AYE MIO AMICO, who could say a train is not the most beautiful class of vehicle? She come this one from the mountains, where still some snow shows on her roof. Step up with me on the bell and compare her first then to a bicycle. I am a destroyer of many bicycles. But this one exploded on my morning pass through Verona. It came of course after a monsoon struck. My front tube burst in some little alley beyond the city center. A bicycle is a horrible vehicle without a tube. Well, first this little bastard shattered my Campari bottle, which I had saved for my brother. In the same moment it becomes the slowest mode of transport even then walking with the front tire dragging and stretching on every curb and cobblestone. I was inclined then to pull the remains of this murderous craft through torrents of rain. Laundry women they heckled me. School children? It is a great amusement for them. The men of the city enjoyed with fine relish and solemn faces my suffering. And so a bicycle should not even be considered for the competition.
If you ask why transport by train or bicycle, I must say my love. The wasp stole our car again last night. A car also fares much worse than the train for quality. First, look here out this window at the Valpolicella stormy countryside. I must show you the line of headlights. Every automobile stops here for one half hour in the morning traffic. But that is not the worst problem. Another issue amico, is that a car can be kidnapped by your wife whenever she likes. Aye, this is a terrible quality in a vehicle. Last night my uncle tells me he saw another American walking with Amalia that afternoon. I ran home because I feared for the car. It has disappeared before you see, and not because Amalia hurt her feet walking. This morning it is my brother who called me from Brennero. He is one Guardia di Finanza who said the little red devil would be now in Innsbruck with the size of ski equipment inside one seat. For advice, I owed this man Campari. He loves it. But remember my Campari I donated to a venerable gutter in Verona so cazzo.
Some years before, I retrieved Amalia with an airplane from Athens to Milan. This is a fast craft, the plane. But very restrictive. By this I mean that I must listen to Amalia for the duration of the flight, and she eviscerated my pride many times.
The worst is when she said I am a parody of myself—as if this must be logical to understand. The way she described it was, ‘You were successful young and so you learned to be a way and never forgot.’ This is a horrible thing to hear with children crying about pretzels one seat behind. With my plastic cup I engaged more wine, but Amalia wanted different grapes.
She continued, ‘Now Valentino, you idiota just repeat the way you learned again and again. There is never any new learning, no? It is embarrassing. With prosciutto on your eyes, you have forgotten how to see.’ Yes, mio amico, an airplane can be very inhibitory.
But a train… This is one public enterprise well designed for private misery. Here a mangled bicycle indicates superb lack of self-esteem. Many old alpinista has mourned these passing Dolomite faces what are the only ones more wrinkled than their own. You want a kayak for them misty lakes? Do not be tricked. Boats cannot be trusted. Like a woman, they surely float when full of air. But liquid is a different substance. And when Amalia was with child, the names of each potential father rung from the walls for my eternal joy. I have transited by many craft like bus, and scooter, and once a gondola handcuffed by Cabonieri since I first meet Amalia in the apple orchards of our valley. Then I lacked so many wheels to chase this harpy. The warfare was by foot, and for primary graduation my mother painted our floors red. Now I prefer the train.
Mio amico, you see now Innsbruck as we snake through her hills with one Nordkette lit by snow for a postcard. We two know nothing of her streets before we slide into the bahnhof, only that this magnificent machine of whirring steel must arrive in Austria on perfect schedule. Tonight, she will glide out the same, and you may hope that I am on it with perhaps a woman staring at the rain. Only her, mio amico. Only a train is this dependable.
Nathan also wrote recently in Bitter Oleander Review, In Parentheses and Watershed Review. Find more of their work at www.readvoices.com.
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