Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

Frank Iodice

in Beaul ieu-sur-Mer, summer vacations, winter vacations and Easter vacations, but simply incapable of loving, and poor parents, with alcohol and drug problems, ready to ki l l themselves because they ’d been denied custody, so that you end up softening the criteria a l ittle according to the situation, there were no iron-clad rules, if you wanted to risk leaving a minor in the hands of a father who’d just gotten out of jai l , you could do it, but if the kid was brought back covered with bruises, then you’re the one who ends up in jai l!” The job Mel i and the other educators had wasn’t easy. I’d underestimated them because in the end I crossed paths with them for barely an hour in the evening or morning. And if it was the case that Mel i arrived exhausted every morning, perhaps it wasn’t because she passed wi ld nights in the company of big hairy brutes, but because she was sti l l tired from the exhausting work of the previous day. On the other hand, I saw with my own eyes the battle field when I arrived: clothes and shoes everywhere, confiscated cigarettes, fights and screaming to be subdued, and you might have twelve, sometimes fifteen kids in charge, with—to top it off—al l of them awake. After having told her about our last meeting, about our going to the port together and everything we said to each other, she showed her aunt the business card Morel had given her in the train and also told her about the other meeting, the one with him and

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