What do they have?
Everything: his walking stick, his books, bedside table, his hats including the slightly worn ones.
That’s terrible, Liesbeth said, it’s like they’re getting rid of him entirely.
No. I think it makes perfect sense, I said. He’s dead, what’s the point in hanging on to his used underwear?
In Japan, they sell used underwear, Massimo said.
To who?
They have vending machines for used ladies’ underwear. Men queue to pick them up. Probably take them home for some conversation.
If I had a lover who died, Liesbeth said, I would never sell his stuff.
If I died, I would ask whoever’s left behind to sell it all, I said. In fact, I’d ask them to sell all my memories too. Sell my first date, my first time on a plane, the first day in an office.
I’d sell all my days in the office, Massimo said.
For how much?
Anyone can have them for free.
So we made a list of memories that people could sell.
First pet: You pay 400 euros.
Naming the first pet: 5,000 euros (because you also get a lifetime of passwords)
First-time sex: 30 euros (it’s never divine, it’s always a mess, and you’d rather start with the pro-category anyway)
Marriage: Pay what you want
First kiss: 3,000 euros, if teenage fumbling in a corner and magical. 40 euros if adult and desperate.
My holiday in Palolem where I was with the girl and I had the greatest sandwich in the world: I would never sell that.
I was still dropping tobacco out of the cigarettes. Drop, drop the tobacco. Sprinkle some on the weed. Then drop the cigarette on the table. It will come alive again, filled with magic.
Drop, drop through the water, float inside. But then you find you’re sinking.
We moved to the balcony to smoke. There was a deserted hospital in front of us, Liesbeth claimed she heard sounds from the building every Thursday. And there’s a huge palm tree. We could be in the Middle East. Only then the buildings would be crumbling with explosions, not slow motion for centuries, like in those start-stop videos. Massimo is trying to inhale as deep as he can. And while he waits with his lungs full, he twists his fingers into a Hindu-lotus-cow position. He’s such a jerk. I took the joint from him. Nothing was happening. Below us, a man muttered to himself on the streets. And then he held up his empty hand to his ears and started screaming. Porca miseria, porca miseria. Into his invisible phone. Fuck misery. In Rome, the object of fuck works along a well-defined gradation. You start with fuck the snowman. And then fuck misery. And then you work your way up. Till you reach Madonna (the original virgin, not the 1980s rocket-bra Madonna).
Who’s he shouting to?
Whoever’s on the other end. Rome is filled with crazy people. I mean, literally crazy people. They had an asylum on the outskirts of town, and then they had to shut it down, fiscal tightening etcetera (I like writing etcetera, it’s so much classier than the abbreviation). And since no one came to pick up the inmates, they let them loose on the streets. Which is probably nicer than being locked up. We’re all on the streets. Actually, most of us are locked up in offices to keep the roads safe.
We smoked three joints in a row. Massimo and Liesbeth had gin and tonics. I had an orange juice. When we walked back to her living room, it happened. I was unstuck from time. The room was floating, and so was I.
Where did you get this stuff?
From this guy at work.
Does he have a name?
Gordon. He knows a great dealer. Says this is grown in labs in the north.
This is brilliant.
By unspoken agreement, I twisted another cigarette open and Liesbeth started cleaning another bud. Heart of gold she had, probably deposited on earth by some meteorite, like most of the earth’s reserves. A woman who rolls, who knows a great dealer. Once we danced and got a little close, but that was it.
Are you looking at my boobs?
No, I’m not.
I think you were, Massimo said. You weren’t even blinking, you were so overwhelmed by their magnificence.
I was thinking. It was the gazing into the middle-distance look, and your boobs just happened to be there.
If you were, you can admit it. We’re all family here, Massimo said. I’m often overwhelmed by their magnificence.
Their magnificence! Really? Liesbeth asked.
Of course.
So, you guys aren’t just here for the free weed?
No. We’re here to worship you.
If only either one of you were any better looking.
Thanks, I said. Great time to remind us of our inadequacies. When we’re stoned and paranoid.
I’m joking. She finished mixing. I went to the loo. As soon as I started pissing, I remembered what I had had for lunch. Asparagus. I was zooming out asparagus piss. Have you ever smelled it? It filled up the whole bathroom. This really powerful smell. But on the edges, you can also feel its life-affirming quality: something so powerful can only come from a good vegetable.
You know about poppers? Liesbeth asked me when I got back.
Poppers?
Gay men use it a lot.
Never heard of them.
When they’re making out, they pop a couple.
What does it do?
I don’t know. But it’s supposed to be great for sex.
Maybe it loosens the anal muscles, I said. Liesbeth laughed. She looked nice laughing. Pretty. Chiara looked great laughing; Chiara wasn’t pretty. I mean not pretty-pretty. Her hair frizzed all around her face, clearly under no control or with no design. I was thinking of Chiara again. I made sure I looked away, towards the TV, this time.
That’s when Sandra walked in. She kissed Massimo and Liesbeth hello and then me. And then she held my hand.
You can talk to us, she said.
I am talking.
No, you can tell us if you need anything. I didn’t say anything. My hand was still in hers. I tried looking melancholy. I wished I wore glasses. When I should feel sad but I don’t, I think of other people. You’re an executive on the ninety-fifth floor, with your brand new spotted tie, surveying the city that you will control someday. And then you see a plane flying, too close to the ground and then too close to you. Too soon, it always comes too soon.
You’re buying naan because your cousin Muzammil has brought some great mutton curry from the old man near the chowk. You’re in Nadeem’s bakery where you always buy your bread, because he never cheats you and once he even gave you some of his hashish. He’s always clucking when you talk about Muzammil: used to be such a quiet kid, till he picked up the gun and the Quran. You don’t have time for Nadeem’s lecture because the roganjosh is waiting at home. And then you hear a whistling in the air. It’s coming from far away. Nadeem leans out of the window, and you know from the shock in his eyes that it’s too late. You knew when the troubles started that one day you would be stuck in a place where it was too late.
My hand was still in Sandra’s. Liesbeth had put on the Grateful Dead and I wanted to hum along or move my head to the beat, but I couldn’t. It’s difficult to hum along to them. I don’t even like their music, I think they’re like an overrated country-folksy-boy-band with too much hair on their faces. (What? You can insult my god and I can’t insult yours?) My hand was frozen and I couldn’t stand near the table like a statesman all night. So I sat down and Sandra rubbed my shoulders. I poured a little vodka for myself, but it was suddenly really heavy. So when Massimo switched the music to RATM, I stood up and said we should move before we get too lazy. Rage is always a good trip.
We took a taxi. Outside, young men ran with the dogs and the women balanced their stilettos on the cobblestones. I had gone to a village in Umbria with Pooja (when she came to visit me in Rome) and we saw groups of old men and women sit on separate benches like in a high-school social event. They laughed at the same jokes they had heard from the same people for fifty ye
ars. Their faces were ridged like the valleys of Tuscany. Pooja was taking photographs while I sat on a parapet and watched the people. Later I asked her what she clicked and she said she was checking out the barks of trees. I thought that was an intimate moment. But then she had an album up on Facebook: Talking to Trees. I wasn’t in the album, only the trees.
Sandra was laughing. Liesbeth had told her about the poppers. Sandra asked if she had any, but none of us really knew what they were.
We reached the club, which was a warehouse that had been taken over. In Rome, communists and anarchists are always taking over old buildings and converting them into clubs. Which is what communism should be about. And then they abuse Berlusconi who’s as fucked up as they come. Berlusconi’s worse than a llama: he has no shame. He’s also a fascist, but I never know what that means. And he loves hanging around with women young enough to be his granddaughters. For Berlusconi, God is probably a big blue Viagra pill in the sky.
The club was as random as they come. In one corner, the walls were on fire, I mean digitally with strobe lights and displays. People were jerking their arms and legs, all moving to some trance. In our corner, a long cloth rope hung from the ceiling: a man and a woman in tight leggings were twisting around in the sky. He split his legs open upside down while gripping the cloth with some part of his body, I couldn’t even tell which. And she sat in a Buddhist pose on his upside-down crotch. I think the dance was trying to tell us something: have more sex, or get your hernia checked.
Then there was some music at our end, and I was floating again. In my own time, which is always nice. It was hip-hop dub-step something, but nice, not with a rabid beat. Then Sandra dragged us to a room outside the main hall. Hangers full of old jackets for sale, people sitting around unvarnished tables smoking joints and talking about Foucault. Some of her friends had set up a stall, where they were taking old Polaroid pictures of groups: they called it Re-View, Re-Act. We had to choose our props and soon I had shades with pizza slices on the brows and a bowler hat on me. I smiled and they clicked. Once. And then again because we switched around our props. Once more, uno due tre. I smiled again.
Smile click post share. Smile click post share. Repeat.
Which is your favourite item?
Where?
Among all these, Liesbeth asked. Everything on their stall was older than me.
It’s like we’re the items, and we’re actually photographing the scarves and the hats.
You’re not a scarf.
Why not? Because I have a soul? I asked.
No, Sandra said, because you couldn’t be half as cool as that scarf.
I wouldn’t mind being an accessory.
What kind of accessory?
I don’t know.
I thought of a few. Only by the time I did, we were already out of the stall. Sandra and I were dancing. She was doing the ironic Pulp Fiction dance. I was doing a clueless pretending to be stoned while actually being stoned dance.
I could be a piece of bacon on Lady Gaga’s ass. Or I could be a gun in MIA’s hands. Or Elton John’s shades.
Would you rather be Shah Rukh Khan’s stutter or Clint Eastwood’s half-shut eyes?
Would you rather be a pair of crazy eyes in a Kurosawa movie or Björk’s bobbing head?
Would you rather have been the public toilet with George Michael inside or the car with Hugh Grant inside?
And then the music came racing into my head. They had turned up the volume. They had a live act on: I hadn’t even seen the stage. The act featured these two raging gay men. One in a skintight pink leotard and the other in a long green dress.
ROME! Are you READY?? Green Dress shouted out. He knew we were all fucked out of our brains.
I CANNOT hear YOUU. The crowd roared. And then they turned up the bass.
Da-BOOMM-da-da-BOOM. The heavy beat skewered right through me and rattled me inside, kidney, liver, everything. All around me, people started shaking their heads slowly, and then faster. The bass blew away bits of my mind. The bits that I could never hold on to anyway.
Here, Sandra dropped something in my hand. Little beads, like lumps of gnarled skin, covered my palm.
What is it?
Magic mushroom.
If I smile for Polaroid photos, I suppose I can put stuff in my mouth too. So I downed it all. It was horridly bitter, so I chased it with the vodka in my hand.
Then I waited for it to kick in.
Hey ROME, are you HERRE??
Da-BOOM-da-da-BOOMM. It sounds crazy, but that was the beat.
Come ON Take a TRIP. Lady wore a gown but had a voice like James Hetfield.
Come ON Take a TRIP. A foot in front of me, Sandra swiveled her ass to the beat.
And then I was moving too.
Come ON Take a TRIP.
They are thinking about the sea. A voice blared inside my head. But no, it wasn’t inside my head. It was a voice like asparagus piss: metallic, but crumbling around the edges into something going crazy.
It was Chiara.
I turned around. Who?
Your landlord’s turtles, she was screaming into my ear. When they have sex, they’re thinking about the sea.
Come ON Take a TRIP.
Why would they think about the sea?
Because that’s where they come from.
NAMES
We danced for a bit. And then we stepped outside for a smoke. Chiara and me, of course. Everything was blazing lights around me, and sounds that melted into each other. We were at the dead end of a street; abandoned cars lined the walls, shimmering grey and rust. Maybe it was the mushroom. I heard strains of Marley.
How have you been? Chiara asked me.
Okay. Same shit, different day.
Are you always filled with one-liners? Like a Guy Ritchie movie?
They’re spontaneous, I swear.
Maybe you have a list.
A list of what?
Of one-liners that you carry with you.
And I pluck out a line whenever I need to? Wouldn’t that be more effort than just making them up?
But you would rather be funny than real. Have you met your landlord since we saw him?
Leonardo? Had a beer with him once. He took off his shirt.
Because he was trying to seduce you?
Because he said he wanted to feel free.
She pulled out a cigarette. I offered my lighter. And she steadied my hand as she lit up.
What do you do in your free time?
Is this a speed-dating question?
No, it’s a ‘I hope I’m not in a dark alley with a rabbit molester’ question.
No rabbits. Only squirrels.
Was that on your list of one-liners?
Whiffs of weed hung in the air around us. I could still hear the booming beat from inside. I could feel it in my ass. Probably the prostate, that’s apparently where men get turned on the most. But maybe it wasn’t the music playing with my prostate. It was Chiara. She was talking to some random guy, unruly hair, a torn sweater, calculatedly casual (all rugged, but actually all planned). They turned their hands in the air like Italians do, making pointy pyramids to make a point. Light was glowing off their bodies. Sometimes we are in a movie: everything moves so perfectly.
Hey, Krantik, I want you to meet someone. She pulled the guy’s sweater. This is Marco.
Hi, I’m Krantik.
Hey, how’re you doing?
Good, good. That’s a nice band. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
They sure are, saw them last summer in Camden Town.
I didn’t say anything.
London.
Yes, I know.
Of course. Only one shouldn’t assume. You know, we stay long enough in a city and you think it’s the centre of the world.
Rome is the centre of the world, I said.
No. It hasn’t been for a thousand years. Chiara had her head bent up towards him while he spoke.
I was just being polite.
No n
eed to be. He smiled. And I didn’t want to admit it, but it was a smile coming from a big heart. But maybe it was a big plastic, cellophane teddy heart.
I’ll leave you guys to talk. Chiara kissed him briefly and he went back inside. I sipped from my glass. There were two crescent slices of lemon floating in my drink. What the hell were they doing there?
Is that your boyfriend?
He’s not my boyfriend.
Yes, I remember, you said sort of boyfriend.
He’s my husband. She sucked at her cigarette, her claw clamped around the butt. Why the fuck did she need four fingers to hold a cigarette?
Great. You guys look perfect together. All you need is two blonde kids in your lap.
She sniggered. Yes, sniggered.
Don’t be ridiculous, Krantik.
I’m not ridiculous. I know what I am.
What’s that?
I’m your weekend mistake. The one that gives you a bad hangover. The drink that you didn’t even finish. But the one that goes banging inside your skull the next day.
You’re fucking stupid.
Did you pray and ask Mother Mary for forgiveness. For your mistake.
Why should I ask ‘Mother Mary’ about anything? What would she know about sex?
Listen, I know it’s all okay. Everything is okay. I’m totally cool with whatever. But I don’t want to be your regret for your lost youth or anything.
My lost youth?
You look thirty-plus to me. And that’s not young anymore. Or, you know, I don’t want to be some random guy you make out with because, I don’t know, Marco didn’t get you anything from Harrods or whatever.
Will you SHUT the FUCK up? Will you stop being an entitled pig, whining about your bruised ego?
I sipped more of my drink.
I like you, I really like you, she said.
Yes, I know. Now you’ll do the condescending I like you, you’re just not my type. And you know, Marco’s the gentlest soul in the world; I couldn’t do anything behind his back.
Hey, hey, stop talking. For like a minute.
Okay.
Nothing’s happening behind Marco’s back. Why should anything happen behind his back?
No Direction Rome Page 7