Empire of Light (30 page)

I guess the wrap breakfast is off.

After wrapping out the camera and the actors, we’re ready to hit the road. Even though the generator and the cargo area are toast, the cab was untouched and the van is completely drivable.

“Okay. We need to fill the gas tank up and return it to the lot. Who’s riding with me in the van?” Giacomo asks, still seething with anger.

Quiet.

Nobody is eager to ride with all that anger, cramped inside a van that reeks of electrical fire.

“I’ll ride with you,” I say.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Giacomo and I sit in silence from the piazza to the gas station and back to the TV studio where the van is deftly snuck back on the lot.

“Dude. I hope I don’t get you fired,” I say.

“It’s been weeks since the van was officially checked out. It might be weeks before they use it again. Hopefully the trail will be cold by the time they notice it,” he replies grimly.

Giacomo drops me off at the hotel, and after a chilly good-bye, he speeds away.

I haven’t slept since Rome.

I walk up to the front desk and ask a question I already know the answer to.

“Has anybody dropped off a package for me, a vintage camera?”

“No. Sorry,” says the desk clerk.

And here ends my first twenty-four hours in Naples.

Screw this town.

I barely get through the door before I collapse on the bed with the intention of just resting my eyes for a second before snatching up a shower. The next thing I know, the sun is already low in the west sky, and I’ve slept through the day in my clothes, smokey from fire and funky from chasing criminals down alleys.

I also wake up with an anxiety stomachache.

There are no new Caravaggios to be found.

I killed a van.

My oldest friend hates me.

I still ache from yesterdays beat-down.

I want my damn magic camera back.

What does a brotha have to do to get some karma in this joint?

The hotel phone rings and I hesitantly pick it up.

“
Pronto
?” I ask, hoping it’s news about my camera.

“
Ciao
punk,” says Giacomo.

He called me a
punk
. This is actually a good sign.

I invite him up and he joins me for a late lunch in my room, courtesy of the hotel and the Shadow Don.

Giacomo and I make small talk about my trek, thus far. I leave out the trippy parts. Neither of us would be in the mood for that kind of conversation.

After a few minutes, Giacomo drops the bomb on me.

“They know I burned the van. At work. Everybody knows it was burned and they know it was me,” Giacomo says sadly.

“Shit! How did they find out? Did somebody drop dime?”

“Yep.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

“You!”

“Yep.”

“You confessed? What the hell? Were you visited by three ghosts or something?”

“You remember how I insisted that we fill the gas tank before returning the van? I paid for the gas with my credit card and I left the receipt on the seat.”

“Really,” I say, feeling the corners of my mouth trying to curl up into a smile.

“Yep. I left documented evidence, in a burned van, which included my name, my signature and a damn time stamp and date. I might as well have left a picture on the seat of myself dousing the stupid thing in gasoline.”

I can’t help it.

I laugh.

Hard.

So does Giacomo.

I think of the Harlem Renaissance scribe, Langston Hughes, and his work,
Laughing to Keep From Crying.

“Shit!” I say as I suddenly take note of the time. The guy should be at work now. “They fired you?”

“Nope. My boss chastised me and then he called me a true Napolitano.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he can’t trust me anymore,” Giacomo said with a smile.

I get the vibe that Giacomo is actually cool with this.

“He suspended me for a week with no pay. Screw it. I wanted that time off to edit anyway.”

Giacomo. This guy truly always lands on his feet.

“So. You and I? We’re good?” I ask hopefully.

“As good as we’ve always been, Jason,” he says cracking open a hard boiled egg.

I don’t know how to take that.

“You know those Zax creatures in the book?” he says. “The drawings of those things used to freak me out when I was a kid.”

“Shit. All those Dr. Seuss characters were kind of creepy.”

“You remember
Thing One
and
Thing Two
?” he asks with a smile.

“Those two twin freaks from
The Cat In The Hat
? How can anybody forget ‘em?”

“I used to have a recurring dream about this demon that looked like those things. With that wild, long red hair and shit. The dream always took place in my bedroom, at night and you were there sleeping over. You’d always be dead asleep in the other twin bed when the demon would come out from under my bed. He’d grab at my feet and hands. And as much as I screamed, you would never wake up and help me. Screaming for my life. Nothing.”

Shit. I see where this is going. This is all about how he can’t rely on me worth a good goddamn.

“I had this dream for months,” he continues. “It terrorized me. Then one night, the dream changed. The demon gave up trying to kill me and he turned his attention to you. I screamed,
Jason!
over and over again, but you wouldn’t wake up. And that was the last straw. I snapped. I jumped out of bed, and I attacked it. I punched it. I bit at it. I tore at it. I lit that sucker up. I had finally destroyed my demon, but only when it threatened you,” he says, pointing a finger at me.

“Really,” I say in a quiet shock. I didn’t see that coming.

“I never had that dream again. It was a trip.”

All this time I thought he didn’t give a damn about me when we were kids. We sit in silence for a bit, until Giacomo breaks it suddenly and changes the subject in the process.

“So. I looked at the footage. I got everything I needed, man. I got everything. You got me light. You’re damn good.”

I’m floored. I want to tell him how much having him in my life has meant to me, but I can only manage to utter monosyllabically.

“Thanks.”

“Nope. Thank
you
, my brother.”

And with that, Giacomo guzzles what’s left of his coffee and stands up.

“Giacomo,” I say as he opens the door. “Thanks for everything. For all of this. I wouldn’t be here without you. And by
here
I don’t mean Napoli. Know what I mean?”

“Fag,” he says as he begins to walk down the hall.

“And sorry again about the fire,” I say.

“Fire. Damn thing either consumes or purifies,” he yells back at me.

“Well. I certainly did purify the van last night, huh?”

“Yes, Jason, you did,” he says walking into the elevator. “You purified the hell out of it.”

***

My God, Naples really is a beautiful city after all.

I caught a cab to this affluent little neighborhood nestled above Naples called, Posillipo. The suburb’s claim to fame is this serene park with a ballistic bird’s eye view of the city and bay. From up here, you’d never think that this was the same city that took a chunk out of my ass yesterday. It’s a vantage point that allows me to finally witness the peaceful and breathtaking elegance of Naples. It’s like admiring a shark behind three feet of acrylic glass.

After firing off a few panoramic shots with my point ‘n’ shoot, I wander the park grounds in an attempt to recapture my vacation. It’s the first quiet day I’ve had since I stepped foot in
ye olde world
, and I’m embracing it. I had packed my David Sederis book for the trip back, but I’m going to start that joint right now. The next comfy bench I find I’m going to park my butt down, read and chill.

Of course, those last two Caravaggio paintings are still eating away at me. Should I jet up to Spain to see
Flagellation
? I certainly have the dough for it. Who in the hell is the private owner of
Ursula
? And the Brownie camera… Man. Edge is gonna kick my butt for losing that thing. Well, all that drama is going to have to marinate because today I need some straight up peace.

“Jason? Jason Tisse!” I suddenly hear a female disembodied voice shout.

It’s surreal to hear my name bellowed in an area so far from home; especially here in Posillipo, where I’d bet my right arm that I don’t know a soul. My head spins wildly as I scan the scenery in an attempt to zero in on the source of this current mind-fucking.

“Jason! Down here!”

Finally, I fix my sight upon a babe standing at the bottom of a set of tree-lined stairs that lead to the park’s trail.

Holy shit! “Dani Gruber?”

The last time I saw this girl was outside the Bougeious Pig, speeding away with that jerk Maal. Between you and me, I had daydreamed about running into her here in Italy, but what were the odds of that happening? Not to mention the fact that AFI is in winter session right now. What the hell is she doing here?

Time seems to slow down to a trickle as I descend the wood slat staircase with a stupid slack-jawed look on my face.

She looks so hot, with her straight brown hair and huge Manga eyes. This girl wasn’t so much born as she was inked, drawn by some extremely lonely Japanese comic book artist, subsisting on a diet of instant noodles and soda pop. His only constant sex partner is whatever cartoon babe that spills out of his head and splashes onto the page, usually a heroic sex kitten who, if she were real, wouldn’t have anything to do with his Buddy-Holly-looking ass. Dani is his masterpiece, an Italian special-ops vixen, drawn on a particularly lonesome Saturday night in Tokyo.

God bless ya, kid.

She crosses her arms and watches me descend the stairs with a smirk on her face. Her coolness invoking Clarke Gable waiting at the bottom of Tara’s massive staircase for Scarlet O’Hara. I feel like a little bitch.

“What are you doing here?” she asks after giving me a big hug.

“I’m on vacation and…” I go blank. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe that I’m halfway around the world and—”

“I know!” she interrupts with laughter. “I just happen to be home for the week to deal with my visa. How long have you been here?”

“Well, I landed in Paris about seven days ago. Then I hit Rome and now here. Day after tomorrow I’m in the wind, back to Cleveland.”

“Look at you,” she says giving me the once over, her eye holding a bit on my yellow Old Navy jacket. “I’ve been wondering about you.”

“Really?”

“Well when you didn’t show up for the second year—”

“Wait,” I cut her off. “You noticed I didn’t come back?”

“Certo! You know you made quite an impression on me,” she says with a fat grin on her face.

Ugh. I need to change this subject. Last thing I want to do is relive getting shot down by the pilot who fired upon me. “So is this your hood? It’s straight up baller.”

“
Miei genitori.
My parents do pretty well for themselves. Not a lot of tourists find this place. You here by yourself?

“Yep. By my lonesome.”

“You were here for the vista, right?”

“Ah. yeah. Gorgeous.”

“
Allora,
how would you like to see the view from the other side of the bay? It’s an even more spectacular sight. Then I’ll treat you to lunch.”

This city is beginning to grow on me. I can’t say yes fast enough; my head nodding like a bobble head mounted on a jalopy’s dashboard.

She spins on her heels and heads towards the parking lot, her shimmering hair almost swatting me in the face. As she walks away I feel myself floating behind her like Fred Flintstone in love, levitated four feet off the ground and toes twinkling.

Of course I can’t help but check out her tight little ass, nicely covered in black tights and a light short dress that breezily shows off her curves. It’s like it was woven from dragon’s breath fog.

But my staring backfires. She suddenly turns to face me, as if she’s just remembered to ask me a question, and catches me staring.

“Aaah!” she laughs.
“Sei birichino!”

Naughty,
she calls me. I can’t believe Dani just caught me staring at her ass. Even worse, she’s calling me on it. What the hell? Who does that?