2009.
S. and I wander from one piazza to another. Palermo puts its piazzas to work. They're parking lots and garbage dumps. Soccer fields and picnic grounds. They're a place where you can get a drink, break up with your boyfriend, and tune up your motor scooter.
S. and I find a table in front of Exit. The bartender is blasting Suicidal Tendencies and wearing a Descendents t-shirt (Milo Goes to College). While we're sitting there, a motorcycle cop (or maybe he's a hunky male stripper in a motorcycle cop costume; it's hard to tell the difference in this town) zooms by with his flashers on and blocks the street. Then out of nowhere, a marching band appears: a dozen guys in white dress shirts banging on drums and tooting trumpets and trombones. A few more guys bring up the rear with a little cart that has a statue of a saint teetering on top. The parade pulls up in front of the church at the corner. As the band plays on, traffic backs up in the street, because Palermo is a town where saints cause traffic jams.
One of the trombonists lights some fireworks: black cats and spark fountains. The street fills up with smoke and the smell of black powder: a little bit war zone, a little bit Fourth of July. Through the smoke, I see a couple people climb onto the roof of the church and dump big plastic garbage bags full of confetti onto the crowd below. Then they dump a bag full of balloons which drift down onto the fireworks and pop.
Once the mayhem reaches an acceptable pitch, the guys in charge of the saint hoist him on their shoulders and usher him into the church. This saintly mission accomplished, the motorcycle cop revs his motor and zooms away, followed by a swarm of motor scooters who've been waiting impatiently for the show to end. The scooters all open their throttles at the same moment, which rattles the beer bottles on our table.
A little later, the guys in the marching band wander over to the bar where we're sitting and install themselves at a half-dozen tables. Up close, the band looks kind of sketchy. Like the kind of guys who might crack open your skull with a bass drum mallet if you looked at them funny. They order a round of beers, then another round after that. read more
