go
to bed just when RAI (Italian TV), closed its programmingwith a funeral music.
We had in common the older brothers’ clothes (so-called clothes), that a Valentino
named Mum made fit on younger brothers. I was luckier….I was the
first one ! We had in common the favourite place to play: the building
stairs ! You had to fight with danger, there, like true roadies. The
biggest danger to us was a not very common figure these days: “the
janitor”! His role meant power, meant “run and learn to
hide”, “make him crazy but go home when he’s not there”! I
think I climbed so many stairs that I could be on the moon by now.
We children didn’t have any rights….Slapped
at school, slapped by the janitor, slapped at home…We always were very “coloured”.
Sometimes I think I didn’t spend those years “on the road”, but “on
the ring”! There was no kids aid telephones…actually there was no
telephone at all! Mine had one of the first gadgets: a bolt!
We also had a great imagination. There weren’t any porn magazines, any sexy
channel on TV. The maximum was watching TV announcers. We couldn’t
watch girls of our block: they were few, wearing some kind of Burkas
and …..very very ugly! So, much imagination and much hand!
As regarding school I was very often on the road.
I used to go sightseeing more than in the classroom. Days went by in little
understairs called “bigliardi” (places with pool tables and so
on), between cigarettes smoke
and the alienation due to hiding from those nice spies who recognized you and
told your parents. That was a spy story life. But years went on and
if you know what you want to do, you have to be brave to face your decision and
be responsible of it. That’s how I told my parents that I was going to leave
school to play. It’s been a shock….for me, because they already
understood! So there I was, on the road, always with wind against
me ( because who’s on the road is never helped by the wind)! I
gave up weekly money from my parents, I gave up respect of my relatives, I gave
up traditional life of a middle-class guy and chose a six-years long road (the
history)! Life is your mistress, you’ re not her master, so she
decided on my behalf.. After six years of expensive freedom, I entered
the world I always fought: I was an employee, son of an employee and nephew of
an employee….genetically perfect! I was always on the road,
but this was more damaged than the previous one!
The biggest obstacle in life isn’t poverty, illness,
taxes, but people’s mind. You can try to avoid them, but they
come back at the first curve, It’s impossible to let this kind of beings
understand there’s a different way of life from theirs. And it’s impossible
to let them see they’re different. But unluckily for them, I was on
the road and bad weather never stopped me! They use to say: “wear
eccentric”, “he’s cool”, “always singular”,….”I like what you
think”….So, why don’t you think like me?! It’s not a
matter of ignorance, not a matter of the
age they live in…People are scared
of what they don’t understand. Mankind is always the same: ages ago there were
dinosaurs, now we have technology, but if the caveman of then was scared of
thunder and lightning, the caveman of today is afraid of what it’s not
in his mind, so there he goes calling names niggers and arabs, hippy and Rock,
gays and whores and everything else he’s not been said at his birth.
The most simple example of this discrimination was
Jesus!!
Of course you can avoid this stuff, you become a part
of it and pretend you don’t see, but then you’ re not on the road. In
my long run I’ve been always trying to search heart and mind of people
I’ve met, I’ ve let people talk to ubderstand. Some of them are in “my
backpack”, some others have been listening to me, but I lost them. I’ m
not the Guardian of Truth, I’ ve said and done loads of bullshits,
but at least I’ ve tried to give a meaning to this trip. There
are women I’ ll never forget, there are men I’ll remember with love even if
I’m not gay, there are gays I’ ve see like true men, there are children I
take in my heart and who will never
grow old. I have fears I’ ll never face, but there are everlasting joys.
I think I’ m lucky, I could have stayed on the road,
but I found two women who lined up, two women I wish everyone to meet: my
wife and my daughter!
Life
hasn’t an age, every day is good
to be happy, every day is good to suffer, and when you feel your trip is
gonna end, here there are new energies that let you see the complete lack of
time. You’
re on the road again, instead of middle class people’ s schedules: thirty
yrs-old a marriage , forty yrs-old at least a child, fifty you’ re over!
Don’t listen to them, who wants to live hasn’t any age! I’m proud of my
life, of my past, of my mistakes, of my present…….I’m still on the road!!!
Dedicated
to my Father