The Spinning Tops

A U.S. bluejacket staggered through the thick odor and the rude sounds of the old port of Naples. A ragged urchin tugged and chanted at him: "You wanna girl, mister? I gotta my sister for you. Come on, Joe! Cheap!" the sailor pulled away, then slumped drunkenly to the sidewalk. Mouse-quick, the eight-year-old tried to grab the sailor's wallet, but the sailor weakly pushed him away. Unable to roll the man, the urchin sped away to sell him: in Naples bigger urchins pay 500 lire, perhaps 1,000 lire, for news of a likely victim to beat up and rob.

The young pimps, pickpockets and purse snatchers of Naples are called scugnizzi, from scugnare, which means to spin like a top. Aged anywhere from six to 20, they live in the streets, watching each other with hard, wary eyes, and working whenever they can--as lookouts for burglars, messengers for black marketeers and smugglers, cigarette-butt snipers* and racketeers of all kinds. On any night there may be thousands of them on the prowl. When the police catch them redhanded, they serve a term in the reformatory, or are taken home to their parents (if any) and are back on the streets again next day. But one man in Naples catches the scugnizzi in a different kind of net.

Concealed Weapons. Blond, blue-eyed Father Mario Borelli, 35, son of a Neapolitan sheet-metal worker, began his ministry in 1945 preaching to factory workers. Four years later, assigned to the city's youth, he got permission to use Naples' 500-year-old, bomb-blasted Church of Mater Dei as a meeting place. He set up an organization of young workers, but the youth that interested him most were the scugnizzi.

The scugnizzi, however, were about as interested in talking to a priest as to a policeman. Young Father Borelli decided that he would have to go underground. He took off his cassock, donned a dirty cap, jacket and trousers, and slipped into the jungle of Naples at night. "I was afraid," he admits.

At a Salvation Army bread line he joined a knot of scugnizzi for a handout, then drifted off with them. Suddenly a big teen-ager turned on him and snapped: "Who are you?" "What do you want?" countered Father Borelli. The leader ordered: "Take your hands out of your pockets!" "Why?" asked the priest. The scugnizzo lunged forward with a razor, and Father Borelli removed his hands. Thus he learned a scugnizzo rule: concealed hands mean concealed weapons.

He made friends by talking about America. "All scugnizzi dream of going to America," he says. "Everybody in Naples does." Gradually he overcame their distrust, spent night after night huddled with them on bakery gratings. "When they rolled drunks or practiced immorality," he says, "I simply indicated indifference." In the cold dawn he would splash his face in street fountains before returning to his daylight duties (which included teaching 14 classes a week at a Roman Catholic college in Naples).

"Like a Movie." Gradually he began to pass the word along that there was a shelter in the Church of Mater Dei, but the suspicious scugnizzi gave it a wide berth. Late one winter night he watched sadly as a group of three scugnizzi stripped a drunk to the skin, then he plodded off, muttering aloud: "I'm going to Mater Dei to get out of the cold." When he arrived at the church he fumbled wearily in his pockets; he had forgotten his key. He hammered with his hands upon the door. The custodian opened it at last; three scugnizzi emerged from the shadows and entered with him. The surprised custodian, alert to the secret, fed Father Borelli bread and jam with the others, even though this breaking of the fast after midnight kept him from saying Mass the next morning. "This seems like a movie to me," he whispered as he passed the food around.

That night of the providentially forgotten key was the beginning of a tide of hungry, hard-bitten little boys that has flowed into Mater Dei ever since. At last, one day Father Borelli felt sure enough of success to walk among the scugnizzi in his clerical robes. No one recognized him until he produced a snapshot of himself dressed as a scugnizzo. First they gaped in astonishment, then they crowded in to touch his habit and kiss his hand.

Handle with Love. Some 200 boys have graduated from Mater Dei's clean dormitories and affectionate supervision to steady jobs and marriage, or back to their families. "Actually, we can't offer them as much materially as they can win for themselves on the streets," says Mario Borelli. "So why do they come to this church, and why do they stay? It is very simple. Scugnizzi are not animals. They are humans, and instinctively feel that animal life is wrong."

Today there are 80 boys in Father Borelli's shelter, and he knows that there would be many more if he had room for them. He is confident that there soon will be room; last week he rejoiced at the news that Naples' church and civil authorities had granted permission for him to move his shelter out of the slums and up to a site he has picked out on Capo di Monte, which overlooks the city.

"Now we are really on our way," said Mario Borelli. "We began with nothing, and we got this far--I know we'll be able to raise enough money to go all the way. We'll get them all off the streets and back into human society. Children will always go to open arms and open hearts."

*The current price for butts: $1.09 per lb.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.