it’s a town where nobody takes it lying down for example there was the uncle of a guy I know who did thirty years in prison because it happened that when his uncle and his father were little their father that is the grandfather of this guy I know in one of these arguments in the street happened to slap somebody in the face and later the guy came back and killed him so when the uncle turned twenty he got a gun and went to find the man who had murdered his father to avenge his father’s death and he killed him and served thirty years in prison thirty solid years and that was because of the whole issue of honor the whole thing about honor is not to take things lying down another horrible thing that happened was there was this guy in our town who was half crazy who exchanged insults with a farmer who came from a family with seven or eight brothers and so the next day this half crazy guy gets his rifle and goes out into the coutryside and kills practically everyone he meets four or five brothers the father and the farmer who had adjoining land that is he destroyed the whole family practically

and then it’s the most normal thing in my town for people to shoot at apartment house doors and security blinds at anything and people even do this for fun that is say there’s somebody you can’t stand who gets on your nerves you drive by his house one evening and without thinking twice you fire at the street door the big downstairs door with a rifle or with a shotgun the thing is it’s not a problem it’s something normal our town really can be a dangerous place there have been times it’s happened to me for instance in the evening since I have friends in Aversa because I really didn’t fit in with the people in my town I didn’t fit in with the way they think so it happens that these friends of mine from Aversa might drive me home in the evening and so an unfamiliar car arrives in town because there aren’t that many people in town everyone knows everyone else and this car didn’t look familiar so no more than three or four minutes later here comes a car at full speed headlights on bright gunning straight toward us and screeches to a stop right in front of us forcing us over and these young men get out luckily I know them everything’s okay all the same they follow us which is a routine procedure until these friends of mine take me to my house they follow us all the way to my front door

in our town cars have always been symbols that document your social status so that the clan has always devoted a great deal of attention to their cars as symbols of the power and wealth that they had accumulated and in the golden age of the Bardellino clan our town had the highest percentage of Mercedes automobiles per capita in all of Europe and they were all brand new vehicles the latest models because as soon as they came out with a new model in Germany before the week was out people were driving them around our town they would pay any amount of money to get them down here to be the first to have one and cars are important not only as symbols but because in a little town like ours with a car you can make the rounds patrol the town keep an eye on the entire territory in less than ten minutes that is you can always keep under surveillance everything that is happening and take steps immediately when necessary