I lost a mortadella sandwich once. I was young. Eleven, maybe twelve. Can’t remember exactly, but I was the age when swimsuit season was never a problem. I used to eat an incredible amount of food. My superpower, back then, was to squeeze my belly and make two doughy bread rolls pop between my belt and my chest. Years later, I stepped up and managed to even put four little ones together. That incredible gift made me a performer when we gathered with my pals. Although, I’m somewhat grateful that in those days we didn’t have any photo camera ready to shoot in our pockets. The point is that I ate. Bread and cheese. Bread and ham and tuna. I ate a lot. But that day, my mortadella sandwich was gone. I looked around for a bit with the proverbial patience of a young man. Five minutes later I made another one and forgot about it.
Back then, my mum used to look after this girl who kept ripping her own clothes off on the street. Stripped naked. The girl, who was actually in her late thirties, used to jumped around naked, laughing. Her giant breasts bouncing in the wind and everyone around looking without looking. The only way to calm her down was to empty the paper bin on the floor, and rip every sheet and cardboard apart in small little confetti and put them back in the bin.
After her shifts, my mum always popped over at my grandad’s. Often, she’d find him off his face on his wheelchair…