—One of them collected eccentric tales. He would come across a story and set it aside, and before long he’d find another, and so on. When he had collected a certain number, he put them all into a book. But then the book’s publication drew even more people to him, all eager to tell the stories they knew. And so, the collector soon came to have a great many of these tales.

 

—One lived with his nephew’s family. They were a nice family, but he drank too much and gradually they all grew ashamed of him. It came to the point where he only ever left his room to sneak across the hallway and empty his chamber pot.

When he died, his relatives discovered that he’d been saving bottle corks for years. They found thousands of them in his wardrobe, which he’d emptied of his clothes to free up the space.

 

—Another one, a rich man, was obsessed with cars. He bought one whenever he had the chance, and especially liked vintage models, collectibles. Cars were the only thing that mattered and gave order to his life. He even had the front doorway of his house enlarged so that he could drive through it, park in the living room, and go straight to bed.

He often had his cars cut in half and the front of one model welded to the back of another. The monsters born of these operations could, to everyone’s amazement, be driven a few kilometers before giving out for good.

He also had a number of motorcycles. During the war, after the bombings, he would ride one of these through the city, bringing the wounded he found on the street to the hospital. But if, along the way, he found another wounded person, he would unload the first one to make room for the second, and so on.

It was a passion that ran in the family. His son had found the money and the connections to buy an army tank that, according to the young man, would make a fine hunting vehicle. He never had the occasion to use it.

 

—One collected blown-out lightbulbs.

 

—One collected rusty old nails and organized them in different drawers marked: useful, maybe useful, probably unusable.

 

—One was the Prince of Baucina, who claimed to have never opened an envelope in his life. He had developed a system for filing letters based on two categories: trivial and cursed. Having caught wind of this theory, his friends and relatives soon stopped writing to him, which in the end only served to confirm the theory: the letters that did arrive were either truly insignificant or full of bad news. He would sniff the envelope, weigh it in his hand, and declare:

“Trivial.”

Or:

“Cursed.”

 

—One ran a sort of bazaar on via Brunetto Latini. The walls of his shop were hidden behind piles of merchandise, all sorts of stuff stacked up to the ceiling in no apparent order, teetering in a precarious equilibrium. It was so crammed in there that most people, the shopkeeper included, had to wriggle sideways through the doorway. Once inside, you could find, among other things: star-shaped sheriff badges made of plastic or tin; hairpins in three different sizes; wigs, masks, stink bombs and fake poop for playing pranks; Carioca pens in packs of six and twelve colors; notebooks with a black cover and yellow paper; plastic toy soldiers; collapsible picnic cups and picnic cutlery; lipsticks; click clack balls; model airplanes; dolls’ jewelry; coloring books; off-season panettone; keychains with a little skull charm; keychains with a small, medium, or large cornicello amulet; all-purpose cleaner; paintbrushes of different sizes; rattles; buttons; sewing needles and thread; travel slippers; tie hangers; magnetic chess sets; images of Christ on the cross where He opened or closed His eyes depending on the angle of view; clay heads sculpted by who-knows-who; sheets of cigarette rolling paper; Super Santos balls; Pelé balls; fabric bookmarks; fake cell phones, water pistols; suction cup arrows without bows; miniature electric trains; postcards that were already written on (addressed to the shop owner); scarves; belts; suspenders; compass sets; two-finger ski gloves; rings in the colors of football teams, olive pitters; honey drippers; onion slicers, a utensil for making square-shaped hard boiled eggs; cigarette cases; cigarette holders; tobacco pipes; plastic pipes; envelopes filled with exotic stamps; images of piety; votive lamps; fly swatters; styptic pencils; little plastic daggers; strainers; bookmarks decorated with animals; tin napkin holders adorned with heraldic symbols; X-ray glasses that let you see through walls; glass balls for magicians; shoelaces; hairbrushes; string; little wooden Pinocchios that fell down when you pressed a button under the pedestal; donkeys on wheels; harmonicas; ribbons of all sorts and a plastic skull with colored pencils stuck into it, made by the Presbitero brand.

 

—One was Signor Taormina, who owned a record shop on via Marchese Ugo. He was not a cultured person, but at a certain point he decided to offer a discount on classical music albums. Gradually, the shop became a meeting place for a sort of coterie of amateurs who were especially passionate about early music played on original instruments. In the afternoon, you could always find someone there to talk with and exchange opinions.

But at the same time, Signor Taormina harbored a growing resentment toward customers who asked for popular music. If a teenager came in, he’d become very gruff. To avoid any disputes, Signor Taormina banished 45 rpms from his shop, but that wasn’t enough to keep the most frivolous customers away. One day, he kicked one of them out because the poor kid had asked for a Joe Tex record.

Another thing that Signor Taormina often did, while his customers were discussing Frescobaldi, was to take a bottle out from under the counter and drink from it in long swigs.

 

—One had a video shop, but he hated his customers. He sold and rented out only the films that he liked: auteur films or pornos, genres about which he was quite knowledgeable. If a customer insisted that he find them a crowd-pleaser, perhaps something to watch on Saturday evening with the family, he would chase them out of the shop.

 

—Another was the mother of this shop owner. She was always very anxious about her son. If she ran into a friend of his, she would grab him by the collar and ask:

“Where is he? Where is he?”

On days when her pessimism was at its worst, she would ask outright:

“They’ve arrested him, haven’t they? Tell me the truth: have they arrested him?”

 

—One had a barbershop in Corleone. It was open only at night.

 

—One was Turidduzzu Mezzanotte, who slept during the day and worked at night. He worked as a tailor in Polizzi Generosa. They said he was lazy, but that wasn’t true; in fact, he worked from dusk till dawn. He worked and he thought. He’d invented a tailoring tool that served to measure the precise cut for the crotch of men’s trousers. He had also discovered a defect in cigarette vending machines, come up with a solution, and submitted it to the manufacturers, but in vain.

After the war he became a Communist and it was for this reason that, when he applied for a visa to emigrate to America, he was denied. He applied several times and was always denied. So, he thought he might skip the consulate altogether and address his request directly to the President of the United States. Hoping to ingratiate himself, he decided to tailor a bespoke suit for Nixon. It was a project that demanded months of work, complicated by the impossibility of taking the model’s measurements. But Turidduzzu Mezzanotte made do with what he could: every time Nixon appeared on television, he would study the furniture or the doors for reference, in order to estimate the President’s size.

When the suit was finally ready, he mailed it addressed to the President’s wife, because this seemed to him the logical thing to do: after all, it’s wives who look after their husbands’ clothing. He mailed the package and waited.

He waited several months, until one day there arrived in his hillside town a black limousine so long that, once it had rolled into the piazza, it had no space to move. On the hood floated two small flags with stars and stripes. The car stopped and a functionary from the embassy in Rome stepped out, opened the hatch, and took out a package. Nixon’s suit.

They had to wake Turidduzzu Mezzanotte, since it was still only noon, and he listened to the functionary’s excuses: the President of the United States could not accept valuable gifts. Turidduzzu Mezzanotte listened and appeared pensive for a few seconds, then cried out:

“What kind of an idiot!”

But in the end, he went to America anyway.

 

—Another was a bric-a-brac dealer on via Maqueda who detested his shopkeeper neighbor. If a customer visited the neighbor’s shop before entering his, he’d chase them away. He’d even put up a sign outside to warn people.

 

—Another was a peddler of fruits and vegetables. He would shout his wares as he walked the streets and, on arriving in front of a customer’s house, he’d cry into the intercom:

“WHAT DO YOU NEED?”

The woman would reply in a normal voice:

“What do you have?”

“ARTICHOKES!”

“And?”

“BROCCOLINI! GREEN BEANS! ORANGES!”

Always shouting, as if the intercom didn’t exist.

 

—One was a young woman with lipstick smeared all over her face. She walked into shops of every sort and asked if they had any lipstick. They always told her no, until one day she lost patience and smashed up a shop with her umbrella.

 

—Another kept a wooden crucifix around her neck. Always dressed in black, she would walk into shops and ask after her mother, in case anyone had seen her.

 

—One lived with his mother. He loved her very much. She was the only woman in his life, and he had no interest in knowing another. Then his mother died and he didn’t want to believe it. He showed the first doctor the door and called another: nothing doing. So, then he called the funeral home and had them bring the most beautiful coffin available. But he just couldn’t manage to part with her. He kept his mother in the open coffin at home until he started to go crazy from the smell. Finally, his boss came around to try to make him see reason by bonking him with a shovel on the head.

 

—One, named Ettore, spent hours and hours in the toilet until his mother would shout at him: “Ettore, get out of there!” Then he grew up and his mother got tired of shouting from behind the door.

But Ettore never learned how to calculate the right amount of time to stay in the toilet. So, after a while he grew anxious and it was he who asked from inside: “Mamma, should I get out or not?”

 

—One was named Salvatore Schillaci, aka Totò, aka Totuccio, cousin of the famous footballer. He lived in a basement apartment on via Spaccaforno. When Totuccio was in the toilet he always left the window open, and so his every movement could be seen from the street. The neighborhood kids laughed at him because he washed himself with a paper bread bag and because his mouth was yellow with nicotine, since he smoked constantly.

He lived alone. His father, a fishmonger, gave him five thousand lire a week, while his grandmother came every day from Pallavicino to bring him food. He often went out in the evening, carrying a large radio that played Neapolitan songs. When night fell and the cars were fewer he started walking in the middle of the road. Or he’d even lie down, always in the middle of the road, to look up at the sky.

If he went out during the day, to show off his strength he would sometimes lift parked cars. Or he went walking around in his boxers and undershirt, with his trousers folded over one arm. Once, a friend lent him his moped to ride to Bolognetta, where it was stolen. So, he walked the same road back home until a police car picked him up. He told the officers he’d been robbed by a UFO.

His life’s masterpiece, however, was written with chalk on a wall of the Church of Sant’Espedito:

GARY COOPER UNFORGETABLE PERFORMINTS OF, WOLF MAN

A phrase as memorable as it was ungrammatical, which for months no one dared to touch. It was eventually discolored by the rain, and then painted over by a parishioner’s brush.

 

—There were five of them, a mother and four children, who lived on via Giusti. One would occasionally use the bidet on the balcony and then throw the water over the ledge. They had divided the housework in a rigorous manner: one ironed, one cooked, one did the shopping, one did the laundry, and one, who always wore rubber gloves, cleaned. They went down in the street only in the evening, to take out the trash. In pajamas, all five of them together.

 

—Two were a mother and daughter, both so old that it was impossible to tell who was who. They would hold hands as they walked through the streets of the historic center, collecting rags. One was Giulia, who’d been given electroshock therapy twice. The nurses at the clinic where she was hospitalized adored her, and when she was discharged, they themselves brought her back home. When her mother saw how weakened she was, she refused to acknowledge her. Giulia tried to hug her and she refused. Giulia sat down beside her and took her hand, but her mother pulled away. Finally, the nurses talked to her and she agreed to give her daughter a hand to hold. Even as the nurses left, Giulia sat there holding her hand.

 

—One, named Arsenio Azzolina, married Adele Albanese. They had three children: Amalia Azzolina, Arianna Azzolina and Alfredo Azzolina. One day, Arsenio Azzolina summoned his children and sat down in his favorite armchair, with his wife standing behind him. He proceeded to deliver a resolute speech: the children could marry for love or for money, as each saw fit, as long as it was, under any and all circumstances, with someone who had the initials A.A. Otherwise, they would bring dishonor to the entire family, a curse that would last three generations. It was understood that anyone who transgressed the rule would be disinherited. And so, Amalia Azzolina married a certain Achille Andorra. Arianna Azzolina married Aldo Amorello. Alfredo Azzolina spent some years looking, until in his search for an A.A. he came across a certain Teresa Lo Verde, with whom he fell hopelessly in love. He tried to hide this love from the family, but it was useless. When his father found out, he was overcome with a sadness that grew worse with each passing day: he finally fell ill from so much sadness and died in despair. The young Alfredo almost died of sorrow too, yet in the end love prevailed and the wedding date was set. When the big day arrived, none of the groom’s relatives showed up at the church. His mother wrote her son a letter in which she reaffirmed the paternal sanctions and, moreover, announced her own intention to never speak a word to him again. Alfredo Azzolina was disowned, disinherited, and cursed for three generations, but despite all this he lived a long and, on the whole, happy life at Teresa Lo Verde’s side.

 

—One, named Maria Bissana, was worried about her mother’s health. She always said: “What’s wrong? You don’t feel well?” Or else: “What have you got, a fever? What are you, sick?” her voice growing louder and louder. As the months passed Maria Bissana became increasingly aggressive and violent, until one day she forced her mother to go to bed, locking the poor woman in her room.

After this episode, Maria’s relatives brought her to a clinic. She improved almost immediately and the doctors spent two weeks questioning her about her relationship with her mother, trying to understand the reasons for the breakdown she had suffered. She responded calmly, she soon stopped thinking about her mother, and after twenty days they found her to be fully recovered. The family wished to welcome her home with a big party, and she modestly agreed. When all the friends and relatives had gone, Maria Bissana smiled at her mother and said: “You look a little pale.”

 

—Two were brothers and one of them, nobody knew why, was nicknamed Adriana. They lived on via De Spuches and they always wore very old clothes, with high collars, which dated back to the early twentieth century. These were things that their mother had kept from her own father’s wardrobe.

 

—One was Luigi De Pace, a very handsome man from a good family, who, in old age, became miserably poor. He always wore the same white suit, the only one that remained from the time when he was rich. He still had free access to the beach club in Mondello. There, every so often, he would come up to a friend and whisper in his ear: “Let’s pretend you push me and I fall into the water, that way I can wash my suit.” But none of his friends had the heart to do as he asked, and Luigi De Pace never got to wash his white suit.

 

—One lived on via Mondini and in winter wore a Montgomery and a blue baseball cap. In summer, the uniform changed: he wore a white hat instead.

 

—One was named Giovanni. He was always looking for clothes in the bins on via Oreto. If he managed to find some, he would take off his own, put on the new ones, throw away the old ones and run off looking for his next change of clothes. And so on.

 

—One was the poet Jeanne Buscemi. She bought ruled notebooks and on each inside back cover wrote one of her poems. Then she’d resell the notebook for the same price.

 

—One was a tailor for the Teatro Stabile who refused to sew theatrical costumes and instead made real clothes, which were always very beautiful. A priest’s costume of her making never had a fake row of buttons with an easy snap opening hidden underneath, but a hundred buttonholes and a hundred buttons that had to be buttoned and unbuttoned one by one, no matter how much time was wasted changing in the wings.

 

—One was the actor Carlo Cecchi. When he thought that the Hamlet dress rehearsal had gone poorly, he refused to recognize the faces of friends who had come backstage to congratulate him:

“Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”

 

—One, on the night of the reopening of Teatro Massimo, put on his tuxedo and went. Aida was broadcast live on the radio; and once he was settled into his box, he took out a small radio and put on his headset to listen to the broadcast of the opera being performed before his eyes.

 

—One was a devoted fan of the singer Sergio Bruni. One evening, in the doorway of an osteria on via Marconi, a fellow regular told him that Bruni had just died. He stared at this man for a fraction of a moment, long enough to realize that his leg was being pulled. Then he gave the guy a slap that made his dentures fly right out of his mouth.

 

—One was Professor Ascoli, a famous doctor. When he found himself confronted with a particularly difficult clinical case, he would sometimes pause the appointment, leave the patient there in his underwear, and go for a bicycle ride in order to think more clearly. Then he’d come back and he never missed a diagnosis.

 

—One was often seen running with his face hidden by a newspaper. Sometimes he would get tired and take the bus home along via Notarbartolo. But even when he was sitting, he kept the newspaper in front of his face.

 

—One was upset to find himself in this inventory and asked to be removed. In the meantime, he stopped running.

 

—One was Aleister Crowley, who’d come to Cefalù to establish an outpost of his satanic sect. The rites involved a lot of promiscuity and, it was rumored, unspeakable acts including human sacrifices. In the end he was forced to leave the country and he went on to settle elsewhere, bringing along his entourage and the new disciples they’d picked up in the meantime.

 

—Another had a curious hairstyle. He’d come to Sicily to do honest work as a trade unionist. Then he ran for office, lost, and was never heard from again.

 

—Another was evicted from his apartment. From that day on, he slept in his car with his whole family. He parked in front of the city hall with a protest sign. He had the time to see four different mayors pass through its doors.

 

—One lived in a little apartment on via Aldisio. To warm himself up, one night he lit a fire at the foot of his bed and awoke to find all his things burning up. The landlord evicted him and from then on he slept in the street, always on the same low, narrow wall. On the other hand, in winter he could light all the fires he wanted.

 

—Two were sisters who lived with their mother. t. For fifteen years the three fought against a greedy contractor who had illegally built on the terrain of an old apartment they owned in piazza Leoni. The contractor, moreover, was determined to get rid of them, so he bought the apartments above theirs, tore them down, and left the women without a roof over their heads. But they resisted, and those who pass by there today still see a shiny new building, in bright blue and orange, with the stump of an old house in front of it.

 

—One, a young woman named Maricetta Tiritto, was very involved in the anti-mafia movement. She never missed a single meeting. One day, her name was in the papers because she’d been attacked. First, they’d threatened her over her political involvement, then they’d slashed her arm with a knife. The story made a lot of noise because she was well known and loved by many.

Several months later, it happened again: the same threats and the same wounds, even more of them, all up and down both arms. Only this time, people said she’d made the whole thing up: it was Maricetta who had cut herself.

 

—One was assassinated because he wanted to sell pajamas without paying the pizzo.

 

—Another swore he’d grow his beard until the courts told him who had murdered his son.

 

—Another came from a family of mafiosos. When they killed her father she resigned herself to it, but when they killed her brother she refused to be quiet. She found a new father, who was a judge. When the judge was assassinated, she wanted to die, too, and so she jumped from her window.

 

—One, from Corleone, had a fake cell phone. Whenever someone came near him, he’d pretend to be talking on it. He always muttered:

“Mafia, mafia…”

 

—One could often be seen in a public phone booth, yelling furiously into the receiver, though there was never anyone on the other end of the line. When he hung up, he would step out of the booth and compose himself, then walk down the street with a haughty look on his face.

 

—One was an old woman who slept nobody knew where. She would arrive early in the morning and remain all day in the same position, curled up by one of the fountains at Quattro Canti. She seemed to be dozing, but whenever someone approached to drink, she leapt to her feet and yelled that the fountain was hers.

 

—Another, a certain Robert Whitaker, was notoriously brusque. One day, he threw a grand ball at Villa Sofia. Since the guests were having a fabulous time, the party continued until dawn. Finally, the master of the house, who was the only one not having any fun, stopped the pianist. The room went dead silent before he spoke the words that would go down in history among the city’s socialites:

“At this hour, if I were at yours, I’d go back to mine.”

 

—Another was obsessed with card games. He’d invented, among others, triple-dead-man-poker, which he alone knew how to play and win. When his time had come, he fell into a coma that lasted three days. Then he regained consciousness for a brief moment, looked at his loved ones who had gathered around the bed, summoned all his remaining strength and said:

“Check.”

And that was his last word.