«Two boys from the village who grew up too quickly, a single passion for cycling.
An intersection of destinies in a strange story
of which memory has been lost in our days ".
(by Rossella Daverio) We don't know if the two protagonists of the "strange story" we would like to share loved the bicycle with the same passion as Sante Pollastri and Costante Girardengo, born six years apart in Novi Ligure, between Liguria and Piedmont, in the land that will later give birth to Fausto Coppi.
We know instead that they were also boys from the township. A village that the map places much further south than Novi: it is Cinisi, between Palermo and San Vito Lo Capo.
And we know that the age difference between them is not six years, but only six months: the first was born on July 31, 1947 and the second on January 5, 1948. We also know that they went to middle school together, sitting in the same desks, listening to the same lessons, with the same books in front of them. And finally, imagine that they too have "grown up too fast": poverty and the mafia do not allow them to remain children for long.
"A story of other times, of before the engine when we ran out of anger or love, but between anger and love the gap is already growing and who will be the champion is already clear".
At the time of the two kids we are talking about, the engine is already there ... but the desire to run "out of anger or out of love" remains intact. And the gap between those who choose one or the other path grows since the middle school: it is a difference made of quick glances, of unspoken words, of attention or not to the teachings of teachers, of consideration of classmates , which one sees as future "picciotti" and the other as future citizens. It is perhaps also a different passion for study, which for the first is an obligation and for the second a redemption: a way of affirming one's autonomy from the examples received at home and following a path that leads to freedom of judgment, of thought. and action.
Who knows which of the two has been considered, since then, "the champion": whether the one aligned with the unwritten laws of silence, connivance and contempt for the lives of others, or the other who since then the rules of the game he was already trying to change them.
It depends. It depends on the sensitivity that each one nourishes or suffocates within himself, on his existential reference models, on his courage and on his "ethics of means".
Basically from the personal evaluation of what success in life is: whether it consists in the visible results that are achieved, or in the way in which they are achieved.
The two boys from Cinisi have a name: the "Girandengo" of the south is Peppino Impastato, the Sicilian "Pollastri" is called Vito Roberto Palazzolo. There has been too little talk of the first in the last forty years and a lot in the last few days, but only because the fortieth anniversary of his death occurred on May 9th, in exact coincidence with that of Aldo Moro. Little or nothing is known about the latter. The press rarely dealt with it, almost exclusively on the occasion of his arrest in Bangkok on March 30, 2012.
Then nothing more.
Sin. Theirs would be an exemplary Italian story, to be explored, understood and taught at school as an example of what "free will" means, that is, the virtue that allows every human being to make a difference even when his or her destiny appears sealed.
Both born in what was considered "the fundamental mafia hub of western Sicily", both sons and grandsons of "punched" men, both subjects raised in the reign of the powerful Gaetano Badalamenti, nevertheless have only one point of contact: precisely the middle schools attended together. Immediately afterwards Peppino decides to break ties with his father, to denounce Don Tano's abuses, to mock his arrogance and to create a station, Radio Aut, dedicated to the fight against the mafia. As for Vito Roberto - nicknamed “Vitu u Pallunaro” by his schoolmates to indicate the precocious propensity to manipulate reality, he instead undertakes the ritual cursus honorum of Cosa Nostra with conviction and runs through it in a very short time. He was very young when he became a "man of honor" and his affiliation godfather was even Bernardo Provenzano, married to a distant relative of Cinisi, the shirtmaker Saveria Benedetta Palazzolo.
Of organized crime, "u Pallunaru" will experience all the declinations: even if considered the greatest exponent of the so-called "clean mafia" - the tied up, cosmopolitan, worldly one, capable of laundering dirty money and making them come back as limpid as lavender scented sheets - he will not disdain occasional but significant collaborations with the "war mafia".
To show the Corleonesi his loyalty to the cause of the dome, he will be responsible for a couple of murders and for the importation of that immense batch of TNT which caused the massacre of the Christmas train (the rapid 904) and that of Via Mariano. D'Amelio, of whom we all have sad memories.
Established first in Germany, then in Switzerland, then in Africa, he will change his name, pretend to be noble, become in effect the "treasurer" of Riina and Provenzano, make their assets (and his own) profit, corrupt dozens of governments, trade in blood diamonds, drugs and weapons and will collaborate with leading Italian companies who will not hesitate to hire him as a consultant. His story should be told in full. And maybe it will be. The figure of Vito Roberto Palazzolo is in fact emblematic of the gradual passage from the mafia of yesterday to that of today, whose infiltrations into the ganglia
of power are infinite. As for his arrest, it contributes, for many reasons, to marking the end of the second Republic and its gradual transit towards the third, whose effects we are still experiencing.
What remains of the two boys from Cinisi? Peppino Impastato died at the age of thirty, killed by those he had challenged. Vito Roberto Palazzolo, although incarcerated at Opera near Milan, is alive and could be released from jail shortly thereafter.
But yet…
Yet in the head, on the road of life and history, there is only Peppino. The champion is him.
«Go Girardengo, go great champion
nobody follows you on that road.
Go Girardengo, you no longer see Sante.
behind that curve, it is always more distant ».