A Comedy of Errors

The Tower in Pisa Finally Tumbles

Tan Lines and Tangled Laundry: Tales from the Mediterranean

Parting May Not Be Such Sweet Sorrow

We had separated in Pisa, Italy because we were driving each other crazy.

Laura had taken the train to London to stay with a “friend.” This was in August of 1990. I was one and twenty. Three weeks of traveling was more than enough.

The story of Europe and the further troubles in England is a miniseries mock-u-melodrama. My tears and shame will become a longer tale than this anecdote of humor and humility.

In Pisa, I recall turning my back, and suddenly Laura, her blonde hair and slender figure, hair in that high, one-can-of-hairspray-a-day-routine, the fashion in Jersey when a flick of a Bic was a thing to fear, was surrounded by four Italian guys in the leather market.

Of course — a fountain in the middle of the piazza. Deep enough to drown my ego?

The stereotype of Italian men is true. Let no one say otherwise. One of those Italian lads had more sex appeal in his pinky cuticle than I did in my whole body. I was slightly overweight then, despite the 20K steps we took each day. I was jealous. Why weren’t they coming on to me? I’m not gay, mind you, but those guys were gorgeous. And would they buy me a leather jacket?

They also didn’t look like they had been backpacking for three weeks either.

Laura wanted to shop. I wanted history. And to trangugiare more Italian food (gobble) and request pastries in a series of ridiculous hand gestures.

Anyway, she had enough of me. I agreed. I had enough of me, too! Why was I such a Drama King?

The Journal Entry

(Written while on the train from Firenze to Nice) Laura and I are now finally separated. Our dual trip through Europe has ended. We had a big, ugly fight last night that hasn’t been resolved. Hopefully, after a week apart, we can be friends again once I arrive in London. More of this later. (Page 125).

I Survived Without Becoming a Sex Worker — Nice!

I took the train to Nice and decamped cheaply above a porn shop in some seedy but lively part of that seaside city. I ate three baguettes a day, with delicious jam, cheese, and shared with my ego lonely bottles of red vino on beaches and park benches and jetties all along the French Riviera. Was I a lonely gull? Can anyone say “Jonathan Livingstone”?

Whatever that book said, I forget, but it’s probably full of crap! The thing is a seagull! And the crap on those rocks!

Jacket and Tie, Required

Once, out of curiosity, I ventured into the Casino at Monte Carlo, and the patrons and The Management all agreed I probably didn’t belong. Was it my beard? My smell? My dearth of liquidity?

I missed the arguments with Laura. But the visits to Cannes and St. Tropez were nice. No longer had I to endure the long waits for “hair-styling.” Why not engage in conversation with naked French women on the beach or with stylish women in cafes? Well, Google Translate didn’t exist then. Was English my problem? After all, every woman I pursued up until then spoke my language.

I gawked as passively as possible, averting my eyes, and wrote enthusiastically on postcards with naked women on the beach to my mum that I was “really enjoying the scenery.”

“Laura and I had parted” and “I was finally enjoying myself.”

Were there opportunities for female companionship? Oui, but this required money. Would whatever health care I had work in France to treat various forms of sexually communicated diseases?

Tan and Pebbles

My tan was coming along nicely. My hair was lighter but in severe need of a trim. My writing was flourishing, too. Did it take an hour to figure out how to wash clothes in the local laundromat? Oui! As I sat on the vibrating dryer, I recall some brisk conversations in English. I wish I wrote that dialogue down, but the sexual thrill of the dryer was stimulating.

The pebbles hurt my feet in the blistering sun, but the water was lovely. I floated like an otter in the Mediterranean, looking back at the hills and the houses and that vibrant blue sky that Van Gogh loved, and I thought: I’m lucky. I just wished I had someone to share these moments.

Adieu

I glanced at a calendar hanging in a local restaurant by the downtown Promenade des Anglais, and I realized that I should be getting back to London. Laura had stored her extra bags there at Heathrow, and I was lugging her other huge suitcase through Europe for three weeks. I didn’t know I signed up as a porter. Lord Byron made it seem so easy.

So I bid “adieu” to The French Riviera. With only my own dark green and battered backpack, no longer Laura’s concierge with the additional accouterments, both metaphorical and literal, I felt free and easy and ready to start fresh in a country that spoke The Language of Shakespeare.

Heading Back to England

The TGV was a bullet-shot north to Paris, and then a change over at Gare de Lyon, and then a Metro ride to Gare du Nord, and then a quick trip after a fine crossing from France to England, where I met a lovely girl from the States who was studying in London, and then we both took British Rail to London and had a pub lunch and a pint, and she gave me her lodging information for future communication.

I recall glancing at my watch and telling her I needed to meet Laura for our BritRail passage to Newcastle. What an idiot!

I should have remained with this new girl — at least for a little while, right? She was everything I had been hungry for: she was educated, interested in the arts, loved history, and she laughed at my jokes. Her hair, also, contained no climate-damaging aerosols. But, alas, I never saw her again.

Oh, how different my life may have turned out if I stayed with her!

Thirty years have passed. I’m reading my journal and laughing, looking at pictures of people who no longer look like this. Many of the places still look the same, like Pisa, the way a nightingale still looks and sounds the same.

I’m in my study, looking at the snow out from my home in New Jersey. I now coach English and write 6,000 words a day, now that I’m on medication.

My daughter, Sarah, now almost 20, just told me “She’s going for a walk.” She’s been home from college due to the quarantine. My awesome wife of twenty-six years works quietly in her sewing room, working on graduate school and projects.

My daughter, Katherine, is 23 and in graduate school at Georgia Tech, studying aerospace.

So many different points that could have changed all of this. It’s interesting to have some time to reflect on how I got here, and how fortunate I have been.

It was like spending years as a pinball, flung here and there at rapid speeds, spitting out colors and spinning wheels, and each contact shaped the ball somehow, someway, and when it finally came to rest, the ball found its way home at a dance in Philadelphia, where I finally felt free with Mary Jane.

And then a new game began.

Thank you for reading! Follow me on Medium at Walter Bowne