It's a bit of an odd name for an Eritrean. But everyone around the corner recognized it as if it were the name of the neighborhood they lived in.
"Julio! Julio! What are you doing? Where were you last night? Did you go to Aba Shawl?"
we called to the man with the strange name in Gejeret, the neighborhood I grew up in.
Julio was a mentally disabled, half-Italian, half-Eritrean man in my neighborhood. He was addicted to cigarettes and alcohol. He smoked so many that it used to scare me. "How can a human smoke that much and still be alive?" I used to ask myself. Julio lived with his mother, a very old lady who had been married to an Italian soldier. After his father passed away, his mother inherited a beautiful villa near the San Francisco Church in Gejeret. They lived off that inheritance and the pension the Italian government paid them. His mother was wealthy. Rumor had it she received 10,000 nakfa a month, which was crazy rich compared to most people nearby. But, despite their good fortune, she never gave money to her son. She was odd in other ways, too. She never bought fancy clothes or a car, and often borrowed tomatoes and onions from neighbors or ate at my house. In some ways, not giving Julio money prevented him from overconsuming alcohol or cigarettes, but she way surely a cheap woman.
Julio used to sit in front of the door of his house. The one with the beautiful green garden you could spot from 2 blocks away. Whenever he saw someone he knew, especially halfItalian people, he would shout, "Hey piccolo, piccolo!" and ask for money. He collected between one and ten nakfa per day, depending on who he hounded. Then he'd use that money to demand cigarettes from me and my friends, since his mother would shut him out. He got locked in often. We tried to hide from him, but he'd shout until his lungs gave out, no doubt from over-smoking, and we'd feel bad and buy him cigarettes. He was hyperspecific about them. Always two Golds and three Manchesters. If the store didn't have Gold or Manchester, he'd send us to the main market three miles away just to get them.
He called me Wedi Yacob, a combination of "wedi," meaning "son of," and Yacob, my father's name. Julio and his mother had lived across the street from us since the 1970s, so he was there before we moved in. I like to believe he knew my father, given how he used his name.
Oh yeah, and Julio's story about Aba Shawl. Aba Shawl is Asmara's equivalent of Pink Street. A legitimate neighborhood smeared as a den of vice. Julio frequented those streets because no serious woman would date him. He'd go there to pay for sex. When he was broke, he'd work as a guard for the women. Strange man.
He loved to brag about those visits. He told us stories in such vivid detail that we'd be grossed out and laugh at the sheer hilarity of it. I don't know if we annoyed him by shouting, "Julio, where were you yesterday? What did you do?" But sometimes I'd see a rare smile when he told those stories, and I knew he loved retelling them.
One day, I was locked out of my house. My mom had left early for a relative's funeral two hours away by bus, and she'd forgotten I lost my key. As I waited for my elder sister to come home from her shift, Julio came and sat beside me. I was scared. It was the first time
I faced him without the bars of his door between us. "Wedi Yacob, why are you still outside?" he asked. I lied, "I just want to sit here," thinking if he knew I was locked out, he might harm me.
But we actually talked. About his life. His education. Believe it or not, he was an engineer by practice, and he earned his degree from a university in Torino. I was shocked. How? Why? What happened. He explained in detail, details that I wish I remembered. But I know, I understood him. I remember understanding him, if that even makes sense.
He explained how he'd been introduced to a dangerous "demon" in university. They call it speed. He tried it with friends and liked how it made him feel. His mother sent him back to Eritrea, thinking the demon had no power in Asmara. But it was too late. He'd already fallen into substance abuse. Pills, cigarettes, and alcohol.
I quizzed him on Italian cities to connect with him. "What about Milan, Roma, Napoli?" I asked. Of course these are Serie A clubs, easy for a football addict like me to name. He knew them all: the best food, the weather, the weekend nightlife. Everything.
After that day, I could never see him the same way. Julio was more than the zoo animal I'd taunted with my friends. I petted that animal. And it hurt. I felt bad for him yet thrilled to know the person inside. He was crazy to most of us, but sometimes genius peeks through.
It was a pleasure to meet Julio Melotti, the genius engineer from Torino.
The last time I met him was after I returned home from college. He didn't call me Wedi Yacob anymore, but he still made those frantic hand movements and shaking uncontrollably, I think from withdrawal. I said,
"Hi Julio. Do you remember me?"
He replied, "Hey piccolo, do you have money?"
And everything came crashing down. "I'm old enough now that he thinks I have cash. Time flies," I thought to myself. I gave him three nakfas and left. I never saw him again. I still ask about him whenever I call my friends "Is he still around the corner?"
He was harmless. He never assaulted anyone. None that I remember. He just wanted two nakfasto feed that demon he met at his peak in Torino. Two Golds and three Manchesters.
That is all.
Julio was the mark of our neighborhood.
Hey Julio, where were you yesterday? Did you go to Aba Shawl?