Word: scugnizzi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Naples vanished into thin air. It was then that the street-wise Neapolitan children called scugnizzi (spinning tops) began their practice of buying and selling American G.I.s. One would pick up a soldier, promise him everything, and lead him into back streets. Another kid might buy the prospect for 300 lire, and he was thus passed from hand to hand until an older scugnizzo decided it was time to act. The G.I. was first made muscio (dead drunk), and once he had passed out, his clothes were literally sold off his back, beginning with shoes and ending with underwear. That...
...hidden weapons and converge on German units. A substantial enemy force is besieged in a soccer stadium. German columns rush to its relief. But the vermin of the Vomero pile barricades in their wretched alleys, volley grenades from the rooftops, take potshots from parked cars. Even the snotty-nosed scugnizzi manage to get guns and march against the Germans in infantine battalions...
...Like a Movie." Gradually he began to pass the word along that there was a shelter in the Church of Mater Dei, but the suspicious scugnizzi gave it a wide berth. Late one winter night he watched sadly as a group of three scugnizzi stripped a drunk to the skin, then he plodded off, muttering aloud: "I'm going to Mater Dei to get out of the cold." When he arrived at the church he fumbled wearily in his pockets; he had forgotten his key. He hammered with his hands upon the door. The custodian opened it at last...
That night of the providentially forgotten key was the beginning of a tide of hungry, hard-bitten little boys that has flowed into Mater Dei ever since. At last, one day Father Borelli felt sure enough of success to walk among the scugnizzi in his clerical robes. No one recognized him until he produced a snapshot of himself dressed as a scugnizzo. First they gaped in astonishment, then they crowded in to touch his habit and kiss his hand...
...steady jobs and marriage, or back to their families. "Actually, we can't offer them as much materially as they can win for themselves on the streets," says Mario Borelli. "So why do they come to this church, and why do they stay? It is very simple. Scugnizzi are not animals. They are humans, and instinctively feel that animal life is wrong...