A few years ago, my friend Agostino sets up a music festival in his hometown of Catania, Sicily.
Friends of ours are down there, having fun, eating magnificently, as if it can be avoided in Sicily. But otherwise just sitting around waiting to play for the most part.
Day of festival gets close. Weather kind of shitty. Like it seems like it’s pretty much going to storm day of show.
One of our friends is all like Ago, what are the contingency plans? Ago said there weren’t any. He asked if they had an indoor option. Ago said no.
Our friend starts to get kind of agitated. His group has come all the way down there to play, just this one thing pretty much.
Ago looks at him and says, hey, it doesn’t have to rain.
And it didn’t rain, and everything was awesome.
Another decent story about Ago, somehow along these lines:
Five of us fly into Catania. My pal Matt, his girlfriend Claire (now wife), me and my wife and our kid. We mean to be there ten days. All our luggage, stroller and the baby stuff you need with an 18mo-old.
Ago was there to pick us up. In a little Fiat hatchback. Very small car, in which you could kind of clown-fit five adults if they weren’t uncomfortable with being truly uncomfortable.
Ha ha. This is stupid. No chance we’re getting everything in there.
Ago lights a cigarette and sticks it in his mouth. Opens up the hatch, cigarette dangling, starts coaxing luggage towards the back of the car. Very casual process, barely even moving. How was your trip? Etc. etc.
We’re like shit we’re going to be here all day, and then we’re going to have to get a cab, and it’s Catania and that will take hours b/c everyone moves so goddamn slow when they’re not on Vespas. Plus we’re tired and hot and smell bad and oh my God we’re going to be here ALL DAY.
He’s talking, picking up luggage, absentmindedly pushing it toward the hatch. Not even into the car, really. The car is fucking full, and still he puts luggage up against the pile of luggage, massages it, kneads it like dough kind of. Like a sculptor or an obstetrician working on a hopeless breech. We continue to make small talk, but we are getting kind of antsy because WTF this is so obviously a losing proposition.
Mid-sentence, he just reaches up and…shuts the hatch. Which closes. Matt and I looked at each other in astonishment. Everything fit. He wasn’t even thinking about what he was doing, and he somehow stuffed all that crap into that car, when it looked like there was no possible way to do it.