Preface by Marco Paolini
Rarely I used to insert coins in a jukebox and not because I’m a miser (I think) but because I wasn’t convinced of my own taste. Everybody would have noticed if I had picked the wrong song. I always liked the songs the others picked, but it wasn’t nice if I played their songs, and picking a song that was inappropriate would have been a disaster.
The worst were those songs that had an English title: I knew the names of the singers and groups (more or less), but no song titles – except for a couple of exceptions. The music would linger in my head along with the fear of making a mistake.
So I kept the coins for when the carnival came to town.
Each ride had its own soundtrack. I’d wait for the right song to get on a bumper car, acting as if I had picked that song.
Rides are funny in that way: some times they’re empty while all of a sudden they’re packed and take off: there are girls to bump crash, swarms of sputniks to take down, queues to kick in the ass as they come in closer and lower. Three minutes like this are worth twice as much.
I would administer 500 liras in tokens (11, I seem to recall) so that I could take part to as many takeoffs as I could, because it would have been foolish to gamble all my possibilities in a short span of time.
The best part was strolling around with tokens still clanking in my pocket.
The thrill was making the moment last. The hub of all this was the bumper car control cabin; because that’s where he lived.
Occasionally Celentano would come out of his control cabin and head for the metal floor, walking his walk, with that expression typical of people who are working while the rest of us are having fun. But there was much more in those eyes: the wildly allergic man to cement and heated houses, the gypsy who made fun of locals, the cock in his personal coop, the Tarzan who defied mortal danger by crossing the jungle that separated these bumper cars. He had extremely skinny legs and always wore tight trousers and shiny black shoes.
As much as traffic permitted, he would cross the track in a straight line while shifting the tempo of his walk (but without going faster) headed for the far end to retrieve a small abandoned bumper car.
He would walk without turning his head because he knew how to interpret the traffic and immediately perceive if whoever was headed for him was a thug who could dodge him or a dork who could unintentionally be dangerous. Whenever someone went too far or was too assertive he would give him a glance that was enough to quell his enthusiasm. I never saw him do anything more than that, but rumor has he threw out quite a few with the warning of never coming back.
If the traffic was intense he would hold onto the trolley and move from one car to the other while the power grid sputtered sparks.
If he could he would hop onto the cars with the girls for the longer rides, but if it wasn’t possible, it was no big deal. Once I was the chosen one. All of a sudden he would appear behind you, on top, and it was an honor to have him on board, all eyes were on us and you felt the responsibility of driving like an adult. Then Celentano would hop onto the car that had to be retrieved and insert his key in the lock. Other employees had those keys but his had the Michelin Man engraved in its bow that was made of rubber so that the key could safely bounce if it ever got dropped.
If he weren’t in the mood, he would take half a ride and then park his bumper car with a single steer. Sometimes he would do the same with the other bumper cars, as much as he thought was enough. He then would pocket his key and go back inside his cabin.
On other occasions, he wouldn’t drive the bumper car straight to the parking spot. He would go for a twirl or two without crashing into anyone, following his own music and switch direction with a rhythm that was difficult to predict. At that point the whole bumper car ride would dance, everybody had to move out of the way to let him through, groups of followers would gang up and try to keep up with him, other clusters would part to let him through. The trumpet would honk and the tokens would clank, heralding the time out.
That’s when the next turn of drivers would be let in, the track would fill up, the ride would take off and everybody wanted to be part of it.
Celentano’s favorite car was number 74 and pink. Actually there were two pink cars, the 8 and the 74, the only bumper car ride in all of Italy with two pink cars was his. Macho men back then would rather wait than get on board of a pink bumper car.
Only girls would pick them. Even if we knew it was stupid, but none of us boys would even dare pick the pink 8 or 74 at risk of being bullied for a whole year. But if he did it, it was normal.
When he rode the 74 he was at his best: he would use it to wrangle all the empty cars, like a shepherd recovers his sheep, and tow them by driving in reverse and spinning them as if dancing a waltz. All the others would enter in competition and if they went too far he would backhand them and make them pile up with their wheels out of their tracks.
Sometimes he would keep them stuck until the trumpet honked the end of the ride and shame them while the other riders would mock them. That usually was enough.
Then there were those afternoons and evenings he wouldn’t even come out of his cabin, and sometimes he would decide to come out after I left and the following day I’d have to hear it from the others and that would put me in a foul mood for having missed out.
Some days the 74 car wouldn’t be used while you could hear his voice and music come out of the cabin. It was exciting to hear his voice and know he was there. Then they caught him inside an apartment (which wasn’t his) and since it wasn’t the first time, he didn’t come back for a couple of years.
Rumor has he wasn’t the only Celentano in jail. There were two others just like him, actually they were even better, so added to the original there were four of them altogether. And I’m sure there were a few more around, probably in places we didn’t hang out in.
When I was young I never met an Elvis lookalike, there must have been some, but I didn’t feel concerned. He was important, I don’t know how much but surely much more than Elvis.
Some songs belong inside a jukebox, others need to be played on a guitar in front of a fire, while other still have to be danced to inside a dark garage, His songs belong to those rides. The background noise might be loud, but his voice will pierce through it, just like weeds through the cement of a sidewalk.