Rome

by Matthew Thayer

  After a while, I made a few friends. It was a special place, like going back in time. As World Heritage Super Reserves, Siena and the neighboring city of San Gimignano were both preserved like they were still in the 1900s or something. The preservation started before the UberMind, but once the machines took charge, they really fixed it up good.

  I heard the UberMind paid the Italians to tear down anything that was too new. The idea was to make the region like a painting or movie set, keep out all modern stuff. There were no air cars or lines of traffic in the sky. No polymer buildings, laser advertising beacons, wind farms or transmission towers.

  I guess the Heritage Reserves made such steady money with tourists and students it saved them after mankind’s return to power. The architecture of Siena, ancient buildings made of reddish-brown bricks and an amazing cathedral of bright colored marble, dated back to the 1400s. It was cool to wander around and check out the statues and stonework. You couldn’t help thinking of all the talent and technique it took to carve that stuff.

  Underground trains filled the town with tourists during the day, but you needed a resident ID to stay after 7 p.m. In the evenings, the Siena belonged to the locals. I spent many nights sitting at cafe tables on the edge of the Piazza del Campo, sipping beer, watching the Italians stroll and chew the fat.

  The stables where I trained were a couple miles out of town, in a valley where the government gave the owner enough water to keep a couple hundred acres of pasture green. I can still see the white fences and red gas-powered tractor that puffed black smoke when it started. The estate had two stone villas and a big stone barn. Its grounds were landscaped with flowers and fruit trees, gravel walkways and slate courtyards.

  Tenuta Ponte Nappo was one of the prettiest places I’d seen outside of Hawaii.

  My riding coach was a crusty little dude named Old Guido. Never just Guido, that was his son. He was Old Guido. The guy stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head as I showed up late the first day, pushing a rusty blue motorbike up the gravel driveway.

  The bike had run out of juice and I didn’t know it would be safe to leave along the side of the road. In most places even a crappy little bike wouldn’t last a minute before somebody took off with it. Things in a World Heritage Super Reserve are different. Nobody’s going to risk getting kicked out for stealing a piece-of-shit bike that everyone recognizes.

  Turned out I wasn’t the first outsider Old Guido had trained. The other two guys were expert horsemen. He taught them the tricks of the race, like how to defend themselves and which corners you can chance-um and which ones you’re going to get pushed into the barricades if you mess up.

  “It’s easy, I’ll teach you how to fall off,” Old Guido said in English that sounded like he learned in England or Australia. Worried he was expecting me to take a dive, I told him I wanted to win if I could. He thought that was funny, but he also started taking me more seriously. “Before you can ride, you must learn to fall. Do you want to break your blooming neck?”

  He started me on a wine barrel, showed me how to grip with my legs and climb on board like I was the boss. His training was as much about the mental aspect as the physical. Halfway through my five-week crash course (get it?), I graduated from ponies to regular-size horses. I had also earned a little more respect from Old Guido. He said he liked my balance. My advantage, he said, was that I had never ridden with a saddle. Like an American Indian born riding bareback, I had no bad habits to break. He started calling me “The Indian” and the name stuck.

  We became pretty good pals. After we knocked off riding lessons for the day, he’d meet me in town to sit outside his favorite restaurant along the Campo and drink. He usually had wine or something stronger, while I stuck with watery beer. The former jockey knew everybody. People were always stopping to talk to him in Italian. Most of it went right over my head, but I noticed he started dotting his conversations with “I’indiano” did this and “I’indiano” did that. Pretty soon, everywhere I went people greeted me as, “I’indiano.”

  Old Guido’s granddaughter started riding with us in the afternoons. He used her as an example how to do it right. “Watch her,” he’d say. “See how she becomes one with the horse? See how she does not fight him, she guides him and helps him. You must do the same.”

  I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember her name. Roberta, or something. She had short black hair, always tucked inside a hat. She made it plain she was there to help her grandfather, not me. Even when she met up with us in the Campo after training, she had her nose in the air, only speaking in Italian, usually with people at other tables. Sometimes Old Guido and I played backgammon, but he preferred to dwell on tactics. He’d point out where winners made their move and where crazy accidents went down in the past. When we did play backgammon, he insisted on betting a Euro a point and always cleaned me out. Maybe I won one game out of 20.

  Things started moving fast four days out from the Palio. By that time, Stephen and his guys had come out of the woodwork and were following me with cameras every minute of the day. The movie star treatment was a pain, but it did bump up my status in my neighbors’ and competitors’ eyes. To them, “I’indiano” was now a somebody.

  “As long as you don’t draw Treno Meri, the Freight Train, you will be fine.” Old Guido told me the first day of training. For the last couple weeks, after people got used to me, they would stop me on the street to warn me about the wild, ferocious horse named Treno Meri. They said he had maimed two jockeys and caused such bad injuries to other horses the mounts had to be put down. Three times it had won the Palio without a rider on its back.

  So, of course, on the first day of the celebration when we 10 jockeys drew lots to see which horse we would be riding, I pulled the card with Freight Train’s name.

  Old Guido was really bummed. “He’s going to kill you,” he muttered. The granddaughter nodded her head in agreement as we sat along the transformed Campo and watched the workers spread dirt and build grandstands.

  There was all kinds of hoopla over the next three days. Dinners, speeches and parades with flag-waving men in bright colors representing the different contrades. We had to be blessed by the Cardinal in the city’s fancy Duomo, get sprinkled with holy water as we knelt on the mosaics of its marble floor. My colors were blue and gold and my flag had a green tortoise in the middle. Now that I think about it, not a bad coincidence considering now I’m a member of the Green Turtle Clan.

  All that pre-race stuff was fun and colorful–the opposite of my practice rides on Treno Meri. All riders got chances to take trial runs around the Piazza, but I never made it around a full lap before he would either go nuts trying to buck me off or stop straight-legged and refuse to budge. Either way, I was fucked until a bunch of handlers rushed in and took control.

  “That warhorse doesn’t like to practice,” Old Guido smiled. “He wants to race. Once he has you off his back, he’ll fly.” Old Guido had returned to the plan where I jumped off at my first chance. “He’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  The neighbors who had adopted me acted like someone in my family had died. They didn’t even want to make eye contact, just crossed themselves and hurried past me.

  On the night before the race, Stephen wanted me to hang at his rented villa, do some live remote interviews with sports writers who had been watching the show around he world. I told him I had a headache and holed up alone in my little apartment. Through the open windows, I listened to Italian voices and laughter get louder as holiday partiers got drunk in the alleyway cafe below.

  It must have been 2:00 in the morning when there was a knock at my door. I had been warned somebody might try to mess with me, slip me a drug, buy me off or something, but once I pulled Treno Meri everybody quit worrying. I guess they figured my goose was already cooked. I opened the door to find the granddaughter standing there in her hat, bib overalls, leather boots and not much else.

  “When you do the surfing, they say you never fall. Is true?”<
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  “I’ve fallen.”

  “When was last time?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  She thought about that for a while then seemed to come to a decision. Taking my hand, she said, “You come now.”

  She led me through so many little alleys, Medieval twists and turns I had no idea where we were until we hit the barn at the edge of the city where Freight Train was being housed. Pulling an ancient key as long as her hand from her pocket, she inserted it in the lock and gave a twist. The towering black horse snorted and pawed at the straw on the wooden floor as we ducked inside. Closing the door, she backed me against a wall.

  I figured we were going to feed the horse a carrot or an apple, maybe try one last time to make friends, but she had way different ideas. Putting her arms around my neck, turning me from the rearing horse, she said, “Take me.”

  “Huh?” I never saw that coming. Was this one of Stephen’s pranks?

  “Take me. Do it now,” she said fumbling with my pants. “Get these off.” In the light slanting through the door windows, she unhooked the two straps holding her overalls and let them fall to the floor. Bang, bang, bang! The horse jackhammered the planks of the wall with his back hooves, turned a full circle and hammered them again. Boom!

  We did it standing up, pressed into a corner of the stall, close enough to Treno Meri to feel the heat coming off his withers. It was the freakiest sex of my life, the horse snorting and stomping, us knowing any second he could bite a hunk out of us or smash us to bloody pulps.

  “Harder! Deeper. Use me!”

  She had her arms locked around my neck and her legs wrapped around my hips, squeezing me tight, riding me how Old Guido taught us to ride horses bareback.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes! You are a stallion!”

  The horse was forgotten as we galloped to a noisy, wet climax. Drenched in sweat, chests heaving, my legs threatening to melt into butter, we leaned against the dirty wall of the stall and listened to our hearts pound.

  “That’s better, Treno,” she said. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Freight Train had his head stuffed into a feedbag. Pulling out a mouthful of oats, he didn’t bother turning our way as he chewed.

  The granddaughter led me back to my room by the same crazy route and gave me a tiny peck on the cheek goodbye. “You’ll sleep now.” I barely saw her again, just a glimpse after the race.

  Most of the big day is a blur of sound and color–people cheering, trumpets and drums, babies crying, boys goofing around, horses shitting and loudspeakers blaring, all the words going by so fast in Italian I couldn’t make out what anybody was saying. Even though Old Guido warned me the ceremonies were long, they seemed to drag forever. I remember white oxen pulling a special cart, lots of bright flags hanging from the old buildings, and more people jammed into the Campo than I ever thought possible. There must have been thousands packed in the middle of the central square, all separated by colors, sticking to the pie-shaped wedges belonging to each contrade. At least another thousand lined the outside of the race course and hundreds filled palazzo windows above.

  Was it my imagination that Treno Meri treated me with newfound respect? He didn’t paw the dirt or try to bite me as I grabbed a fistful of his mane and pulled myself onto his back. As they led us down the alley and into the Piazza del Campo, he was more hot to hassle the other horses and handlers than me.

  Old Guido’s final advice was practical if not inspiring. “Jump off like I showed you. First chance you get, jump wide and roll. Get to safety and stay there.”

  By this time, as usual in competitions, I had already tuned out all the advice and noise. Just like before a surf contest, I was concentrating on my breathing, finding my center and my calm, visualizing the start and turns, where I needed to be and what I needed to do to win. I know it sounds pompous, but why compete if you’re not going for gold?

  A loud cannon went off and I felt my horse bunch his muscles for the start. A few seconds later the starting tape was dropped and we were rocketing down a tunnel of roaring people. It was obvious the horse didn’t need me to tell him what to do or where to go. The mean, black bastard was born to race in the Palio. I was thinking all I had to do was hold on and ride him like a wave, stay out of his way, when a leather riding crop slashed across my cheek to open a two-inch gash. As I looked left to see which rider had hacked me, another came up on my right and used his shoulder to try to push me off.

  Instinctively, I retaliated with a backhand swipe of my whip and clenched Freight Train even tighter between my thighs. I heard later I cracked the guy right off his horse. Nobody knew if it was my whip that knocked out four of his teeth or the way he plowed headfirst into a not-so-padded grandstand.

  It’s strange to think that I had time to search for people in the crowd, but I remember looking for Old Guido and his granddaughter and only finding the faces of strangers, all cheering, waving flags and shaking their arms. After one circuit it was still a six-horse race, all of us thundering around the Campo flailing at each other with whips and whacking other horses. Treno Meri had no fear. He loved the contact, loved dishing out punishment to his rivals.

  The last lap came down to three of us: me, a guy from the Dragons in red and green, and a rider for the Giraffes dressed in red and white. The riders cursed me in Italian, tried to take my head off with their fists and whips. Both dudes were veterans of the race, locals who knew all the gimmicks. They got on either side of me and really started giving Treno the business, poking and slashing at his eyes with their whips and reins.

  “Uccidere I’indiano!” It started with one section in the Campo’s center and soon spread to the entire square. “Uccidere I’indiano! Uccidere I’indiano!”

  I attacked the riders’ whip hands, slashing and breaking fingers as we rounded the second-to-last turn. Treno Meri nearly unseated me as he swerved to bash the horse on our inside so hard its rider screamed as he sailed into the crowd. The Giraffe Contrade’s horse barely missed a stride as it recovered from its close call with the wall and continued pounding for the finish line.

  “Uccidere I’indiano!” The crowd roared it again and again–so loud it felt like the city walls might come down. “Uccidere I’indiano!”

  Old Freight Train fought his heart out, but the Dragon rider used our bump with the Giraffe to open up a horse-length lead. We could have caught him if we had another lap, almost did pull even. The asshole rider gave me one last whip across the face as he crossed the finish line first.

  “Uccidere I’indiano! Uccidere I’indiano!”

  Usually, second place isn’t bad. Silver medal winner and all that. Sure, I had wrestling coaches who’d preach that the guy who took second was just the first loser, but that was junk they said in practice to motivate us. In Siena they really believe it. Second place is The Loser. Why didn’t they tell me that earlier? Old Guido probably never expected me to hang on so long. The people in the Tartuca section were getting a good razzing from their neighbors. My colors booed me and threw stuff when I passed. Even couples I befriended at the market and cafes flipped me the bird.

  I didn’t piece it together until later. A lot of the crowd’s anger was caused by Stephen Jacoby and his obnoxious crew. The locals weren’t used to drones. They didn’t like the way so many cameras buzzed over the race. Two of the platforms Stephen built for his fixed gear blocked a bunch of people’s traditional views and worst of all, some of the clamps he used to mount cameras on top of the city’s main tower cracked the one-of-a-kind stonework. That went over like a granite balloon.

  The handlers were helping me off the horse when I spotted Old Guido sprawled on the cobblestones and surrounded by shouting locals. Two uniformed paramedics knelt over him while some cops and a stable hand with a pitchfork pushed to keep the crowd back. The trainer’s eyes were closed. He looked like he was in some serious pain. While I craned to see, a pomegranate sailed from the Campo to catch me square in the shoulder.

  “Uccidere I’indiano!”

&
nbsp; I reckon if I were a real American Indian I would have galloped Treno Meri to the rescue, laid waste with whip and hooves. Even if Freight Train would have obeyed me, there was no escaping the tugs of handlers and worried faces on Jacoby’s security crew. We had our own crowd to deal with as they hauled me off the horse and hustled me out of there as fast as they could.

  I heard later Old Guido had suffered a stroke that he didn’t come all the way back from. The granddaughter paid off his debts and took control of the horse farm.

  She was there in the crowd, shouting and shaking her fist at me along with the others as the security guys led the way out. A scarf was pulled tight over her hair and big sunglasses hid her eyes. She had changed clothes from earlier in the day, but I recognized those bib overalls. As the detail shoved me toward a side alley, I turned up my palms and gave her my “What the fuck?” look. She never stopped shaking her fist, but chanced a sly smile.

  “Is true, you never fall–you monkey!”

  “Is true.”

  “Molte grazie–you fucker of goats! Go now, hurry.”

  It wasn’t until we were on the flight home that I thought to ask Stephen what the people were yelling.

  “Uccidere I’indiano, what does that mean?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “Well, um, uccidere I’indiano means, don’t take it personally now, it means, “Kill the Indian.”

  Any wonder why I didn’t want to tell the damn story?

  TRANSMISSION:

  Hunter: “You dodged the proverbial bullet, didn’t you?”

  Bolzano: “I suppose that is one way to phrase it.”

  Hunter: “Syria’s going to be bloody hotter than a furnace.”