In Rome once, a Rome I was surprised to find littered with tumbled columns,
ruins, centuries-old marble torsos, temples lit up and lounged upon, not roped off,
I met a boy who took me in a taxi with borrowed money, lira he borrowed from a friend
in front of me. He told me someday he’d like to open a fish restaurant. On a beach
someplace, eat langostine every night. Did I know what langostines were? I did.
Did I like the langostines? Yes. Did I have a dream? One of my own, like his?
I’m sure I told him one, charmed by his use of the word “dream,” like a child’s,
or a foreigner’s, I guess, to talk about some dream job, impossible dream, which actually
didn’t sound so hard to attain: it was the beach, the langostines he wanted, not
the mortgage, employees, lazy langostine supplier. So be a waiter, wait tables
in Sicily, Nice, wherever the langostines are. He asked my dream and I can not
remember if I had one, can’t remember having had one, only know how proud I am
that when I was 22 or 23, I went away with a strange man to a Roman suburb. A beautiful
room, old plaster under construction. And I took a bus back the next morning, thirty minutes
on a city bus at sunrise, from the suburbs into Rome. I only knew mi dispiace,
non parlo italiano, grazie, which was enough; the old people, the driver saw
I didn’t have lira and smiled, indulgent at that hour with an uncombed girl
in last night’s clothes. Just outside Rome, in the middle of living their dream.
