Earlier they had been joking about the Americans, and now Riccetto joined in happily, casually: “Listen to this one. One day, right?” he began, “it was four in the morning, right? My buddy Agnolo comes over to me and says: ‘There’s a truck in front of the Case Nove. They say there’s some good stuff in there.’ So I say: ‘All right, let’s go see.’ So we go over to the Case Nove, and we see two other guys there, right? The two of them climb up, grab a bag, and take off. Then I climb in, and I see two guys sleeping. One guy’s over here, and the other guy’s over there, right? So I take off my shoes, real quiet like, walk right between the two of them, and pick up a jacket that’s hanging over by the office. I come back, and say to Agnolo: ‘Those other guys took everything, there’s just this jacket here.’ So he says ‘So throw it down here and let’s split.’ So then we go through the pockets, see, and we find forty thousand lire, and a gold watch, and two packs of cigarettes to boot!”
Il Napoletano44 watched him, completely absorbed, and nodded with a tired grin. Then he filled his chest with air, and without changing expression, still staring at Riccetto, he said: “Well, listen to this one!” and then he went on for a quarter of an hour telling the long sordid story of his heist. As soon as he slowed down and took a breath, Riccetto went in for the kill: “One morning not too long ago, right? Three of us, me, Agnolo, and Marcello, we’re on Via Torino and we see a car parked over there, a small truck like. So I say to Marcello: ‘Go see what’s in the car.’ He climbs up and cuts open the canvas covering, sticks his head in there, pulls it out again, and climbs down. “Let’s get out of here. There’s explosives in there.” So I say: ‘Yeah right, get outta here.’ And I say to Agnolo, ‘Go see what’s in there; this guy’s too scared.’ He goes over and looks inside, comes back and says: “It’s just a bunch of tins!” But I wasn’t convinced, so I go over and climb in myself and take one of the tins. We move away from the car, and we’re arguing about what could be inside. One guy says it’s a bomb, another guy says it’s nails, everybody has a theory, right? So we go over to the little park over by Piazza Esedra. We need to find something to open the tin, but we can’t find a thing. Then we see a soldier standing over there with his girl; I go up to him, ’cause I see he’s got a knife, and he opens the tin for me with the knife. But while he’s cutting the tin open, he cuts himself. Then we see it’s full of bars of chocolate! Now, there’s three of us, and the soldier’s hand is cut, so we each take one and give him one. So now we figure if we take it home, we’ve got to share it right? Agnolo and me, we want to eat it ourselves. But Marcello says: ‘I’ll give half of it to my mother.’ Halfway there, he says: ‘Well, a little bit less doesn’t matter, and then every tram stop he takes another bite, and when he gets to Donna Olimpia there’s none left.’
“The Americans were okay! They were a pain in the ass, but they were useful! But the Polacks are just plain mean, you know what I’m talking about? I remember all the kids outside the barracks, right? There was a little guy there, and he was dressed like an American, a little mascot, right? They called him the Brown-noser, and he worked for the Polacks…He comes over to me, and says: ‘Riccé, you see that truck over there? The stuff’s in there, if you take it we can split it fifty fifty. I say to him: ‘Aw, all right, show me the truck.’ And he says. ‘It’s over there. So I go over, take the stuff, carry it away with Righetto’s cart, and we go home to split it. So I’m coming over to give the kid his money for telling me where the stuff was, and when I come over the Polack’s there too, and he’s the owner of the truck. And the kid, the Brown-noser, he doesn’t take the money, he just turns to the guy and says: ‘That’s the one that took the stuff. So this guy gets out of the car, and I take off. We run around Monteverde Novo three times, and he’s running after me…Finally, the guy, he’s got longer legs than me, so he catches up with me, and first he ties me to a lamp post and then he beats the hell outta me. He really gave it to me! Kicked me! Punched me! Hit me with his belt…”
Orazio, Roma, VII, no. 3, June, 1955.
Riccetto is a character in The Ragazzi, and the second chapter of that book is entitled “Riccetto.” The magazine Orazio published the Riccetto “pieces” (which sound as if they had been recorded on tape). Pasolini meant to include them in The Ragazzi, but cut them in the end, at the request of the editor (see the letter to Livio Garzanti dated May 11, 1955, in Pier Pasolini’s Letters (1955–1975), edited by Nico Naldini, Einaudi, Turin, 1988, p. 65).
44 The nickname means “The Neapolitan.”