Since I live alone, these days his is generally the first face I see in the mornings.  Fabio, 43, is the barista at the Café della Scala, the entrance to which is maybe five yards to the right of my doorway. So when I stagger downstairs to put out the day’s garbage of choice (bottles and plastic, paper or non-recyclables), it makes perfect sense to have a cup of espresso, or even two before going back upstairs.

Fabio grew up in a low-income part of Rome and didn’t have much formal schooling; his father was a tailor and his mother, basically a housewife, and for some reason they didn’t object when he left school after finishing le medie, which for us would be junior high, and went out to work. But his wit is as sharp as a knife. He’s got comments on this or that, is constantly sparring (verbally) with the locals, be they the delivery men,  garbage collectors or regulars like me. The only problem is that often I can’t understand him.

After 40 years in Rome, I am pretty good with Roman dialect and pronunciation, the latter generally involving dropping the last syllable of a word. But like many Romans, Fabio not only speaks at machine-gun speed but he also swallows his words. So often  I hear myself screeching “Come????” (“What?”)  and forcing him to repeat.

Fabio, who is married to a lovely Cuban girl he met during a vacation there, is a real doll. If I need a suitcase brought down or something heavy carried up, he will always find time to lend a hand. And he is always ready to listen. He loves his native city. “I love the fact that almost wherever I go in this city, I am walking over hidden ruins of a glorious past”, he says. But, he adds, “unfortunately we , or rather those who govern us, have never learned to do a decent job so Rome is a real mess”.

Of course, Fabio and I do have some arguments. Politics! He is currently supporting the Five Star Movement (M5*), a relatively new party headed by a former comedian, Beppe Grillo, turned screaming pol, who has been successfully tapping into Italians’ discontent over the economy (they blame everything on the Euro),  the huge income gap between rich and poor, and a political class that includes far too many corrupt and incompetent people. It’s easy to see where Grillo (and Fabio) is coming from, but I think the Movement’s leader is a wacky, proto-fascist who can only hurt this country,not help it.  Just think. He would like the country to be governed by “the people”, through the Internet.