Gus was my friend. He was older than me.
I was on the last year of elementary school and he was in junior high.
Everyday, after school, we used to hang out.
Basically we just rode our bikes here and there.
Sometimes we even played soccer.
There was some sort of soccer fever in our neighborhood.
One day, we rode our bikes as usual, but Gus asked me to follow him to another neighborhood.
It was July.
A few hours earlier, Italy and Argentina had played at Stadio San Paolo, in Naples. On the previous years, Diego Armando Maradona had managed to get Naples soccer team' to win important tournaments in Europe.
He was an idol and had a lot of fans.
Some journalists believed that Italian fans would support Argentina, due to the devotion that some of them professed to Maradona.
Nonetheless, tifosi supported their national team and booed and insulted the South Americans from the beginning of the match.
Maradona had been the best player of the previous World Cup in Mexico 1986, but he was injured and his national team was a disaster and depended on his geniality.
On the round of 16, in Turin, against the powerful Brazilian team -one of the favorites to win Italia 1990 World Cup- Diego appeared out of nowhere and dribbled almost the entire rivals midfielders' and then gave a pass to Paul Caniggia, leaving him alone in front of Claudio Taffarel.
Caniggia took advantage of his position and scored the only goal of the match.
On the round of 8, in Florence, Diego had failed a penalty kick against Yugoslavia, but Argentina -with an astonishing performance of Goicoechea- had made up to the semifinals.
In the beginning of the championship, Gus supported Brazilians, but he was so impressed by the geniality of Diego, that he supported Argentina on that semifinal match in Naples.
We couldn't believe that Argentina had defeated Italy.
Though Toto Schillaci scored first, PaulCaniggia tied the game and scored the first goal that Walter Zenga received in the entire tournament.
We arrived to a fancy neighborhood.
We stopped in front of an old house.
He knocked the door and a bearded guy opened it for us.
The living room was a disaster.
It was full of drunk people and it smelled so bad.
There were 10 guys or so, around a table.
They were older than us and the air was so filthy.
They were dumbfounded.
Then she appeared.
Her name was Toby.
She was a gorgeous woman.
Though she was clearly stoned, she could barely walk and her eyes couldn't stay quiet, she told us the price of the stash.
Even though it seemed a very expensive deal, Gus agreed and Toby had no problems to fix and to sold us a joint.
We left the house and rode our bikes to his house.
His dad had died when he was a child and his mom worked at a furniture store all day long.
He turned on the TV and lighted the join.
He smoked desperately. Later he coughed.
As the penetrating aroma of the burned grass flooded the living room, a sports' TV program was about to commence.
The opening song was this song.
Whenever I smell the penetrating aroma of the burned grass, for a second I think of Gus and Diego Maradona.
 |
| tribunero.com |
No comments:
Post a Comment