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Showing posts from April, 2017

Don't You Want to Be Your Own Boss?

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A true story. Names of two people and one scam have been changed to protect the innocent, meaning in this case, me. Frecciargento Lecce-Roma, August 2016. “You. You played football.” It was a statement, not a question. I forced myself awake from where I had dozed off somewhere outside of Benevento, leaning against the train window and abandoning a half-eaten pasticciotto on my folding tray table. As my brain slowly came back to life I realized that the white-haired businessman in the seat opposite was not, notwithstanding my brilliant career as a five-a-side trequartista, talking to me. Instead he was looking intently at the passenger next to me. “I can always tell,” he continued. “The game leaves its mark on a man. Not on the body, but on the face. In the eyes. I always recognize a footballer, every time.” He tapped his eye to indicate his rare wisdom. I looked over at the man next to me. He was in his late thirties, small and wiry, with a three-day-old five-o-clock sha