Empire of Light (14 page)

“Oh, didn’t you just love the Louvre?” she begs of me.

“Yes. Very much.”

“You know part of
The Da Vinci Code 
took place there. Did you see it? Tom Hanks was wonderful!”

Dear God, blow up the train. Why is there never a Jihadist around when you need one?

“I really didn’t spend much time in the museum,” I say. “I only had an hour and a half so—”

“Well, what did you see?” she interrupts.

“I saw
The Mona Lisa,The Death of A Virgin
and the toilet. That’s it, really. I—”

“HURRAY!” the Brits suddenly cheer, as they begin slapping me on the back.

“You did it! The Holy Trinity! You really did it! How wonderful!” she screams.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask in shock.

“That’s the same path of Robert Langdon in
The Da Vinci Code
! Remember? It was in the bathroom where Dr. Langdon was informed by Agent Sophie Neveu that he was in grave danger.”

No.
You’re
in grave danger if you don’t leave me the hell alone. I had sex with a ghost, lady!

Ol’ Red reaches deep into her Day-Glo pink and orange plastic bag, and before I know it, my chest is adorned with an XXL 
Da Vinci Code
t-shirt and I’m crowned with a
Last Supper
painter’s cap. I look at the woman like she’s crazy. But then my mom’s face suddenly flashes in my head again. This lady is probably somebody’s mom, too. And once again, I spoil my moment of sulk by putting things into their proper perspective.

Red fusses over me, adjusting my hat and shirt as if she’s getting me all set for my first day of school.

“Perfect!” she exclaims.

It’s right there that I decide. I don’t care what happens, I’m just gonna go along for the ride. Screw it.

“Thank you so much. This is great,” I say sincerely.

“You are so very welcome. You’re one of us now, love,” she says beaming down at me. “So there you go, and Bob’s your uncle. Enjoy the rest of your trip.”

***

We enter Rome airspace on time thanks to the fine folks of Alitalia, which I had been told was an acronym for
Arrived Late In Tokyo And Luggage In Australia.

But my plane hit the gate at 9:05 p.m. on the dot, so I don’t know what those people were talking about. Before I know it, the wheels of my luggage are bouncing across the tiled floor as I follow the crowd deep into the belly of Aeroporto Leonardo da Vinci di Fiumicino to the trains.

I desperately want to get my passport stamped, purely for nostalgic reasons. I want this thing to be graffiti bombed with stamps from around the globe by the time I hit thirty.

I spot an office where there seems to be a group of airport security guards hanging out, their legs kicked up on the table, eating dinner and laughing.

After my run-in with the French police, the last thing I want to do is engage these guys, but if I can figuratively get my passport stamped in a Louvre toilet, I damn well should have the balls to ask these guys for a literal one.

“
Scusami?” 
I ask, cautiously.

“
Dirmi,”
one of ‘em responds as he wipes crumbs from his goatee.

“
Vorrei una stampa per il mio passaporto. Può auituarmi?”

“
Non è necessario. Benvenuto al’Italia! Ciao!”

Okay. So there you go. Passport stamps aren’t necessary here. I’m sure it’s a European Union thing, but still, I’m getting the vibe that things might be a bit more familiar in this country compared to France. My bet is that if I climbed the side of a monument in Rome, it would probably result in me receiving a chastising and a swift kick in the ass.

By the time I finally crawl into my seat on the train, all I want to do is crash out, rocked to sleep by the rhythm of the tracks.

Unfortunately, I can only manage to slip in and out of consciousness, gripping my luggage the entire way to Rome’s Termini station, too paranoid that some fool is going to run off with my gear and leave me destitute, six thousand miles away from home.

Nevertheless, my heart begins to pump as we pull into the city.

I hop off the train and make my way to the exit, the “Roma Termini” letters hanging high above the exit of the station, in their fat white Arial-styled lettering grandeur, suspended at the bottom of the giant framed-glass window.

I’m actually here.

The Eternal City.

This is insane.

I wheel my bags out of the station, and I’m immediately greeted by dozens of cabbies begging to drive me to my hotel, as if I were Cuba Gooding Jr. with a phat wallet. Well they’re shit out of luck because I’m on a student’s budget, and I picked a hotel in walking distance. The only thing I need from these jokers is a point in the right direction.

A cabbie tries to pull the baggage out of my hand.

“Where do you need to go?” he asks in English.

“
Whoa! Aspetta
!” I say as I try to yank my bag back. “I think my hotel is in walking distance. Do you know it?” I ask in Italian.

Before I could finish asking for directions, the guy drops my bag like a bad habit and jabs his finger in the general direction of the street I’m looking for,
Via Cavor
. I pick up my stuff with a smile. I’m not going to let this asshole ruin my first night in Rome. Besides, I’ve dealt with ruder cabbies in Cleveland.

I’m quickly discovering that the walks to the hotels are going to be the most stressful parts of my European trip. The people here drive as if they collectively all looked into their rear-view mirrors and discovered the Grim Reaper chasing them down on horseback. Death is right on their asses, but being Italians, they’re pretty sure they can out run the bastard. Everybody is Mario Andretti.

I scamper across the street and jump onto the sidewalk just as a gnat of an automobile buzzes by me at light speed. I look up and find myself standing at the entrance of the Hotel Argentina, my home away from home for the next few days. I haul my bags up to the second floor and the gentleman at the front desk seems cool, but I’m a bit bummed out that he also seems to be from the Middle East. How jacked up is that? I’m a Black American, a tourist on foreign soil, and I’m perturbed because the poor slob working the night shift is getting in the way of my pure Italian experience. If it were up to me, some clown that looked like a Super Mario brother would be sitting behind the desk, holding a pizza and belting out Puccini arias at the top of his lungs.

“
Ciao!” 
I say as I drop my bags on the floor.
“Come sta!”

“
Sto bene,”
he says with a smile. “How can I help you?”

Oh no you don’t, buddy. You might as well suck it up because you and I are going to do this dance in
Italiano
.

“
Sono
Jason Tisse
. Ho una prenotazione,”
I say, telling him I have a reservation.

“
Certo. Un momento,” 
he responds with a pained smile.

You just know that this must be the most screwed up part of his job. Right? Night shift isn’t bad enough, but then he has to deal with foreigners who use him as the guinea pig to test their goddamn Berlitz Italian. But unlike Paris, I kick ass, and the entire check-in is done in the native tongue. The clerk hands me my key, and I feel like I’m being handed a diploma. If only I was rockin’ the graduation mortarboard I could flip my tassel and smile for the camera.

But then I get greedy.

Much like the rookie QB throwing into double coverage. I should’ve just thrown the ball into the stands, and regrouped for second down. Instead, I get all arrogant, and I pay for it with an interception and a punch in the mouth by a blitzing corner.

I ask the guy if he could recommend a restaurant, but I end up stumbling through the sentence, stuttering like Porky Pig propositioning a Kansas City whore.

“
Scusi ma, Può consi…cono…consi…consiiigliaaarmi un ristorante?”

Consigliarsi
, this verb is my downfall.

It means, “to recommend,” and the verb is infamously impossible to pronounce. It’s really close to the word
consigliere
(counselor), which is used in all the mob flicks.

Anyway, the hotel clerk recommends a family-owned restaurant right around the corner. I toss my bags into my room, and I’m off. It’s the off-season, it’s late, and there’s a light drizzle pelting the city. Walking down this ancient street, I’m as happy as I can be. I find the restaurant and it looks perfect. It has a storefront feel to it. You can see the entire dinning area through it’s large, turn-of-the-century window. I snatch a seat at an empty table and a waiter approaches me and holds out a menu.

“
Buona sera!” 
he says with a big grin.

But I don’t take the menu. I’ve already decided that I want whatever this guy recommends, something unique to Rome.

“
Buona sera,” 
I say waving away the menu.
“
Look, I’d like to try something Roman. A specialty of the city.
”
I say in Italian.

“
Va bene!” Very good
, he says, happily.
“Bucatini all'Amatriciana!”

He immediately writes the dish down on his pad.

“
È buono?” 
I ask, cautiously wondering if it’s good.

“
Mio Dio!”
he exclaims before running down the list of ingredients,
“Guanciale, pomodoro, cipolle, peperoncino…”

Guanciale? 
I don’t know this word.

“
Scusa? Che significa, guanciale?” 
I ask.

“
Guanciale,” 
he says almost nostalgically.

He then begins to describe the mysterious ingredient.

However, he does it in Italian, of course.

And he’s speaking wicked fast.

And I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s slipped hard into the local dialect.

In other words, I ain’t understanding shit.

I must have been staring at him as if he had ten heads because he suddenly shuts the hell up and mercifully gives me the thumbnail explanation in English.

“
Guanciale
, the face of the pig,” he says slowly, like I’m an eight year old.

What? Did he say the face of the pig?

“Pig face bacon?” I ask.

“
Si!”
he confirms enthusiastically.

He grabs at his own chubby face and begins to jiggle the fat, making his voice quiver.

“The jooowl. The jowl of a pig.”

So this guy wants to serve me up a plate full of pasta n’ pig face.

“
Si!” 
I shout. “I want to eat pig face bacon! Bring me some pasta with pig face bacon!”

Now, my family is originally from the South, so I’m not about to sit in judgment of a culture that eats pig face. Many a Thanksgiving I’ve sat down at the table and thrown down on a bowl of chitterlings dowsed in Red Rooster brand hot sauce. A dish better known as
chitlins,
a word that somehow helps you forget that you’re chewing on pig intestines. Mainstream America will turn its nose up at pig byproducts such as guanciale and chitlins, while at the same time inhaling a hotdog—a concoction of “variety meats” so disgusting that even Hannibal Lecter would push his plate away in disgust at the intimate knowledge of its creation.

My waiter places the dish in front of me, much in the same way a jeweler presents a newly cut stone. The pasta, bucatini, is spaghetti on anabolic steroids—massive cables of pasta so thick that only a dozen strands make a hearty plate. The bucatini sits in a simmering, savory sauce of crushed tomatoes, olive oil, pork, onions and chile. The waiter then tops off the dish with a fresh mound of pecorino cheese, and I immediately go light-headed.

The first mouthful is bliss. The server, who waited to see my reaction, grins like a vampire watching a disciple devour its first victim.

“Yeeessss. It’s goood. No?”

With my mouth packed full of savory goodness, all I can do is nod and mumble blasphemous praise, “Oh, Geephus. Geephus! Yesh. It’s good!”

“So, you are staying at a…
Come si dice…
A youth hostel?”