I published the beginning of an order yesterday where we discover that I don’t know who I am and Carmine is a talented musician who is in a conflict with his parents — the second I arrive. Franco Franzese flips out and judges me —YOU, YOU don’t sing? Who the fuck is this? But Carmine can’t be in a band, one he’s been in for almost ten years. Then, it’s Christmas.
I think I like the first organization better. Here’s another grouping.
-
As I was unpacking, I caught “la la la” on guitar strings, standing there. I didn’t have any hangers so I opened the door like I didn’t want to disturb anybody. Hangers in a basket next door…I didn’t know what to do. Flora’s slippers clicked across the hall in a confident sweep as if it were her house.
I froze, sorry.
“Maria?”
Clear tone.
I pointed to…she frowned, just take some.
“Grazie,” I said.
She seemed sort of pinched about that.
I heard Carmine’s soft voice, his guitar strings, mostly.
I played innocent, how did she feel about it, since we already talked about it? With Carmine’s head graining back for “before.” I had to remain quiet even, respectful, toward his playing. An atmosphere, I conjured it.
“Bello…”
I said, even toward her, his mother.
“Si, si.”
Right.
“Si, si.”
I see.
I’d grab the hangers later…I wanted to listen to him.
“Un papillon…un papillon di seta blu…”
I didn’t know Carmine could play like that.
I got an electric blue butterfly from the Amazon in a black case for my thirtieth birthday, a brilliant, impossible color, just like my mother. My friends told me the salesperson said that they didn’t want it because it was missing an antenna. I barely opened it.
“It’s perfect,” they said.
Many teased me that I was a little “special.” I always got warmhearted about it, somehow comforted when people saw that I was different but why was I missing something? Oh, but that’s what we love about you. I was beginning not to. I didn’t know what to do with that because it was…not exactly true. But it was the most beautiful gift I had ever received…
Adjusting his glasses, Carmine sat on the edge of a duvet, a darker shade of blue in a sizable room of dusty blue. Simple blond wood furnishings, no decorations, practical.
“A butterfly…of?”
Across his neck, he made it: a blue bowtie.
It’s called that?
I sat down. They moved three beds into this room so I could have my own. I felt bad.
“Si, si,” he nodded. “Everything is okay.”
We made the gesture for “imagination,” yes.
“Bello…”
He created a brume — “atmospheria” — and resumed his ghostly tale on his guitar strings by “Domenico Modugno. Vecchio Frac,” he specified.
“It’s about a man…”
“I see yellow…”
“Si, si.”
He turned on the street lamps.
“It’s dark, nothing, niente…”
“The streets are deserted, silent, one last carriage, wheels crack, disappears—crash, into the night. He wears a top hat, two diamonds as…a cane…crystal, a flower…and…on top of his white waistcoat.”
“…Does he really say all that?’’
The bowtie, in suspension.
“Si, si,” he reassured me, played on.
“A window yawns on the silent river and in the white light, a top hat, a flower, and a tailcoat float away…”
“Who IS this person invisible?”
In French.
“No one knows,” Carmine continued his song.
“Bello,” I said.
“You…”
He had real talent and skill.
“Brav,” I said it like Franco.
He wanted me to sing with him. I refused. No, I didn’t want to.
He looked at me as if I weren’t me.
That’s all I did.
“Vero?”
“You sang me a silly song…”
He said.
“What was it…from a cartoon…what was it? It was funny…”
He remembered. Affecting.
“Touching.”
I looked at him. He looked side to side.
“I don’t sing…” Why?
In a cool clean light, I looked out the sliding door. The balcony looked like a deep tub of terracotta and white tiles. A dusty dark blue façade across the street had the same squiggly diamond gates on their windows.
“I write, Carmine. I sing everyday…sono chill, do you know this word?”
He took the bait with the “chill” word.
I laughed. He got cold quizzically. “No.” We were off the topic of my singing. “Calm.” He was playing again with his longer nails. I couldn’t get over how well he played.
“Ma, tu, wow, I hope… you…continue this.”
Picking up his head, he asked, “wasn’t it a Disney song?”
“No lo so!” I didn’t remember.
“You translated it,” he smiled at the song coming back to him.
“Something about not knowing each other…but we were,” and I interrupted him.
“Vero, tu,” I pointed to my head. He remembered this?
“Si, si,” and he made “the journey” we were on of some kind.
He pushed up his glasses.
“Maria, it’s a girl who was a princess but forgot? Love is a river…?”
He made the river. I was floored.
“Anastasia?!”
Still chill, his brows lifted. He sort of snapped.
“Love is a river, no?”
A girl who doesn’t remember who she is.
He wanted me to sing a little so he could figure out the chords.
“You can do this?!”
“Fare,” he corrected my Italian, pinching two fingers at me.
“Si, si,” he said. It wasn’t “wow.”
“Remember the song in the car, Sciummo? It also speaks to this: river, river, river…love is a river that’s lost in the sea…who would it be,” he sang the last of Modugno.
I was trying to pull back the lyrics from Anastasia.
“I wanna keep flowing,” I hazily said.
“Who could it be that man in a tailcoat? Adieu, adieu, buona notte…farewell world.”
“Did you understand?”
On a tall desk were stacks of medical textbooks, pages stapled, and highlighters with a night light. I snapped at him. He gave me owl eyes. I got up, threw my finger at this nonsense. I had no words so I pointed with more conviction.
“Dottor?”
“Dottore, Maria, dottore…”
He looked at me like he couldn’t win in this house.
“I might be…going to medical school…”
“You’re a MUSCHI…”
“Musician…”
“MUSHISHISTA…
“Musicita…”
I couldn’t say musician for the life of me.
“Do you want to do this?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“And the group of music?”
“Eh.”
Night through a round window at the end of the hall, Carmine confessed that his girlfriend of seven years was his bassist’s sister; Pasquale Omar. I laughed at the guy. And Pasquale Omar.
“You know VH1 Behind the Music?”
I gestured, very precisely, that they were on a screen in front of me.
“Group of music here.”
I made an arch backward. I punctuated it.
“Story here…” behind this wall.
Ah, si, si, he waved his fingers like search signals.
“You…”
“True…”
Down the steps we flew.
“You have EP?”
“Si, Maria, we’ve released songs…”
“Radio?”
He looked at me.
“You want to walk in the dark?”
I snapped—si.
“Bello, la luce cosi…”
I had no interest in overhead lighting.
He wanted to know my opinions on their music?
I was the one who had studied professionally—what?
“What?”
He respected my point of view.
Will I tell him…what I think…? Of their songs, si si, in the shadows of the freezing stairwell.
He pursued music because of me…yeah, kinda.
I couldn’t believe this.
He respected my point of view, this guy.
A race car was skidding towards a wall on the television, and Franco swept me away….
He pointed with wide though little eyes where his watch would be, still in his doctor’s coat, gesturing to the darkness outside, bringing his fingers into two sets of pinches, sizzling through his teeth. I believe he was getting annoyed for fun so I asked him seriously.
“Retard?”
Are we late?
“Tard?”
The camera cut to the members of his team perhaps, I didn’t know this sport, staring deadpan and still.
Franco got so annoyed, he had to pause.
“No, Maria…” then he snapped at what his son said.
“You stopped singing?”
Flora appeared from the kitchen, a warm glow.
“YOU?”
Peter Park pushed up his glasses. Apparently.
“Maria?”
She rang, above, like are you there?
Maybe I wasn’t understanding…
They pursued me; this was strange. Meaning, my demeanor the second…I came back.
I cracked up.
Why was I laughing? Why is she laughing? Are you trying to be funny? It’s not funny.
“YOU?”
“Si…”
Flora floated.
“YOU DON’T SING ANYMORE?”
“Si,” she said, “Maria, si, sing,” she nudged me to say the obvious.
How could I not crack up?
“Eh,” Flora was tight, uncomfortable.
I could only crack up sometimes…
“A writer?” Franco judged me. Is this a joke?
“EH?” I gave his son my chin.
Shaking his head to me in an aside though it was out in the open, he was seeking support from me as a cousin about his “artist son.” He shrugged like there was little he could do; it wasn’t his fault.
“Bravo,” I said, “bravo,” sure sure. “YES, yes, Maria.”
Please, Franco. I cracked up. “Why, why, what’s funny?”
“TU,” I pointed like a Neapolitan apparently because he couldn’t really handle how Neapolitan I was.
“SONO CONFUS.”
I saw a few desserts on the dining table, plastic wrapping.
Into the kitchen, Flora’s platform slippers were clicking across the floor.
I was sniffing performatively as I entered—vegetables?
Carmine, I strummed an air-guitar, “bello.”
In her fitted-house pants, Flora was at the stove stirring escarole and white beans and lentils. “Si, si.” Lentils, it was one of the staples with my father. Lentil soup. I was enthused by the sight. Franco wondered what the enormous deal was here? There was nothing more common than lentils.
“Like, Maria, like?” Flora dragged flirtatiously.
“Piace?” Okay, Franco shrugged. “Brav.”
Up against the radiator, he blurted.
“This story, complicate,” he was ready for me.
“No,” I said, “OH?”
He told me to sit.
I didn’t like sitting, kicking my legs. “I prefer,” I said “to be like this.” We had a head jutting exchange. He gave it to me at the end. I was in a velvet dress with poofy sleeves. I was writing, so I wanted to be on my feet.
His two alligator hands becoming little dainty birds, “tweet tweet” he said, about us speaking some secret language no one can understand…me with silly tapping fingers and him with his goofy guitar.
I cracked up.
Flora tried to apologize for Franco, I said it passed.
I took on “a gallant air,” a hand gingerly placed on my breastplate.
“Grazie Flora.”
Roasted potatoes hit the table along with friarielli, escarole and walnuts — from very near, Franco indicated. It was a flavorful dish; the Sicilian olives a bit buttery. Grabbing her globs of gluten-free bread, her packets of crackers, Flora didn’t say anything. Okay, I see. Franco Franzese took a “father pose” — bringing himself to his plate, about to eat, and breach of a subject. You know…His chin.
Carmine had to study for his medical exams.
“ESAME?”
“Si si si si, si” we had a “si si si si si.”
I cleared my throat. What? Carmine snapped. “Musci…”
“She’s trying to say musician…”
They cascaded, “musician, musician, MUSICIAN MARIA. Musician.”
I, bright and enthused, made a fist, “si!”
“For becoming better,” I pumped my errors to diffuse tension. He had to practice.
“Please — DRINK, Maria DRINK.”
Carmine didn’t appreciate it. I shrugged to back him up.
“La MUSICA is bella. Is music not bella?”
We were going out for drinks, I said it like I wasn’t a kid, ever, not my parents, like an independent adult. I was trying to hear, be positive, with a fist.
I pointed like a Neapolitan — the deal was made.
“Andiamo,” I shrugged. “Andiame.”
Franco laughed. Flora tried to be a lady, correcting me.
“Always going OUT with the BAND, band band band!!”
Franco could barely enunciate laying out matters of “ESAME” on the table.
At the same time, Franco was pleased.
“Maria, please go hang out with people, talk to people,” he was frowning at me.
“IO?”
“Siiiiiii….” Franco dipped into it.
“You DISAPPEARED and came back a different person…”
“Esatto.”
“A writer….asinine. A WRITER?”
“She refused to sing,” Carmine said. Franco barked. “WHY?”
“Eh,” Flora slid in with a “si, si, Maria…”
Back on the subject, what was this LUNACY? Of me needing to sing but Carmine not permitted to play the goddamn guitar?
“Why are you not married yet? No love?”
I was looking at Carmine. His father snapped at our secret exchange. I cracked up. With a tight smile his father put his chin into it. “Artists!”
I gave to him down low.
“Bello, no?”
“Franco,” Flora began.
He switched tactics fast, baby, getting sincere.
Stirring the risotto, hand on her hip, but did I have a boyfriend? Flora asked. At the time, I did. He cooked—I didn’t. I gave Franco a snap. “Si, si, sympa sympa,” I said in French, who gives a shit.
“Napoli!”
I rose a fist into the air.
“I can expri…” okay… they… “EXPRIRARMI!”
“POSSO.
ESPRIME.
EMOTION.”
“Like Napoli?” Flora asked.
I was overjoyed to be back — thrilled.
“ContentEH.”
I hopped. Franco’s head popped back, “you were always like this,” he remembered, all the same.
“Vero?”
Don’t you KNOW?
Looking at me up and down, “scusa Flora,” he said, needing backup.
“What are you doing…”
I went over to check out the pot: it was risotto with shades of red.
Pinching fiercely by my ear, pulling the word out I did not have, Naples immediately brought my whole physicality to the MAX. I did not have the WORD for WORD, FOR FOOD.
“It’s GOOD here.”
Nothing about my level of intensity remarked them as strange, freeing.
“And then?”
“AND THEN WHAT?”
“Mangiar…”
“MANGIARE,” they droned.
“Mangiar,” I moved suddenly closer.
I slapped my PALM, pointed, meaning I made the point.
I was suddenly lost.
“Eh,” Franco swept quickly, paternally, “what happened?”
“No lo so…”
Franco calmed me down, spoke to me in somewhat soothing tones, “what are we eating? MANGIARE? Maria?”
“Eh,” Flora began.
“CARNE,” Franco gave it to me.
“Carne…”
“We’re eating MEAT…”
“Piace?” Flora rang.
“Piace?” Franco followed.
“Si, si…”
“PIACE?”
Piace, good.
“La vita è good,” I signed it, punched it with my Neapolitan finger.
“Life is good…”
Franco echoed.
“Anche music.”
They laughed, they had to agree.
“Okay?”
“Okay, okay, okay — OKAY.”
They appreciated me.
“Si, si, Maria, brav, brav.”
“Brava Maria…”
-
This is an old scene but I wanted to put something up today even if it’s a rough cut. I kinda swung a bit today, like, okay, am I making this too complicate? I think packaging it the way I did yesterday makes more sense not to say this scene isn’t in it. It’s order. Getting there. This is a style question also.
It could even be a sitcom.
This would be where we head to the bar. And Christmas is coming, already here.
Tomorrow, I’ll go back to the first treatment and see if I can get to Vico’s “obi lan.” The party. It’s all like this, too. It’s just how I’m arranging it.
I’ll focus on Naples for the moment, I guess on social, I’ll get better at that. It’s part of the reason I would prefer to stay quiet this holiday season to work with what I have. Get this done. But then, this project also surrounds my life, my childhood, which is why I’m sharing it.
I’m going to publish what I did yesterday on my Substack. I’ll probably rename it so it’s clearer that it’s about Naples. I have so much stuff. I’m starting to get it out there. And I just want to finish this book, get to the next step. I’ll grab a beer, and work on the flow I posted last night. Again, it’s all in how you do it.
Thanks for reading!