Sword and Sandal

by Roland Graeme

  Their reasoning seemed to be that if they were going to go to the trouble and expense of importing an American bodybuilder, instead of giving the part to an Italian actor, then they might as well make sure everybody knew they’d hired an American. After Daniel nodded to me, I went along with it. I knew I couldn’t use the same pseudonym I’d used in my “adult film” work. We brainstormed, discussing a few possibilities. One of the men started scribbling on a notepad, playing around with phonetic variants of my first and last names. He finally came up with “Gene Dagaust,” which I supposed I could live with for the duration of one film shoot. Little did I know I’d be stuck with it—for the rest of my professional life!

  The Italians were polite and they were smooth talkers, but Eric’s relative, Daniel, was a match for them. Daniel had a built-in, infallible bullshit detector, and he knew how to drive a hard bargain. He went through the contracts we were offered, provision by provision, and he won us a few concessions. For example, he got the studio’s representatives to agree that Eric and I would be paid our living expenses while we were in Italy, up to a certain limit, and that in the event the film wasn’t actually completed, or it wasn’t released, we would still be paid what Daniel called a “kill fee” to compensate us for our time and trouble. He also insisted that if we were subsequently expected to make personal appearances or otherwise help to publicize the film in any way, we’d be reimbursed for that, too. He and the Italians argued back and forth at great length, debating some of the fine points, but they did so amiably enough. I got the impression that they were accustomed to this sort of haggling, and they actually enjoyed it.

  Finally, we sat back and relaxed while a secretary busied herself typing out copies of the revised contracts, on the portable typewriter she’d brought with her.

  “Oh, there’s just one other thing,” one of the Italians said, while we were waiting. “This movie is going to require a lot of horseback riding. Are you a good rider, Mr. Streiff?”

  “Who, me?” Eric asked. He hesitated for no more than a split-second. “Why … I’d say I was average. Maybe a little above average.” Daniel must’ve been a good poker player, because he didn’t react visibly to this revelation, which no doubt took him as much by surprise as it did me.

  “Excellent. And you, Mr. D’Agostino? Are you also comfortable on top of a horse?”

  Before I could speak, I felt Eric’s foot, giving me a swift kick on the shin under the table.

  “You can take my word for it, Gino is an even better rider than I am,” Eric said, lying through his teeth, and doing so just as naturally as breathing. Now our “agent,” Daniel, did look at me, arching his eyebrows quizzically just a millimeter or so.

  “Wonderful! I told my employers that all of you Americans practically grow up on horseback. Like centaurs! I’m not certain they believed me.” Our Italian friend was beaming with delight.

  “Well, it’s true,” Eric assured the man, with a bland smile. “Hell, my ass has been practically glued to a saddle since I was a little boy. And so has Gino’s. We love to ride. Why, we get antsy if we have to go for more than a day or two without a horse under us.”

  I was in fact starting to get antsy at that very moment, because I couldn’t believe how glibly Eric was prevaricating.

  We signed our contracts, on the dotted lines. I felt rather grown-up and successful, like a real businessman. This wasn’t just another agreement to participate in a bodybuilding competition. It was the big time. It was the movie industry!

  Afterward, when Eric and I were alone, I confronted him.

  “I’ve never been on a horse in my life,” I told him.

  “Neither have I,” he confessed. “Except a painted wooden horse on a merry-go-round, when I was a kid.”

  “Then why’d you lie about it?”

  “So we’d get hired. I didn’t come this far to let the deal hit some last-minute snag. If the guy had asked me if I could flap my arms and fly through the air, I’d have lied through my teeth about that, too, and told him I can fly like a bird or a plane—just like Superman.”

  “Okay, so now we’re hired. What’re they going to do when we show up in Italy and they find out we don’t know the ass end of a horse from its front end? That we can’t ride at all?”

  “It can’t be that difficult. We’re going to have to learn how before we leave—that’s all.”

  And learn we did. Eric located a riding stable on Long Island. We commuted there every day for two weeks, and we spent hours on horseback. We both fell off our mounts, more than once, and we both ended up with saddle sores. Furthermore, the money we had to shell out for these riding lessons cut into the fees we were going to be paid for our acting work—not a nickel of which we’d seen yet. Talk about making sacrifices for one’s art!

  But by the time we had to board our plane for Italy, we could bluff it out and pass for reasonably experienced horsemen. Better yet, the blisters on our butts had healed, so we could sit down comfortably again, in our plane seats.

  We left Eric’s brother in law, Daniel, back home. His parting advice to us was that if anybody at the studio tried to screw us—he meant in the nonsexual, business sense—or wriggle out of any of the terms in our contracts, we should call him long-distance, right away. Then, as he so pleasantly put it, he would “soon put those greasy dago bastards straight—no offense, Gino.”

  “Oh, none taken,” I assured him. I’d lived too long in New Jersey to take any offense at Daniel’s casual use of the ethnic slur.

  Eric and I flew to London, where we changed planes, and then to Rome.

  The studio had made our living arrangements for us. We checked into a hotel which might have been considered modest by some tourists’ standards, but which seemed to me to be luxurious in the extreme. Eric and I shared a room, with twin beds. The hotel was located on a major thoroughfare, which meant that the moment we cracked open one of the windows, we were assailed by traffic noises and exhaust-polluted air. But I didn’t mind. Right there, outside our windows, was The Eternal City, in all its grandeur—a busy, exciting, exotic place.

  For a kid from New Jersey, this was heady stuff. I was eager to hit the streets of Rome, to start getting a feel for the city, and to practice my Italian.

  I soon discovered that, although I had no difficulty understanding the locals and making myself understood, virtually every Roman I spoke to found my accent, intonation, and vocabulary peculiar. They instantly pegged me as un straniero, a foreigner. One shopkeeper whom I conversed with, early in our stay, must’ve had an exceptional acute ear. He identified me at once as a descendant of working-class Neapolitan emigrants, and he could even tell I’d grown up in New Jersey!

  Eric and I were soon contacted by representatives of the studio. We were introduced to some of the people we’d be working with.

  Belatedly, we were told to report to the studio for screen tests. Eric and I were asked to strip to the waist. We were each given a sword and a shield. Brandishing these, we were instructed to strike a succession of aggressive poses, while grimacing at an imaginary foe. We were also told to “just look into the camera and smile, and speak naturally” in response to a succession of questions—which, of course, is about the least natural thing an amateur actor can do, in such circumstances.

  I don’t know what would have happened had it been determined, at this late stage, that either or both of us didn’t look well on film. Perhaps the “kill fee” clause in our contracts would’ve been invoked. But, luckily for us, our bare torsos and our grimaces apparently passed muster. We were still in. We were still on the payroll.

  We also met our director. His name was Ludovico Morelli.

  I was nervous. For one thing, he was going to be my boss, and I was anxious to make a good impression on him. He was in his forties, a small, lean man, with a typically Italian restlessness and energy about him. His face was remarkable for the haughtiness that each feature seemed to convey—melancholy dark eyes, a wide smooth forehead, a large full-lip
ped mouth in the shape of a perfect parenthesis, and a strong aquiline nose pinched in at the corners. His smile habitually had a hint of irony in it.

  He spoke very good, only lightly accented English (complete with a vast vocabulary of vulgarisms and obscenities, as we soon learned).

  Interestingly enough, like my old friend Dirk Dervaux back home, Morelli was a chain smoker. Maybe that was an occupational hazard among movie directors.

  There was something shrewdly analytical in the way he looked at Eric and me at our first meeting. I sensed that he could see right through us, and that it would be futile for either of us to try to bluff his way through our acting assignments. Morelli knew we were tyros, all right. He was stuck with us, and he’d have to make the best of a bad bargain,

  “Well, you’re both handsome enough,” he conceded. “A couple of fine-looking young men. And very athletic, I can see. We should be able to make something out of you—if you’re willing to work hard.”

  “Oh, we are,” I assured him.

  Ludovico drew Eric aside and exchanged a few pleasantries with him. As he did so, he overheard me making small talk, in Italian, with some members of the production staff.

  “What’s this? The boy from New Jersey speaks Italian!” he exclaimed.

  “Only passably,” I said, modestly. But I sensed I had gone up a notch or two, in his estimation.

  “You sound just like a Neapolitan.”

  “You’re not the first person here in Rome who’s told me that. Is that considered to be a good thing, or a bad?”

  “It’s good if you happen to be in Naples,” Morelli quipped. “Here in Rome—eh, maybe it’s not so much a thing to boast about. They’re prejudiced against southern Italians here. But come and have a drink with me. I want to speak to you.”

  He took me to a café, where he bought me an aperitivo. We spoke in Italian.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said. “Are you ambitious?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “No? You don’t want to become a big movie star?”

  “I don’t have any illusions about that possibility. I’ll be happy if I can get through this shoot without embarrassing myself. Or annoying you.”

  “I’m very easily annoyed.” (I soon learned that this was a considerable understatement, on Morelli’s part!) “Don’t take it personally.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “Tell me about your people.”

  I knew he was referring to my Italian ancestors. “There’s not so much to tell. It was the usual story. They were poor, and they couldn’t find work, so they emigrated from Naples—in the 1880s, I think.”

  “They thought that America was the Promised Land?”

  “Something like that, I’m sure.”

  “And did they become successful, in the New World?”

  “If by ‘successful,’ you mean, did any of them strike it rich—unfortunately, no. Let’s just say that when I was growing up, there was always food on the table.”

  He nodded. “Which is not a thing to be scorned. There are many people who can’t take it for granted.”

  “My parents are hard-working people. They’ve always made a lot of sacrifices, for their children.”

  “I could say the same about my father and mother. Now, as for you. You interest me.”

  “I can’t imagine why. I’m pretty ordinary.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. Are you sure you have no Sicilian blood in you?”

  “Not to my knowledge, although anything’s possible. Why do you ask?”

  “Because you remind me of a typical Sicilian ragazzo, the kind who can be both macho and effeminate at once—oh, please don’t take offense when I say ‘effeminate.’ Let us say, ‘gentle,’ if you prefer. Deceptively gentle, in this case. The kind of boy who even today is perfectly capable of killing another man in hot blood, in the name of honor. The kind who has such a strong sex drive that he’ll fuck a goat, or one of the hens in his mother’s chicken-coop, before he commits his first real crime and has to hide out in the hills. Up there he finds himself a boyfriend, and enjoys anal intercourse with him, while he’s waiting for the virgin to come along who will marry him and give birth to his sons—who will grow up to be every bit as savage as he is.”

  Listening to this rather extravagant monologue left me momentarily speechless. I wondered whether Morelli was testing me—trying to see how easily I could be shocked.

  “I can’t really see myself having sex with a goat or a chicken,” I finally managed to respond.

  “But you can see yourself having a boyfriend?”

  The question took me by surprise. I decided to be honest.

  “Yes, I can, as a matter of fact. Does that bother you?”

  “Not at all. Quite the opposite. Women have been the ruin of many an actor.”

  “And men have not?”

  “Not nearly so often, at least not in my experience. Which you must realize is limited, and indirect. I’ve been married to the same woman for twenty years. We have four children. We’re well suited to each other—satisfied, with what we have together at home. I’ve never felt the slightest inclination to stray. Frankly, I don’t care what you do in bed, so long as it doesn’t interfere with your work. Are you and Eric lovers?”

  I had to laugh—perhaps a little ruefully. “Hardly. We’re just good friends.”

  “He must have many admirers. Many suitors.”

  “I know for a fact that he does.”

  “That’s all right, so long as it doesn’t turn his head and make him difficult to work with.”

  “Eric is ambitious—unlike me—but I’d say he’s fairly level-headed.”

  “Good. What about you? Do you have many admirers?”

  “Not nearly enough.”

  Ludovico laughed. “Well, I promise you, that will change, if you stay here in Rome for any length of time. There are many temptations here, for a young man. Especially for a young American man who possesses a beautiful face and a fine, hard body—as you do.”

  I could feel myself blushing. “Really, Mr. Morelli—you’re embarrassing me!”

  “Am I? I don’t mean to. I’m a lot older than you are, fanciullo mio [my boy],” he said. “I’m old enough to be your father. Think of me as your father—as your mentor.”

  “I’d like to be able to do that,” I told him, humbly.

  “How’d you and Morelli get along?” Eric wanted to know, the next time the two of us happened to be alone together.

  “Fine.”

  “What’d he want with you, anyway?”

  “He just wanted to talk.”

  “He didn’t put the make on you?”

  “Hardly.”

  “No? Do you think he’s a fairy?”

  I had to laugh at Eric’s choice of words. My contact with Ludovico Morelli may have been limited, so far, but he struck me as being not in the least bit fairylike. “I don’t think so. If he is, he’s awfully good at hiding it. He told me he’s happily married, and he has kids, for God’s sake.”

  “Well, Gino, we both know that doesn’t necessarily mean a damn thing. Some of the married men are the horniest cocksuckers. And their wives and families never suspect a thing.”

  “I don’t get any kind of a gay vibe from Morelli, though.”

  “That’s good. I was afraid we might have to put out for him, to keep our jobs. And he’s not my type.”

  “Isn’t he? I wouldn’t describe him as exactly ugly.”

  “He isn’t. He’s not bad-looking, for a guy his age. That’s not the problem. I can tell he’s a real control freak. That turns me off.”

  “He does seem—like kind of a forceful personality,” I admitted.

  “You said it! Just you wait. The motherfucker’s going to make our lives miserable, once we start shooting this flick.”

  This, as things turned out, was an accurate prophecy on Eric’s part.

  Was Ludovico my type? I didn’t know. He was very masculine, and there was
an energy about him that I found appealing. I decided that I wouldn’t throw him out of my bed, in the unlikely event such an opportunity ever arose. But I told myself that I was being stupid, speculating sexually about a married man.

  After going out for dinner, Eric and I crammed in some evening sightseeing, until we admitted our mutual fatigue to each other and we went back to the hotel. We went to bed, and we fell asleep chastely in our twin beds.

  I loved being in Italy. Everyone I encountered was friendly, and seemed eager to go out of his way to assist a foreign visitor. I believe I scored a few points with the locals by speaking Italian whenever possible. I occasionally fumbled for words, and I’m sure I made a few grammatical errors, but I benefited from the practical experience of speaking the language with natives. Maybe I was still un staniero, but at least I was a straniero who had Italian blood in his veins.

  I’d been told that the Romans tended to look down on southern Italians, but I got the impression that my American citizenship lent me an exoticism that somehow compensated for my ancestors’ humble Neapolitan origins.

  The only thing I didn’t like about Italy was the food. Oh, don’t get me wrong—the cuisine was great, and that was the problem. Eric, the other bodybuilders, and I had been hired for our physiques, after all, and we had to maintain them. Every time we went into a restaurant there were tempting dishes to choose from—but we didn’t dare to order most of them. Instead, we confined ourselves to such austere fare as plain pasta without sauce or cheese (good for carbo loading), broiled fish, boiled chicken, or raw tuna (also without sauce), and basic green salads and steamed vegetables, maybe with just a dollop of olive oil spooned onto them as dressing. We also forced ourselves to go easy on the local wines, which were excellent. Meanwhile, we were subjected to the tortures of Tantalus by those of our dining companions who didn’t have to diet. These bastards sat next to us and gorged themselves on the most delicious-looking and –smelling items on the menu, including the rich desserts, although they did deign to let us help ourselves to a sample bite or two off their plates.