127 Express: What Counts Is The Journey

By Alessio Chiadini Beuri

A collection of travel-themed stories with four really over the top protagonists: Spanky, Moobs, Fangio and Zanna. On board of a vintage blue FIAT 127, they will travel far and wide in adventures and undertakings bordering the ridiculous and grotesque in pursuit of life and laughter, the indissoluble glue of a group of friends who don't care where and how, but with who.

When the journey means evasion, but you only have a blue 127 and you are forced to review the plans. You say, okay, it won't go far but at least the company is good. After all, friends are the best witnesses of our life. Too bad that friends like Fangio, Zanna and Moobs would be enough to give you a life sentence. The best bags are those that yousomething from. Zanna, for example, has lost his trousers. Fourteen stories, one behind the other like the coaches of a train, the 127 EXPRESS, to find out what kind of traveler you are: the one who stands next to the window, the one who lengthens the legs under the front seat, the one that leaves the suitcase in the middle of the corridor, the one isolated from the world with the music in their ears.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tektime
• Release date: Mar 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9788835436454

Book preview

Introduction

127 EXPRESS is a book about journeys.

As the journey is evasion from everyday life, each story in this collection is a breath of it is a breath of light-heartedness and absolute, crystalline freedom. Of expression, of soul, of body.

One leaves to stop thinking about problems, to put difficulties on hold, to forget someone, to find answers.

Sometimes a journey can be physical, sometimes dreaming or longing dearly for something is enough.

That’s why what matters is the journey, because it is the road, we travel that really changes us and not the final aim, that we may never see. The journey seen as a discovery of ourselves, of our limits, of what is different. Traveling to break fears, to learn silence and sing out loud as we never thought.

The journey of the flesh and the spirit.

Of low and high things.

Of virtues and shame.

The protagonists of this book are four friends that share an apartment in downtown Bologna, Italy. They enrolled in university, but saying they are students is too much. Between them, they call themselves Spanky, Zanna, Moobs and Fangio… but at the registry office they are Enrico, Martino, Alex and… Fangio.

Spanky, apart from being the main narrator, is the most rational one, the most balanced. It is his perennial undertaking to mediate the strong characters of Fangio and Moobs, resolve the depressive states of Zanna and bring balance to the Force, albeit brief.

Zanna lives in a world of his own and that’s why every incursion in the reality is for him a bizarre trip. So when he finds himself dragged by the other three on their pilgrimages full of aperitifs and poor in conscious meanings, he cannot help but gasp in amazement and not lose sight of them for a second.

Moobs is the proud link between the human being, the Terminator and a warthog. He is beautiful like a Greek god, he knows no shame and once he smells you, he can find you anywhere.

Fangio is by definition annoying to watch, as ugly as hunger. He's got a ponytail, the bulging buzz of a hard drinker on an otherwise stunted body and a tuft of hair sticking out of his backside. He does not know the elegance in dressing and proclaims himself the Guru of Looove of the other three.

The Fiat 127 is the fifth real protagonist, an old lung inherited from Zanna’s dead uncle, Vladimiro Zanetti, which knows how to rescue you when you need it.

While in Walkabout you will start to know them, and when you think you understand them, they will go, exactly as a respectable Walkabout evening foresees. MemberKid, a historic friend of Fangio's, will make a brief appearance with news that will leave everyone speechless. You’ll hear about Virginia and Cecilia, sometimes, the two unfortunate girls who share the apartment with the four rowdy. I didn't feel like introducing them to you, however, because they deserve a bigger narrative arc. They will return, in a few months, in Who more KING than us.

Then it will be the turn of the first saga of this collection: four stories (127 Express, Millennium Fart, Wazzapamani showband & Review, Vlady Jones's Locker) during a car trip to Verona and the delivery of a mysterious box, legacy will of Zanna's uncle. The gas stop, nighttime taverns, bar fights, tea and cookies.

In the Moobs Saga (Fart by me, I'm a queen!, One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest, Moobs on a hot tin Roof) you will discover that camping nights can be too long and that scented candles are not always a good buy. You will learn the true purpose of rickshaws and how to set up a tent. You will have to face, along with Spanky and Fangio, a side of Moobs that will make you tremble. Free aperitifs and bodysurf on the house.

In The great Endurance you will witness a relentless fight between Moobs and Fangio that could put an end to their friendship. You will know the importance of socks and how beautiful Beach Volleyball is.

In the Fangio Saga (Carol, The Snake Charmer, Fangio University, Fastforward), our boy will have to face a truth that has been ignored for too long and will have to painfully decide which path to take on that crossroads called Life. Spanky, Zanna, Moobs and MemberKid will help him in the undertaking, in a completely new role.

And this for the moment is all, have a good trip!

Walkabout

For the reading of this episode: Land Downunder – Men At work

What the hell are you doing here?

What a start for a night that should have been legendary.

Friends are the only family which will never turn its back on you, if even if you are an unbearable dickhead who tries with every mean possible to sabotage the joys of others and sniff other people's girls like a hound.

A family won’t turn its back on you even if you are Moobs. And that’s exactly what we did during the night we spent at Walkabout the 8th of March, women’s day. A crazy shit, in my opinion. The day, not our night. Our nights are always shit. Everybody knows the story behind the 8th of March, so I'll spare you the lesson. I do not have anything against the female gender, this needs to be clear. In good days, I would fuck a good 40% of it. In dry periods, the percentage rises up to touch 80% of candidates. 0% instead is only for when I am in love. Who of your boyfriends can say the same? ALL OF THEM, effectively. But knowing they are lying. I am not. Think about it. Call me. I am almost certain that women in our days have h undergone a considerable mutation from the generation, let’s say, of our grandmothers. Now, I do not want to hear the feminists scream submission, male yoke, equal rights and so on. Go shave your pubis and let's talk about it again. You got equality, I’ll say, and every time that the cowardly male dares to say something, even if only My love, you have just put out the cigarette on my scrotum you get angry and vomit on the unfortunate two hundred years of bile that no one knows how you managed to inherit. The woman after ‘68 is like one of those loser kids, puny and insignificant that we always made fun of in high school. And then one beautiful day, they enter the class and, without saying a word, start shooting. But then we see every day how they resolve conflicts: the burning envy, the atavistic anger, the stabs in the back, the sideways words, the grim looks, the fucking of others’ boyfriends.

Men simply measure their dick and that’s it.

So, what is the night at WALKABOUT Night. Everything started with a question: why bother for hours in a place that can't offer us what we want? Why don’t we have the courage to change? Why stay 3 hours to look at a girl sitting at the bar trying to find the right words only for her to leave without you being able to say even a fucking word? There is the need to have deadlines. If your minutes are numbered, if you know you only have half an hour before leaving for another place, your mind is emptied of all fantasies, all fucking doubts to put you in front of just one thing: the PRESENT. The only rule of WALKABOUT is this one: you cannot stay in a place for more than thirty minutes. At the end of that time, you have to leave, without exceptions. It is not required to pick up a girl, order something or talking with somebody. You can just sit down and scroll on your phone. Nobody cares, the social animal that is inside each one of us will eventually wake up from hibernation. In the condition that Moobs was, we couldn’t ignore him, also ‘cause he kept on spitting in our coffee and since the house moka doesn’t make cappuccino, there is nothing to be happy about. So that’s us outside our apartment, me, Boobs, Zanna and Fangio, the head of the expedition. He knows all the hot spots of the city, the boiling points: where a fresh man risks incurring in an overdose of their own sperm: at the sight of so much feminine grace, the body responds by increasing the production of sperm troops which, ready for the battle, go to position themselves at their combat posts. The landing was in Vulvaland. Then, right at the bottom of the stairs of the building, like a ghost, an apparition, a spirit, MemberKid was waiting for us: skin cancer tan, sleeveless as if it were August in hell, the serene smile of someone who has not disappeared for two months without being heard or sending a notary to read his will.

I came back from South America, chicos! He replied to the question of Fangio, who was pretty pissed.

And we thought he was giving his ass off in the worst bars in Caracas, better that way. We're all single tonight. Potentially, at least.

The first stop is a small glamorous pub frequented, for the most part, by Erasmus students. Good run for our money, in short. Money, which, if necessary, becomes dinero in the Spanish evening, مال in the Arab one and denaro when there is an elven aperitif.

Everyone is very intimate here, in the sense that asses and kisses rub so frequently tha boner could be the name of the house cocktail. There is a lot of fog, I don't know why since smoking is forbidden, and the furniture in the room is left to the designer lamps and shelves full of books. I find it cool: there are a lot of ideas in books and if you are a discreet reader you can keep half of the pub's attention for at least ten minutes. Just enough to leave a mark and be remembered.

In my personal experience, Harmony are the perfect readings to do aloud: spicy topics, stereotypical dialogues you can play with and situations that are so idiotic to make you laugh even recited by David Attenborough.

Okay, maybe that’s too much.

However, the Parquet remains an excellent place for language experiences… LANGUAGE!, to taste the exotic tastes of the world, for adventurous and mononucleosis palates.

At the end of the time we went to Laser, a bedlam venue intended for an undefined customer target: ranging from diner furniture to the billiard room, from the stage for live concerts to a large wooden gazebo at the entrance. The counter is kilometers long and there are waitresses for all tastes, soft lighting, good music and counter elbows. Zanna must have been distracted for a moment as he's been playing pinball and forgetting the effect it has on him: the flashing lights, the beeping and twinkling sounds and the digital helplessness against the fucking force of gravity have the ability to bring out the beast of Satan that is in him.

Swearing and insulting a plastic and iron light box can be inconvenient if you are trying to pick up a girl. I mean, not that it's a problem for Zanna, since with his Spanish girl everything is going fine, but you must keep in mind that what you do will probably have repercussions on the whole team. None of us, therefore, could save him from the mighty slap of Moobs which overturned him.

The bathrooms are adjacent to the common entrance, which allows us to finally answer the question that has kept philosophers awake at night since the dawn of time: σκατά που πηγαίνουν στην παραγωγή τους το μουνί στο μπάνιο (what the hell are girls going to do together in the bathroom)?

They complain, whimper without dignity of unrequited loves, gossip about the slut who poses as a femme fatale, they hold the bag while the other squats.

Nothing fancy, but now you know it.

In nights like this, even if when you go back home, you feel like you have not accomplished anything, they almost always grant a legacy. Whether it is considerable or not depends on how much we can make of it.

The group is our fortress, our shield, our mansion. If it were not there, we would sail on sight without tools, with the risk of running aground and breaking the hull on the rocks of shame.

For this reason, every group of friends is also an obstacle, a prison, a nest of cotton wool that keeps us warm from everything.

Who hasn't happened to meet the gaze of a beautiful girl or a mysterious-looking young man and feel blocked, not so much by ourselves, but by the people around us?

Companies are a big hindrance when you want to start a conversation: you must not only impress the person you are interested in, but you must also overcome the resistance that their group, unwittingly, moves against you.

Now listen to me carefully because what I will tell you could change the history of all ars amorosa from Casanova onwards. The Miyagi Diagram.

The Miyagi diagram is shaped like a cross-eyed breast, the result of a failed mammoplasty.

The boy from Group A and the girl from Group B have to face each other to look at each other. In this position it is almost unthinkable that they would start talking, things should be shouted from one side to the other of the crowd of people that separates them. If one of them does not get rid of their entourage, the two strangers, who could also have loved each other, will leave without even having heard the name they wanted.

Since women never stop reminding us that the cavalry is dead, I thought of a solution that takes all of this into consideration.

A word is enough, a universal code that leads to action: at the shout of SENSEI, the members of the groups should begin to turn, bringing the two young people to meet and exchange numbers, fluids and everything they owe.

I'm not saying it will be easy. But if you help me, ten years from now, the word Sensei will echo strongly in all the clubs of the world. I don't know if I deserve a prize, but if there was, at least the Nobel Prize for Pasture should bear my name.

And now here we are, the third bar of the Walkabout: the Heptagon.

The Heptagon is an alternative pub that has been in style lately. You go there if you are someone, you go there if you are nobody. It is a social stage for the entire city: sooner or later everyone passes