The Reluctant Tuscan (24 page)

“Che è questa cosa?”
an elderly gentleman asked. What's this? He handed me the half a copper heart that Signor Mazzetti had made for us.

I took it and thanked him. It had gotten bent in the impact, and I very carefully straightened it. It seemed like such a long time ago when Nancy and I had laughed and loved each other so much that a man—another total stranger—made us this copper heart I was now holding.

I suddenly felt empty and exhausted. I felt my knees buckle and a set of hands latch on to my arm, as the elderly gentleman caught me. He called out for help. The carabiniere came running over and grabbed me. I was barely able to put one foot in front of the other while he guided me over to his patrol car and helped me into the passenger side. I thanked him, and as I collapsed into the seat, I felt something hard and metallic under my butt. I looked down and realized that he had sat me down on his machine gun.

I
dozed off during the ambulance ride and dreamed of rain. A hard rain, hot and torrential, that beat down with such fury, it whipped the cypress trees around as if they were feathers and turned the unplanted farmland into vast fields of shoe-sucking ooze. Umberto suddenly appeared. He was talking to a man who looked like my grandfather and somebody asked me if I wanted soup.

I felt my shoulder being shaken and I woke up to see us pulling up the driveway of the Ospedale Generale di Versillia. As if triggered by being near a hospital, my various body parts started reporting in. My nose was no longer bleeding, but I couldn't turn my head more than fifteen degrees without a sharp pain that didn't feel like it was going away anytime soon. That, coupled with a soreness in my back that made me wince as I got out of the ambulance, seemed like the classic symptoms of whiplash, which I had always thought was some fake malady invented by an evil cabal of chiropractors and personal-injury lawyers. My hearing had started to return, but I was still a little deaf, for as I thanked the paramedics for the ride, I could tell that my voice was coming out a lot louder than I intended.

I trudged up the stairs of the hospital under a cloudless sky that was starting to brighten by the first rays of dawn. The lobby was empty and I looked around for either a person or a sign that could tell me where to go. Finding neither, I wandered down a series of long, dimly lit corridors that smelled of stale cigarettes, mercurochrome, and accumulated layers of disinfectant.

The personal items I had taken out of the car, CD case, flashlight, sunglasses, and the half a copper heart, kept slipping out of my hands, and whenever I tried to rearrange how I was holding them, I managed to drop one or more of them. I had no idea where I was going, or even what ward I was passing through, since the only indications that I was moving from one unit to another were the small carved-out altars dedicated to the saint of that particular sickness or malady.

It felt as if I had been walking for miles when a small, dark-skinned Moroccan man in hospital greens found me. He seemed to know who I was, and without a word he led me through another maze of corridors until we reached a waiting room holding a few scattered people, some bandaged and some waiting to be. He guided me past an examining room where an indifferent nurse was wiping dried blood off the head of a semiconscious man. He asked her where the
Americana
was and she pointed.

We continued down the corridor until we got to the only room with a light on. I peeked in and saw Nancy lying on a cranked-up hospital bed. She was wearing a dressing gown and her arm, held out to her side by an elaborate brace, was encased in a formidable plaster cast.

“Oh, my God,” I said as I entered.

“It's broken,” she said, sitting up with great difficulty. “I'm not going to be able to sculpt.”

“It's okay.”

Her lips started trembling. “I don't know how I'm going to finish that piece.”

“Let's not worry about that.” I held her as delicately as I could, grateful that she no longer seemed disoriented. “How's your head?”

“I'm still a little dizzy. And I'm so nauseous.”

“Did they give you anything?”

“Just something for the pain.”

“Where's the damn doctor? What'd he—”

“I just saw him. He wants to keep me here tonight.”

“Okay.”

“You go home.”

“No. No way.” I spotted an easy chair and dragged it over to her bedside. “I'm staying.”

“How's your nose?”

“It's not broken, but I'll probably be sounding like Elmer Fudd for a while,” I said in an exaggerated cartoon voice.

She smiled and I smiled back, even though the change of expression hurt my face.

“Go home,” she said. “You'll be a lot more—”

“I'm not going anywhere, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Try and get some rest,” I said. “I'll be fine.”

She laid her head back down and closed her eyes. I listened to the rhythm of her breathing, and after a few minutes I sensed she was falling asleep. I was about to do the same, when I spotted a figure in hospital greens passing by our door. I quietly rose and rushed after him.

“Scusi, Dottore, scusi,”
I stage-whispered, stopping him in his tracks.

I caught up with him and asked if he was the one who had examined Nancy. When he told me he was, I asked him about her condition. He blew a blizzard of Italian at me until I was able to implore,
“Lentamente, per favore, lentamente,”
“Slowly, please, slowly.” Speaking to me as if I were a refugee from special ed, he explained that her X rays showed a fracture in the upper arm. Her body had been twisted by the impact of the collision, and when the air bag burst, it slammed her shoulder into the car's window post. A more serious problem, he went on, was the indication of a shoulder separation in that arm. He had scheduled an orthopedic surgeon to come in and look at her tomorrow. I asked him about her headache, and he said that that, along with her nausea and dizziness, were the usual symptoms of a grade-one concussion. They were going to monitor her overnight and give her an MRI first thing in the morning.

 

 

I rigged up
a little bed on the easy chair, using a folding chair for my feet and Nancy's balled-up sweater for a pillow. I turned off the light and tried to fall asleep, but as exhausted as I was, I couldn't doze off.

I couldn't find anything to read, so I sat up, crossed my legs, and thought I'd try to meditate, since that stupid bird that went
Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo
every minute of the day wasn't around to distract me. I took in some deep breaths and felt my heart rate slow. The room was quiet and my inhalations fell into lockstep with Nancy's soft breathing and the steady pull of a respirator from somewhere down the hall.

But I was still so revved up from the accident, my mind kept chattering away and no amount of
ujjâya
breathing would settle it down. After a few more futile attempts I decided that maybe the problem was my mantra. I had been using
Om
, which was what
Meditation for Morons
had suggested. But
Om
is just so been there/done that. I mean, it's so five minutes ago, it's like a cliché, so no wonder I couldn't take it seriously.

I decided that this might be a good time to search for a new mantra. So I began experimenting with some different sounds. I closed my eyes, and in a quiet voice not to disturb Nancy, I chanted such soothing sounds as “Reeeee . . .” “Baaaaa . . .” and “Neeee.” But my voice kept coming out like Elmer Fudd, and it was making me laugh. I was just about to concede that some people, like me, were just too immature for the world of metaphysics, when I suddenly came up with “Laaaaaaa.”

Even through my pinched nose, chanting “Laaaaaa” seemed fraught with promise. I said it over and over, hoping the power of “Laaaaa” would carry me off to a spiritual nirvana so serene that for once in my life my brain would stop jumping around like a circus monkey on angel dust.

“Laaaa.”

“Laaaaaa.”

“Laaaaaa—aaaahhhh . . .”

I started playing with it, finding variations. I saw colors as I pictured the letters: EL and AY.

Then I realized my new mantra was L.A.

All tranquility was shattered as my mind flooded with images of agents and managers and personal trainers and stretch limos. My eyes popped open and I felt like screaming, when I heard a voice.

“Yo, Dog, whassup?”

I looked up and Charylie was standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” I said. “I'm not writing about you.”

“Well, you should be,” she said, sashaying into the room. “I seen what you was writing and, man, it sucks.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Charylie struck a heroic pose and pointed an imaginary pistol at me. “ ‘He ripped back the trigger of his Glock and emptied the whole clip into the serial killer's face.' Yo, that is pure shit!”

“I'm just trying to sell a script, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, you're all that and a bag of chips.”

“Don't you have someplace else to be? Aren't you, like, late for a drive-by shooting or something?

“Have you ever fired a Glock?” she said, sitting on the edge of Nancy's bed. “Do you even know what a Glock is?”

“Hemingway never fought a bull, but it didn't keep him from writing about it.”

“Well, you ain't no Hemingway, sucka, so you better stick to writin' what you know.”

“Any other pearls of wisdom?”

“Yeah, G, word up. This lady here loves you, and if she ever walks out on you, you're life's goin' straight down the crapper.”

“Okay, on that we agree.” I nodded. “Nancy and I love each other, that's a given. . . .”

“That's a given?” She made a face. “Listen to you, man, you sound like some science teacher. Where's your feelings? Where's your passion?”

“I got passion.”

“Oh, yeah, I seen how you was slobbering over that little hottie that works for your agent,” she said, giving me that side-to-side chicken neck thing black girls do. “I'll bet that bitch got tan lines—”

“All right, that's it! Get outta my head, will ya!” I turned away. “Go!”

“Oh, save the drama for your mama, chump, and listen up. I'm tryin' to tell you what you better do before it's too late!”

That got my attention.

“You got to take a clue from these here Italians. Now, these motherfuckers really know how to open up their hearts and let their feelings out.”

“I know. These people'll cry over the opening of an envelope. Well, I can't do that, it's not me.”

“That's 'cause you're too busy trying to be cool, fool. Or you're too scared you're gonna make a mistake. Well, that's messed up, man. You got to try to be more Italian, 'cause when they feel something, they go for it!”

“Go for it. Just that simple.”

“I ain't sayin' it's simple, Dog. We all afraid of some shit or another and it's that fear that chases away our feelings.”

Charylie was right. The moment she said those words, I instantly understood why I felt such hostility toward the Italians. I had lived my whole life within a narrow band of emotions. I never cried, I rarely screamed, and I didn't even laugh that loud. Whenever I came up against the vast range of their feelings and the unfiltered intensity of their emotions, it made me squirm. All the while, I wasn't even aware of how much I envied their ability to participate in their own lives. It took a near-death experience for me to feel even a tiny fraction of what the average Italian experiences every time he hugs his mamma, gazes at a sunset, or tickles a baby.

Her words were the single stone that started the avalanche. My chin began to tremble and there was a pinprick of tears behind my eyes. I was connecting with my inner Italian, that deeply buried part of each of us that craves to savor life to its fullest.

“You got to be showin' her how you feel, boo,” she said. “And not just with talk and promises. You got to do something big! And if that don't work, do something bigger, until she knows she's the most important thing in your life. You do that and you'll be together forever!”

“You're right,” I said. What she was telling me was so simple and obvious, it made me gasp that I hadn't already known it. “You're absolutely right.”

“Who are you talking to?” Nancy said in a voice thick with sleep.

“Uh, I was . . . hey, how're you feeling?”

“Thirsty.”

“Hang on.” I reached over to the nightstand and filled a glass with water from the carafe. She took it with her good hand and gulped it down, taking big gasps of breath between swallows.

“I love you!” I emphatically declared. “I really, really love you!”

“Oh—kay,” she said looking at me, slightly frightened, as she put her glass down.

“And I don't want to ever be apart from you anymore.” My words were just tumbling out and I had no idea what I was going to say. “I've been stupid and selfish and immature, and I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I want to sell our house in Brentwood and live here in Italy with you. Forever!”

“You mean that?”

“I want us to start over. With a clean slate. Have a whole new beginning with a brand-new life!”

“I want that too.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course! What do you think I've been talking about?”

I went to hug her, as best as I could with her arm in a cast. She grimaced and clutched her stomach.