When I think back on all the jobs I've held over my 48 years, the one I liked most was definitely the work I got through the Italian Association for People with Down Syndrome at the State Archives in Bari. They told me I'd be working with the "black book" from the Fascist period. I didn't need to worry, though—the people in it were either deceased or very old. In the police station files, they'd been labeled "criminals" or "subversives" or "socialists" or "communists." My job was to enter their names and addresses into a computer so that "black book" wouldn't be lost. Good memories… but that work ended a long time ago. Now it's been several months since I've had a steady job.
I'm glad to have time to help don Gianluca at the Sacred Heart parish in Monopoli, my city, but I'd really prefer actual employment. The last time I worked was last spring. It wasn't exactly a job, but it could have been! It was a regional training course. Let me read the certificate to tell you exactly what it was for… here: "self-entrepreneurship" and "self-employment." Basically, they told me and another disabled friend to pretend we were opening a bar in the historic center of Monopoli. He could work the counter and I could take reservations—which, they figured, would definitely come in. We did these fake things for hours—let me read what they called them… oh yes, "simulations." We had to reach 192 hours to finish the course and get paid. That's why I called it work—because in the end they gave us a small stipend. I wanted to pretend to open the bar with my friend Anna Perricci, someone I'd met at another job. But instead they assigned me a guy as my—let me read this… "partner"—someone I didn't know. But honestly, I think the whole thing was pretend. The course ended and we never opened the bar. Still, if I did open one, I'd know how to take reservations.