Empire of Light (32 page)

“Okay. Maal, that jerk director from AFI. What’s the story with you and this guy?” I ask.

“Ah! Jeanluc Maal. You remember that night you were hitting on me outside the Bourgeois Pig?”

“I remember the night we
spoke
on the corner outside the Bourgeois Pig.”

“You weren’t hitting on me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just making conversation.” I say defensively.

“Oh. So would you also put a rush on a mocha order just so you can run outside and make conversation with a
man
standing on the corner?”

“You heard me rush my order?”

“You were very loud. You screamed at the barista and cock blocked his flirtation with that cute girl.”

“Busted?”

“Busted,” she confirms.

“Okay, so the night I was hitting on you outside the Bourgeois Pig. Continue.”

“I slept with Maal that night, and by morning I declared him dead to me.”

“Really?” I ask giddily. “That bad in the sack, huh?”

“He was a pig.”

“Really? What did he make you do?”

“No, you pervert. His
place
. Where he slept was filthy.”

“You broke up with a guy because he didn’t keep house?”

“Well, his place was a mess, but the last straw was when I woke in the morning. It was only in the daylight that I could see the dark brown streak on his fitted sheet. That idiot had us screwing on a shit stain,” she says.

“How did you let him down? I mean, how did you break up with him?” I ask assuming the girl wouldn’t actually embarrass the jerk by telling him the truth.

“What do you mean?” she asks with incredulity. “I jumped out of bed and yanked off the comforter. There he was, lying naked with his little dick, wallowing in his own filth. I told him not to call me until his mother taught him to wipe his ass properly. I smacked him in the face, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

Olivia Newton John appears above my head in a thought balloon and begins to sing,
Have You Ever Been Mellow
. Oh, comeuppance, how do you always make my world so pretty? I’m truly full of joy, and I’m quite sure I’m glowing. After I’m done wiping the tears of glee from my eyes, we both take another swig of wine.

“
Senti
, I heard how that guy stole the credit from you on that scene you photographed,” she says, suddenly very serious. “I watched the short in the Directing class. The photography in general was garbage, but your scene, it spoke to me.
Sei bravo,
Jason.
Veramente
. You’re a damn good cameraman.”

This compliment, coming from her, means the world to me. Only maybe Edge giving me props could mean more. I’m speechless.

Almost on cue, the food arrives.

“
Ecco!”
says the waiter who brings us so many plates of food that they are literally balancing off the table.
Crocchè
, balls of fried mashed potatoes.
Arancini
, fried rice balls with mozzarella and egg.
Pizzette D'Alghe
, deep-fried little pizzas with cheese and seaweed.

Wait a minute...

Fried mashed potatoes?

How in the hell is this artery-clogging dish not a staple back in America? The folks below the Mason-Dixon line should be ashamed of themselves. A plate of
crocchè
and a pitcher of sweet tea is just what the colonel ordered.

“Mmmm…
Buono
…Oh…My God…
Buono
…” I mumble, my mouth packed with food.

We wolf down the appetizers like animals. The waiter clears the plates, and I have to figure out a way to unbutton my pants without Dani seeing it. I’m already so stuffed that my fat belt buckle is digging into my distended gut, and the pizzas haven’t even arrived yet.

“
Scusi!”
Dani suddenly yells to the waiter.
“Carciofi. Fritto e trifolati. Per favore.”

The waiter looks a bit annoyed as he walks away. The place is filling up and he’s working by himself. Our table alone would’ve driven a normal waiter to the brink.

However, what really concerns me is that I think this girl just ordered more food!

“Dani, did you just order more grub?”

“Yep.”

“
Carciofi
. I know that word.”

“Artichokes. Fried and sautéed. Mmmmmm!” she says as she rubs her hands greedily.

Oh, shit.

I think back to the Bourgeois Pig when the Fellows reenacted Caravaggio’s “Artichoke Incident.” He punched a poor waiter in the mouth over an argument about whether the artichokes served to him were fried or sautéed.

No way this can be what I think it is.

Besides, the camera is gone. It’s impossible…

What am I talking about? What the hell does
impossible
have to do with this trip?

“Hey, Dani, before you came to AFI, what did you do for a living?”

“Illustrator. A painter. Damn good one, if you ask me.”

No. She can’t be who I think she is.

Caravaggio?

“Where were you born?” I ask.

“
Milano.”

“Milan! You’re not from here?”

“No. Born in Milan. Raised in Rome. We had to leave Rome when I was a kid because I burned down the sports equipment shed. It’s a long story.”

“Let me guess. You got in a fight over a tennis match. You got angry and you torched the shack.”

“Volleyball. I got kicked off the team because I fought too much. I was a kid,” she says as if that explains arson. “How did you guess so closely?”

The waiter enters with the artichokes and he practically throws the plate down on the table, pissing off Dani. He tries to walk away, but Dani interrupts him.

“
Aspetta
!” she orders. “
Qual’è fritto e quale trifolati?
” she asks, questioning which is fried and which is sautéed.

“
Non lo so! Mangia e scopirai!
”
I don’t know! Eat ‘em and you’ll find out!

“
Cosa?” 
she says, cranking her head in disbelief at his insolence. I look at Dani’s cute little hand as it balls up into a fist.

I scoot my chair back from the table and notice two cops arriving for lunch. My heart begins to race.

“Ok.
Va bene. Non ti preoccupare,
” she says as she un-balls her tiny hand.

Don’t worry about it? 
That’s not right. She’s supposed to burry her fist in this guys face! By now the cops are supposed to be dragging Dani’s little ass off to jail.

But how could this even have happened without the magic of m’ Brownie? And if anybody would’ve been Caravaggio, I would’ve bet the farm on the Shadow Don, not the girl whose ass I’ve been checking out all day.

Wait? I checked out Caravaggio’s ass?

Before I can dwell on this disturbing thought any longer, our waiter brings us our pizzas.

Ugh.

My belly is so stuffed, there's no way I'm going to be able to make a dent in this pie. The waiter sets the pizzas on the table and even in my nauseous state, I recognize how beautiful they are. The three of us all take a moment to admire the precious pies. We stare at them as if they are newborn babies birthed on Christmas Eve. Little Margarita pizza for me and little Regina Magarita for Dani.

I take a bite and my brain glitches, conflicted, attempting to figure out how such a simple pizza can be so explosive, so vibrant, so damn delicious. My stomach desperately sends signals to my brain that it’s full, but that little Homer Simpson guy that sits in the taste center of my brain just keeps smashin' the red
indulge
button and screaming,
Stop filling up on the crust you fool! Go for the heart of the pizza! THE HEART!

Before I know it, I’m staring at the empty pizza plate, with scattered remnants of dismembered crust and red sauce. I look up at Dani as she wipes her chops with a napkin, seemingly unfazed by the sheer amount of grub sitting in her stomach.

How the hell is she so skinny?

“
Dolce?”

“Desert! What planet are you from?”

She ignores my plea of mercy and calls the annoyed waiter to our table and says one word. “
Babà
.”

Moments later, he delivers upon us a decadent rum-filled cake. Dani eyes the prey and then gazes at me, like a fox ready to do battle over a fresh kill.

It’s all yours, Ms. Animal Planet.

“
Prego
,” I say offering her the first bite. She doesn’t hesitate, jabbing her fork into the moist cake, doused in so much alcohol that having three of these cakes in one room requires an on site fire marshal.

Her eyes roll up into her head and she moans with ecstasy. I really want to go to bed with this chick.

I pick up my fork and take two solid bites. It’s amazing, but I’m done. To make my point, I literally throw my goddamn fork out of the open window, to the chagrin of the waiter.

She cracks up with laughter. “Did you like your meal?”

“That shit was the bomb!” I exclaim as the waiter comes to clean off our table.

“You are American?” the waiter asks in labored English.

“Yes. You’ve been there?”

“
Si!
I love America! My brother. He work to Pizza Barn in San Fernando Valley.”

“What!” I exclaim.

A guy raised in Naples ends up making California-styled pizzas in the goddamn Valley? That’s like a kid from Brooklyn playing stickball in Kazakhstan. At some point he has to ask himself,
How the hell did I get here?

“Well, this was the best meal I’ve had in Italy so far,” I say to the waiter.

“I especially liked the artichoke hearts,” adds Dani, dripping with sarcasm, obviously still angry.

“
Pronto?
”
Ready? 
Dani asks me as she pushes away from the table.

“Yep. Let’s jet.”

We walk outside, but instead of heading to her car, Dani speed-walks over to a beautifully restored vintage Volkswagen van, parked around the side, plastered with American bumper stickers.

“Hey, this car has Pizza Barn bumper stickers all over it! It must be the waiters, huh?”

She doesn’t answer.

She merely pulls a switchblade from her purse and—

A switchblade!

I watch in shock as she jabs the blade into the side of the van.

“Dani, what are you doing?” I whisper loudly.

With expert grace, this little artist carves letters into the chump’s car.

D. I. C. K.

She finishes, stands, grabs me by the arm and walks to her car as if we just skipped stones across a lake and didn’t just defile some poor slob’s van.

We hop into the car and she sits silently for a moment.

“I’m sorry. I have anger issues.”

“Gee, ya think?”

“It’s not funny. I mean I have serious issues.”

Seeing how Caravaggio’s rap sheet was as long as my arm, I can’t say that I’m surprised. But they didn’t have therapy back then. Maybe this incarnation can have her fool head fixed.

“Oh…Okay. I’m sorry. Are you getting help?”

“What? You mean a psychologist?”

“I guess. Or anybody that’ll help you face your issues.”

She stares into my eyes as if she’s looking for something.

“Let’s do Pompeii,” she suddenly says with a smile.

That was an abrupt one-eighty.

“You sure you wanna go there?” I ask.

“Yes. I think we need to hang out a little bit more. Reach in the back and grab my sandals.”

She starts up the car and we’re on our way.

“Say, do you like Caravaggio?” I ask her.

“That asshole is overrated,” she says as she guns the car into traffic.

Pompeii, prepare thyself.

22 

Illuminating the Past

WHAT THE HELL?

Is she flashing me on purpose?

We ditched the car and caught a train to Pompeii to avoid any parking issues. Dani sat down across from me, reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of flip-flops. In the process of wedging her toes into her shoe, she hiked her leg up on the bench, her dress sliding back down her thigh… It’s times like this that I’m especially glad I’m black. If I had a pale face I’d be blushing like a Peanuts cartoon character.