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Police . . . Just Joking!
- Indiana University Press
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26 Pap Khouma up, we might meet one of them. Window-shop, fall in love with the lights, sleep very little. We acted like that to keep the anxiety and homesickness away. At least we were relaxed when we sat down in a pizzeria or went into a nice store. One by one, under the heat of the sun, the days evaporated . Our perseverant friends were still saving their money. Pleased with their ability to scrimp and save, they already planned their return: some to Senegal, some to France. Sal and I, on the other hand, never had more than a little change in our pockets. I Was an Elephant Salesman 27 Paolo il Nero Not everyone was a good person in the Senegalese community . Paolo il Nero, or Black Paolo, was a scam artist, or at least he tried to be one. He had come really early to Italy, at the beginning of the seventies. He had a lot of friends and was clever. He would rent apartments and then sublet them, earning quite a lot. He would get merchandise on credit at the store owned by the traffic cop and then resell it to the newcomers at a higher price. And the newcomers didn’t say anything. They were scared of him and mainly of the police, and they figured that if some stupid argument broke out among the lot of us, the police would come and arrest everyone and slap us all with deportation papers. Paolo il Nero was pretty important at first. Then everyone learned to take care of themselves and Paolo il Nero didn’t scare anyone anymore. The guys would all laugh at his threats. Eventually he disappeared. Word had it that he went back to Paris. He owed a few million lire to the cop who had the store. He was a precursor, Paolo il Nero, a small-time boss. But he worked alone, no organization for him. The papers wrote about a racket and Italian contacts that organized the selling for Moroccan or Senegalese men, distributed the merchandise, and then tried to pocket the better part of the earnings for themselves. But this wasn’t [54.208.168.232] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:33 GMT) 28 Pap Khouma my experience. I always found that someone gave you the merchandise on credit, like the cop in Rimini. Then, you would return, you promised, to settle your bill. But sometimes you just never returned. I Was an Elephant Salesman 29 Girls from Senegal The worst were the girls. I used to see them arrive from Paris with other young people and in cars full of merchandise . The girls would sell everything, I mean absolutely everything . And they would justify it by saying, “We have to sell to live, just like you with your necklaces.” They would make you pay alright. One hundred thousand lire. I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t want them to even come into our house. But I really fell for one. She was pretty. Beautiful. My eyes pop out just thinking about her. She was from Senegal and had been in Germany. She said she was a teacher. She hurt me bad. Because, after all, a girl shouldn’t prostitute herself. It’s degrading for everyone. Those words really stung: “We sell everything.” That was our life in the end. We sold everything : elephants, necklaces, bracelets, our dignity, our work, our youth, our dreams. And she understood this well, this girl who prostituted herself: “We are illegal, we can’t do anything. We left whatever freedom we had at home. Might as well face it or you’ll just end up back in Senegal.” “You have no willpower,” I protested. “If you fight it, they’ll kick you out and you know it.” “But you can fight it in a way that the worst doesn’t have to happen,” I tried. [54.208.168.232] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:33 GMT) 30 Pap Khouma “You have to do it if you want to live. One job’s the same as another. You’re not going to make a great career for yourself as an illegal immigrant. If you have no rights, you have to always hang your head. And if you have to hang your head, you have no dignity.” “Are you lecturing me?” I asked. “You and your dumb black morals.” But I thought she was wrong. “You’re just cynical,” I...