Inside a Roman Mind

Tre

Tre

'Why did we fucking bother getting two rooms man?'
The two left through the main rotating door into the comfortable late afternoon Italian weather, lugging their bags awkwardly to the kerb to flag down the first taxi that passed. Officially, they were homeless and completely disorganised. They weren't supposed to leave this hotel until tomorrow; checking out early hadn't saved them any money, either. No matter.
When they stepped into the first taxi that pulled up, Sam pulled out a flyer he'd picked out at the front desk of the hotel and thrust it into the hands of the driver, who only needed a second of examination before setting off.
The ride was silent. Mike stopped talking and the driver spoke, assumedly, no English. When the car finally came to a stop, Sam shoved a fistful of Euros at the driver and stepped out. He definitely overpaid him but it wasn't really something he cared to turn his mind to. The car hire place he'd requested to go to was just closing for the day, a lucky break. He stepped in, as obliviously as possible to the fact that the lights were in the process of being turned off, and stood at the counter to be served. The conversation became a blur of frustration, but after asking for someone who could speak a real language and not just some dialect of Latin, Sam remembers vividly asking for the most obnoxious vehicle he could possibly drive in. A Ferrari? An Aston Martin? A cheap Alfa Romeo with a very unfortunately still attached roof. He would not be paying homage to his personal bible tonight. The car probably cost twice as much as it should have but he didn't voice complaint, the language barrier would have been enough for it to fall on deaf ears in the first place. When he was handed the keys, he was also given a manual of how to operate the car, terms and conditions, a road map, and emergency contact numbers—among which were the numbers for the police, general emergency, and fire brigade, undoubtedly helpful additions to a real page turner of a manual. He was expected to return it to a depot with a full tank of gas, and his credit card number, passport, and mother's maiden name were his securities for the fourteen collective dollars of precision Italian engineering he was lovingly gifted, courtesy of his bank balance and the generosity of the hire company as they swept the two off the premises so they could go home and watch football like any truly one dimensional Italian stereotype does.

'These people arevampires,' Sam remembered saying as he began his journey north west, startingfirst with a stroll through the city. The cobblestone streets of Rome seemedlike the stuff of fiction when he watched films that involved Rome as that oneexotic filmed-on-location place that wasn't just a warehouse in LA. It wasunusually confusing to drive through the city itself, because although therewas adequate signage, it was all in Italian. The car seemed to be the savinggrace because two and a half beers didn't help his comprehension of being ableto drive; the thing itself was a shoebox which made handling a breeze. Hepassed by dozens of civilian cops, cops on bikes, and cops in electric carswith a top speed of thirty-five, probably the designated Highway Patrol fleetin the force. His driving wasn't erratic but every time he saw anything thateven closely resembled some sort of state sanctioned parental figure, hisarteries hardened and his heart rate increased. He definitely didn't want to startthis journey on a bad note, although he had to admit, he was completely unsureof exactly what sort of trouble he would get into if he would be charged withdrink driving in a foreign country on an American driver's license. No matter,he convinced himself as he pursued the freeway.
Everything here is in metric; seeing a sign that reads 130 is oddly jarring toan American audience, conditioned to seldom seeing more than 60 within theconfines of the fat red circle. Maybe he's only speaking for himself but thesespeeds feel unusually fast for such a little country. Before he knew it, he wasin the countryside travelling north to nowhere. Eventually, they assumed,they'd hit France or, God forbid, Switzerland. Geneva would be a very adequateplace to find themselves prison inmates in, but neither of them really wantedit to come to that. They weren't on the run from anything, worst case scenariosjust happened to pass by their minds and into the topics of their conversationsfar more readily as the night drew longer. Monday evenings are such bores forbad drivers and the roads were mostly clear outside of the city and peak hours.
Suddenly, his third beer was finished. How long had it been anyway? He checkedhis watch and it read eight o'clock, but he wasn't sure when he starteddrinking so really, this fact could have alluded to any time at all withouthaving any impact whatsoever to his evening's narrative.
'Another?' Mike, very conveniently, raised his voice over the sound of theradio. The music wasn't all that interesting, to be honest. Standard hipstertrash was on. The sounds were insane. At face value, all of the instrumentssounded interesting and definitely in key, but there seemed to lack any sort ofhook, a catch to make the song distinguishable, in any sense of the word, fromany other thing that played. The only real way they knew a new song was on wasafter an advertisement sifted through the awkward transition to sell somethingthey didn't want in a way they didn't understand.
After a while, hugging the coast gets boring, the smell of salt water getsstale, and one finds oneself longing for some kind of entertainment. At thispoint, sitting on the awkward fence between sobriety and legitimatedrunkenness, Sam felt an executive decision needed to be made on behalf of bothof them as to how they are to spend the rest of the night. It turns out thatthis decision landed in Civitavecchia, only an hour and a half drive from Romeitself. Apparently, they'd managed to spend at least an hour driving throughthe city itself, terrorizing the night, listening to the radio at a responsiblevolume and staying well and truly within the speed limits imposed. Their firstmatter of business was to find somewhere to eat and maybe somewhere to drink.Italian restaurants all seemed so nice here, it was hard to choose. Onenoticeable difference was that no restaurant had the obnoxious red green andwhite flag as part of its tacky logo design to denote the heritage of itscuisine. That was definitely a bonus over back home. The food was interesting;the pizzas especially were such an improvement over the one-toping-with-cheeseoptions typically found back home. Being outside of Rome, English proficiencydropped to almost zero. As they sat down at the table of an arbitraryrestaurant Sam had chosen with his eyes closed, suddenly Mike found it withinhimself to speak again.
'This is nice.'
'It is,' Sam looked down at the menu. He knew what he wanted to eat so lookingat the menu was more or less just to divert his attention away from the factthat he had no idea what to say at the moment, there didn't seem to be anyconversational points that he could pick from his brain that wouldn't seemsuperfluous.
'So are you right to keep driving or...?'
'You know, I'm not entirely sure to be honest.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well I'm at that like, weird stage where I'm sobering up pretty quickly andit's kind of a bummer because I wanted to just be able to keep myself at thatlevel of drunk where I wasn't over the top but I am certainly more, I don'tknow, lucid now than I was twenty minutes ago and I don't really like it.'
'So you want to drink?'
'Yeah, but I want to keep going somewhere, I mean this is a drive isn't it?'
'The point of a drive is to go somewhere.'
'Well I guess that we're just nowhere...'
Sam pulled out his phone and opened up the digital map. It homed in on his currentlocation, Piazza Aurelio Saffi, only blocks away from a major port, right onthe Tyrrhenian Sea. Zooming out on the map put European geography intoperspective; it felt like if he threw a pebble west with enough force, he'dprobably accidentally declare war on the island of Corsica.
'You're such a philosopher.'
The two laughed. 'How about we set an actual destination?'
'In how long?'
Crunch time was upon him. He needed to make a decision: stay in Civitavecchiaand be responsible, or leave and make something of the evening. Rationally, anydecent human being would choose to just stay here. The town was picturesque andthere must be plenty of hotels open for a late evening overnight booking. Ofcourse, Sam wasn't really a decent human being and so a simple decision such asthis seemed, to him, like an elaborate questioning of his core beliefs anddecision making skills.
'Fuck it,' he finally conceded. 'We'll stay here and try and find some drugs orsomething.'
Mike laughed. 'How do you suppose we do that?'
'I don't know really.' He paused as the waiter stopped by the table and placeda single pizza on the table to be shared. It seemed to be leaning far closer toSam than to Mike, and so he was forced to adjust it accordingly beforecontinuing. 'I could try the police station, they must have a whole fucking labworth of things in their evidence locker.'
'You know,' Mike started slowly, 'that sounds like a brilliant idea.'
'Otherwise I think we're going to have to cut our losses here and just wanderaround.'
'Yeah, I mean we've been here what five minutes, that gives us expertobservations of the place, but it seems like just a really sleepy town comparedto Rome.'
'Well fucking duh.'
'The port, it docks ships that travel to like, Spain and shit, maybe there'llbe something there.'
'Or, you know, customs?'
'It's open borders isn't it? European Union and all.'
'Shit,' Sam laughed slightly. 'I didn't realise that was a thing, I thought itwas just some elaborate joke I wasn't in on.'
'Yeah, pretty much.'
At the conclusion of the meal, Mike gave Sam a few Euros for his half and thetwo stepped towards the counter to pay.
'Have you spoken to the girl you met last night?'
A grin wrapped across Mike's face at this question. 'Andrea?' he respondedcautiously. 'Yeah...'
Now inquisitively, Sam pressed. 'Well?'
'She's kind of upset that I didn't invite her on this trip.'
'What you mean the drive?'
'Yeah...'
'Dude you just met her didn't you?'
'Yeah,' he paused, thinking of how to wrap his mouth around the idea he wanted toexpress. 'The thing is that she kind of is looking for the same thing we'relooking for.'
'What are we looking for?'
'Well didn't you want an escape?'
Almost in shock, Sam laughed instinctually to bat off the assertion. 'HonestlyI thought I just wanted a holiday.'
In rejection, Mike scoffed. 'Alright man.'
There was a noticeable pause in the communication. As they stepped outside,slightly above his own breath, Sam mused his disbelief. 'Escape from what?'
They proceeded towards the port. There seemed to have been some kind ofunspoken acknowledgment that if they were going to have any fun at all in thisplace, it would be at the port. Truthfully, it was beautiful. Staring at theMediterranean Sea was gorgeous, no matter what disposition of business operatedin the murky waters in front of them. As a West Coast identifying American,they were both used to seeing the ocean. San Francisco, being a series of pierssituated in its award winning just-below-swimming-temperature climate, couldeasily be recalled to memory by this place. At the right place and the righttime, it could be serene. They sat in darkness listening to trashy music andstaring at the sea, taking turns at swigs from the bottle of wine they shared.
'How about that girl you met... Zara?'
'I think that's done.'
'That was quick.'
'It wasn't supposed to be anything really, just blowing off steam.'
'Did she know that?'
'I hope so.'
'That's harsh man, what if...'
'We can't live on what ifs,' Sam laughed to defuse the tension. Now might havebeen serene in tone but it didn't need to become deep and meaningful just yet.The night was still young. 'Surely she should have known, I mean it'sunreasonable to think that I was interested in her personality when she and Imet, we barely spoke a word.'
'I can see your points man, I just don't know how you can be so brazen about itall.'
'It's not hard to be rational.'
'Is it really rational?'
There was a pause. 'What? Yes, your question makes no sense dude.'
'Come on, think. Are you being rationalor are you just persuading yourself?'
There was only one response Sam thought was adequate to that question. 'Yes,'he spoke brazenly. Was this an actual debate? Was there really some sort oftension building in the air between them? Did this need to be relieved in someway, a joke, a reference of some kind? Was there steam to be blown off?Probably not. Maybe that's why it was so awkwardly difficult to think ofsomething to say.
Strange evenings in strange places. At midnight they migrated south from theports and to the one beach in the town where they stripped themselves of theirculturally manufactured furs and righteously colonised small patches of sand.Together two Americans, avenging the inhabitants of the New World, sat andpondered their invasion of the Old World grain by grain, until finally theireyes couldn't take any more of the blackness and they resigned themselves tothe fact that they were now going to have to get a room at this hour. Not an impossiblefeat by any means but would they be able to book a room at all? That night waslucky. They agreed, Mike would grab the car and bring it around, Sam would workat getting a room. When he entered the hotel with its incredibly unconvincingItalian name, immediately he stumbled upon a tall, burly man with the most holyof caterpillar moustaches to ever grace the planet and a thick southern drawlinteracting with the desk attendant. He seemed to be drifting in and out ofEnglish, every so often throwing in a fancy sounding word that ended in o, poignantly denoting the fact that hewas deliberately deviating his vocabulary from that traditionally acceptedvernacular of Her Majesty the Queen. It seemed to be working: the attendantwas, despite the ungodly hour, jovial in response to the southern Borat thattowered between the two. Feeling quite out of place, Sam regressed hisconsciousness to obnoxious confidence and approached the desk. As soon as heplaced his hands on the table, his mouth engaged some kind of incrediblylocalized cerebral palsy. With a coarse drool, he fumbled his words until theywere no longer recognizable even to him.
'I suppose you want a room?' The southern man interrupted politely.
Sam nodded.
'For how many?'
'D-yew.' Sam extended his hand and flashed the internationally coveted peacehand signal to the stranger.
'Two?'
Sam nodded. What the fuck was happening? His legs were giving way, it seemed,as he was relying on his upper body strength to remain upright considerablymore than usual—and much more than what should ever be necessary. He mustadmit, being a biped may not have been the way the human body was necessarily designed to operate, but itdid have its benefits. Relying on arm strength for posture could only ever bedescribed as awkward. Maybe that's why the great human apes started to walk ontwos, simply because at some point the dictum of evolution required humans toat all times be capable of carrying two cups of coffee without temporarilydisabling themselves in the process.
'Sir, are you okay?' The Southern Tarzan with an affinity for puberty placedhis hand on Sam's shoulder. He tried to respond but found his tongue far toonumb. He wanted to write something, but as he clutched at a pen it fell out ofhis grip and became one with the paper below. He was sweating a pool and hisface was flushing red. Was it hot in here? It felt three million degrees. Wherethe fuck was Mike? He should have been here by now. The selfish assholeprobably crashed the damn car and killed himself. That would have been afitting way to end his life, by inconveniencing another as he drunkenlycommandeered a four-metre-long weapon, wrapping it with skill and precisionaround a tree.
'Sir do you want an ambulance?' Did he even answer the last question? What sortof a fool must he look at the moment, frothing at the mouth, having thecoordination of a dead bat flying gracefully through a cave, as every bone andmuscle below his jawline forgot not just how to do their job, but what theirjob was in the first place.
'Ub-brn' was the only thing his otherwise catatonic mouth would permit him tosay, and he shook his head in defiance of the actual question. A profound senseof confusion was slowly beginning to take its toll. Sounds were distorting,folding in on themselves, spinning around his head. The waves were passingthrough his ears but falling just short of legitimate comprehension. He knew hewas being spoken to but he could no longer automatically understand what wasbeing said, it was just a blur of noise. Manual concentration proved toodifficult far too quickly.
Somehow he managed to hold on to his credit card for long enough to pay. Theattendant very cautiously handed the room key to him. There was a stretch ofblackout, and the next thing he knew the Southerner was holding on to him,leading him down a corridor and to his room. When he opened the door andreleased Sam from his grip, although he was once again conscious, his legs haddecided to exercise their right to a labour dispute and had gone on strike. Heflopped onto the ground face first, landing with a dull thud. Why hadn't thisman called the police, or at least an ambulance? He knew he didn't need to go to the hospital but this musthave been an unusual sight for anyone, certainly unusual enough to cause alarmor suspicion. He was trying to evaluate the reason behind the mysteriousstranger, why he was so calm in the face of what must appear to be some kind ofdrug crazed stupor. Pity, empathy or apathy? It could have been either. As hisbrain struggled to keep its thoughts from frying his skull off, the Southernersat at the end of the bed and faced the TV, turned it on so there was a light,nearly inaudible background noise, and exhaled one deep sigh.
'You ordered a room with two beds, where's your other half?'
'Uht.' Sam flipped himself onto his back and, acknowledging the fact that hewouldn't be able to move for at least the foreseeable future, relegated himselfto finding what little comfort there was on the carpet. 'Hee gunt uh kah.'
The man actually laughed at that. 'He's getting your car? Is that what you'retrying to say?'
Sam nodded. 'Fair enough.' He stood up and approached the door, pivotinghimself to face back into the room. 'I guess I don't really want to know. Goodluck friend.'
He closed the door. How ominous. Any reasonable person wouldn't be so sure oftheir judgment; if Sam had met someone in the condition he currently findshimself in, he wouldn't have left until he knew the person was with someonetrained to deal with the issue or, failing that, until the person was back tonormal. Of course there are so many holes in this story that may never befilled, so many reasons why the man just up and left. And what was taking Mikeso long?