At night Alex and I went to our first Italian discotechque. Heaven is a place called "Ciak." Surely the religious influence in Italy during the Renaissanceand before was due to the proliferation of angels in Rome. Most of them must have been in this nightclub. I have never seen such an abundance of oung beautiful women in one place. Long black curly hair, short bobbed dark hair, everyone from my most erotic fantasies and warmest daydreams was in attendance. I met a young girl called "Maraella" I think. Suffice it to say that she felt my intensity and passion for Italian women as we danced in the middle of the nightclub. We stayed until 3:30 or so, and then made our way home in a taxicab.
On Sunday we got up at 1:00 pm and had lunch. Then we met with Christoforo and Lorenzo, the son and his friend of Marta, the woman in whose hotel we were staying. The had been drafted as our guides to the soccer match between Lazio and Bari that day. Christoforo ran all about like he was possessed by the devils in Dante's Inferno, looking for tickets while we waiting for the bus. After he returned he fidgetted as we waited and waited but no bus came. Finally, my father suggested that we take a taxi instead. The taxi driver wouldn't take all five of us at once, so we were forced to take two taxis. As we drove there, Alex and I, who rode with Lorenzo discussed it over and decided we should pay for the fare rather than asking our father. Lorenzo, who had spent some time in America depsite being only fifteen, was extremely relieved that we were going to pay for the taxi.
When we got out we walked to the gates and then the excitement began. Lorenzo stayed with us while Christoforo found another young boy and we were off! We raced through the street beside the stadium to the ticket vendors. It appeared that there were no more tickets left and so we watched as Christoforo bargained with an aryan youth over six tickets. For some reason we purchased each ticket separately and when that was done, before we had a even a moment to catch our breaths, off we were again! Back in the same direction we ran. My laces cam undone on one of my boots and Alex ran by me with a mock howl.
When we got to the entrance gates, Christoforo ushered us in. The second stage of the gate required us to open up our bags and the man there removed the cap off my water bottle before allowing us to proceed. Making sure that if I spiked it with something that I would finish it early in the game? Then we hustled up the stairs two levels to a wall of people overlooking the stadium. We were on the long end.
For the entire first half we stood there behind several rows of people. Old timers with "SS Lazio" imprinted on their scarves gasped in disbelief at any call made against the home team and one pressed his ear to a radio as he listened to the play-by-play. One young man behind me offered his own commentary which I understood not a bit. Italians have a passion for football unlike anything I have seen outside Brazil.
After halftime we climbed up more stairs through people sitting on the steps, back to our seats in the back row of the stadium. It was so crowded and in such pandemonium that we just sat in the general vicinity of our seat assignments. At one point Alex had the camcorder trained on the corner kick at the other end of the field and the men behind us grew excited with cries of "zuma! zuma!" as he zoomed in on the action. The game ended in a scoreless draw so we never got to see either group of fans explode into happiness or disappointment.
Today we went to the Colliseum. It was, of course, magnificent, but no more than anything ekse I've seen here in Rome. Much of the beauty here is muted since everything is so incredible. I wonder if it is the same with the women, if after time had passed I would become desensitized to the long legs and beautiful breasts here. What a wonderful sense of unfeeling that could be.
I think, as I spend more time here in Italy, that the initial appeal has to be the pace of life here. It has been too long since I felt relaxed enough that I didn't notice my own mortality for even a moment. Of all places, Rome, with all the young lovely women, I would imagine that I would feel the strands of my youth fading away to reveal maturity, responsibility, and adulthood. But of all places it is Rome, with an incredible timelessness and antiquity, where I can feel the pace of life slowing down to the point where I have been able to enjoy the moment like I have not been able to in such a long, long time. As I write this my hear pounds with joy because I can feel my youth flowing back into me, me at 24 years of age, without children, a mortgage, without anything to drag me down, trapped underneath a glass-bottom boat, pouding with all my might as I suck water into my collapsing lungs. But here in Rome I am free, at least for a moment, which I can enjoy for a few more.
Posted by Chris Dawson |
