From the way-back machine. This was my first moments in the Mediterranean that opened up the path that allowed me to fall in love with The southern sun of Sicily, and by proxy, Italy.
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1985 --
Almost famous. Or something. There I stood in a tiny airport in Catania,
sweating and feeling comatose, staring blankly at a fifteen-year-old kid with
an Uzi hanging from his neck, flapping his arms like a chicken and speaking to
me in rapid Italian. Not an everyday event. And quite oddly, not as frightening
as you’d expect.
Let me back-up a bit. In my former life I traveled as a FOH (front of house)
mixer for a Blues band; fulfilling a lifelong dream of free travel, non-stop
music, tattooed girls and an endless supply of free T-shirts. This particular
tour brought me to Sicily and an international music festival. Sagre del
Mandorlo in Fiore. I'm sure you've
heard of it. You know what I'm talking about. The kind of festival where most
of the acts are basically large groups of men and women in puffy-sleeved
blouses rapidly running around in circles with linked arms. Stopping every so
often to jump and shout, “Youdkeskloslaava!” Whoever was organizing this
festival, a tradition of 45 years, and pretty much the biggest event of the
year on Sicily, had thought to bring over a number of blues bands to represent
America’s face to the world music scene. So there we were, to try and translate
a bit of Chicago stomp to the eager, old world masses.
Travel is always exhausting, even if you’re only catching the shuttle from SF
to LA for the weekend, but crossing 10 time zones whacks you out like a two by
four across the brow. Counting layovers, delays, and bar tabs; SF to NY to Rome
to Sicily is something like 22 hours of continuous motion. So when we flicked
past Mt. Etna and dropped across the narrow channel from Italy to Sicily and
into the Airport at Catania, I felt like Columbus, gingerly stepping ashore in
the new world. Uh, backwards, kinda. We got off the plane on a sun-baked tarmac
with a picture postcard stacking of white polished stone houses and buildings
lining the surrounding hills. You could almost smell the wine, the food, and
the mafia of Sicily in the air. It was perfect a dream as could be and I looked
to the next 10 days going forward as heaven defined. Ten days in Sicily, only
three shows and plenty of wine. It really doesn’t get much better than that.
Don’t believe anyone who tells you differently.
Fifty minutes later as the last bag had come down the conveyor and mine not
among them, my state of bliss started to rapidly crumble. I realized that I was
in a spot. My Italian was limited to, "ciao," "prego" and
"bellissima!" None of which seemed to fit this situation. And that
amount of bilingualism was only functional when I hadn’t been traveling for 22
hours with multiple airport lounges and G&T’s floating my boat. I morphed
instantly from almost famous rock star to befuddled uncle Joe from South Dakota
in the blink of an eye. About that time is when I looked up to find a
peach-fuzzed, acne-laden kid with an Uzi and a snappy uniform flapping his arms
like a chicken, alternately pointing off into the distance and peppering me
with rapid, frenetic Italian. Thank God he seemed to be smiling, but my mind
told me he was laughing and describing what was going to happen to me after he
took me to jail – I was sure I was guilty of something. Maybe they’d opened
some luggage and confused it with mine. Daddy Ray the Alto player and Smacky
the drummer always had, er, substances that don’t meet current standards for
international trade agreements in their bags. I was sure I was about to be thrown
into a dingy, dirt floored jail; two cigarettes and a bowl of soup a day my
only rations. All I could do was stare at him in my coma-state and keep
repeating, “Scusi, el Luggaccio is lostissimo" and other phrases I made up on the spot, hoping that didn’t mean, “Want a date, big fella?”
That’s when Lucretia appeared. A vision of all my dreams of Italy rolled into
one. A young, well dressed and molto-bella girl came to my aid and said to me,
with no question mark in place, “You are American.” She addressed the automatic
weapon-toting freshman and they seemed to bond, laughing and turning back to
me. “Your luggage is lost, but not to worry, it will come on the next flight
from Rome. Maybe one hour, maybe two. My name is Lucretia. It will turn out all
right.” Seems my chicken flapping friend was no thug threatening me with jail
time, but just a friendly local cop, trying to do his best to help one of the
thousands of people and musicians streaming into Sicily’s main airport for the festival. He
spoke about a much English as I did Italian and flapping his arms, although
chicken-like to me, was meant to paint a picture of the next airplane coming
from Rome. No jail time awaiting me. Not on Sicily. Damn my overactive
imagination.
Lucretia took me over to a cafe and bought me a
doppio espresso to calm my nerves and taught me a few more words of
Sicilian/Italian. Every Sofia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni movie I’d ever seen (which is how I’d formed my impressions of Italy) was on the verge of
coming true.
I was finally living my life as if in a movie. I leaned back with my espresso,
lit a smoke and tried to look suave.
But unlike the script that was rapidly writing itself in my mind, Lucretia
didn’t whisk me away in a yellow convertible Fiat to the tiny fishing village
she grew up in, just shy of Palermo. I didn’t get to meet her gigantic,
eccentric family and be drawn into the great romantic love affair of my life.
She told me to enjoy my espresso and that she hoped we would do well at our
concert and vanished down the street, a swish of blue skirt, a wave of her arm
and a smile. The Sicilian welcome wagon off to save some other stranded
traveler no doubt. I joined my band mates and got on il autobus for the 2 hour
ride to the gig. Lucretia’s and my La Dolce vita, a lost cause, but never forgotten. Filed under: great love affairs of my life.
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Food, Neighborhoods & Vita
