Empire of Light (21 page)

“I don’t have time to be an investigator. This is not your FBI. You either have a ticket or you don’t. If you don’t, you can pay fifty euro now or seventy-five euro at the post office.”

Why you punk. You punk, smart-ass wannabe cop. Here I am on a budget, and this jerk is trying to make me fifty bucks light.

“I can do this because I’m a bullshit wannabe cop,” he says as he taps the badge on his chest with his pen.

Okay, he didn’t say the
bullshit wannabe cop
thing, but that’s what he might as well have said.

I should be angry with this guy, but something is actually making me feel sorry for him. Napoleon-complex-havin’ jerk. Probably got picked on as a kid. I do a double take as I spy his badge a bit closer.

Matteo? Matteo is Italian for Matthew.

My God…

This is the “tax collector” version of Matthew! In this selfish version, he’s only interested in getting at my cash.

“So what’s it going to be? Fifty now or seventy-five later? Come on. I don’t have all day.”

What a jerk. This encounter is a joke, maybe a close second to falling in horse shit. I peel off fifty large from my money clip and hand it to him. He snatches it and begins to write up my ticket. That fifty is going to hurt, and combine this incident with getting kicked out of the church this morning…

You know, I’m just tired. I’m going to show this clown how we bust balls in Cleveland, then be on my way.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him.

“My job, sir.”

“
Sir
? Shit. You’re no older than me. I’m off visiting the world, and look at you, handing out tickets to tourists in the subway.”

He ignores me and finishes up writing the ticket. He holds it out to me.

“
Buon giorno, Signore
,” he says.

I don’t take the ticket. I let it hang in the air.

“This is what your life has come down to. This? A fifty-dollar ticket. When you look back upon the history of this planet, and you think about all of the things that had to fall into place in order for you to exist, the ancestors who escaped predators and disease, the millions of chance encounters and couplings, the hundreds of millions of happy accidents that fell into place perfectly so that the exact sperm and the exact egg could meet at the exact moment in time and generate the exact DNA so that
you
could exist. You. A conscious being inhabiting a planet that only survives on the thinnest of margins. A notch closer to the sun, we all burn to death. A notch farther, we freeze. God has handed you a gift. You hit the life lottery and what are you doing with it?”

We both look at the ticket, still in his hand.

“Good luck with that,” I laugh as I snatch the ticket and walk away.

Maybe some tough love will get this joker the hell out of this dungeon.

“I hate my job,” he says suddenly. I stop and look back at him.

“That’s cool, Matteo. I’m headed to the Vatican to see my favorite painting. You can quit this bullshit and come with me, if you want,” I say sarcastically.

“You know, it’s funny that you mention it. I haven’t been to the Vatican museum since I was a boy. I’ve been dreaming about going back there for years. Just to sit,” says Matteo, his voice trailing off in reverie. “I can’t believe I’m actually thinking about doing this,” he whispers to himself.

“Yeah. Wait. What?”

Matteo snickers as he contemplates the magnatude of what he’s about to do, “I’m walking away with
you
,” he says in amazement as the train arrives, screeching to halt on cue.

This guy is quiting his job because of me?

Holy shit!

Maybe I’m supposed to help get this guy the hell out of this hole so he can meet whoever will convert him from a dick and into a decent human being. Screw it. Might as well roll with it.

“Look. I don’t know you, but I bet you’re a good guy. You know better than me that this is not who you are, Matteo. Your life, the one you were
supposed
to live, my bet is that it begins on that train.”

Matteo looks back at the other Metro cops, waiting on the stairs for him.

“Matteo…Come on, man. You’re only a kid. Now is the time to do stupid shit like this.”

15 

It’s the Best Painting EVER

Painting 9: The Entombment of Christ

MATTEO AND I HOP 
onto the train like two kids skipping over a stream on summer break. We rejoice in that universal mode of male celebration: fist pounds and chest bumps.

“Yeah!” I scream

“Yeah!” Matteo screams back at me.

We plop down into our seats, satisfied at spitting in the eye of the establishment. I look at his happy face, an expression totally counter to the dour mug I encountered just five minutes ago. It suddenly dawns on me that he has already gone through the conversion, and I was the guy who cracked him!

Shit! How cool is that?

In five minutes, without even thinking about it, I turned this guy from a money grubbing suit into a free spirit, ready to follow me all the way to the Vatican and back. There’s nothing to this
Fisher of Men
thing. As we escape down the tracks with big fat grins plastered on our mugs, I feel proud, yo.

However, as we head deeper into Rome’s belly, I notice that Matteo’s smile begins to weaken.

After a long awkward moment of silence, the reality of the situation slowly drills its way into Matteo’s head. I can feel the weight of it as I watch him out of the corner of my eye. He runs his hands through his hair in frustration. I stare at our reflection in the window directly across from us and see myself sitting next to this very worried kid. Matteo and I make eye contact in the reflected glass. I imagine his mirror image punching my mirror image in the face.

Okay, so I see the tough part of converting somebody is not so much the conversion, but keeping the converted on track and happy.

“So. Where are you from?” he asks me as he glares at my reflection.

“Cleveland.”

“Cleveland?” he asks a bit shocked.

“Yep, Cleveland.”

He runs his hand through his hair again then begins to bang his head back against the glass window behind him. “I’ve read of this place, Cleveland. They call it the armpit of the United States.”

“Really?” Even in Italy I have to hear shit about my town.

“Is there, maybe, another Cleveland that I don’t know about?” he asks hopefully.

Here we go.

“No. Cleveland, Ohio. There’s only one.”

Matteo thinks for a second…

“I think there is a Cleveland in the
Regno Unito
—”

“No,” I interrupt. “I’m not from the UK.”

Where the hell is he going with this? I think he can’t accept the idea that some idiot from Cleveland, Ohio duped him into bailing on his job. Well, that
is
kind of messed up now that I think about it. I want to tell him I’m sorry, push him off the train at the next stop and go beg his boss to give him his job back. However, I think we’re way beyond fail-safe at this point. The train even seems to speed up, the clacking of the tracks escalating in tempo and filling the silence between us with tension.

“Okay. So you are
from
Cleveland, but maybe you were
born
someplace else, like New York, and then your family moved—”

“Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Matteo,” I interrupt with a fake smile. “Look, my family is originally from Rocky Mount, North Carolina where they were slaves on a tobacco plantation, and then my Grandfather—”

“Slaves?” he interrupts.

“Yes. Slaves. Shackles, whips, negro spirituals, slave quarters. The whole nine yards. Then—”

“That’s a powerful story,” he interrupts again. “You should be proud that you rose up from such a situation. Now look at you, traveling the world.”

“Dude. Slavery was a hundred and fifty years ago, and my dad is literally a rocket scientist.”

“Yep. I quit my job based on the wisdom of an illiterate, yet wise ex-slave. Like Huckleberry Finn.”

“Wow. You actually find that story more respectable than taking advice from somebody from Cleveland?”

“Yep. Illiterate and wise.”

“You’re breaking my balls. Right?”

“No,” he answers sarcastically.

“You’re angry. I know—”

“WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE?” he screams, drawing the attention of everybody on the train.

That’s a damn good question. Maybe one of these people staring daggers at us knows what’s up ‘cause I sure as hell don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t let him know that, of course.

“I just quit my job!” Matteo yells, frantically throwing his hands around. “Do you know what that job meant to me? Do you know what my family went through to get me that job? I just got on a train with you and left my life back there for
you
. Why?”

I’m just going to open my stupid mouth and pray something comes out that saves me from an ass kicking.

“The only people who make it, are the ones who have to.” Ernest from AFI just popped into my head, his corny platitudes suddenly vomiting from my mouth.

Matteo stares at me like I’m speaking in tongues.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asks in disbelief.

“The only people who make it, are the ones who have to. It’s not the smart ones or the most talented ones. Some of the biggest screw-ups ever known have held the most powerful positions in the world. The only difference between them and us is that they
had
to do it. You can get off the train if you want. Go back to your badge and collecting fifty-dollar fines.”

“Is that what this is all about?” asks Matteo. “Are you getting even with me for taking money away from you? So you’re going to trick me into quitting my job?”

“I’m not that smart.”

“Then who are you?”

“I’m a student. Just a student. At this place called AFI in Los Angeles. At least, I was.”

“The American Film Institute. I know this place.”

“Really?”

“I have an application that has been sitting in a shoebox for months.”

“You’re a filmmaker?” I ask in shock.

What are the freakin’ odds of this?

“No. I only shoot stills. I photograph bands here in Rome, the local music scene.”

He pulls out his iPhone and punches up a batch of photos for me to skim through. They’re the bomb, packed full of powerful, candid backstage and performance shots—grainy, high-speed photos. They remind me of Francis Wolff’s work at Blue Note Records in the 60s—smoky photographs that capture artists at that intimate moment of performance where they seem oblivious to the camera, let alone a venue full of voyeuristic listeners.

Matteo’s lighting is dramatic, powerful and surprisingly appropriate for each photograph, an almost impossible feat for documentary photography. A singer screams into her microphone like a banshee as light shoots up from behind her, silhouetting and setting her hair aglow, like a witch rising from hell. The lighting fits the emotion so perfectly, there’s no way this is just a happy accident.

“I’m confused, did you design these photographs?” I have to ask him.

“
Assolutamente, no! 
I shot with the lighting that was only there. I set nothing,” he says proudly. “I found the light.
Capito
? I didn’t just stand where I am allowed to stand. I don’t just shoot with a flash and pray for the best. I go where I need to go to find the right light, the right composition, and I take it. I don’t wait for it to come to me. I find the light. You understand?”

I understand everything perfectly.

“You need to get off your ass and send in that application.”

“Really?” His attitude changes, and it shows in his body language as he leans in to me, receptive to everything I have to say.

I tell him about AFI, the country’s only conservatory dedicated to advanced film study. Even though the school thoroughly kicked my natural black ass, with it’s intense six disciplines of study: Directing, Producing, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, and Screenwriting, there was no doubt in my mind that it’s where you go when you’re not in the mood to screw around. You enter the institution not as a film student, but as a cinematographer, and that is your conviction.

It isn’t long before I get into the cult of light.

“Bourgeois Pig? What is that?” he asks.

This is it. If I don’t screw this up, this is where I can get on track with making this day the one that changed this poor slob’s life.

“Under the cover of darkness, beneath the giant oaks of nearby Griffith Park, the AFI Cinematography Fellows came together to anoint a cinematographer, your countryman, Vittorio Storaro, as our lord and savior. We see him as our prophet, a jealous prophet who didn’t tolerate any second-guessing of his belief system. So Don Vittorio gave us tangible proof that he was not to be fucked with, five masterpieces of cinematography…”