Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

Frank Iodice

other ways. He’d convinced himself that there were no alternatives, that swindl ing was the only way to hold at bay the ruffians that he chose to surround himself with, although he didn’t l ike this as much as he would have l iked knowing normal people. The problem with the rich, Morel thought as he left Ciepiela’s office, is the poor, their envy, their always waiting for us to make a wrong step, “and don’t tel l me that ’s not true”–now he was talking with imaginary poor people—”you are my problem,” he repeated, “don’t tel l me that isn’t the case!” In the elevator there was a l ittle piss come from some incontinent dog or a healthy one forced by its owner to wait too long, or by the sac hanging on the pants of some old guy, who was reduced to a humi l iating existence after a l ife more tiring than his. Morel knew nothing of al l this; he didn’t consider the problem of how the world outside that elevator real ly worked. For him, it was enough to know he was about to conclude another deal. He wore a blue jacket—not one of those stolen in Cannes, which he gave to a homeless guy right in front of the bui lding where Ciepiela’s office was, for Morel was made that way, after getting what he wanted, he threw it away—and a beige pair of pants that accentuated his thin legs. He wasn’t tal l and didn’t have muscles, he seemed a thin kid, more so than Ciepiela, he had a bit of a bel ly from drinking the beer and prosecco he gulped down every afternoon

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