Empire of Light (26 page)

I pop it out. Five bars. Cool!

Call the parents?

No. Them stressing out 6,000 miles away does me no good.

Giacomo! I’ll call him. The guy is the closest thing I’ve got to family on this side of the ocean.

“
Pronto
?”

“Giacomo! It’s Jason.”

“
Ciao
, Jason. Look, I’m picking up equipment right now. I’ll come get you tonight and you’ll help me shoot, and then we’ll go drink and talk.
Va bene
?”

“No! Giacomo! I just got my camera and credit card stolen! Dude, I didn’t get twenty yards off the train and my shit was straight up snatched! They beat me up in an alley and—”

I have to stop as I try to decipher the strange noise transmitting through my iPhone. You know, there is something really disturbing about hearing laughter filtered through the static of a bad phone connection. It sounds almost demonic.

“
Benvenuti a Napoli,
bitch
!
Bwahahahahaaaa!”

Welcome to Naples, bitch
!

Nice.

That’s the response I get when I call and inform one of my oldest friends that I’m stranded on foreign soil, beaten and broke.

“Dude? Did you not hear what I said?” I yell into the phone.

More laughter.

I hear him bellow after his crew in Italian. I can’t make out what the hell he’s saying, but my guess is that he’s informing them on how his friend from Cleveland barely made it across the city line before Napoli rose up and punched him in the face.

“Giacomo! What the hell should I do? Should I go to the police?”

“Yes. Go to the police. They have nothing better to do in Napoli than to help you find your camera. Good luck with that! I’ll call you later!” he says laughing.

And with that he hangs up. Before the line goes dead I clearly hear Giacomo declare to his crew, “I love this guy!”

How the hell is this love?

***

“You’re screwed,” says the Napolitano cop from behind his desk.

Okay, to be fair, I pushed the guy into treating me like a dick. He was trying to be calm and respectful, but I wouldn’t just fill out the police report and leave. I just couldn’t let it go. I just had to keep asking the poor guy what they were going to do about getting my cards and camera back.

“Look. Unfortunately, crimes like this are at epidemic proportions. And I’m afraid that the chances of ever finding your things are not good. We will do the best we can. I hope you won’t allow this incident to cloud your opinion of Napoli. You’ll discover that despite our reputation, the people of Napoli are very warm, and we want nothing but for you to enjoy your stay here. I wish there were something I could do to make your first day here a better one,” he says with a smile.

“Maybe you could give me a lift back to the train station?”

“No.”

Back on the street, I can think of only one place to go. At least the cop was decent enough to scribble the directions on my map before kicking my ass to the curb. Keeping Graziella’s words in mind, I memorize the route and hoof it.

The game of recalling the landmarks and names of these Italian streets, while at the same time trying to not look like a tourist, takes my mind off of the gravity of my current situation, and before I know it I’m standing at the entrance of my sanctuary.

It’s probably a bit too on the nose that I find refuge in a church after winding up broke and homeless. Especially this particular church,
Pio Monte della Misericordia
, which I roughly translate as
The Pious Mountain of Mercy
. My guidebook describes this joint as the institution that was founded for the liberation of slaves and to aid the poor, the sick and the imprisoned. It’s one of the largest charitable institutions in Napoli.

I could use a mountain of charity and mercy right now.

I need to figure out how to get money.

I need to figure out how to get food.

I need to find a place to sleep.

And I need to find all this in a harsh town that could give less than a damn about a tourist down on his luck. Giacomo is obviously too busy to help an old friend, at least right now. Well, if Giacomo isn’t freaking out, then maybe I’m not as bad off as I thought.

Whatever. I hate Naples.

It’s merciless.

On cue, as if to prove me wrong, a cute Neapolitan girl approaches me with something scribbled on a scrap of notebook paper.

“
Ciao!”
she says cheerfully.

She’s the church’s art gallery docent and her smile is the best thing I’ve seen of this town thus far.

I had asked her about the two last Caravaggio paintings on my list and directions to their locations. She went the extra mile and highlighted the routes on my map, but she also took the time to call the museum on my behalf just because she is good.

The news she delivers, however, is not so good.

The first painting,
The Flagellation of Christ,
was no longer at the local art museum. It’s on loan to a museum in Barcelona, Spain.

The second painting,
The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula
, from what I can understand, is owned by a private bank.

I’m dicked.

“
Mi dispiace,
” she says, apologizing with sincere sadness.

So there you go. I should’ve stayed the hell in Rome, coming all this way for nothing. Oh wait, not for nothing. I did manage to lose a one-of-a-kind magic Brownie camera. And let’s not forget the vintage old world ass kicking I received. I can just imagine what Edgerton is going to say.

Remind me to never trust you again. I mean it. I’m getting old and I forget things. If I ever slip and ask you to handle a task, remind me how I gave you a magic camera and you shitted it away.

This is tragic.

I sit, depressed, in the front pew, staring at the painting which hangs over the altar. It’s called
The Seven Works of Mercy
. It may be the last Caravaggio I’ll draw on this trip.

Caravaggio was commissioned to create this work by this very church, while here on the lamb after murdering some poor slob who owed him money on a tennis game back in Rome. To be fair, it was a duel, and word on the street to this day is that Caravaggio meant to just wound the guy and not ghost him. Regardless of how he got here, Caravaggio ended up flourishing in Naples. Simply put, Caravaggio was to Napoli what Woody Allen is to New York.

My daydreaming is interrupted as the docent escorts into the room a group of Italian-speaking tourists.

“
Qual’è le sette opere della misericordia
?” she asks rhetorically before listing the Seven Works of Mercy depicted in the Caravaggio.

1. Clothing the naked

2. Visiting the sick

3. Visiting the imprisoned

4. Feeding the hungry

5. Giving drink to the thirsty

6. Sheltering the wandering

7. Burying the dead

I had started a preliminary sketch of this painting last night, because it’s so damn complex. It’s a busy composition, packed with characters and bustling with energy. I constantly had to erase and shift characters around after discovering I didn’t leave enough room for an extended hand, or an elbow or a foot.

Shit.

I can’t concentrate.

What the hell am I doing here?

I mean, really, I just got my ass kicked in an alley, my credit cards and camera stolen, on foreign soil, no less, and I’m sketching?

I’ve got to get the hell out of here.

I search my iPhone’s address book for the American Embassy in Naples, Google map the location, and bolt out of the church.

I barely make it back onto the streets before some kid with a courier bag bumps my shoulder, blowing past me and running at top speed.

I instinctively check my pockets for my passport and my phone. Still there. Good.

The Courier, a kid not much older than fifteen, is hauling ass down the street as if his life depends on it. He leaps over a planter and something falls out of his pocket and bounces onto the sidewalk. I get a closer look.

No way.

It’s a colorful stack of euros, rolled up fat and secured with a thick rubber band. Money just literally fell into my path. I snatch it up off the ground and look around with suspicion.

Nobody has seen a thing.

I stare at the cash and a cartoon thought-bubble pops above my head. An animated hotel bed, bottle of coke and boxes of take-out Chinese food dancing within the animated cloud.

As I pocket the dough, I notice the Courier trip and fall on the curb. Jeez, that kid is really on a mission.

He’s going to be in for a big surprise when he arrives without this dough.

“Shit,” I say to myself.

I hate having principles.

I have to return this.

“
Hey!” 
I scream at the Courier, who gets up and runs away limping, oblivious to my shout.

I run after him.

I’m tired of running.

“
Hey, kid!”

I chase after this guy for two city blocks before he finally clues in that I’m trying to get his attention.

He stops and spins his head around, glaring at me totally annoyed. I jog up to him, winded and lightheaded. I double over against the wall. Too tired to think in Italian, I simply hold up the roll of cash. The Courier looks at the roll of euros in my hand, and his jaw goes slack.

He slaps his back pocket.

Empty.

He grabs the roll out of my hand and begins to punch himself in the head with it.

“
Stupido! Stupido! Stupido!
” he exclaims.

“Okay. You’re stupid. Agreed. You owe me.
Aiutami
.
Per favore
…” I say, trying to catch my breath.

“
Sei Americano?
You American?” he asks.

“
Si. Sono di
Cleveland—”

“
Grazie,
Cleveland
,
” he interrupts. “
Grazie mille,
Cleveland!” he says, clearly assuming my name is Cleveland. He gives me a bear hug, and I’m too tired to push him away.

I’m beginning to think this guy’s life would’ve ended if he’d lost this roll of dough.

“You come with me.
Sì?
Please.”

“I can’t.
Non posso. Devo trovare l’American Embassy,
” I reply. “American Embassy!”

“I take you there!
Andiamo insieme!
”

“You’ll take me there? Cool. Is it far?” I ask, but he doesn’t understand me.

“
È lontano?
” I ask again in Italian.

“
No. Solo due minuti a piedi.
But we must run!
Andiamo!
”

And with that, the Courier bolts, and here I go running again. It’s forty degrees out, and I’m drenched with sweat. I manage to keep a steady jog behind him, just fast enough to keep him in view. Hey, this route he’s taking me on looks familiar. Is this kid taking me back to the alley where I just got my ass kicked?

Yep. As matter of fact, there’s my blood on the ground.

How ‘bout them apples?

We dash through the alley and stop at a door around the corner. The Courier opens it and motions for me to come in.

“
Vieni. Vieni.”

This is
not
the Embassy.This is the gang’s hideaway!

19 

How the Hell Did I Get Here?

I STEP THROUGH THE 
door and walk into a teenage boy’s wet dream of a clubhouse. The den is packed to the rafters with little punk thieves.

It’s an old storefront pub, a dive, converted into an XBOX game den. By my count, five 42” HD monitors mount the perimeter of the room, exploding with the mad imagery of Grand Theft Auto. The joint looks like NORAD Command after being hijacked by a bunch of inebriated MIT students.

BLAM!

A gunshot fills the air.