A Beast in Venice: (Literary Horror set in Venice) (2 page)

He finished his wine, and they returned home.

Back at the apartment, the corgi panted as if he had gone a hundred miles and grinned with accomplishment. Everyone seemed happy. The dogs for the walk, Rose because he hadn’t drowned in a canal, and he was happy to have found a place with Ten gin.

He joined Rose in bed, where they usually read for a while or discussed matters of the world before going to sleep. It was after midnight. She was wearing a selection from the birth-control collection: PJs made of sexy plaid flannel, ingeniously designed to not leave any exposed skin.

She kissed him on the cheek. “Happy birthday.”

Brigham frowned. “Don’t remind me.”

“What’s the matter? Feeling old?”

“I am old. I’m gonna be dead before you know it.”

She removed her glasses. “Oh, what a happy thought,” she said and held up her arms for him to come closer. “Come here.” He slid over and she hugged him. “Stop it. You’re not that old.”

“Do the math.”

“I know the math. I’m right up there with you.”

“Well, I want to live forever.”

The mutt came into the room and lay on the floor next to the bed.

“You can’t live forever,” she said. “People die.”

“How do you accept that? Don’t you know that one of these days you’ll cease to exist?”

“I believe in God. I won’t cease to exist but will live forever in Heaven.”

Brigham held up an index finger to emphasize his point. “There’s where we differ. As you well know, I don’t believe in God. When you’re dead, that’s it. No Heaven, no Hell, and nothing in between.”

“Maybe you should see someone. Whether you believe in God or not, if you sit around thinking about dying, you will drive yourself nuts.”

“I’m already nuts.”

Rose laughed. “True.”

“You’re supposed to say ‘No, honey, you’re not nuts. You’re perfectly normal.’”

“But you’re not normal.”

“Did I ever tell you you were funny?”

She rolled over and put her head on his chest. “All the time. I
am
funny.”

“That’s it. Lights out.”

II

Brigham woke to the aroma of brewing coffee and toasting bread, and to the sizzle of frying eggs. He donned his robe and slippers and went into the kitchen. Rose stood at the stove, the golden morning light shining in her hair.

“There’s the birthday boy.” she said, kissing him as she handed him a cup of coffee and a birthday card.

“Hey, thanks. Where’d you get a card? They don’t do that here.”

Rose stirred milk and sugar into her tea. “I had to look around, but I found one in our favorite bookstore.”

He sipped the coffee and opened the envelope with the card. “Good coffee. It’s always better when you make it.”

“That’s just your imagination. Things always taste better when someone else makes them.”

Brigham held the card at arm’s length to read it without his glasses, then turned the envelope upside down and shook it.

Nothing.

He looked up at her, feigning shock and dismay. “Where’s the cash?”

She laughed. “You’re not ten years old.”

“It’s my birthday. I want cash.”

“Forget it. You’ll get your present later.”

“I want it now,” he said, imitating a whining child.

“Stop it. You’ll get it later.”

He put the card and envelope on the table. “Sounds dirty.”

“You never know.”

Brigham smiled, rubbing his hands together.

“So, what do you want to do today?” Rose asked.

“I dunno, but I have my Italian lesson this morning.”

She wrinkled her brow. “Oh, that’s right.”

“We should have canceled it for today,” he said, hoping she would take the hint, it being his birthday and all.

“Too late now. You have to go. Have you done your homework?”

He loudly slurped his coffee and took a seat at the kitchen table. “Of course not.”

Rose slowly shook her head as she plated the eggs and toast. “How do you expect to learn Italian if you don’t do your homework?” she asked, setting his breakfast in front of him.

He leaned over the plate. “Looks and smells good. I’m hungry.” He stabbed the yolk of the egg with a corner of the toast. “I was hoping it would just be absorbed into my brain. Osmosis, they call it.”

Rose blinked at him in a way that told him she was not amused. “Then why are we paying a tutor?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or do you want an answer?” Brigham said through a mouthful of egg and toast. “I give up.”

BRIGHAM MET HIS ITALIAN TUTOR at a café in Campo Santa Margherita. He was embarrassed about not speaking much Italian, but the language was unduly complicated, he was lazy, and he was also well past the age at which a person easily learned a foreign tongue. He wasn’t going to learn it without some major frickin’ help, so Rose had hired a tutor.

They met at the café for the lesson since the tutor refused to come to their apartment. Brigham hated that, because the café was often hot, noisy, and crowded, and the beer and food distracted him. But he did it anyway. He often found it easier to give in than to argue. Despite having been a lawyer, and having litigated many cases, he hated conflict.

“Ciao, Brigham,” the tutor said. “
Come stai, oggi
?”

“
Bene
,” Brigham responded. “
E tu
?”

“
Bene
.” That pretty much shot his wad on Italian–”Hi, how are you today? Good, and you? Good.” Except, of course, to be able to ask a bartender whether he spoke English, which he usually did in English, anyway. Yet, after all this time in Venice, all he could say in Italian was, “Hello, how are you today?” Bloody genius.

The tutor, a middle-aged man with scraggly salt-and-pepper hair and shabby clothes, stood outside the café smoking, looking like the nutty goddamn professor.

Brigham, in no hurry, didn’t mind chatting with him for a few minutes. He preferred putting walnut shells in his eyes to conjugating frickin’ verbs for two hours. Why Rose thought he had a two-hour attention span was never quite clear to him.

“How’s your painting going?” the tutor asked. At least he had the decency to speak English.

“Okay. I’m having an exhibition at this café soon.”

The tutor blew smoke out his nose. “Oh, nice. You must be very happy they’re giving you a show.”

Brigham laughed. “You don’t understand how it works in this country. Nobody gives you a show. This café, for example, displays exhibitions all the time. You go in, tell them you want an exhibition, get on the calendar, and pay two hundred and fifty euros. I essentially rent the space.”

“Ah. How long will it be here?”

Brigham moved upwind to avoid the stench of the cigarette. “Three weeks.”

“I can’t wait to see it.”

Sure. He knew that the tutor liked only realistic art, and Brigham did only abstract paintings. He was ashamed to have him see them.

From behind them came a voice. “I couldn’t help overhearing that you’re an American and a painter.” Brigham turned. A man about sixty-five, sitting at one of the tables outside the café, gazed at Brigham with small wet eyes, a pleasant face, and an easy manner. A red silk pocket square billowed out from the finely-tailored blue suit.

“Yes,” Brigham said, “that’s right.”

The man introduced himself as Charles Raymond, an American who has been living in Venice for many years. “Maybe I could see your work sometime.” 

“That would be great. Give me your number and we’ll set up a time.”

Charles handed him a business card. “By the way, I’m having a few people over tonight. I know it’s short notice, but perhaps you could stop by. It’s a very interesting group.”

“Sounds good. I’ll check with my wife, because it happens to be my birthday. She may have something planned.”

Charles smiled. “Well, happy birthday. Make it if you can, and your wife is invited, too, of course.”

Brigham tucked the card away. “Thanks. I’ll try.”

When the tutor had finished trying to kill himself and those around him with cigarette smoke, they went into the bar to start the lesson. It is important in life for a man to be known at a good drinking establishment or, lacking a good one, a mediocre one would do. It didn’t matter, so long as they knew you when you went in, had cold beer, and at least acted as though they liked you. This café fit that order. The bartenders were friendly, laughed at his jokes (when they understood them), and loved his English lessons, which were far more colorful than what they might pick up in school. When he came through the door, they all shouted, “
Ciao
, Bree-gam!” like Norm on frikin'
Cheers
. Ah, to be liked, if only for being a source of revenue.

He also liked this bar because they had the best beer in Venice on tap, the coldest bottled beer in the city, and good sandwiches and other light fare.

The waiter met him inside the door. “
Ciao!
Happy birthday!”

“Oh, Christ. Rose told you.”

“Yes, she told us.”

Brigham and the tutor ordered coffee, then sank into the large, comfortable chairs in the back of the café and spread their papers on a table.

The tutor handed Brigham a sheet with the day’s dialogue on it. “We learn today how to ask for directions.”

Brigham scanned the paper. Nothing he understood.

“How you ask directions in America?”

Brigham shifted his attention from the paper to the tutor. “I don’t know.”

The tutor blinked. “You don’t know? What you mean you don’t know?”

The waiter placed their coffees in front of them.

“I mean,” Brigham said, “I don’t know. Where I come from, men don’t ask for directions.”

The tutor sipped his espresso. “But, what if you are lost?”

“We drive around until we find it.”

“But—”

“Or, if there’s a woman in the car, until she gets out and asks directions. But no man is going to ask for directions.”

“Interesting. Well, here we ask directions, and that is the topic of today’s lesson.”

Brigham finished the lesson with a burning thirst and went to the bar. “I’ll have one of them over-priced beers. The hefeweizen.”

The waiter delivered a bottle and a glass containing a wedge of lemon. Brigham removed the fruit (What barbarian started putting fruit in beer?) and filled the glass.

The beer, cold and delicious, tasted as if all the angels of Heaven, the saints, both major and minor, and all the hosts and minions of the Lord God Almighty were singing in chorus together to quench his thirst and to save his already-lost immortal soul. He hoped there was beer in Hell.

He sat at an outside table, where he watched the parade of those whom fate had dealt the good fortune to be in this place at this time. It reminded him of Plato’s allegory of the cave. These were not shadows, however, or at least they did not appear as shadows, but were actual people, all flesh and blood and real. They marched past all day and half the night. Tourists, locals, beggars, thieves, people normal and plain, and those not so normal or plain. Two-legged, upright-walking creatures of all kinds in a place where looking exotic was the norm.

One particularly stupid-looking girl wore her over-sized painter’s pants hanging down below her fat ass, and had her hair cut such that parts of it were long, and other parts shaved close the scalp, all arranged in an asymmetrical manner. She had piercings all over her face, wore raggedy clothes, and appeared overall most idiotic. Her parents must be right proud. Perhaps he should have a talk with her. No, if she were inclined to listen to anyone, she would not dress that way in the first place. His own son, now a lawyer, had gone through such a phase. He had come home one day with a wide swath shaved down the middle of his head and certainly had not been interested in fatherly advice on the subject.

Brigham went in to pay for the beer. “Where’s my present?”

The waiter squinted. “What?”

“It’s my birthday. Where’s my present?”

“What?”

“My
regalo
. It’s my
compleanno
, and I want my bloody
regalo
.”

“
Non ho capito
.”

He pointed to the bar. “You
capito
just fine. Now hand it over.”

The waiter laughed. “Ah, Bree-gam, you a funny guy.”

“Yeah, that’s me, just a funny old man.” He left empty-handed. They didn’t even spot him the fucking beer. 

ALTHOUGH HE HAD DECIDED AGAINST telling Rose about the disappearing man, the thought still bothered him. Uncertain whether it had been a byproduct of good gin or whether he actually saw a man vanish into the bricks, he went to Saint Mark’s Square to talk to his friend Mauro the Gondolier. If anyone would know about such things it would be Mauro, or he would know someone who did. 

Mauro stood near his station with a gaggle of other gondoliers.

“Can you tell me how to get to Saint Mark’s?” Brigham said to the pack.

“Brig!” Mauro shouted.

They shook hands, and Brigham did likewise with a couple of other gondoliers he knew. Mauro was taller than most of his colleagues, wore glasses with the brightly colored frames Italians are fond of, and had a deep tan and a highly gelled flattop, which Brigham referred to as a “cop haircut,” all of which coordinated well with his black-and-white-striped gondolier’s shirt.

“Making a living?” Brigham asked.

Mauro nodded. “We’re busy today.”

Crowds celebrating Carnevale filled Saint Mark’s Square. A couple passed them, dressed as soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars, complete with tall fur hats, coats with many golden buttons, and swords. A woman stood nearby dressed as a swamp, cattails and all, while others simply wore masks or funny hats. Large dragons paraded around the square, roaring and spitting fire. The aroma of frying dough and roasting nuts filled the air. Two or three gondoliers at a time made pitches to potential fares.