Un Amico Italiano

by Luca Spaghetti

  Padre Bernie would be glad to give us a place to stay for a couple of days outside of Philadelphia. After showing us around the house in Magnolia, where he had been born and had grown up, he took us out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. When it came time to order drinks, vaunting our experience with Mexican alcoholic beverages in Tijuana, we suggested he have a delicious frozen margarita, but he ordered a Long Island iced tea, to our general, if still respectful, dismay.

  When the waitress brought our drinks, I couldn’t keep my opinion to myself. Confident that I was expressing the views of Alessandro and Corrado as well, I said to him, “Bernie, porca miseria, how can you eat nachos, burritos, tacos, and fajitas with nothing to drink but a glass of iced tea? Haven’t you learned anything from living in Rome?”

  After smothering his initial impulse to break out in laughter, Bernie answered, “Well, I’ll explain to you how I can do it. You don’t seem to be aware that a Long Island iced tea doesn’t have any iced tea in it. It’s a very strong cocktail, with five varieties of liquor in it, plus a splash of Coca-Cola!”

  A few seconds later there emerged, in unison, from all three of our mouths, slack-jawed in astonishment, an exaggerated choral and romanissimo “Mortacci tua!” of admiration. He had just imparted a very adroit and masterful little lesson. An expert alcoholic to three ignorant, presumptuous, fuzzy-chinned amateurs.

  Dinner was very enjoyable. While we were eating, we told Bernie all about the marvelous fast-food place we had discovered in Santa Barbara, and how Signore Hooters had become our new personal hero. Once again, Bernie set us straight. With a cocked eyebrow, he asked us the exact spelling of this remarkable surname. “H-o-o-t-e-r-s,” I spelled it out for him. Bernie burst into helpless laughter, and after he finally caught his breath, the three of us finally understood what dummies we had been!

  A Roman Catholic priest had just patiently explained to us what tits were known as in American English slang.

  We toured Philadelphia—“Philly” to its friends—the following day, and we really liked the city. We covered miles and miles on foot, and it wasn’t until that night, after dinner, that Bernie played the ace he had kept up his sleeve for this very moment. We found ourselves standing outside a warehouse. Frantic, fast-beat music could be heard inside. But it wasn’t until we opened the doors to go in that I realized to what earthly paradise my friend the priest had brought us: it was a line dancing club! Inside there were hundreds of people wearing cowboy boots and ten-gallon hats, clustered around a sort of ring, where dozens and dozens of smiling people were doing a perfectly synchronized line dance to the notes of “Take It Easy.”

  For the first time in my life, I felt like dancing, but there was just no way. It was too challenging. However simple the group movements might appear at first glance, the steps changed as “my” songs followed one after another, and the cowboy dancers always seemed to know exactly where to go and what to do, which foot to turn on, whether to stamp the floor with heel or toe, whether to moved forward in a row or wheel in a circle. It was wonderful! Captivating! Phenomenal! I could feel the spirit of Tony Manero possessing me . . . We stayed there for hours, enjoying this amazing choral spectacle, and once or twice I even managed to tap my foot to the music.

  After that fantastic evening, we said good-bye to Padre Bernie and thanked him for his warm hospitality. We invited him back to Rome, and soon.

  The time had come for Boston.

  I was especially eager for this part of the trip. Ten years earlier I had bought a book with music and lyrics, chords, charts, and a brief biography of some singer-songwriter who happened to have caught my fancy. Can you guess who it was? Here are the opening words of that book: “James Taylor was born on March 12, 1948, at 5:06 p.m. at Boston General Hospital.” Here was my chance. I was going to go see the birthplace of my personal idol. I know, I know—James Taylor lived for many years in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But it all began right here, in Boston, Massachusetts.

  Of course, I had prepared my two lieutenants to escort me like a king on this mission. Since I’d been unsuccessful in Manhattan, maybe here, in Boston, I would manage to run into James himself, perhaps walking down the street on a quick trip back to his native city, or else on the sidewalk on Martha’s Vineyard, or else on the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. Boston was beautiful, with the ocean stretching out—a young, green, friendly city. We immediately set out to follow the Freedom Trail, a redbrick walking route connecting all the principal historic sites of the city. As we made our way along it, a series of notions about American history surfaced in our memories from school days, first and foremost the Tea Act, which made Boston a fundamental landmark in the history of American independence. But what impressed us in particular was the Faneuil Hall Marketplace, with Quincy Market, where you could find food and delicacies of all kinds. There were historic restaurants serving traditional seafood, including one of my all-time favorite American dishes, clam chowder.

  But there was no trace of JT in Boston.

  The next day, as we were driving to the Prudential Center to see Boston from high above, I suddenly glimpsed a building I had forgotten all about: Boston General Hospital. I felt as if I’d reached the destination of my pilgrimage—I had found my little grotto of Bethlehem! Seized by an uncontrollable wave of excitement, I forced my two unfortunate friends to get out of the car and tiptoe up to the front entrance with me. They accompanied me with a look on their faces that betrayed a mixture of emotions: an awareness that their patience was coming to an end, and an abiding concern for my state of mental health.

  They didn’t get it, and there was nothing I could do about that.

  And in fact, that afternoon, as soon as we got back in the car and pulled around the corner, far from prying eyes, my two friends beat me up.

  The next morning we started south to our home away from home, New York. First, though, we stopped on Cape Cod, the beautiful peninsula south and east of Boston. The ocean breezes and maritime atmosphere made us think of our old friend Jessica Fletcher, or the “Lady in Yellow,” as she’s known in Italy. Murder, She Wrote was one of our favorite American TV shows, Aunt Jessica solving murders with an irresistible blend of cunning and imperturbable resolve.

  Once we got back to Pat’s house, we immediately recognized a wonderful smell wafting out of the kitchen—an aroma that had once been so familiar . . . the inimitable essence of tomato sauce! We were finally going to eat pasta again! This time, it was lovingly prepared by the hands of our dear friend Patrick. One day, I’d like to do a study to determine how long an Italian can survive without pasta, especially an Italian named Luca Spaghetti.

  Well, here’s one data point: if it’s Patrick’s pasta we’re talking about . . . a long, long time! The quantity of pennette that he ladled into our bowls was more than sufficient to feed an army. But as far as cooking pasta sauce is concerned, forget Patrick—give me Patrick’s mom. No, my friend was no pasta chef. I actually fell asleep that night dreaming of Amtrak pepperoni pizza.

  What a strange sensation to come back to New York after such an intense month away, so many thrills and new discoveries, so many interesting people and unforgettable places. I felt like I’d left New York a boy and come back a little more of a man. And I was starting to feel a hint of sadness—I was soon going to have to say good-bye to this place I loved so well. Yes, the American dream of this Italian boy was about to come to an end.

  A few days later, as the plane taxied into position for takeoff, I reflected on how fast that trip had gone by. I thought of the oceans, the deserts, the bridges, the skyscrapers, the Grand Canyon, Pat, Bernie, Luis, little Steve, the Yankees, the legendary Signore Hooters, “Sister Golden Hair,” and Preservation Hall.

  The airplane started rolling forward. As it moved down the runway it gradually picked up speed, and for a moment I wished I hadn’t just felt the landing gear separating from the cement. I looked out the window and saw the sunset illuminating Manhattan with a reddish light. The islan
d dwindled into the distance, and I closed my eyes. I wanted to trap the two tears I thought were still welling up. In reality, though, they were already running down my cheeks.

  13

  Hard Times

  Coming home was upsetting. I felt like I didn’t really belong back home anymore, after gorging myself on America, a delicious monthlong journey I’d never forget. Now it was time for me to decide what to do with the rest of my life—I had a business degree safely tucked away, with the diploma ready to hang on the wall of my office. But which office? In a bank? As an entrepreneur in business for himself? I thought it over for a long, long time, months in which I was trapped between my anguish over the future and my yearning for the United States. In the end, I decided I would go into business for myself. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to build a professional clientele from scratch. In Italy, it’s more customary to inherit a business. But all things considered, that’s what I wanted to do: become a tax accountant. That’s right, a colorless, jacket-and-tie-wearing counter of other people’s money. But who was likely to entrust their hard-earned cash to someone named Spaghetti? Well, there’d be time to worry about that later. In the meantime, I started my three-year apprenticeship in an accounting firm. The one certainty that this new chapter in my life brought to me was this: the dream was well and truly over.

  During that first period of uncertainty, I began abandoning myself to another array of dreams.

  With my last name, I reasoned, couldn’t I devote myself to a line of work that was a little more imaginative than accounting? I started asking myself, Luca, does your last name suggest anything to you? I thought it was far too obvious to open a restaurant in Rome and call it Da Spaghetti; deep in my subconscious, I must have been yearning to break away from the dead weight of my surname, so I was keeping that idea of starting a restaurant safe in my vest pocket, as a last-ditch alternative if nothing else worked out. Still, I kept coming back to it in my mind, this odd dream. I wondered why my father, and his father’s father—all of them named Spaghetti—had never thought of starting a restaurant.

  I could follow in Signore Hooters’s footsteps. I wouldn’t have spectacularly pneumatic young waitresses serving hamburgers; instead, I’d open a new fast-food chain in the United States, with restaurants everywhere, in all fifty states, serving nothing but pasta: Luca Spaghetti’s!

  The basic concept would be very simple: a menu with two columns. In column A, all the varieties of pasta—long, short, fresh, stuffed—and in column B, the various types of sauce—obviously traditional Italian sauces, including carbonara, amatriciana, ragù, pesto, and so on. The happy customers would have the fun of selecting the mix of pasta and sauce best suited to their personal taste buds. There would be all kinds of combos, including the fabulous Spaghetti Combo, a secret combination that I refuse to share with the world.

  And my name, on the signs of all the Luca Spaghetti’s fast-food outlets, would especially enjoy pride of place on Fifth Avenue, between Bulgari and Tiffany’s. For that matter, I challenge anyone to deny that a bowl of spaghetti, cooked properly, is not a priceless jewel.

  But life had something very different in store for me. And that was . . . wait for it . . . the Italian fisco, Italy’s equivalent of the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, an institution I deal with every day of my working life. The Italian tax system, in case you don’t know this already, is a nightmare world, a quagmire abounding in laws, regulations, clauses, and subchapters written in a language that is completely incomprehensible gobbledygook for 90 percent of the country’s taxpayers. As a result, those taxpayers turn frantically for explanations, clarifications, and reassurance to the one person who has volunteered for this form of secular martyrdom: their tax accountant. In response, the tax accountant thinks long and hard about how best to translate and interpret for his clients the latest generation of fiscal bullshit—and usually gives up in complete frustration.

  Then comes the long and intricate process of registering all the documents, the patient interminable calculations involved, the culminating archiving of every piece of paper used in the process. And all that is merely the lead-up to the horrifying period that runs from April to July, when tax accountants become the most hated and feared people in all Italy. That is when we file our tax returns. And this agreeable system has only one purpose: to get the Italian people to pay their taxes. In return, the Italian people like to heap insults and curses on the heads of their unfortunate and completely innocent tax accountants. So every year, around mid-April, I don my tax accountant armor, helmet, and shield, ready to receive my annual ration of insults. It doesn’t end until my clients go on their summer vacation. That is, provided they have any money left to go on vacation, once I’m done with them.

  I have to confess that when one of my clients is especially obnoxious, it’s almost a pleasure to make them pay their taxes. Especially if they’re money-grubbers. In those cases, I feel a subtle sadistic enjoyment when it’s time to call them in late May, and I can sense them quaking in their shoes on the other end of the line, preparing themselves mentally for the earthshaking number I am about to pronounce.

  You can never predict a Roman’s reaction to taxes. One of the few things that buck up my courage is a phrase that Albert Einstein himself once uttered: “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” It’s true; Einstein was right. As a tax accountant, I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. I’ve seen taxpayers turn white as a sheet and nearly faint when informed of the amount of tax due, others fall to their knees and supplicate me to “do something”; I’ve listened to the delirious rantings of people convinced of the existence of phantom laws and fiscal deductions created especially for them, and I’ve sat in silence with others, stunned and unbelieving at the thought that roughly half their earnings would vanish into thin air.

  In a sense, perhaps the best clients are the ones who just don’t want to know: the more their tax accountant works to make them aware of deadlines, balance sheets, and tax returns, the worse their headache gets and the louder they shout that they just don’t want to hear about it, they trust their accountant implicitly with a blind faith, and they’ll pay whatever he says to pay, file the returns he recommends filing without batting an eye the instant he says it’s time. But we tax accountants know that while part of that reasoning may be true—the part about not wanting to know—when the time comes to pay, most of those clients will just slip right into another category: the supplicants down on their knees.

  With the most distracted, careless, and forgetful ones, I try to be more attentive. I do my best throughout the year to educate them patiently about the best way and times to bring me their documentation. More or less, they all obey in a disciplined manner, even if they keep their brains switched off about the various rationales behind the tax codes. There is just one of them, my friend Francesca, a physical therapist and osteopath, who is consistently and faithfully determined not to learn or remember one single deadline. She is the absolute charismatic leader of the group of my taxpaying clients who Just. Don’t. Want. To. Know. They’ll pay and forget about it. It’s just that, each time, I have to remind them. And so it was, a few years ago, that after reminding and pestering Francesca for months and months, telling her that this year, like last year, and the year before, she would have to pay her taxes on June 16, I wrote her yet another e-mail just three days before the final deadline: “Ciao, Francesca, everything okay? The deadline is upon us and you’re my last client. Will you remember to bring me all the documents as soon as possible so we can file your return?”

  She wrote back: “File what return?”

  My first impulse was to crack my head against my desktop in sheer furious frustration. So I did. Once I regained consciousness, I started to mull over various methods of simply rubbing her out. Maybe I’d wait in my car downstairs from my office, wearing oversized old-fashioned racing goggles, and run her over as soon as I saw her. I briefly considered resigning from the profess
ion.

  Actually, though, Francesca gave me a wonderful running joke. When my busiest and most nitpicking clients—always the most boring ones—call me months ahead of time to ask, “Mr. Spaghetti, when can I drop by the office to bring you my documents so we can file the return?,” I always reply, in a cheerful voice: “File what return?”

  14

  Golden Moments

  In those years, there was only one bridge to take me back to that faraway, big-sky, cowboy America I missed so much: music. I tried to spend at least an hour every day alone with my guitar. Every so often, though, instead of playing the guitar for myself, I would play with my brother Fabio. I have always played the acoustic guitar; he belongs to another generation, and is a little bit more of a showman than me. Captivated by Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits’ “The Sultans of Swing,” Fabio always preferred the electric guitar. Undoubtedly, some songs turned out much better when we played together, both because the sound was richer, fuller, and because we could sing in harmony.

  One day it dawned on us that we had put together a repertoire of forty or so songs that we were able to sing halfway decently. Maybe we could perform in some Roman club.

  We decided to give it a shot. The problem, as usual, was the name. We certainly couldn’t appear onstage as the Spaghetti Brothers or Spaghetti & Spaghetti. At best, a club owner would laugh us out of his office. Luckily, Fabio and I had a couple of friends who were just as crazy about music as we were: Mario and Gianni. Mario was five years older than me, and he loved the Beatles above all others—he wanted to be John, but to his immense good fortune, he had the voice of Paul.