Out of the hole, but without Alfredino

This article by Francesco Oggiano appeared for the first time on the Vanity Fair website on 11 December 2015. Angelo Licheri was 77 years old and was hospitalized in a clinic in Nettuno. Forty years ago he lowered himself into the well of Vermicino to try to save Alfredino Rampi

Since he came out of Vermicino’s hole upside down and empty-handed, Angelo Licheri has changed two wives, nine jobs, four cities and two continents. He has been in the cell twice, has lost almost all contact with his children, most of his eyesight and his entire left leg. He lives in a retirement home on the outskirts of Nettuno, with 1,200 euros of companion’s pension and Billy, the dog inherited from a guest of the house who died a couple of months ago. From this room of the institute, where he hangs a photo of Alfredino Rampi, he has finished writing the autobiography, The Angel of Vermicino (Memori Editions, € 16, with preface by Walter Veltroni).

In that black hole, with the summer that was about to begin, Angelo had not fallen. He had wanted to enter it in the hope of pulling out the child who had fallen there and who in there, a few hours later, died. Angelo failed, in front of the whole of Italy connected live in first reality show in the history of the country. And from then on he became the one who descended to save Alfredino for everyone.

ORPHAN OF FATHER
Its story begins towards the end of the war in Gavoi, a town of 3,000 inhabitants in the center of Barbagia. Angelo will never see his father, who died when he was 17 days old, and he will grow up under his mother’s teachings: «We were the second poorest family in the country. But she always told us to be honest. Because with honesty we could go with our heads held high ». Angelo is honest but tough, kind but stubborn, loyal but unruly. He spends his childhood changing schools and jobs. At 11 he entered boarding school, but stayed there for a little while. Throw the inkwell in the face of the professor who pulled his ears, beat the bullies who annoy him. “I was little, but I was able to impose myself by beating like a madman as soon as someone provoked me,” he explains.

TWICE IN THE CELL
The relationship with the law enforcement officers will also be intense: at the age of 13 he was stopped and interrogated with slaps by the police for a wallet theft he did not commit. At 20 he ends up in his cell for defending his girlfriend from the advances of some street kids. At 40 he will be arrested and then released in Kenya. Angelo gets busy first as a waiter, then as a porter and cook. He moves to Rome, where he is hired as a driver for a printing house. It is in the capital that he meets Orazia, his first wife: «A very intelligent person who perhaps I did not deserve. He left me because of my passion for women. But this before Vermicino ».

THE TRAGEDY OF VERMICINO
Yes, Angelo’s life is divided into before and after Vermicino. The story is simple: on the evening of June 10, 1981, the 6-year-old boy Alfredino Rampi falls into an artesian well in the countryside of Vermicino, just outside Rome. Over 32 million Italians follow the operations to save him for three days, thanks to an 18-hour non-stop live broadcast by Rai. “Even if a war had broken out”, Emilio Fede, editor of Tg1 at the time commented years later, “anyone would have preferred to know how Alfredino’s story was going to end”.

“I’M GOING TO BUY CIGARETTES”
Angelo is one of those 32 million viewers. From his home in Rome, together with Orazia and her little daughter, he follows the story on TV. He watches the speleologists descend, sees President Pertini who has come for a visit, watches the drilling with skepticism. “One evening my wife came into the room and saw me in the closet, naked, with my arms up, making strange moves. I told her I was just looking in the mirror. But she understood ». He understood that the idea of ​​entering the black hole was beginning to make its way into Angelo’s head. Angelo is a very small man. It has shoulders that are 30 centimeters wide. So, on the afternoon of June 12, when from the sofa at home he hears the Rai correspondent announcing the failure of the drilling, he gets up abruptly and greets Orazia: «I told her: ‘I’m going to buy cigarettes, I’ll come back for dinner’».