6.
I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea when looking at this photo.
I used to wear the white duster in my youth, in combat, and it’s still the same size. I want you to look at me in all serenity just as I’m looking at you in all seriousness.
The matter of Bologna and its avant-garde? This is how it is: The first time I put this mask on I was leading a group of 50 guys who laid siege to the trolley of boiled meats at the Diana restaurant and paid the pittance of 200 liras a head. Self-discount. It was 1975. I’ve led more revolts myself than Masaniello, they’ve come from Berlin and Paris to study my tactics. Pineapple face was the master book, I used it ’76, ’77, ’79, ’81.
I had hundreds of men under my command then, I was in top form, even though I spent a lot of time in gaol. Yet there’s a time for everything, and in 1990 I fell in love with Jonka Radevic, beautiful, bad, a full measure. Together we embarked on a career as card sharps. We parted more suckers from their money at the poker tables than P.T. Barnum.
Then things started getting skewed, I joined the party that had haunted me, got involved in expansionist city planning and set up an association leaning a bit right and a bit left. These are my pineapple years, Jonka wears her age splendidly, the avant-garde is out of favour, it’s time to be normal. I’ve told my minions to scatter, but they haven’t obeyed.
My name is Diego Ben, and this long white wall surely suggests a beginning.