Empire of Light (7 page)

Now, the neighborhood has really changed since then. A brotha can actually go down there and have a sit down meal with no drama. Folks there now see one color. Green. The economy is too messed up to be hatin’.

But there’s no telling my mom this. Whenever I borrow her car, I have to hear the same thing.

And don’t drive my car through no damn Little Italy!

Time to switch tactics. Again.

“Look, I don’t want to go to Italy to party. It’s actually sort of an educational trip. What I want to do is go to Europe, hunt down my favorite Caravaggio paintings and study the lighting in his work. It’s for my career. We could write this off as a business expense.”

Silence. Failure. Time to switch tactics. Again. Got it.

Play on my mom’s obsessive desire to marry me the hell off.

“Who knows. Maybe I’ll even meet my wife there.”

“
What?” 
my mom shrieks.

Pop scoots his chair a few inches away from the kitchen table in anticipation of my mom’s head exploding.

“Now you listen to me,” she says with a country girl roll of her neck. “You need to take that money and finish your degree, here in Cleveland, instead of spending all that money on that California rent. And as far as finding a wife goes, I am not traveling ten hours on somebody’s plane to see my grand babies.”

“Babies? How the hell did we get there?”

“Your father and I haven’t been to Europe yet and
we
have jobs.”

A couple of years ago I would’ve actually wasted hours fighting them, but this screwed up year has worn me out. I’m done.

Cleveland’s got me.

“You know, I don’t think anybody from my side of the family has ever been to Europe. How about you?” my dad asks my mom.

“Floyd was in Europe when he was in the military, but that sure as heck was no vacation,” she says.

Wait. What’s going on here? I feel the tide turning. Is this right?

“It might be time to cross this off the list,” says my dad.

Oh, shit! Dad! You’re brilliant! Why didn’t I think of this? Well played, ol’ man!

The cool thing dealing with folks of my parents’ generation is that it’s made up of people who want to push beyond what their parents had. It’s all about busting through ceilings. Right?

The first one of the family to go to college.

The first to go to med school.

The first to be able to retire and not die working for the man.

“Fine,” Mom says. “But the tuition money stays put. We’ll give you the money for the trip for your birthday.”

I suddenly feel a rush of blood to my head. My mom looks at me like I just got away with murder, and by God, I think I have.

“Make that your next three birthdays,” my dad says as he heads to the fridge. “Can’t believe this knucklehead is going to see Europe before me.”

And with that, my mom kisses me on the forehead and walks out of the room.

“I owe you, Pop.”

“I’m keeping a list.”

I laugh, but he has a stone face.

“You really have a list?”

“Plane tickets. Tuition. Room and board. Trips to Europe. Cash expenditures…”

Expenditures? I don’t even know what that word means. Whatever. Right now I have my own list to compile. I scramble upstairs to my computer and look up the locations of my favorite Caravaggio paintings.

Caravaggio Hit List

Paris, France

The Death of the Virgin [The Louvre Museum]

Rome, Italy

The Entombment [The Vatican Museum]

Judith And Holophernes [Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica]

Saint Matthew & The Angel [Chiesa S. Luigi Dei Francesi]

The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew [Chiesa S. Luigi Dei Francesi]

The Calling of Saint Matthew [Chiesa S. Luigi Dei Francesi]

The Crucifixion of Saint Peter [Chiesa di Santa Maria Del Popolo]

The Conversion of Saint Paul [Chiesa di Santa Maria Del Popolo]

Naples, Italy

The Seven Works of Mercy [Pio Monte della Misericordia]

The Flagellation of Christ [Il Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte]

The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula [Il Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte]

While researching my trip, my dad interrupts and suggests that I haul my sorry butt across the street and tell our neighbor and resident tailor, Graziella, the great news that I’m going to visit her hometown of Napoli.

“Don’t you think that would be polite?” he asks condescendingly.

At first, I’m impressed at how thoughtful he’s being, that is, until he slaps some cash into my hand. “Pick up my suits while you’re over there.”

During the cold Cleveland winters, my dad would make me shovel Graziella’s driveway, for free, but she’d always invite me in for some hot chocolate. These days she fixes me espresso instead of hot chocolate. In return, I entertain her by making a complete mockery of her language.

I knock on her door.

“Who is it?” she says in her thick accent.

“
Ciao Graziella! Sono
Jason
.”

“Jaaason!” she grins as she opens up the door.

She tries to give me that European kiss on both cheeks, but as usual, I screw it up and start on the wrong side.

“
Come stai?” 
she asks, escorting me to the kitchen, wondering how I am.

“
Sto bene,
è Lei?” I respond, telling her I’m fine and asking her the same.

“
Così, così,
” she says as she shakes her hand, indicating so-so
.
“
Che hai fatto di bello?” s
he replies, asking what I’ve been up to as she begins to brew up some espresso.

“Well, school’s been interesting. I—”

“Ehi!” she screams at me in mock anger, slapping her hands together. “
In italiano, per favore!”

Jeez, am I really going to have to explain all the shit that went down at school in Italian? Screw that. I’ll just cut to the chase and tell her about my trip.

“
Io vado al’Europa!
”

“
Che bello!”
she exclaims, cupping my cheeks. “
Dove vai?
”
Where are you going?

“
Parigi, Roma e… NAPOLI!
” I say excitedly. I hold out my arms waiting for her hug. But she simply sits there, looking at me like I just farted.

“Naples? Why the hell are you going there?” she says in English.

Whoa. She never speaks to me in English.

“Well, I want to see some paintings, and Naples has these three great works…”

As I talk, Graziella shakes her head “no” as if she doesn’t want to hear my bullshit.

“Look,” she finally says. “There are plenty of places, beautiful places, to visit in Italy. Rome, Venice, Florence…Go there and be happy. Who wants to deal with dodging bullets on vacation?”

“Lady, aren’t you from Napoli?”

“Yes. And I’ve never gone back. What does this tell you? If you want to go to Napoli, then go. But be smart! Don’t take taxis and don’t trust nobody. Don’t open a map on the street and look like a tourist. Use your Italian.
Never
speak English. Never admit that you don’t understand something. If somebody says something that you don’t understand, you just shake your head
no
and walk away.”

She goes on like this for several more minutes until she believes I’m sufficiently prepared to go to Naples and not get killed. Then I find an excuse to get out of there, because seriously, the woman is killing my buzz.

At the door, before I exit the joint, she yells,
“Aspetta!”
ordering me to wait.

She dashes off and returns with my dad’s suit and a medallion on a chain. She kisses it before draping it around my neck.

“This is St. Christopher’s medal. He is the patron saint of safe travel. When you go, you wear it and be safe!”

“
Grazie,
Graziella
. Ciao.”

“
Ciao,
Jason
. Buona forutna!”

Good luck? And she means it, too.

I start my walk home in a nervous daze, carrying a suit that costs more than my entire damn trip. Before I step foot off of her lawn, something makes me turn around. I catch her crossing herself as she closes the door.

“
In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti…”

Wow. Are you really going to pray in Latin for my safety, lady? Come on! Naples can’t be that bad.

My iPhone buzzes to life in my pocket. I snatch it out and read a new email. It’s from Edge, responding to one I sent him earlier this morning.

From:
Howard Edgerton

Subject: Re:
My Hunt for Caravaggio...

Attachment:
ParisHaberdashers.doc

Atta boy! Every year I visit the Paris Sewers. It’s where I met my first wife. It’s also where I spread her ashes. Her family hasn’t spoken to me since. Two birds with one stone…

When you get to Paris, do yourself a favor and buy yourself some clothes (store list attached). And before you go traipsing off to the Louvre to find Caravaggio, might I suggest that you start looking in your own backyard.

I’ve got an errand for you in Rome. I’ll set it up and give details later. Naples? It’s your funeral, kid.

6 

Cleveland is a Chiaroscuro City

Painting 1: The Crucifixion of St. Andrew

CHIAROSCURO IS A PAINTING 
technique where the contrast between light and dark is jacked up to spectacular levels. It comes from two Italian words,
chiaro
, which means light, and
oscuro
, which means dark.

Many artists had dabbled in the technique before Caravaggio, but he was the first to manhandle it by working in a completely blacked-out studio. His scenes are carved out of the darkness with a single light source, an eye-catching effect that shoots the models out towards the viewers while throwing the background into hostile blacks, an innovation used centuries later by cinematographers to create Film Noir. With Caravaggio, the subject matter might have been First Century Judas Iscariot, but the lighting is straight up 1940s Warner Brothers.

You can’t live in an unlucky little town like Cleveland and not figure out how to embrace darkness. Even when it comes to our sports, instead of celebrating our few victories, we instead wallow in their most crushing defeats, cryptically listing them on the backs of t-shirts like concert dates.

Red Right 88 - January 4th, 1981

The Drive - January 11th, 1987

The Fumble - January 17th, 1988

The Shot - May 7th, 1989

The Move - 1995/1996

The Mesa Meltdown - October 26th 1997

Even when Cleveland imports a ringer, a bonafide winner from another city, it somehow manages to screw it up beyond all recognition.

Submitted for your approval, golden boy, Elliot Ness.

After Ness put Al Capone behind bars in Chicago he was hired to clean up the City of Cleveland, which at the time was known as the criminal safe house of the country. He arrived in town like a white knight just in time to match wits against the serial killer known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.

Ness promptly got his ass handed to him on a plate.

The poor guy was so stymied by the killer that in the end he decided to just set part of the city on fire, hoping lady luck would do him a solid and burn the son of a bitch to death. However, the Butcher survived and taunted Ness for years with post cards.

The great Elliot Ness caught Capone, but he never caught me.

And Cleveland lived happily ever after.

With a history so dark, it’s no wonder that most people are shocked when they discover that a town like Cleveland has a world-class museum. The
Cleveland Museum of Art
, in contrast to the bleakness that haunts the city, glows like the face of the Christ child in a Caravaggio painting. Cleveland is a living breathing chiaroscuro.