DIARY OF A MALIBU MAD MAN
(DIARIO D’UN PAZZO DI MALIBU)
OUT OF FRANKFURT ON MAIN, OUT OF MIND
NOTES FOR THE HOMELESS
CHAPTER ONE
SLEEPING AMONG THE RUINS
DAY 1.
Yes, I am out of my cotton-picking mind. I lose things almost continuously and can’t seem to remember which pocket has my keys my cars keys, chains, apartment, credit cards. ticket, wallet, I.D. passport-I cant locate anything anymore, camera, DVD’d and photo, computer cords, chargers, cell phone, wires and knots and all the things that do not hold and come together. Disintegration of things past present and future is the rule.
I’m sleeping among the ruins. I’m in Germany and I’m out of my cottonpicking mind but I’m sleeping among the ruins in Rome. And in Stuttgart, muttering like a maniac at the airport, talking to myself, biting my hand as I rush among all the endless passengers to nowhere. Everyone on those cocksucking cell phones, everyone with computers and blackberries while the world goes to hell in a hand basket. 200 million people in the air in the U.S.A. alone. Everyone traveling, going home, leaving home- looking for home-TV sets everywhere CNN blaring wars blasting the planet with endless streams of crisis and financial end news while the planet goes to hell in a hand basket.
It is the end, the approaching verse of apocalypse once and for all. The homeless increase daily as more and more wealth moves into smaller and smaller pockets.150 new billionaires last year alone and the basics of a dignified life removed daily from more and more people and none noticing or responding. A nun walks by, then a glum faced priest, and the one I saw with the handsome young man at the trattoria, the other night. Where is that boy I saw I wonder? Did he murder him? Where is the boy?
I keep looking for things in my pocket, more and more of them, moving stamps letter, postcards, lighter, coins, bills, those endless cocksucking receipts they give for everything from a parking meter to bank teller-endless pieces of paper fly out of my pocket as I run to catch a plane. Don’t they know I have things to do?
DAY 2
Where am I running to?Quo vadis? Quo vadis? And those endless smiling brainless motherfuckers on the TV and the Internet. Endless words and reports in the end signifying nothing. But I’m being followed of that I am sure.That’s for sure, for sure. Blood seeping from my ears and I use a dirty napkin to wipe it away. Maybe it was the sudden two thousand foot drop in less than 15 seconds. Everyone screaming on the plane. Awful.
I’m at 35,000 feet and smoke has appeared in the cabin. The pilot a Britisher calmly announces that we have to return to Fiumicino, but there is nothing to be alarmed about. Except I can see that the stewardesses are panicking. Strongly. One then rushes by me. She looks like she’s about to vomit. But the plane flies on, whining engines now breathing furiously as the pilot picks up speed. I start thinking about the SAS plane that went down over Halifax, at Peggy’s Cove. It dropped out of the sky for no supposed reason. But there was a reason. There was fire in the bulkhead and it consumed all the wiring. In the Entertainment unit, no less, and the fireproofed padding burned like paper because some cocksucker had lied. And he got away with it.And everyone on the flight died because they wanted to watch Bradd Pitt and Angelyne Jolie prance around with a gun, perfectly coifed. I hold on white-knuckled bracing for the sudden drop as all controls are lost and the huge tonnelated craft become a flying stone throwin into the face of the deep blue Mediterranean far below. We land safely. I’m freaked and so is everyone else but the worse part is no one seems to know or care. The airport personnel act as if nothing has happened. They do it on purpose. At the BWA counter some of the passengers are screaming at the flight attendant who is acting non-committal.
There is no one there to meet us. No more flights out. Tough shit. I go back to Rome, the cab driver charges me 100 bucks American. I don’t care anymore. I’m alive and shaking like a leak. I look at my veined hands and smile to myself. I don’t care. I chose the most expensive hotel I can find 700 bucks a night. I don’t care. I’m alive.
Day 3
Frankfurt Airport, circa Nov.7th, 2015. Everything in my life seems to be finally falling apart. Good. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe its just time to throw in the towel once and for all. I should have thrown it over and out a long time ago.
Life has just gotten just plain too unpleasant, too bitter and depressing the last few years.
The turning point seems to have been around the time Georgie B. took over, George the First, he of the nasal twang who was stuck for an image until they, whoever they are, decided to put some cowboy boots on him and give him “ new attitude.” Around the time, Gecko, in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street said, “Greed is good.” And proved conclusively that getting rich got you blowjobs in limos. That the point to life was making money, and more money, lots of it and beating out the other guy. Wall street is appropriately named. And getting what you wanted and fuck the other guy. Fuck him. Let him get his own blowjobs.
The aristocrat next to me in pinstripe suit is speaking in precise and clipped British accent. I’ve only now just noticed him. He says casually.
“Money it seems really is the deepest root of all our evils and afflictions. Marx was right. All wealth is based on crime and great wealth is based on great crime. That’s your problem; you’re a weasel at heart. If you can’t kill, you cant live. You don’t deserve to.”
I keep running from place to place and person to person.
I live in a state of constant irritability, restlessness and discontent. I know I’m being followed. I know I’m being chased. I saw him at L.A.X. He was wearing dark sunglasses and he stared at me for a long time. I know he was C.I.A.
. I’m check into the Hotel Nerva. I feel its right. Brigitte Bardot stayed her in the 60’s back when the world was young.
I am writing on a laptop in the small breakfast room of the hotel. I’m jetlagged and the sun has yet to rise over the Imperial City. While I’m writing this the Microsoft icon, which has been drawn as a paper clip dog with blinking eyes and wagging tale is blinking and staring away. He acts like he wants so much to help me write this. This cyber dog really cares about me. The corporate icons really do care about us and about me. The signs are everywhere. Maybe they are right.
Last night I got a call in room.
“Pronto..”
There was nothing on the line then…
“Signor Marco..”
“Si”
“I didn’t know you spoke Italian signor Marco..’
“I don’t..’
“I have been told I should meet you..”
“Who by?”
“We have a friend in common, an American friend. I will be by tomorrow night at 7 to pick you up..”
Then the phone went dead.I tell my companion we have to go. At 7 precisely the next night, a bald headed coot cheerful and over unctuous appeared at the lobby of the hotel. It was raining and he was wearing a very elegant raincoat and driving an Alfa.
We go to Trastevere. The baldheaded coot with big eyes like those of E.T- goes -home, those Einstein eyes of wisdom, and an ancient face. He’s an American Jew.
We speak in English, Italian, Spanish, French and German. He knows all the languages including Japanese.
We went to one of those Roman trattorie, where the food was supposed to be spectacular and cheap-It was only 70 bucks American, for the three of us, me him and my friend. He’s been in the film business for years. He has no work for me. He tells me actors are starving on the streets. He holds no hope for Italy or anyone else. He doesn’t believe in hope, or meaning.
“There is no meaning to life.. No reason to be…Abbbiamo creato la religione, we have created religions as fairy tales to keep us from seeing the truth- that life is a void. We die –that’s it.”
The man is entertaining and eccentrically brilliant and we start to a good time. My female companion says little smiles and eats.The bald headed coot thinks she is a whore I bought for the night. She speaks mostly German and some English and at the next table a group of Germans are nattering.
“Look.. Listen “ she smurfs contemptuously..”They are speaking Swabian.. I hate it. They are lesbians.”
I woke up early this morning wanting to commit suicide, to play the “roman fool.” or is this in fact what I’m feeling all the time but stuff it with cappuccino’s. Food, sex, TV, movies, rants? I worry about money. I leave my over-priced room and go downstairs into the lobby and have a morning cappuccino. My companion sleeps. The cheerful proprietor, Alberto, greets me. He is as cheerful as the sun, a Molisano, a southerner, a naturally happy man. He makes me feel welcome and comfortable in life. A breakfast is served fruit, cheese, cappuccino, toast bread butter and jam-everything is good. Life is good it seems. I tell him I have to stay on. No problem he says but I don’t want such a large room. Something less expensive.
“No problem” he says “C’e la guardo- io..” I’ll look after it.” And then he adds..
“La tua stanza. Is confortable?.” “Of course
“Non c’e problema.. I will look after it..”
“I need to get some travelers check cashed. Do you know where??”
Of course. My friend will give you a special rate and he point up the hill, past the ruins…
“Vai sempre diritto.. E poi a Via Cavour.. Una sinistra.., next to the theatre.. L’Elisio..”
“Yes.. Bene” I mutter..
“Un espresso?”
“No signore.. Grazie..”
He will look after it because in this world there are such men, men who look after you in the world, who take it, and take you and make sure you are fed and rested and ok, if not happy. For a price. Yes there are men and women like Alberto.And there are the others. But everything is for a price.
“Signore, can you pay today?”
“Of course..”
I ask him about the man in the pinstriped suit.
“Quale uomo?” He asks
“The Englishman” I say
“No signore” He replies quizzically.
“Ma quale Inglese?”
“I hold no hope whatsoever for mankind” the baldheaded coot cheerfully speaks “ siamo tutti futtati-We are all screwed”I start to get upset and tell him I have to go for a walk. I leave the whore with him and tell him I must pee urgently.
Last night, there was report on civilian bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq. Photos and film footage of children burned beyond recognition by the use of phosphorous bombs, mothers and fathers melted by the blazing death blast. The commentators cheerfully stated that this was war, wars on terror-the Americans were simply doing their job, ridding the earth of extremists. Such things would happen as they have happened throughout time in all places and all wars. The images of the sleeping babies white from the death pallor covered in white burning powder, looking asleep still haunts me. There is no shame, no outrage in our voices. None of us kick over the chairs and smash the studios and say enough!. We are calm and smiling, well dressed and comfortable in our skins.
It makes me want to throw something at him when I realize that I’m watching this on a mental TV, but I have yet to get the bigger picture, to understand the nature of the void. I have yet to get the bigger picture. Is there one?
The bald headed coot cheerfully drones on;
“When the Romans marched they brought death and slavery to the conquered peoples of the earth but they also brought, roads and aqueducts, sewers, and organization. They gave as much as they took..”
I leave the restaurant go outside for a smoke. Across from the hotel there is a giant pillar “accanto” the remains of a huge and destroyed Roman palazzo. I walk the narrow cobblestone alleyway away from the restaurant. There in front of in the lobby of a sleek hotel there is an ugly dirty blonde American woman staring into space with the blank stare of someone who not only has seen the void, but also is the void. She stares at me blankly, angrily. I don’t see the Englishman anywhere. There is a church nearby and I enter. A small morning prayer is on. I sit and pray and watch as a group of men, priests mostly sit and recant the liturgy, the Our Father. Above the high Altar among the graves entombed on the walls, with figures of Roman nobility engraved faces and sleeping reclining statues marking the moldering bodies. In one the corners there is a glass encased coffin where the withered remains of a corpse, dressed in robes and dried wilted flowered hat lies in state. The skull is clearly visible, eyeless sockets staring into eternity. I pray.
The prayers, in the small church, lift up to the nave and I close my eyes chanting with them. But I do not know the chants, the incantations for forgiveness for love and peace, for joy and hope and healing. I do not know the drill. I leave and go back to the man who is chewing lamb fat.
“It’s the best part..The fat of the lamb” He cheerfully tells me..”Only the high priests of the tribes of Israel were allowed to eat it…’
“Wine??”
“No, I don’t drink..”
“I never trust a man who doesn’t drink.. Why not??”
“Its against my religion. I’m a Moslem,,”
He chortles.
“I don’t believe you. You’re a liar, ..Are you not now?
I hear the mans voice as though through broken glass; “Religion is a fairy tale…told to people to keep them from the truth. There is no meaning. There is no significance. Things are going from bad to worse and will continue to do so. Why were you gone so long”?
“I went to pray. It was vespers..And I pee long”
There are men on this earth whose hearts are filled with good will and those with evil intent, men of time and men of space-those who love and those who hate the world. The world has room for both and everything in between. Yesterday on Via Cavour, in a small bookstore I picked up a copy of Hitler’s, Mein Kamp, in Italian-I miei battaglie- My Struggles, my Wars. In one of the passages Hitler writes-“My critics, you know who you are-, at time will come when you will taken care of, of this you can rest assured..”
The time came and went. Hitler took care of his enemies and then took care of himself, and Germany and the world. What is it about the human condition that brings this about?
Outside the Nerva Hotel, where Brigit Bardot once stayed surrounded by packs of paparazzi, I leave my room and come down into the small lobby and set up my laptop. The owner makes me a cappuccino, his left eye is bloodshot. I go outside to smoke across from the ancient roman ruins, giant pillars constructed over 2200 years ago by a breed of men we know nothing about. On the side of the hotel is a votive, one of those enclosed shrines showing an ancient picture of the Madonna with child. It says that if I pray as series of litanies 235 days will be taken from my stay in Purgatory- its dated 1885 in Roman numerals. I wonder if it’s true. I say a prayer just to cover my bases.
I cant go back to sleep, jetlagged and wide awake. I return to the hotel lobby and sit in the small alcove.
DAY 2
“Perfetto, perfetto” The hotel proprietor whispers after the serves cappuccino to a well-dressed goateed young man who is stylishly bald. It stylish to be bald nowadays, the prison look of garrisoned people, the carceral reality that will not allow the prisons to be other than prisons.”
The proprietor returns “Che succede?L’ai visto?”
The goateed well dressed Spanish gentleman- his crème filled croissant has gone bad.” His mood darkens. He fixes it..
“Scuse” He asks how I am – I smile which makes him happy again..
“Vuoi un altro café” Un espresso- the expression on my face.. I suppose
“Quell uomo a domenticato..”
“What man?’
“L’inglese.. A chiamato.forse ha domenticato di te.”
“Muchas gracias” He says to the Spanish tourists
“Buon Giorno, buon giorno dottore”
Amelio” the camariere says
“Un corretto?”
“Un po di prociutto, altra roba “
“What man?”
But the phone rings and he reaches for it..”
“Pronto..” He gestures un secondo and starts to rattle writing in his ledger..
The Spaniard rises and bumps into my table, spilling the cappuccino..
“Pardon,,senor..”I look into his eyes and I think I recognize him. I’ve seen him before but where?Where?
Where is the ending of the world to be seen? Here among the ruins I sit and write, here, vuoto emptied. She sleeps in the room, which I must change. There is no reason to spend so much.
On my return to Rome again, the flight is packed, as all flights are packed in this age of runaway, all parking spot taken. High above the Alps from Stuttgart we cross over Trier the northern capital of the Roman Empire. It is the oldest city in Germany and its greatest northern city and the oldest city of Germany. The birthplace of Karl Marx-site of Constantine, the Byzantine Emperor of the Roman Empire who built a giant Basilica when he left Constantinople and traveled up the Moser as the Romans had in their conquests. Constantine had left Constantinople, now Istanbul and traveled by boat and horse, taking his court with him and for several years established himself in what is now Germany.
“Your attention please- flight number 143568-AD-9403 Air Manic has been delayed- All passengers are requested to board at Gate number 495984 for immediate boarding, your a\attention please..”
“Chiamato subito dottore?”
“Lei Pronto?”
Hurry up please its time, time for new beginnings and old endings time to sacrifice to our gods time from time time time Chronos and the boys, and the sad and tragic death of Mr. Mann who suddenly appeared and then disappeared found wandering among the ruins followed by divine cats.
The tourists all show up at the same time, filling the lobby. It’s Sunday and they’re leaving all heading back to Georgia and New York, to Stuttgart and Brigham, to all the other centers of the world. But the world is not Rome. Only Rome is Rome.They sit and talk but they could be anywhere. Milawakee, Buffalo, Moscow, Madrid Anywhere.
Yes, only Rome is Rome. Not Kansas, not Malibu. Rome is packed with wealth and poverty and the dispossessed, the homeless, dark-skinned peoples for Pakistan and Sri Lanka, from Morocco, – the new immigrants of world seeking a way to survive.
DAY 4
I leave the hotel and walk the broad avenue in between the ruins, la Via Dei Fori Imperiali, the road of the imperial forums filled with the ruins of ancient Rome-it moves from the Coliseum on one side to the giant reconstruction of a Roman Palace built by Mussolini, the “wedding cake” the Romans call it. It’s a gigantic mausoleum topped by giant bronze statues of chariots carrying Nike, Victory at great speed into space. It’s a white nightmare, all cream and glory. An architectural emptiness of something that never was.
It had been Mussolini’s attempt to resuscitate the glory that was once Rome, the fascist ideal of the perfect society. It led to war and ruination. It led to my father’s migration from his home in Calabria and to mine.
My father’s generation paid the price in death, suffering, poverty, and immigration. Mussolini had brought hope, had built schools, hospitals, roads. A roman cabdriver natters at me.
“The Rolling Stones will be coming to Rome to play le terme di Caracalla..What do I care about the Rolling Stones..we who have seen emperors in chains marched through these streets?”
“This current government are “bestie!” Animals. They lie and cheat and steal the people’s money and their right to live to have a life here. Mussolini was right and look at Rome now!”
Dislocation, exile, homelessness. Things fall apart when the center will not hold. Things fall apart when good will towards men is absent. Soon there will be a strike I’m told. The country will shut down in protest against the current government and the war.
Along the avenue are ancient bronze statues of Julius Caesar, of Trajan, the demi-god Augustus, adopted son of Caesar, Nervae-these were the great conquerors of the word. Caesar who wept at the statue of Alexander, for not conquering the world yet. He finally did leading troops into Germany, France and finally England.
“Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est”
Divide and conquer, the roman method of control. I look into the eyes of Caesar and he looks mad, underneath carved into the bronze in Latin-Dictator Perpetuo- perpetual dictator, eternal leader, throughout time, throughout the ages, Caesar is still here in the world. He will return. He has never left.
He holds the staff of power. It is his right to rule and all the other Caesars this earth has spanned.
If you want to control a populace, divide them. A people divided cannot stand, a person separated from himself will not long survive. Its all about division and separation
There are men like this on the earth, solar men and lunar men, men of space and men of time. Men of thought and men of action. Men of good will and men of evil intent. All of it, the good and the bad of it.All under a blazing sun and a cold moon.”The sunshineth on the wicked and the just alike. I walk among the ruins, a ghost walker.
Am I supposed to feel the truth of the matter in the same way that the stars are always there hidden behind the sheets of sunlight? Was the bald-headed coot right? Is life a meaningless affair? And if it is why go on?
Yet it is true. It is the night, not the day that is always there. Hidden temporarily. Yes, it is night, not day that is the dominant theme of things.
I stroll along the broad avenue. In front of the Hotel Forum are some of the ancient ruins, a giant pillar attached to what looks like the remains of an old roman palace. I look down over the metal gates to wards the broken shards of ancient marble floors, green and pink streaked marble brought over from Turkey and Egypt by Roman armies, on convoys after the conquest of the known world. It is from here they marched forth, placing their short swords over the sacred flame to purify them. And off they went conquering the world bring their peace and their pax, their roads and their ruin.
Yes Rome conquered and reconquered the known world. All the nations paid homage and tribute to its overwhelming military might, its organized armies, unstoppable, its Pax Romana, the roman peace that fell like a pall upon the people of la terra. And now the peoples of the earth still come here, as tourists, not slaves to gawk and wonder but to ask. Why is this? Where am I? Do I still exist? Truly? There are spirits among the ruins. But who are the ghosts?
Where they here before in other times? Or perhaps in their great great great great great grandfathers? Removed by only 100 generations from those times when life was short and sweet or as bitter as roman vinegar?
Now the slaves return as tourists to gawk and only theirs is a modern slavery- to their work, to the dollar, to their credit cards and their taxes. To each other, from the cradle to the grave. The Romans were the first to introduce universal taxation. They were the first to introduce the art of peace through the art of war, arte bellorum. Galley slaves tied by chords of obligation and discontent.
“And in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that all the peoples of the earth should be numbered and Joseph who was of the house of David went with Mary to Bethlehem and all the…. Yes it was a tax census..
Last night on the telly, which I rarely watch, on Rai Uno there was another report of more civilian casualties. The terrorist had tied a bomb to himself and blown himself up in a shopping plaza full of shoppers.We see more films and pictures of human bodies, melted and burned beyond recognition, their flesh charred and transformed into a kind of mummified glue.More babies, painted white, melted and looking asleep in their death swaddled in their death blankets. Mothers and fathers charred to extinction skulls and bones showing through the lambasted meat. How are such horrors possible?
Is it not enough to weep? How can mankind do this? And yet it does everyday. Every hour on this painful planet. Since Roman times and before then, going back into eternal time-man has destroyed himself. Everyday. Inventing and re-inventing weapons. Killing himself. Religion is used as an excuse, but it is not religion of gods, it is the religion of money and power. It is about pride and hatred.
The Britisher in pinstriped suit sits next to me, smoking.
The new commentators and experts continue discuss the photos and actions taken.
“It war. Its just war..”He states cheerfully well dressed, handsome intelligent. There is no shock or outrage or mute shameful silence.
“It’s just here, the price of war on terror-The Americans are just doing their job. Its unfortunate but its what happens. Friendly fire..”Friendly fire indeed, death among friends-and goodwill and peace to all of mankind.So why haven’t we thrown in the towel? How can we hold up our heads as men and women on this planet strewn with tears? How can we call ourselves human? How?Indeed. How?
The heavy curtains are drawn. I rise and pull them away. Across the street is a temple that once was. I look down into the slippery cobblestone street. I see him there, a stranger, under the bright glare of the lamplight staring up at me. Mute, a face like stone. Like Julius. I leave my room in the middle of the night, putting some euros on the desk and slip by the sleeping all night clerks.
DAY 5
My friend the bald headed skull coot drones on cheerfully, eating soup.
“I have no hope whatsoever for the future-none- and no confidence in humanity. Man is the bottom of the chain, an accident of nature, a mutation. What other animal needs to think in order to survive, this tumor we call a brain-what good is it? I prefer cats and dogs, a cat operated instinctively, a dog never starves. It finds its food and its life. That’s it!” We sit among the people a buffet of glorious roman antipastos, laid out before us. The waiter a quick-witted young Indian speaks accented Italian at a machine gun pace and brings the food with speed and correctly, fish, steak soup bread wine and deserts of cactus fruit and ricotta pie.
“E fatto in casa” the baldheaded coot tells me. He’s worked with all the famous Italian directors over the years.
“This new generation has nothing to say. There is no hope for the Italian cinema.Did you bring the package?.”
“Yes.Do you still write?” I ask him
“Absolutely not” He replies. “Not a word- there is nothing left for me to say..” He tells me he’s a distant relative of the 3 Stooges, the bald one. Movies are shit.Give it to me.
I slip it under the table and he quickly takes it.
“Its real isn’t it?”
“Yes..”
“Good..”
“Curly?” I ask
“!”
Yes!”
“He’s my favourite.. Moe, Larry-cheese.. Moe Larry cheese!!”
Why would he no longer write? Why not continue?Whats the point?”
“What about poetry?”
“Never poetry, short tales only. Scenagiaturi and screenplaysPoetry is for sissies”
Practical writing for the cinema, telling stories that make money.
I pick up the check, even though he has invited me. I know the drill here.
“Where else can you get this sort of meal for 50 euro’s”
“Indeed were else on this earth can you go filled with pain and affliction?”
“If you feel that way –why don’t you kill yourself?” I ask.
There is little girl seated with her young family at the end of the table..’
“Capo tavola..” He states and he toasts her, blonde curly hair and blue eyes wide open and staring…She toasts back by lifting her baby bottle and sucking the nipple..”
Do we ever stop sucking the nipple?
“My grandchildren are getting married. I’m going to Argentina next month, to Buenos Aires. There are over 165 theatres there and tickets are inexpensive there, the most expensive is no more than 10 dollars. I’m going to go and then I’m taking a trip from which there is no return.”
“You’re not going to kill yourself? Are you?”
“Of course not, I’m going to Tierra Del Fuego, to watch the whales. Then I will kill myself, after the whales leave. They used to communicate 12,000 miles from the north to the South Pole. Now only a few hundred because of the noise of propellers on the high seas. All those tankers.’
“The whales?”
“Of course the whales are the most intelligent and soulful creatures on this planet. Its their planet not ours. I want them as witnesses”
“I want to visit the theatre in Buena’s Aires..’
“What for?’
“I was fascinated by the great Italian actress Eleanor Duse..’
“The blushing actress..”
“You know her..’
“Of course we Europeans know a thing or two about such things..she was world famous..The first natural actress..but she died of grief..They all die of grief.. But we appreciate it. She died in Pittsburgh from grief and cold. The theatre door was locked and she caught pneumonia.
“Don’t expect to make very much money from the theatre “ He snorts.
“Better to watch the whales..”
Yes. Money. It’s all about money isn’t it?
“I care not a whit for my children. They have their life and I have mine. His face moves like an active rubber mask, the look of the wizard, of Obi Ken Kanobi from Star Wars. They can take care of themselves. They don’t need me.
“Next year I will go to Florida. My daughter is very wealthy. She married a man who ran a company in Nairobi and he made a lot of money from bribes, of course”
“Of course” I reply. The world is full of bribers and the bribed. Money oils the machine, it makes things flow.
He drives me back to the hotel. Slamming the door on his car I realize I will never see him again.
In the morning I have a dream. I’m pointing to a photograph of a character I once played.
“I’m not this man anymore “ I hear a voice telling me. And I see an ordinary photo of an ordinary man. In the morning I stare at myself in the curtained mirror.
“I never was …”.I mutter.
DAY 6
I am about to miss his connecting flight to Stuttgart and I haven’t realized it yet.The German is supposed to pick me up,in Stuttgart, the model.
Flight arrived on time, from Toronto, but delayed on the tarmac. I stop for an espresso and a cigarette, thinking the 45 minutes I had was sufficient. I was wrong. It was insufficient. I’m wrong about most things these days. I was wrong about my ex. I was wrong about the one before that. I was wrong about the one before that as well. The one I was right about I left. I’d like to shoot myself please.
I’m in deep now. Where to run? To the ruins? I’m running like bandit, weak knees creaking, bags flopping against me. I hit a long tine of corridors leading labyrinth like everywhere, neuropathic feet pumping, like I’m wearing 6 pairs of socks. My heart signals the end. The signs aren’t clear. I hit a blank wall then an elevator. An elevator. I frantically push the button. It creaks open and spills me into some kind of basement. Nothing no one. Then down the hall I see him, the bowler hated man, the Englishman. L’assassine menace. Sheise. I’m pouring sweat. Get me out of here. I run in the opposite direction and find myself in a huge hall with thousands of passengers milling, espresso bars, shops selling everything under the moon. Above them a giant board with thousands of numbered flight twirling. Which is mine.?Which way to run. The giant clock is ticking. Where is he now? I lean against the wall panting like a leopard.
I will miss the connecting flight to Stuttgart I start to run again, legs pumping, and I’m soaked from sweat. I run for almost half an hour on and off, stopping every few minutes in this airport designed by demons. Two or three checkpoints and the endless lines. When I get there I’m panting like an animal the plane is still there but I had arrived one minute too late. One minute. Gate closed. One minute too late.
The reservationist won’t let me on. I hit the ground and slap it and then kick my bag across the floor. It frightens her.she is about to call security. I behave like a lunatic, a typical spoiled American for whom the world is an oyster to be shucked just for him. No amount of pleading will change her Germanic mind. She is small and mousy and frightened. I leave and go to one of the smoking islands and smoke realizing that had I been a robot, I would have probably made the flight.
“The flight was late!!” I pleaded.
“It landed on time “ she retorted
“But we were stuck on the tarmac.I’m supposed to meet someone in Stuttgart.”
“I’m not speaking to you..” She retorts.
Not her problem. It had been timed perfectly. It was I that was out of synch.It’s all timed perfectly.
Had I moved with the crowd and gone up and down the endless sad flights of stairs taken the elevators and moved at great speed through the underground tunnels connecting this Dantesque airport I would have made it.
But then all the airports of the world are Dantesque. Its what the divine poet was really writing about, the future, and not some imaginary place over there on the other side…
”Nell mezzo del camin di nostra vita..”It ended.
It was in the middle part of his journey through life that he got lost as I now am in Dante’s airport, enroute to nowhere, from nowhere. I enter the portals to hell. I can never move with the crowd, that is my problem-“clever people and grocers, they weigh-everything no??..” But what is the weight of zero zilch, nada?
What is the weight of the world? How many lbs. will the jet of eternity carry and for what price and on what star will it land, when it finally lands? Where is the Brit?
She tells me to go to between A71 and A80; there would be a desk there where I could rebook. But I have someone meeting me as though that should make a difference. On the way to the counter I realize my pockets are lighter. I check for my wallet, it’s gone. I freeze in panic. Everything was in that wallet my one remaining credit card, my I.D, my traveler’s checks. I would be stranded, a stranger in a stranger land with no connection home, like a rolling stone. I’ve been robbed, somehow.
I arrive at the transfer counter. Shaking I explain my plight to the lady. I’m trying to think, and then I remember I had one of the plastic counters at the X-ray checkpoint. Its there. She makes a few calls but cant locate it. Then she realizes. “You went though the express lane!!” Yes I did. She calls. It’s there. Not to worry it will be brought to me have a seat. I do. It does and my flight is now 4 hours from now. Immediate diffusion, I’m shot with a tranquillizing gun. The cell phone and sweater has been found as well. How did it happen? The wallet. All very efficient. Not to worry. This is Germany. I sit and shake and wait and realize that I had scared the counter lady with my antics. I buy chocolates and walk the 15-minute walk all the way back and find her. She looks at me frightened. The maniac is back. “Here for you” I say and hand her the chocolates..”I apologize and walk away feeling better, finally able to relax.
“Was he here?” I ask her. “Here on the diamond highway? Here among the bleeding hammers and the broken tongues?
“Was he?” I grab her by the shoulders and shake her. I wish I could shake this entire world apart. She screams. I let go and run.
I run from her and disappear into the moving mass.When I get to Stuttgart she is there.
“How was your flight?” She asks.
“Fine..” I reply.
“What did you tell your wife?”
“That I was going on a business trip to Rome..”
DAY 3 (REPEATED)
It doesn’t take very much for my world, the world, to fall apart any more than it takes to knock down a few building in New York to change the economy of the globe. Or have one maniac take down a plane and bring the world to the brink of extinction. This is the nature of our times. I’m continuously brought to the edge of extinction. We are, anima mundus. United in our insanity. It doesn’t tale much to ruin a life, a marriage, a home.
United in our blindness and our need. “The sky is our enemy and yet it unites us”. So wrote Rene Barjavel, the filmaker. Man is the conqueror, Man is eternal dictator of all he surveys.I know I am. An eternal dictator of my life
Veni Vidi e Vici.Julius C whispers in my ear. “Non sei Dio!! Sei I-dio-ta!!”
But where is life in this formula? How does it end? I am on the lunatic run in the painting by George Grocz, of a man on a multicolored bridge grabbing his head and howling.
If one thing is clear it is this- that man’s existence on this planet is a stunning surprise to everyone concerned and the shock of birth is something that few every get over. As for insanity, and the rest, restlessness and the hunger for things, food, experience, sex and death- why that’s a given. It comes for free with the price of the ticket. The need for each other to provide the basics of existence. We cannot live alone and we cannot survive together. We are not one. We are many and man is a creature with many heads that bites the head of his neighbor.
Yes, I must be out of my mind. I lose things almost continuously and cant remember which pocket has my keys my cars keys, chains, apartment, credit cards. Ticket, wallet, I.D. passport-I cant locate anything anymore, camera, DVD and photo, computer cords, chargers, cell phone, wires and knots and things that do not hold and come together. Disintegration of things past present and future and in the meantime, the legs give out the neuropathy increases, my Diabetes remains and grows, my thyroid medication, metformin, herbs vitamins, homeopathic pills for flues colds allergies, stomach aches, gas, gastritis. It goes on and on and so until when I awake in a sweat of fear and in loss having lost my marriages with its supplies of ex in laws and families, friends houses and lifetimes, I become shaken and over whelmed. So much loss. Should I sob? Should I scream?
“Loss what is there to lose?” The baldheaded coot is sitting opposite me eyes glittering. Is he the devil?What is time?
“Sei diavolo?”
“I’m an American Jew” He replies curtly.
“Is the devil an American Jew?”
“There are many here who would believe it” He lowers his voice and moves close to my right ear.
“I don’t have the package” He says.
“But your partner is quite beautiful..Don’t leave me alone with her. I don’t know what I’m capable of doing tonight..”
“Touch her and I’ll stab you..”
“Women, not money are the root of all evil..”
“It’s illegal to do that what we are doing and we are being watched.”
I am overwhelmed at all times and now beyond the pale, beyond the beyond of the beyond.What time is it?
I decide to go for a walk with package in my right pocket. The committee is blaring, full force. KFUCK the mental radio station is on and blaring wildly. It gives me the bad news, like a CNN of torture and death, which maintains the planet at a constant pitch of suspense. Where the art of stay tuned has been perfected into the idea that the world could blow up at any moment.
It’s the stress. Yes, that must be it. How did this all happen? I scramble into my pockets looking for a few Euros, yes enough for an espresso and a cornetto. How will I pay my hotel bill?Who will pay it? Do I have enough? My mind frantically tries to make the conversion. The dollar is down significantly.But diamonds are up, significantly up.
Not in Malibu. But where am I. But right now in Frankfurt on Main in Germany and in Rome, simultaneously, and I’ve just missed my connection to Stuttgart. I feel like I’m being followed I can feel it. My fingers are stiff from the cold, arthritic.
DAY 7
As I sit in this café in Rome and writing this I hear the sound of a helicopter becoming louder. I look across the street and suddenly the street fills up with flags, red flags waving. A demonstration comes, out of nowhere helicopters arrive high above the roman rooftops, and then aloud tinny speaker and a crowd there must be thousand walking in protest to everything.
“Ci hanno rubato la vita!!”They shout..they have stolen our lives…
Assassini!!!
“Berlusconi! Pezzo di Merda!!!”
I pretend not to hear. The War, Iraq, Berlusconi.They have stolen our lives, these pieces of excrement, these diarrhea men.
I have been served a cappuccino presweetened with a sweetened artificial cream. The waiter winks at me. A transvestite sits at the next table powdering her nose when he cell phone rings. A honky mans voice comes out of her as she he demurely squiggles in her seat, she gives me the cold fish eye ignoring the mayhem on the street. That’s when I see him, wearing pinstripe suit. But he vanishes in the crowd as I rise in my seat. I sit down plunked downwards by some strong force of nature.
Even here the chemicals rule, as they now rule everywhere. The Chemicals. Last night in the news, China the giant that no longer sleeps accidentally dumped 200 tons of poisonous toxic chemicals into one of their giant rivers. The water is no longer drinkable. In the meantime the produce more and more for less and less. Money is the key. Money is the controlling button. Chemicals and oil, the booze of planet earth.
Someone throws something and it zings by my ear. A firecracker a burster and the Transvestite squeals and then laughs. She wets herself and the seat and moves away quickly. The waiter notices the little yellow rivulet of piss and yells at her but she is gone gone gone…I check the small package in my right pocket and nonchalantly place it on the table. Then I walk away. Someone will find it.
Why am I in this boat? Why is everyone sailing this sea to eternity? It’s not a boat really, it’s a room. But as I write this I’m in a terrazzo in Rome, Italy, I’m not in Stuttgart or Frankfurt on Main. I’m not in Toronto, or New York, or Hollywood. I’m not on Mars. I’m not anywhere. I’m here. The bells begin to ring the bells of Rome, church after church, mass after mass, and prayer after prayer into eternity.
**********DAY 8************
A PRAYER TO ETERNITY
Yes, my life is a book. It is a prayer of supplication.
What is it about the human condition that brings this sort of thing about? Outside the hotel, is, now surrounded by packs of paparazzi, I leave my room and come down into the small lobby and set up my laptop. There is a photo of her in her prime, blonde and beautiful, Venus arising from a sea of cappuccinos. They are waiting for her and her sisters Britney and Paris, Madonna and Angelyne. The owner makes me a cappuccino, his left eye is bloodshot. I go outside and they ignore me to smoke across from the ancient roman ruins, giant pillars constructed over 2200 years ago by a breed of men we know nothing about. I watch them like hyenas. When my girlfriend comes out they sorround her ,camera’s flashing.”Brigitte!! Brigitte!! J’t’aime..jet’aime. A Lancia pulls up and she skirts in and disappears chased by Lambretta’s. She is gone.
On the side of the hotel is a votive, one of those enclosed shrines showing an ancient picture of the Madonna with child. It says that if I pray as series of litanies 235 days will be taken from my stay in Purgatory- its dated 1885 in Roman numerals. I wonder if it’s true. I say a prayer just to cover my bases. I pray and pray, for good counsel and salvation-to see clearly, to see the truth of life. I move through the flashing crowd, ignote and silent. It is time for constant prayer.
“Ave Maria pieno di grazie
Il signore e con te” Why? I ask the statue.
“Why is il signore con te? Why you?”
The proprietor coughs. The “cammeriere” a woman in her 40’ makes me a cappuccino and sits to read the paper. Yesterday in the ruins I saw the ancient Roman cats, the remnants of the cults
of ancient Rome that worshipped cats. They looked happy, a lot happier than me, it seemed. The old woman cleans my table removing the crumbs of a half eaten panino.
“Vuole altro? “ She enquires “E bella la tua “girlfriend..”
“Si, e bella..”
“Attrice?”
“Si attrice…Brigitte Bardot..”
Rome at one time was my” favorite” city in the world, a city of magic drama and memory. It still is. My mood is lifting. It’s the dark clouds of the morn, which like a humid fog hound me most mornings. I’m jet lagged and wide-awake munching on a sugar coated Italian croissant drinking blood red orange juice as I write this. Italian croissants are different from the French ones and certainly different from the American ones, which like everything in America tastes of tasteless dough, the best you can expect is not to be poisoned.Italians are different from Americans.I have to get out of this city.
I never had two cents to rub together but I am the happiest man alive. I said so. I owe my happiness to 3 things- I trained like an Olympic athlete before the age of 18 and never exercised a day in his life thereafter, I loved bikes and walking, I never had enough to eat, so I was always hungry and I never worried about the future.
There’s the secret-stop worrying –be happy the great ferret of time eats us all, like Chronos consuming his children. These ancients knew something what?
Yes.I worry too much, that is my problem as Zorba said to the English played by Alan Bates “you think too much, clever people and grocers- they weigh everything!” I weigh everything like some wacko character in a Dostoeisvki tale. I do. I guess that makes me some kind if a thinker and some kind of writer. I’m just bad typist. I believe my liver is diseased.
On this earth filled with irony there are beings struggling to survive. Man and animals, the healthy roaming cats in Foro, purring among the ruins, the descendents of the ancient Egyptian cults.
I walk among the avenues in the morning light.She is gone. Il foro Romano is empty of tourists too, it still too early. The red sun of the Roman morning hits the sides of the old building, bleary-eyed making them glow in light. The ruined pillars toppled lie there like massive giants, weighty and mute. Cats prowl among the ruins. I, too sleep among the ruins-I sleep among the ruins of eternity, among the deep sleep space of the ages. Flying from city to city and continent to continent. Moving and hopping. Criss –crossing continents, humming interiorized sonatas of need and loss. I think of that poem by the Italian poet Leopardi, the hunch back poet of the Romantic period, il crespulare, the poets of the twilight who described Man as a running beggar carrying incredible weights on his back running and panting, running, running until he leaps from the Cliffs of Eternity. What is history? Is it bunk as Truman said? Why is it bunk unless we have decided to reject the past? But though we can reject the Past, the Past will not reject us. We are as attached to it, as a barnacle to the rocks of the deep blue sea. I stroll across “Il Foro Dei Romani Imperiali.” And walk to wards the green-slated statue of Julius Caesar, “Hello Julius..Come stai?”
He glares me down in that green stare of his..”
“Arrivederci Roma.. Goodbye goodbye goodbye-let me head back into the present back to the boring jobs and the struggle for money, back to the industrial centers to make more and more and much more as the clock ticks and time the thief of life moves ever onward.
Yes. Goodbye.
I walk along “La Strada Dei Fori Imperiali” back to Augustus and Nervi. I cross the street, there is Julius still glaring at me covered in green velour, his eyes bloodshot. I stare back at him glaring.
“Who do you think you are?” I ask
“Who” He says nothing. Hands and giant fingers outstretched, togaed and serious. Imperator. Declared a God, though he was no god, but a man.Idiota. Dio.
Like a distant drumming I hear ancient words rise up in the morning mist. In ancient Latin. Over and over. What is it? This sound.The I hear it. The voice.
Lux.The Voice hisses.
Light.
InTenebrae.
In darkness
Est.
Perpetua.
Light in Eternal Darkness.
Lux in tenebrae perpetua est.
Light in Eternal Darkness.
Lux.
DIARIO DI UN PAZZO DI MALIBU
DAY X
Salutations Caesar. Hail Dictator Perpetuo. Hail Eternal Dictator. Hail Time, Hail Roma, Citta Eterna.Hail Lux! Hail Nigra Tenebrae. Hail! Hail!. Hell! Hell! Hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He moves, slightly hand trembling. Am I hallucinating. No he defiantly moved. I saw it. I stare long and hard in the night. He twitched. I saw it. I saw him. Walking among the ruins.He points straight at me.Defiant.
TERZA PARTE
Lux in Tenebrare est.
The light shines through the ages. The bells ring. A Chorus of Latin follows me like those small sparrows all over this city of ruins and life. I leave Julius after an hour of glaring. The streets start to fill up. Tourists with camera’s snapping and snapping. Catching the past, to be put in computers and photo-albums around the world and to be shown to friends late at night while playing poker and drinking beer. This is the year from hell made in hell stamped in hell-its in its own hellish trademark and there is no salvation. I, meet it is, must put this down, write it out but for whom? Apres moi le deluge, après le deluge moi. There is no escaping it. I must write this down. Dear God.
I wander about. A vendor sells me batteries for an outrageous price. I put them in the camera and they don’t work. I go back to the vendor. He tells me they do and put the batteries in a special device and they work, so says the device. It doesn’t. It’s your camera. It’s your fault. Its not. They are wrong; the right ones are another 5 euros. Rather than argue I buy them anyway. But I must punish myself. It’s my Christian guilt for existing for still being alive. And these I must lose. The other ones. Good, I’ve allowed myself to be “futtato” to be “ingannato”. I’m too much of a coward to kill myself and so I will get help.I will kill him, definitely.. There are plenty out there to help.
He’s wrong he knows it but he made more. It starts to rain. Another Chinaman sells me an umbrella at 3 times the cost. A beggar woman stopped over covered in rags, hands out. Here. Here take it. Because without it you will starve, without it you will starve your children will starve. The men in Brioni suits ignore her; the richer they are the more they ignore the plight of the poor, the homeless. Why she’s pulling in 500 dollars a days from the tourists. It’s a racket. Yes, yes and then she goes home to her palazzo and sends her children to Swiss boarding schools. Three young boys poise for a Camera, they punch and shove each other- one of them tongue farts the Camera.
Entering the forum my camera starts to fizz, the batteries are destroying it. They are defective, not only defective but destructive. They will destroy my 400Euro camera for the price of 3 Euros.
I stop and look back across the street and decide I will go back and do something about this man. I will have to kill him. I glare across the street. I cross the street. I walk up to him.
“The battereries ruined my camera” “It is a cheap camera signore” He smurfs.
He doesn’t feel the knife I shove him into him as he turns his back. It is as though he has suddenly become electrocuted and then decided to lie down and rest. I help lean against the tree terror in his yes but no sound comes from him as I have punctured his heart, near the right lung. He closes his eyes and I adjust him. People walk by not noticing.But Julius see it. Hail Julius!!!!
I recross the street and then change my mind and reenter the ruins. I wont kill him totally.O something worse, horrible. I will let him live.O worse, much worse.From across the street I can see him feebly move. But how will he explain it? And to whom? I see carabinieri and duck behind the Senate building, exiting it,il Foro on the other other side lost in the crowd and moving fast. It has started raining again and everyone is running for cover. Why do some people remember to bring umbrella;s and other don’t?Umbrella’s sprout like mushrooms, multicoloured and glorious.
DAY 9
I am a ruined man, in a ruined time. I was supposed to have been dead at the height of powers, before 30, like Jim Morrison,whose father launched Vietnam at the Gulf of Tomkin, like those gladiators who died skewered in the Coliseo amidst the bright glare of the sun, amidst the roar with the emperor, smiling looking on. Life was good then. You lived you died. Now. I am in a ruined time and there is nothing, zero, and nada. Where are the 60’s man?
Housewives from Kentucky are staring at piles of old rocks. Being photographed over and over. Millions of times every year. What are these people recording? A group of nattering Japanese business rush by me. The expect me to vacate the sidewalk. I do. I am to please. I aim to please.I will plan it. I know what gives. Someday I will give it back. In spades. It shall be returned.The package filled with diamonds.My enemies you know who you are. Do not think I will forget you. I will take flying lessons I assure you and there wont be a hole on this earth that will hide you.You wont expect it, when you least expect it. Imagine a Zulu in this day and age becoming a german citizen with more ease than getting a drivers license. A Zulu???
Their driver is across the street waiting. They rush across and drive off. I watch them.One of them hands the small package to the other and the limo squeals off. Well done.They found it where I left it. Good riddance. It will help to hasten the end of time.Diamonds are a girls best friend.
Across the street, as they vacate the premises, I see him the bowler hated gentleman. L’assassine menace. He has a club in his hand the shape of a chick drumstick. Then the traffic covers him. There is nothing there now. I see a giant clock tick above the Hills of Palatine.
……………….DAY X…………..
There is nothing now to understand anymore. I’m going mad. There among the temple of the Vesta, where the sacred fires burned, the scene is covered up. Everything in Rome is covered. Being rebuilt. The prices at the Spanish Steps are outrageous. 90 bucks for a steak. It’s all a coverup. I can still hear the demonstration among the ruins.
Why is everything so outrageously expensive?I will pay in diamonds. What happened? What happened to the American dollar? Nothing. It’s working.I will pay in blood. It’s on course. The Romans knew this all too well.They paid in salt.They paid in blood using purified swords.
DAY DIX
In a late night Osteria, a couple is arguing. The man has a ponytail and is drinking wine. The woman is whining and has black hair. A Somalian enters selling, trinkets. They come across from Africa and are all over Rome. You can call from the Internet for .35 Euros a minute but countries farther away are a lot cheaper. North Korea is almost a full Euro. The more poverty and oppression, the higher the price. The piper must be paid no? Who is the piper? Is it Julius; is it Berlusconi and his band of merry men? Is it Bush, Cheney- the mummified corpse of Ronald Regan? Who are these men and where do they come and why are they so incredibly happy? Why do they own the earth? Why do they smile all the time? Why are they so well dressed and why above all else do they all look the same in Washington, Rome Paris, Tokyo, and Moscow? Who are these people and what country do they come from?What country??
The couple continues to argue. The woman has black hair and is attractive. The man says, “Now look…look.. now.. In reality.. But.. Since you said.. I wrote the scene for you. I made it..HE..senta senta senta..
“I… I tell you yes..”
“Its not as though as if.. You wrote it..
“hush..we being watched…you impotent fool..
“I could adjust it but…you know. Its stuff.. From the time this thing happened.. communiqué.. Comunque..HE
“Non e niente.. its..stuff..stuff..hai capito. He stares at her. She stares at him.
They argue over nothing. She is unhappy.He is unhappy. I am unhappy. Everyone is unhappy..Only Paris is happy.
The Brits on the next table say..
They get up to leave and the woman wiggles her ass at me.Why would she do something like that?
“There was me an this friend of mine. They come back for him.. They wanted to get her drunk and they served wine.. Red wine.. Not even a glass of wine…these guys.. We can’t get her drunk. the other guy.. So without thinking it might not have been the right drink for her. She drank 4 of 5 and she started being merry..know what I mean..merry..merry chistmas lads”
The other lad is laughing..I’m listening eating lamb fat..dribbling.
“They wanted her to get her trousers down.. her knickers.. But she was like a blank.. but she.. When she had the limeoncello.. She got her trousers down.. She had a beautiful ass.. And one of the guy said great idea now we’ll play strip poker..yeah yeah yeah
And she said “Yeah great idea..”
You know when you’re sober and proper.. poor girl.. We started to play the game and instead.. Who gets the lowest gets off?. Me,I’m getting off my underwear and she was sitting on the table all sexy..Now guys I promise.. I wont take my bra off.. Either the bra or the G string.. She has a tinny assed G-string up her crack.. No no i’m not taking my bra off—would you do it if I undo it?”
The others who all look like austrlian rugby players, listen, rapt.My lamb is delicious. This is a most excellent trattoria food. The priests come here to eat.And the rabbi’s. A sure sign.
“We eventually she got the bra off…altogether..She was graceful and beautiful and she was showing off..After that.. She was funny.. So we said ok games over.. And she put her bra back on.. So what’s the next game?. /I have to to go to the bathroom she says and when she comes out her bra is on but the panties are gone..
By the time she came out of the bathroom… and the guys couldn’t decide want they wanted to do.. And tonight maybe ill do something..right? she says
And the guy said right right-what game is that?
She felt safe..safe.. She was a German model..Brigitte her name was”
Laughter laughter laughter and then she said now I want to go home now.Am I hearing this?Am I hearing this???
“We got her panties off…altogether..She was graceful and beautiful drunk like an animal and the smell in the room…it changed.. And she was showing off.. for us.. after that.. she was.. funny.. so we said games over.. And she by the time she came out of the bathroom and the guys couldn’t decide want they wanted to do with her.. And tonight maybe we’ll do something..Interesting and there was this ..smell in the room”
And all the guys said right right
She felt safe….
Laughter laughter laughter.
Blood I think. It’s the smell of the blood,beneath the skin. Blood has such a strong smell, you have no idea.Like lamb.
The conversation garbles itself into the night and I pay my bill and leave.I limp now. These are the winds of change that crisscross the world. At the corner of Via Del Grillo I turn left, on the right the ancient ruined stalls and further down a temple with maculae sized pillars bathed in electric light. A slight eerie rain has started to fall and the temperature has dropped. A stripped black and white tabby moves through the ruins, hunting. It’s a full moon.A blood moon.I’m being followed. I can hear the footsteps stop when I stop. I watch my shadow on the old walls. Following me.
There is a Peugeot parked in front of the Hotel Nerva. Inside is the bald headed coot.He is dressed in a toga,but looks like Mussolini.
“I hold no hope whatsoever for mankind…none.. Siamo tutu futtuti”
I blink once, twice and he is gone. The car is empty, merely parked.He’s not there.
I enter the hotel.
“Parto, domain.. Per Malibu?..”
“Peccato signore..Roma ti aspetta.je vous attend…”
“Sono disprezzato, irritabile qui non mi sento bene.Rome is fucked.
“We have many things here no?..You know signore so much has happened.So much more has yet to happen..”
“The Rolling Stones will play the Coliseum soon..”
“But signore… fuck the Rolling stones..We have seen emperors in chains paraded through these streets..”
“I must leave soon”
“You signora..you are depressed about her sudden departure..”
“She is not my signora..”
“E perche signore?”
“C’e uno che mi vuole ammazzare.Ma sono io che io, lo mivoglio ammazzare.”
“Chi e???”
Stordito.
Come mai una cosa del simile???How can you say something like that.
He’s someone I know.A close friend..
Someone you know sheise signore!!Sheise…1
Who?Mais pourquoi?
Julius Cesare!!!
“Who?”
“He has been following me..”
“But signore they are stupid gypsies who dress up for the tourists..”
“.. I met him in the ruins late night.He moved walking in a green light.He followed me in a full moon.Into the temple of the Vesta.
“Was signor Augustus there too?”The proprietor winked at me.
“Don’t make fun of me..I’m not insane”
“Ma signore..Perhaps you are exhausted. The stress of showbiz, your work. You are after all an actor no?”
“Has anyone else called..?”
“La signora..”
“My wife…”
“From Los Angeles?..”
“Si..”
“Please connect me from my room.’
“The phone rang and rang but no-one answered.
I take took the elevator and put the key in the door. The gentleman is there waiting. He is wearing a Brioni suit with a pinkish suit. He looks impeccable..Imbecilic
“You’re a prick..’ I say starting to pack.”Why didn’t you answer?Why didn’t you pick up the phone?”
“Yes, but I’m a British prick.. We make the best pricks. It’s a misnomer. Italians you know make lousy lays.Frenchmen are selfish and come too easily. We have endurance power. We are the best it’s why we have populated the planet. The British Empire. Italians have negative population growth because they are lousy lovers. Nothing better than a British slut to make the old pecker stand at attention and hum the Union Jack, There will always be an England and England shall be free to fuck the world, we are my dear chap the worlds fuckers and everything south of Calais is wogland, my dear”Pricks. Quality pricks…Where is your model, the actress? Why did she leave you”
“She went back to Stuttgart. A job….”
“Are you sure? Can she be trusted?”
“Of course”
“And those slanty eyed Japs?”
“Yes..”
“all right,if you say so..”
“Did she? Can they?You are indeed…If you’ll excuse me saying it-naïve, and somewhat stupid.”
“ I need to make a call..’
“Pretend I don’t exist..I’ll just whistle dixie”
Music had suddenly started playing softly from the radio. Sad, lamenting.Ravel.
“You don’t…you’re a figment of my overheated Clarion imagination..’
“Oh that’s right your…a terroni.from the province of Calabria..uugh.Poveretto”He said poveretta with an exaggerated American accent.Clarion.
“Fuck you..’
I call the front desk and then find myself speaking with an impeccable English accent.I catch myself in the mirror and wonder when I put on the Brioni suit with the pinstripes..”
“Please have a car take me to the airport, to Fiummicino”
When I look up he is gone,only his voice.My voice is good and strong. An actors voice.
“One of our men went through there in the 1840’s.”
“A faggot no?”
“Indeed, we are all faggots.. but we know..”
“Fuck you..”
“You have no-one to blame but yourself you know.. The years have not been kind to you..To think you once played romantic leads…You were a real beauty at one time. Its too bad really and to think you once played romantic leads..!!What happens to the imagination when it there is no more home,M’Lord?”
I stare deep into the mirror into my own eyes. My accent is impeccable.I adjust the bowler hat.
“Good night Charles..” I love hotel rooms I think.
MORNING OF THE 10TH
“Mai lei scherza signore. Pero sembrava Berlusconi sai?”This man, the proprietor is talking outside the hotel. The paparazzi are gone..”
“Why did I pay 64 euros for a phone call?”
“But that is what it costs signore.It is these communists who are responsible…”
“Insane..”
“And a meal in Rome is 75 dollars average..”
“It is Rome..After all, not Cleveland”
“No, not Cleveland..”
“Thank you for your visit.”
“Yes thank you..”
“Did you throw a coin in the fountain?’
“I threw 3..”
“Then signore, you will return again..”
“Indeed I will..”
“Did you finally meet your gentleman..?”
“Yes we spoke.. Arrivederci..”
“Arrivederci signor’ Ben ritornato.”
“Grazie”
“Oh signore..the carabinieri..they were here this afternoon- apparently some poor Chinese vendor
was stabbed to death near the Forum..”
“Really..”
“Apparently a tourist is suspect..a robbery”
“Strange..”
“Yes..they found a small package of fake diamonds on the body..”
“How strange..”
“Yes..”
“Yes..”
“And you had a good time in Roma?”
“Yes..”
“And the churches.. you saw them..”
“Yes I loved St Peters..”
“Ah Michelangelo and Brunelleschi..what genius..”
“Not slackers..were they?”
“Indeed not..”
“Excellent I’faith of the chamelons dish I eat the air, promise crammed.Parting is such sweet sorrow”
“ ah Gugliemo Shakeaspeare.Are you returning to Malibu then?’
“Yes, yes “ I say “I just want to watch the whales return.”
“Buona fortuna. They say they talk to each other from North Pole to South”
Nickmancuso
“Sleeping among the ruins”-Diario di un pazzo di Malibu”
First draft
