Looking back, the man must have thought I was insane. “Vatico?” I enquired for the fourth time. The man just shrugged.
All I wanted was to cycle across town to the safety of my father’s hotel room. It just so happened that it was located behind Vatican City. Unfortunately, I had come across the only other man in Rome who had no idea where the Vatican was.
“Vatico? … VATICO? … VA-TI-CO!?” I yelled, jumping up and down like a monkey, then motioned my hand above my head in a failed attempt to pantomime the Pope’s hat. The man stared back in silence as a bead of sweat rolled from beneath my helmet and mixed freely with the pouring rain. He stepped back from the curb, shook his head, and walked away.
I drooped over my bike for a moment, then turned my attention toward the sky. I shouted, “This is your town; can you give me a little help down here please?”
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Just then a voice came from out of the darkness. “Where are you from?”
“California,” I said, trying to get a look at the face underneath the umbrella. “Can you tell me where the Vatican is, sir?” I queried.
A hand poked out from beneath the umbrella and pointed: “Follow the cars.”
I looked up to see a row of headlights twisting through the horizon, like some evil electric caterpillar. I pushed my bicycle from the curb, and once again pedaled into the vehicular war-zone. Within moments I was consumed by a mass of cars that hurled from every direction as they honked, swerved and swore. For a moment, I wondered if the entire city had simultaneously lost control of their steering mechanisms.
Just then, a man with a picture of the Virgin Mary posted on his dashboard drove the wrong direction down the street. As I watched him pass, he held a cell-phone in one hand and waved a sandwich with the other.
Within a few moments, the man disappeared and was replaced by a meteor storm of headlights, mopeds and motorcyclists that dashed up from behind, darted between the cars, then executed Kamikaze maneuvers at mind-bending speeds.
After a few miles, all of this became the least of my concerns. In the ensuing chaos, a voice from within issued a red alert. The voice informed me that should I subject my lower half to any further jackhammering on the central-city cobblestone, my gonads would soon begin a reverse migration whence they dropped in the time before I was a toddler.
I ignored the warning, pressed on, and opted instead to strike up a tune in what seemed an unusually high-pitched voice.
It wasn’t long before I’d made some headway through the city, and happened upon the monolithic Mausoleo Augustus; a city-block-sized stone monument that housed Caesar’s remains.
This was a serious headstone. If I was lucky, my coffin would probably match most of the pants I owned: on sale, out of fashion and about four inches too short.
As I passed, I tipped my helmet toward his dusty old bones. I had to give the man props. Anyone who could carve-out a name for himself in this kind of chariot traffic went well beyond this simple mind.
I continued from the Mosoleo across the Ponte Cavour, over the River Teverre, and beneath the haunting stares from the statues beneath the Palazzo Di Giustizia.
When I rounded the corner from the Castle St. Angelo, I was not prepared for what came next. It was the mind-boggling spectacle of St. Peter’s Cathedral. I pulled to the curb. It was absolutely awe-inspiring.
While the rain poured, I shuffled my eyes around the Piazza as I traced my eyes over each column, each figure, every prophet, pope and saint. I ran my hands along the smooth curves and delicately-arched dome that reached to the heavens, where it seemingly tickled the very hand of God.
I don’t know exactly what it was, but at that moment, I felt rich and deeply alive. Hell, I wasn’t even Catholic.
After this, I thought I’d seen it all. But when I climbed back on my bike and re-entered the traffic, I came upon another surprise. They were brake lights. This was a miracle. Romans stopped for nothing, not even stoplights. I was taken aback.
“Of all the life forms that had found their final resting place within the wheel wells of Italian automobiles,” I thought, “tonight I would witness the one that would be spared.”
I had to know what it was. I stepped up on my pedals and raised myself as high as I could. As and poked my head above the endless rows of cars, I spied something moving slowly across the cross-walk in front of the long rows of traffic. It was a single nun.
A day later, after I’d relished the comfort of my father’s high-dollar hotel room, I gloated at my two-wheeled victory over the Roman Empire.
When it came time to leave, I was riding out of town and within eye-shot of the city’s ancient gates, and a parked motorist whipped open the door.
What came next was the tell-tale crunch of bone – my knuckle was crushed between my handlebars and the edge of the door frame. Without stopping, I continued toward the gates, shaking my hand in pain, and stopped just short of the gate. A trickle of blood rolled from my hand and joined that of countless others that spilled on this soil over the ages.
As I pulled out a rag to stop the bleeding, I turned my head to take one last look at Rome. In my mind’s eye, I pictured Augustus Caesar, peering down from above. From there he enjoyed a good-long belly laugh.
January – February 2006
Pisa, Bibbone, Grosseto, Rome, Sabaudia, Avellino,
Lioni, Canosa, Bari.
Mileage log: 8,300 – 8,850
Elevation: Sea level – 2,900 feet
“I don’t think I need a rubber room, but that might be
nice, I’m not a not a manic depressant, paranoid
schizophrenic, so I don’t need your advice.
’cause I’m just crazy … just like you.”
- Barenaked Ladies
“Crazy”
“Europeans, like some Americans, drive on the right side of the road, except in England where they drive on both sides of the road; Italy, where they drive on the sidewalk; and France where they follow you right into the hotel lobby.”
- Dave Barry
