by Phil Doran
“Rudolfo?” I called out from the living room.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but . . .” He dropped his suitcase and his chin began to tremble.
“What’s the matter? Are you okay?” Nancy said, putting her arm around his shoulder.
“We got the big troubles,” the other young man said in a thick Italian accent.
“Please come in,” Nancy said as the boys picked up their bags and she led them inside.
They came into the living room, and as they parked their luggage by the fireplace, the young man introduced himself in Italian as Stefano.
“Piacere, Stefano,” I said, shaking his hand. Then I turned to Rudolfo. “So what’s going on, bro?”
“I did like you said,” Rudolfo announced. “I told them everything.”
“Everything?” Nancy said. “What’s everything?”
“That I can’t marry Pia,” Rudolfo said looking over at his companion. “Because Stefano and I are in love.”
Stefano gave Rudolfo a smile for support as Nancy and I glanced at each other to mask our shock.
“Oh. I didn’t know that part,” I said. “But it’s cool. Maybe not with your parents, of course, but—”
“Oh, they went nuts! My father screamed like a madman and Mamma tried to throw herself out the window.”
Stefano nodded and told us in Italian that it hadn’t gone that much easier with his family. His father and two uncles kidnapped him and took him to the local priest to have an exorcism performed.
“Well, at least the truth’s out,” Nancy said, filling their wineglasses. “And so are you.”
We shared an uneasy laugh.
“But now I don’t know what to do,” Rudolfo said as he stared with elaborate absorption at a piece of cork floating in his wine. “My father threatened to throw me out of the house, but before he could, I said, ‘Hey, no way, I’m out of here.’ So . . . I’ve run away from home.”
“Look, Rudolfo,” I said as gently as I could, “a thirty-four-year-old man doesn’t run away from home. You leave and you go live somewhere else with whomever you want, and that’s that.”
“How can I go anywhere?” Rudolfo said. “My father took away my car . . . excuse me, his car!”
“I’m so sorry,” Nancy said. “You want to borrow ours?”
“He even took my motorcycle.”
“Those are just things,” I said. “What’s important is to be with the person you love, and if you’ve got that, everything else will fall into place.”
Then Stefano spoke while he studied Rudolfo for his reaction. In barely understandable English, Stefano said, “I tell to him we go to live at Milano, he and me.”
“You know, that’s a great idea,” I said. “I grew up in a town not much bigger than this, and I couldn’t believe how free I felt after I moved to Los Angeles.”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll go to the city someday,” Rudolfo said. “But right now we need a place to stay.”
“We’d love to have you here,” Nancy said, “but look how we’re living. The workers are here every day and there’s barely room for us.”
“Can anybody take you in for a few days?” I asked. “A friend, a relative?”
Rudolfo shrugged. “Well, my best friend was Pia’s brother....”
Stefano whispered something to Rudolfo and he nodded. “Yeah, that could work out, I guess.”
“What?” Nancy asked.
“We could go stay with my aunts Nina, Nona, and Nana up at Montemetato,” Rudolfo said.
“There you go,” I said. “Get away for a couple of days and let all the dust settle. And then figure out what you want to do.”
“But we have no car,” Rudolfo said. “Can you drive us?”
“Sure.” Nancy glanced at her watch. “Only, it’s getting dark and I hate that road at night.”
“Why don’t you guys bunk here and we’ll drive you up in the morning?” I offered.
They looked at each other and nodded.
“Great,” Nancy said. “I’ll make up the couch and we’ll push these two chairs together for a second bed.”
“Are you hungry?” I asked, heading for the kitchen. “All that gunfire was turning me into a vegetarian. I better have a steak before I turn into a complete tree-hugger.”
As I was seasoning the meat, I began to hear the baying of a truckload of dogs that sounded like they were heading up our driveway. We all knew what was coming, and braced for it as best we could. Rudolfo’s face went ashen and his legs started quivering, as if he was trying to decide whether to stand or run.
From outside our house we heard Dino bellowing, “Rudolfo! I know you’re in there!”
I peered out the window and spotted Dino and Cousin Aldo in full hunting gear. Shotguns were slung over their shoulders and their thick, quilted jackets were weighed down with cartridge belts and the carcasses of small dead animals.
“You come out here right now!”
I opened the door and poked my head out. “All right, Dino, stop hollering. He’s here and he’s fine.”
“What did he tell you?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing into slits.
“Nothing. We were just talking,”
“If he told you he is a frocio, he’s wrong! No one in our family has ever been that way!”
“You got to calm down,” I said. “Nothing’s going to get settled like this.”
“I show you how this will get settled.” Dino stepped in front of our door. “Permesso,” he said, asking me for permission to enter in the customary Tuscan way.
“You’re not coming in here with those guns,” I said, feeling like Wyatt Earp.
Dino and Aldo unhitched their shotguns and propped them against the wall. I stepped aside as they knocked mud off their rubber boots and entered. By the time I came in behind them, the screaming had already started.
“Get in the truck, you’re coming home!” Then Dino pointed at Stefano. “And you . . .”
Rudolfo stepped in front of his boyfriend. “Leave him alone!”
“How could you do this to your mamma?” Cousin Aldo shouted. “You are her only chance to produce an heir!”
As if incensed by this thought Dino screamed, “How are we going to have a grandson to carry on the family name?”
“Who cares?” Rudolfo came back at the same volume.
“Your mamma cares!” Dino said. “She will die without a grandson!”
“Well, they could always adopt,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“And you!” Dino turned to me, but all I could see was the little dead animal draped over his shoulder staring at me with glassy eyes.
“What?”
“How could you do this to me?”
“What’d I do?”
“I asked you to talk to my son and you turned him into a Hollywood homosexual!”
“Oh, come on.”
“Okay, I know, you didn’t do it. This is all his mamma’s fault . . . and those goddamn Buddhists. And I will deal with them later, but right now you are coming home. Get in the truck!”
“No!” Stefano cried.
“Yes!”
“No!!”
“Yes!!”
“No!!!”
And so it went like this, back and forth, a soaring aria of baritone bellowing and tenor hysteria. Raging accusations and tearful denials. All the dirty laundry of a family fluffed and folded in front of our very eyes. Nancy and I tried to stay out of the way, but it seemed as if everywhere we went, it followed us like a running gun battle. In the midst of all this turmoil the front door cracked open and Annamaria peeked in.
“Permesso,” she whispered.
Nancy noticed her and invited her in. Annamaria apologized, saying that she had knocked but apparently nobody had heard her. She didn’t want to be a bother, now that we had company, but she had brought us over some things for the house. Nancy told her to please join us, and she entered, carrying a large basket covered with a red gingham cloth. She put it down on the ta
ble and the small white head of a baby goat popped out and started going “Baa-baa.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“I call him Pepe,” Annamaria said. “But you call him whatever you want.”
“Oh, my God, he’s so adorable,” Nancy said. She gently cupped her hand and started petting Pepe’s head as the little goat baaed indignantly.
Annamaria took a baby bottle out of the basket and handed it to Nancy. “This is from the mamma.”
Nancy put the nipple in Pepe’s mouth. “Oh, you are so hungry.”
The delicate frailty of the animal drew everyone’s attention. The hollering stopped and Dino, Aldo, Rudolfo, and Stefano gathered around the basket.
Annamaria explained that she had brought us the customary offerings of bread, salt, and a crucifix, but once again Santa Fabiola had appeared in a dream and told her that our house needed a living symbol of the land. So Annamaria knew that this must be her gift to us.
“Gee, thanks,” I said, trying to think of the last time anybody had given me a baby goat.
“La capra is a good sign,” Dino said as Cousin Aldo nodded in agreement. “Symbol of strength and virility.”
“What about peace and love?” Nancy said, catching the eyes of both Dino and Stefano.
“I think the symbol for that is a baby lamb, but she makes a good point.” I put my arm around Dino. “This is not worth losing a son over, you know?”
Dino nodded and let loose a deep sigh. Then, ignoring Stefano, he turned to me. “You are a good friend.”
“Thanks.”
“And you, Nancy, have a good heart and you love animals just like me.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I tell you what, I shot a cinghiale sow this morning and I give you half. You got a chain saw?”
30
Cittapazza
So now we owned a baby goat. Neither of us had a clue what to do. Nancy brought him into bed and cuddled him so fervently, I feared that if I left the room she might start breast-feeding him. I dragged him outside and tried to teach him how to fetch. But Pepe seemed not to care what either of us did, making himself content to eat grass and poop, often at the same time.
But the small inconveniences we suffered with our goat paled in comparison to how we were put upon by our two other kids. Being the sons of Italian families, it never occurred to Rudolfo or Stefano to prepare their own meals, wash out a dish, or even pick up the clothes they seemed to drop wherever they were standing. We could have tolerated this for a day, but they showed absolutely no interest in going up to Montemetato. They claimed to have appointments and activities that necessitated their borrowing our car and being gone most of the day. They did manage to make it back to our house in time for dinner, however, only to tell us that they needed the car that evening. This pattern continued for the next few days, until one night they staggered home from a disco at four in the morning, making so much noise that it frightened poor Pepe and he pooped in our bed.
We were sympathetic over the rejection they had suffered at the hands of their families, of course, but they just couldn’t stay with us any longer. So the following morning we woke them up early and as I handed them steaming mugs of coffee, Nancy struck the edges of her hands together in the shape of an X, which is how one Italian tells another that it’s time to hit the road. As the boys packed up their belongings, we arranged for Annamaria to goat-sit Pepe, and we soon found ourselves on our way up the mountain to Montemetato.
The distance between Cambione and Montemetato is only about eighteen kilometers, so the fact that it took thirty-seven kilometers of paved road to connect the two gives you some idea of just how many hairpin turns one needs to navigate. If the road weren’t problematic enough, it fell on me to do the driving because Nancy’s broken arm kept her from working a manual transmission. But with me driving it left her completely free to shudder with fear at every bump, suck in her breath at every turn, and dig her nails into my leg whenever I tried to pass a slower-moving vehicle.
Other than a few puncture wounds on my thigh, the drive itself was magnificent. The road dipped and heaved like a roller coaster as we glided past a seamless wall of forest made up of evergreens, puffy young poplars, dense thickets of corbezzoli shrubs, and hoary leccio trees laden with acorns.
We passed through many small villages along the way, and there was a comforting sameness to the inevitability of the church bell tower and the faded war memorial in the piazza. But just when they’ve lulled you into feeling it’s all the same, Italy manages to pull a surprise on you, like the café we came upon that was sitting out in the middle of nowhere.
There was no sign, nor any advertisement whatsoever, except for a mannequin missing an arm standing by the side of the road in a rain-drenched waitress uniform. Her glazed expression met the oncoming traffic head-on. Perhaps her arm had fallen off beckoning people to pull in and patronize the café.
With an inducement like that, naturally we had to stop, even though we were only a few miles from our destination. We entered the café to find it pleasantly crowded, which is always a good indication of a place’s quality. But upon closer inspection we discovered that many of the patrons of this café were also mannequins. A pair of dummies dressed as Italian peasants were seated at a table with a bottle of Chianti and two dusty wineglasses, while another, inexplicably dressed in a Mexican serape and sombrero, was propped up on a barstool next to a jukebox that was playing an old Barry Manilow song.
The actual human patrons of the café turned out to be a rather surrealistic lot. There was a woman of indeterminate age wearing a multicolored wig, smoking a pipe, and talking to herself. Every so often she would stop, look in our direction, and give us a spooky little smile.
A middle-aged man in a serge suit that had seen better days was sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee. All the time we were there, he never once took a sip because he was too busy cleaning his spoon with the end of his necktie. Rounding out the scene was a pair of twin teenage boys of about fifteen, wordlessly playing a pinball machine. They had big eyes and shaved heads with a low cephalic index, and they looked like something out of a Diane Arbus photo shoot.
The four of us stood at the bar, staring at the decrepit espresso machine, wondering if there was anyone around to operate it. We were about to leave when a small man with a pinched face and a body shaped like a potato came out from the back. We told him what we wanted, and his response to everything we said was to give us back a short but distinct bird whistle. When Stefano asked him where the bathroom was, the man pointed with a fluttering hand that looked like a sparrow taking off. Stefano said, “Grazie,” and the man bird whistled, “Per niente.”
I looked over at Rudolfo and bounced my eyebrows for an explanation of this Tuscan version of the bar from Star Wars.
He uttered one word. “Cittapazza.”
Rudolfo went on to explain that, like many towns high up in the remote hills, Montemetato was isolated from the rest of the world. The very road we had driven up on had not even been put in until the 1950s. As a result, there was so much inbreeding, the village became well known for the odd behavior of its citizens and it was dubbed Cittapazza . . . Crazy Town.
“I never heard that expression,” I marveled.
“Well, they like to keep it a secret,” Rudolfo said. “But some of the most important families of Cambione came from up here.”
“Really?” Nancy said.
“Oh, yeah, the Tughis, the Rinaldis, the—”
“The mayor’s family?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about the Pingatores?” I asked.
“Absolutely. We’ll drive right past the farmhouse where they all came from.”
“This is quite interesting,” I said as the lady with the spooky grin took out her teeth, making her grin even spookier. “Any other secrets we should know about?”
“Oh, there are stories galore, multi sussuroventi,” he said using the archaic expression that means “whi
spers in the wind.”
“And what are they?”
“Who remembers?” he said. “But my aunts know all that stuff.”
“And what about your folks?” Nancy asked. “Are they from up here?”
“No, our branch of the family moved away years ago,” Rudolfo answered. “We’re all crazy for reasons of our own.”
The house that Nina, Nona, and Nana lived in was even more ancient than they were. There was some stonework to it, but it was mostly built of rough-hewn logs and done in such a way that the three-story structure stood as crooked as a witch’s hat.
Our arrival was heralded with shrieks of joy and barrages of kisses on our cheeks. From the overwhelming affection of their greeting I assumed that perhaps Rudolfo’s aunts hadn’t heard the reason for his expulsion. I soon discovered that, not only did they know all about it, they were remarkably accepting of the situation. Nina felt that this was a stage most boys go through and he would soon grow out of it. Nona believed that many men who like other men eventually marry and sire families, and Nana wondered what the big deal was about having grandchildren anyway, since it just meant more mouths to feed and more diapers to change.
Almost as remarkable as their degree of tolerance was the lunch they laid out before us. In spite of the fact that Nina, Nona, and Nana were over eighty years old and had five bad legs between them, they had prepared a meal that, even for Italians, was of gargantuan proportions.
It began with a vast selection of legumi al sotto, which are freshly dug-up vegetables marinated in olive oil and white wine vinegar. This was accompanied by crostini di polenta (corn fritters on toast), and carpaccio, lean raw beef pounded tissue thin and adorned with parmigiano cheese and olive oil. We were all pretty hungry when we arrived, so we made the mistake of devouring the appetizers with such ferocity, you’d think the Visigoths were at the very gates of Cittapazza.
