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GRANDMA JUSTICE

"This horn was a souvenir that I bought in the 70s. I even forgot I had it, then one day I saw it and thought, 'Here's what I need to fight crime!' "

A new ice age might be approaching, but for the Milanese, "the great cold" will always be January, 1985, when it snowed nonstop for three days and the city was paralyzed under six feet of ice. All the snow made the roof of the glorious Palasport collapse, and only two weeks before what was supposed to be U2's premiere Italian gig.

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On July 21st of the same year, when 60,000 people filled the San Siro stadium for Bruce Springsteen—the Boss—'s Italian debut, in the adjacent projects of Comasina, it was as if it had never stopped snowing. Comasina was known as one of the greatest dealing squares in all of Northern Italy, partially for its coke, but especially for its heroin. Junkies would regularly come from as far as Switzerland to buy and shoot up in the square.

Comasina's civilians were resigned to live in this miserable state until, in the summer of 1985, the dealers and lowlives were faced with an unthinkable, yet dangerous opponent: a very pissed-off old lady named Lina Marangoni—aka Linona. At the time, Lina was 59 years old and had just retired from her lifelong factory job at Pirelli's huge Milan tire plant. Today Linona is 83 years old and lives in Rho, an area that could easily pass for the set of Bertolucci's 900. When I met her, she offered me three shots of Limoncello at 11 AM and, since her birthday was coming up in three days, she repeatedly told me that she was about to make ravioli in preparation for her grandsons' upcoming visit. She's the most grandma-ly vigilante granny I've ever met. Here's her story.

Vice: Hello Linona. Tell me, how was Comasina in the mid-80s?
Lina Marangoni: There's not much to say. It was terrible. We were all afraid to leave the house, even during the day. You never knew what could happen. Once, I opened my front door and saw a dead kid on the stoop. He had been dead for hours and nobody had done anything. Drug addicts were all over the place. Even in courtyards, halls, stairs, and landings of our buildings. They'd sleep in sleeping-bags and do their business on the streets. The ground was covered with syringes. More syringes than dog poo. And nobody, not even the police, would do anything.

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They didn't care?
They didn't care at all! Or at least, they didn't act like they cared. One day this policeman came to me complimenting me for what I had done. You want to know what I told him? "The hell with compliments! If I had to wait for you, nothing would have changed!"

So, since nobody was doing anything, you decided to step in.
Exactly. I was so sick of it. I did what nobody else in the neighborhood had the guts to do! One night, I couldn't take it anymore. I went out on the street to make them all go away, especially the dealers. They were the real problem. I went out and started screaming to everyone that was in my way to get the hell out. I would scream in their faces, but I was all alone so I couldn't really do much. Then one day, after a week of doing the same routine every night, I remembered this horn I got as a souvenir. I immediately thought, "I bet this could make some serious noise…" So I took the horn and a couple of bells and I went back out. I would blow my horn and make a hell of a racket. That's when my neighbors heard me and understood that somebody was actually trying to do something about the big mess. It's like the horn had called them.

So after that, folks came out to help?
At first there were only a few, but they grew in number day by day. It was mostly older people in the neighborhood, sometimes older than me. There was this wispy man who was probably about 80, but he was bolder than all those youngsters! I also remember this man named Maciste, an old taxi driver as big as two guys combined. In the end, we were about 14 or 15, which is a big enough crowd, no?

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Well, it certainly got the job done.
I remember this lady, she used to carry around a purse full of keys. That was meant to protect us if we fell threatened. Like one night I saw these two very suspicious guys who were sitting in a car in front of a doorway. I confronted them and told them to leave, and they went, "Don't you worry lady, we're from the riot police." I told them, "Come on, look, I may have not graduated from school, but I ain't stupid, I saw you selling drugs to those poor kids!" When they came out of the car to threaten me, I blew my horn and Maciste and all the other men came, and they had to run!

"I thought about getting back to Vallanzasca, maybe sending him a card for Christmas, but he was constantly being moved from prison to prison and I never knew where to send it."

Weren't you scared?
Well of course, but I've had a big pair of balls since I was a child. When I was 11, I was a communist, just like my dad. I would go up to Blackshirts, who had a tiny little red patch on their uniforms, and tell them, "Hey, you moron, that red thing there is the best thing of your whole outfit!" They could send you to a camp for something like that! But anyway, at the time when I was patroling the streets, lots of people loved me and protected me. Everybody in the neighborhood knew me and called me Linona [Big Lina] because I was a bit chubby. Then, because my husband kept trying to calm me down, after a while I stopped going out. I would keep a lookout from my window, and if I saw the van with the supplies coming, I would blow my horn to warn my "men" out there.

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OK, so that's how you chased the dealers away… But what about the drug addicts?
They were the real drama, because even if they caused trouble they were so poor and unfortunate your heart just melted looking at them. We didn't want to chase them out, we just wanted to get them away from the street. We would point them to the nearest church and all those places where they could get some help, but they ended up rejected most of the time. Nice charity work!

Have you ever wondered why it was mostly older people participating in your rounds?
I don't know. Maybe youngsters don't have the balls. At the same time, the youngers weren't attached to the neighborhood like we were. For us, it was like all those people had come to piss in our living rooms. For the kids it was different, they only came home at night.

How was Comasina before then?
It was a humble neighborhood, but it was good! Everybody knew each other, would help each other out if needed. Every sunday we would meet our friends at the park, play cards, take the kids along. Our kids grew up together, even if some of them did end up badly because of all the drugs.

It's known that back in the 70s Comasino was Renato Vallanzasca's headquarters—the legendary and controversial Italian Robin Hood-like bandit. What do you know about him? Did you ever meet him?
No, never met him. I know that he did lots of bad stuff--he robbed and killed many people. But I have to tell you something: When his gang was hanging around our neighborhood, nobody even noticed. It was nothing compared to all the drug-related mess that we had to deal with.

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I heard that he sent you a letter.
Yes. He sent it from one of the many prisons he's been in. He heard about me from the news. I was interviewed back then.

How did you react when you received it?
At first, I was shocked. I thought, "Oh my god, what does he want from me?" Then, since I couldn't really read his handwriting, I gave the letter to my doorwoman and asked her help. She read the whole thing to me. Vallanzasca complimented me for cleaning up the streets that he was attached to, even if he didn't grow up here. He said that I had more balls than many of the bosses and bandits he had dealt with during his "career." He also asked me to forgive him for taking the liberty of writing to me, and not to think too badly about him for what he had done in the past. He wanted me to know he was strongly against drug dealing, because no decent man could make a living out of that business. In the end, he asked me not to talk to anyone about that letter. Go figure, I gave it to my doorwoman, she was a hell of gossiper, within five minutes everybody in the neighborhood knew about it. They would call me "Vallanzasca's friend," but you know what? I think they were just jealous, especially the women. Vallanzasca was a charming man. They didn't call him "il Bel René" [Beautiful René] for nothing.

Have you done anything similar after that period?
No, sometimes people from places with similar situations like Quarto Oggiaro would come to me. They'd want me to go there and help them out with my method.

And did you go?
No way! I told them, "You take care of your neighborhood, like I did with mine." I'm not gonna go and work in other people's homes. Sheesh.

Lina Marangoni's bedroom. Lina is the personification of the fact that our grandfather's generation is by far the best and shits on all the others.

CESARE ALEMANNI
PHOTOS BY LELE SAVERI