Gianni was my brother’s age, and just about as exuberant as Fabio. He was crazy about the blues, so he too played the electric guitar. All four of us played the guitar—some better, some worse, but each with his own personal style. All four of us wanted to play together. So my brother and I decided to form a band with Gianni and Mario. Our repertoire ranged from the classic songs of the Fab Four to songs with more of a mellow West Coast sound. To be honest, nobody was playing this music in Rome at the time, and so our band would be a brand-new thing for everyone.
And so we founded the band. Now we just needed a name. We ruled out from the start anything with the word “spaghetti.” We wanted to find a name that was unusual and original, but also representative of the kind of music we were going to play. Gianni, our leader, whose last name was Cavallo, had a brilliant idea: all we had to do was translate his first and last name into English. And so our band became the John Horse Quartet, and we were transformed into four guitar-playing Roman cowboys.
We started rehearsing. Our rehearsal space was in the outlying town of Velletri, where Mario owned a little villa with a basement space where we could make all the noise we wanted without bothering anyone. Soon after we began rehearsing, a new presence began buzzing around us: Simona.
Simona was Mario’s wife. She loved music and the Beatles just as much as we did, and every song we sang she couldn’t help but sing along to, or beat a tambourine in time, or just jump around to the rhythm of the song. We couldn’t really say whether she was our Linda or our Yoko. Sadly, Linda had just died, and Yoko is the woman who has received the greatest number of curses in the history of mankind. So we decided that Simona could become the fifth Beatle, our own Billy Preston. That, of course, required us to overlook the fact that Billy Preston not only played the piano, but was big, tall, and black, while Simona was petite, blond, fair-skinned, and—most important of all—so tiny that her nickname was Pulce, which means “flea” in Italian. Still, her voice did bring an extra something to our all-male chorus, and her feminine presence onstage would bring a hint of grace and beauty that four amateur strummers really lacked.
Our debut performance was looming ever closer. Since we like to exaggerate in Rome, we decided to organize a party in a giant hangar. If things went as well as we were hoping, we’d develop a following and could book appearances in legitimate venues. We hadn’t counted on word of mouth, though: when the evening came, looking out at the audience from the stage, we realized that, what with family and friends and friends of friends and friends of family and family of friends, there were five hundred people standing there expectantly, waiting for us to play the first note.
Our legs were quaking in fear, but we couldn’t wait to start playing. When the emcee announced us, the John Horse Quartet officially began its career as a band, to the applause of some five hundred people. The lights went out, the spotlights turned on and focused on us, we sat down on our five stools, cradled our guitars in our arms, and adjusted our mic stands. And that was when Mario’s voice filled the hangar in a sweet, acoustic version of “Can’t Buy Me Love.” I could feel an inner wave of joy swelling, note after note, chord after chord. I looked down at my friends in the audience, and they looked back and smiled at me, and I smiled back at them. Every so often I turned to look at the other members of the John Horse Quartet, and they were swimming in their own sea of joy, hardly able to believe it was happening. I realized that when music and friendship come together, they can create miracles.
In just a few minutes it would be my turn to sing in front of an audience, for the second time in my life. So I decided to do my best. In front of all those people, and with all my heart, I launched myself into the first verse of that song I loved so dearly: “Well, I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed, that I set my sights on Monday and I got myself undressed.” Once again, I was singing “Sister Golden Hair.”
A thunderous wave of applause brought me back to earth and alerted me that the song was over. The rest of the concert was just pure fun, and we enjoyed ourselves as much as the audience did. It was satisfying, too: we’d played good music—magnificent songs that not everyone knew—and so we felt that we were pioneers of a certain kind of music in Rome. Even better, we’d done it with our friends and for our friends. What more could you ask? Well, to do it all over again! Which is exactly what happened. We played lots of concerts in those years—we got better at the songs we were a little shaky on, we added new songs to our repertoire, like “Ventura Highway” by America and, especially, “More Than a Woman” by the Bee Gees. To everyone’s surprise, our version of “More Than a Woman” shifted from dance to acoustic, and perhaps it was the song that we arranged and performed better than any other.
We became a beloved and regular attraction for our “fans.” Between one beer and the next, they learned to love our songs, and soon, even, to request them. Gianni found an endless series of clubs to play in, and a couple of times we even performed in venues where real bands held real concerts. This went on until 1999, when unfortunately, with increasing professional responsibilities and growing families of our own, we all had less and less time to devote to the Quartet. We played less and less frequently until, like all great bands in history, we decided to give our commitment to the band a little thought—the first step on the road to a full breakup. Happily, unlike most other great rock bands, nobody overdosed on heroin, nobody drank himself to death, nobody was killed in a car crash.
But in 1999 I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had never really gotten over my mal d’America—my yearning for the States. Playing music had helped me to get by, but it couldn’t make me forget. It was time to go back.
Every time I go back to New York, it’s like going home for me. In fact, it’s like I never left home. It’s just incredible how anyone who sets foot in that city feels like they’ve become the owner of a small piece of something indescribable, something unique and intimate, that they can carry away with them to another part of this world. Something that you’ll always come back in search of. Because New York never stops changing, but it remains faithful to itself and to those who love it.
In 2000 I went back alone, and stayed with Bernie. From Rome, he’d moved back to America, to Brooklyn, where he was the parish priest of Our Lady of Refuge church. Like many other parts of Brooklyn, his neighborhood was very different from Manhattan. Instead of glittering skyscrapers, there were massive working-class buildings, gray and brown in hue, and around the parish church there stood a number of abandoned factory buildings and small overcrowded apartment buildings. The streets were also frequently the site of gang warfare, often with gunfire. The large Puerto Rican community that lived there extended a warm welcome to me. Since I was a friend of Padre Bernie, everyone in the neighborhood treated me nicely, as if I were their personal guest.
It was February, a sunny New York February. Every morning, I’d have an early breakfast with Bernie, and then, of course, I was ready to head off to my Manhattan, my borough of skyscrapers. But it wasn’t so simple.
The elderly female parishioners of Our Lady of Refuge, who had greeted me with kisses and hugs, weren’t so eager to let me go. After breakfast, the minute I tried to scamper away toward the nearest subway station, one or another dear old thing was waiting for me at the exit, eager to hustle me inside for the eight thirty Mass. Now, attending Mass every day of the week isn’t really my idea of fun. I had come to New York to sightsee, not go to Mass. But it seemed impossible to say no to all those little old ladies. So I resigned myself to spending an extra half hour with Bernie, even if he was at the altar and I was in the last pew in the church.
During one of these Masses, which Bernie celebrated in Spanish, my friend astounded me with something only he could come up with. During the exchange of the sign of peace, I had shaken hands with all my smiling little old parishioners. I still needed to shake hands with my friend the priest. I would never dare to step up onto the altar to hug him and shake hands. But I was sorry to leave
without doing something. So I looked up and caught his eye. We locked eyes for a few seconds, and then Bernie slowly raised one arm, his hand flat and open, palm toward me. Still staring at me with a gentle smile, he separated index and middle finger from ring finger and pinky, making the unmistakable Vulcan salute: Live long and prosper! It was the sign of interstellar peace—direct from Star Trek, in Vulcan! I smiled back and returned the salute. Mass was over, and I left in peace, but not for Manhattan. Not quite yet.
There was still a human barrier of little old ladies. They all wanted to know when I’d be back for lunch. When I told them I planned to be out touring amid the skyscrapers for the rest of the day and probably most of the night, they started a campaign of exhortation: “Too bad, you can’t imagine what a special chicken I made for you!”; “Are you sure? Today we’re having Padre Bernie’s favorite dish!”; “Are you really positive you want to miss my famous specialty?”
During that winter trip to New York, with the beautiful, clear cold days and the bone-cutting chill, so different from my first summer journey to New York, I found myself dealing with an unfamiliar element: solitude. My wonderful solitude. Going to New York alone was proving to be a fascinating adventure. To wander around as I pleased, with or without a destination, to eat and drink when the urge moved me, the impossibility of commenting on anything, unless it was to myself, to be forced to think about what my eyes took in: it all made me lose my sense of time. It enhanced everything I felt in a remarkable way. To revisit places I’d seen long ago with friends made me feel a special closeness to those absent friends. I had hours and hours to spend by myself. I had the possibility and all the time I needed to think about people I loved. As I looked around me, I wondered when I’d be able to come back here with Giuliana. In the meantime, between a hamburger from Big Nick’s and three or four rides on the Staten Island ferry, I enjoyed my blessed solitude and the magnificence of a city that, for the first time, was mine and mine alone.
Now I really did have two homes.
I don’t think I can count all the times I’ve returned to New York since then. I’ve managed to bring Giuliana with me, and each and every time I’ve gone, I’ve met new friends: like Sheila, Pat’s wife, a woman from Haiti, as tall as me and with a smile as luminous as Julia Roberts’s; or Giulio, my old high school buddy who moved to New York, the lucky dog, and married a fantastic young Indian woman, Madhuri. All these people have a special place in my heart. They helped an Italian boy to achieve at least part of his great American dream.
Part Three
AN AMERICAN IN ROME
15
Letter in the Mail
It was the beginning of September 2003, and I had just returned to Italy from the United States. I still felt an aching homesickness for my home away from home, for the time I had spent there with my old friends. And just then I received an e-mail from Patrick—an e-mail that would change my life. It ran more or less like this: “An old college friend of mine is moving to Rome for three months. Take her to the stadium, she might turn out to be a Lazio fan. I gave her your e-mail address; she’ll get in touch with you. She’s a writer. Her name is Elizabeth Gilbert.”
I think I probably sat there staring at the screen slack-jawed for a good five minutes. What good was likely to come of this? Instinct told me: none.
Until then, I’d never had a chance to return the priceless hospitality that Patrick had extended to me every time I went to see him. This was my first chance to return the favor, albeit indirectly. But it couldn’t have come at a worse time. My working season was gearing up, my post-vacation depression was raging with autumn on the way, and as if that weren’t enough, Giuliana was going through a very difficult period with her family. And though Giuliana trusted me implicitly and knew my friend Pat, adding an unknown female quantity to the equation didn’t seem like the ideal thing. Especially since the young woman wouldn’t be staying a couple days in Rome but three full months!
And the idea that this American writer might become a Lazio fan struck me as unlikely. Of course I’d take her to the stadium! Every Lazio supporter who sees an opportunity to add an angel to the heavenly Lazio-cheering host is ready to proselytize. And Pat, a die-hard Yankees fan, understood that. But an American intellectual from New York City, used to Manhattan cocktail parties and book readings—would she really like a Roman soccer stadium? I doubted she’d be thrilled to be dragged off to the bleachers wearing a white and blue cap to shout “Forza Lazio!” Frankly, I was skeptical.
But my biggest misgivings were these: I love grilling herds and flocks of savory meat at a time; I love full-bodied wines and rivers of cold beer at my local Roman pub. I didn’t think I was ready to sip five o’clock tea with my pinky extended with a woman who was a writer by profession. She was no doubt a vegetarian and a teetotaler, and she’d give me the kind of look that makes someone like me choke on my blood-rare steak and my second or third goblet of red wine.
In other words, it looked as if fate had decided to send me my own personal Jessica Fletcher.
In any case, here was my plan: do nothing until I actually received an e-mail from this woman. Then, if she did get in touch, decide what to do. Take things one problem at a time.
And so, a few days later, when I had plunged body and soul back into the dizzying whirl of Italian tax law and I had almost completely forgotten the matter of the American-writer-coming-to-Rome, I found an e-mail from Elizabeth Gilbert in my inbox. I opened it with some curiosity.
“Hello, our mutual friend Patrick said he told you I’d be getting in touch. Would you like to meet? Thanks, Elizabeth.”
Now I had to come up with a new plan. I couldn’t refuse to meet her, but I had to find some way of heading off three months of five o’clock teas during which, instead of talking about music, food, and S.S. Lazio, we’d have to wrestle over knotty issues of the different styles of poetry over the last four centuries—abstemiously, and in English.
I summoned every ounce of intelligence I possess, and came up with this diabolically brilliant plan: a late-afternoon appointment in Trastevere, aperitivo with a draft beer—just to see how the young woman handled alcohol— and then dinner in a restaurant serving traditional Roman home cooking. The plan was perfect; it would knock out any and all comers.
In case you aren’t aware, traditional Roman cuisine numbers among its typical dishes what we call frattaglie—entrails and offal. Until the recent past, peasants and cattle breeders, in order to make the greatest profit from their herds, would sell the choicest cuts of meat and keep for themselves and their families the less “noble” remnants: frattaglie. Things have changed, and now in Rome there is a sort of cult of the frattaglie—entrails and offal are now proudly considered to be a traditional dish. And you can find yourself paying more for them than for a filet.
So, even if poor Elizabeth survived a beer before dinner, she was very unlikely to walk away from a plate of rigatoni alla pajata, a dish of tripe, or a bowl of coda alla vaccinara with her dignity intact. Of course, at that point I’d generously offer to pay the check like a proper Roman gentleman, but I could rest assured she’d never call me back for another date.
So I put my brilliant plan into effect: “Ciao Elizabeth, a pleasure to meet you. Would you like to meet for an aperitif and then go somewhere for dinner? Meet at seven p.m. at Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, and then we can continue on foot from there. Okay?”
Elizabeth replied immediately: “Perfect. Seven p.m. at Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere.”
I hadn’t really posed the problem of how I’d recognize her. Of course, she might be the only woman in sight at seven p.m. on a Tuesday in September in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. But it was much more likely she’d be just one in the teeming crowd of young people sitting, beer in hand, on the steps of the fountain in the middle of one of the prettiest and most romantic piazzas in all of Rome.
So I started to hunt for a picture of Elizabeth Gilbert on the Web. Pat told me that she’d writte
n a fairly successful book, The Last American Man, and with that piece of evidence, good online investigator that I am, I trolled for a picture that would allow me to recognize her. The only problem? My name isn’t Bond, James Bond. It’s Spaghetti, Luca Spaghetti. All I managed to find was a postage stamp–sized black-and-white photo of the author with a bearded man, the subject of her book. The impression I had, from what little I was able to make from the tiny picture, was of an elegant, blond, long-limbed woman. She looked more like a German than an American to me.
As I usually did, I arrived a little early. I parked my scooter on the Viale Trastevere and enjoyed the time I had on my hands to stroll through the back alleys and narrow lanes and enjoy the unique atmosphere of one of the most charming sections of Rome. It’s always a pleasure to go stretch your legs in Trastevere, at any time of the day: from morning, when what guides your steps are the aromas of the bakers’ oven and the sounds of a vast quarter waking up and busying itself, to evening, when the whole neighborhood fills up with strollers, colorful stands, street artists, and restaurants ready to serve delicacies of every sort. I thought back to when I was twenty and I had a job hanging out little posters with the advance headlines of the next morning’s newspapers and periodicals. It was a job I did in the winter, and it involved getting up in the middle of the night. There were fifty newsstands on which I hung posters, for a fee of a thousand lire per newsstand. It took about two hours, and I’d pocket fifty thousand lire, roughly equivalent to fifty dollars. It was grueling work, but it was a quick way to earn money without interfering with my studies.
The distribution company would call me, without warning, at around three a.m.; I always did my best to get to the phone before it rang twice. Otherwise my parents would get out of bed and turn on the lights in alarm. Then I silently got dressed, went downstairs, and kick-started my dark blue Piaggio Sì moped. I zipped past St. Peter’s Square and drove all the way to the other side of Rome to pick up the posters. I drove over to the Via Tiburtina and began my route, usually starting out from the Stazione Termini, Rome’s main railroad terminal, an area that’s not particularly salubrious. I continued along the Via Nazionale until I reached Trastevere; then I went through Monteverde, and then back home.
Un Amico Italiano Page 11