IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME IMPASSE

TROUBLE FINDS ME IN SARDINIA

I arrived on a boat, half drunk and starving for something other than raw fish. Italian fishermen are a tough lot. They took me for $200 American dollars and nearly the shirt off my back in forty-five minutes of Gilet though I was able to talk them out of taking my shirt. Every one of them is big, hairy and mean and could have easily slit my throat had they not found me so charming. A laughing pirate takes only your money.

         I jumped off the boat at the soonest chance. They had docked on the island to get more booze. Booze I imagine they were planning on stealing. The sun was just starting to set creating a beautiful ambiance. Pretty Italian girls were on the beach and gawking at me like I just arrived from mars. I simply love the way Italian girls dress for the beach. Soaking wet with no dry cloths I made my way into town. I looked like a degenerate but luckily for me there was a store open that sold cloths and they took credit cards! Thank God for modern technology. They let me dress in the restroom after I purchased the cloths and I then made my way to a small motel and purchased a room overlooking the ocean. In the morning my first stop will be the Tomb of the Giants, Tomba dei giganti in Lanusei. I am a fascinated by graves, I always have been. I don’t know why that is being that most graves look the same: stone on top of ground with writing or a cherub or both, but it just interests me. I also love the idea that there were once Giants roaming the island of Sardinia.

         This place is much more rundown than I had expected and it is a poverty rundown not rustic. For an island that probably depends a great deal on money from tourism to boost the economy, not having the money to make your island sparkle drives tourists away with much needed renovation money. It is a rotten conundrum. I figured that while I was on the island I might as well go and visit the sights.

         As morning dawned I had the hotel call me a cab to take me up into the hills to see what was out there. The cab was a beat up old blue piece of shit with a driver that still stunk from booze either from the night before or breakfast I wasn’t sure. He had a two-day old beard, a few gold teeth, a few missing teeth, a filthy cab both inside and out and bald tires. I imagine the tires hadn’t been changed in fifteen years. I climbed into the backseat and nearly had to hold my breath. The stink was one of vomit and gin. I quickly lit a cigar and hoped that the aroma of the cigar would overwhelm the other. The smart thing to do would have been to leave the drunk on the side of the road and have them call another cab but being that it took nearly two hours for this one too arrive I wasn’t optimistic the next would be any better. By now the sun was up and I could even hear a few birds chirping.

         Somewhere between my destination and the hotel, along an insolated stretch of mountain road my driver pulled off to the side of the road as a blue pickup truck was approaching taking up both lanes. “Run the bastard off the road,” I shouted at the driver.

         “Shut up,” he responded. I could see perspiration had formed on his brow.

         “You chicken shit, what are you doing?” I said as the cab came to a complete stop. I barely had the words out of my mouth when the truck screeched to a halt. Out from behind some rocks just off the road appeared masked, armed men. They were yelling in Italian. My door was flung open and I was dragged from the car.

         “You dirty animals,” I yelled. “Go bother someone that has a life.” They ignored me, taped my hands behind my back, taped my feet so I couldn’t make a break for it, threw a black cloth sack over my head and tossed me into the bed of the pickup. I figured it was best to keep my mouth shut or they’d tape that closed as well. These dumb idiots think because I am a white traveler to their rotten island I must have money. How sore they will be when they find out I am not much better off then they are and then I will have the final laugh. Kidnapped off the street in Sardinia. It was something I would have expected to happen in Mexico City or Bogota, but not Sardinia. One thing I noticed though was that they knew what they were doing. It was planned out and it happened quickly. I knew I wasn’t the first they’d ever kidnapped, but I sure would be the most annoying. Truth of the matter is that I look at dying as part of living and so should this me my way off the mortal coin, so be it. So the collecting of a ransom to save my ass is not happening.

         They took me across the island to a small cement structure and locked in in the cellar. At least they removed the tape on my hands and feet and took the stupid sack off my head. I didn’t bother asking them what it was all about or where I was. I knew where I was, somewhere on Sardinia. Why I was kidnapped most likely involved money but I didn’t give a damn what their intention. My only words to the guy on guard duty, was a request for a cigar and some red wine. The young guard was taken aback and responded, “I’ll see what I can do.”

         My dinner consisted of sardines, risotto and water but the young guard came through with the wine and cigar along with a book of matches and I paid him for his efforts. He seemed surprised that I’d been able to sneak money into the cell. The room consisted of nothing but a pile of straw with a blanket, a small table and a chair. After a dinner that was delicious, I sat at the table smoking the cigar when I heard the young guard clear his throat. I glanced over and noticed him looking into the room through the bars on the door.

         “You are not like any of the others,” he said.

         “This is a regular business?” I asked.

         “It is,” the man answered.

         “I can guarantee that you have never met anyone like me in your entire life,” I said.

         “What brought you to Sardinia?”

         “Pirates,” I responded. There was silence at the other end.

         “You are a pirate?” The guard finally asked.

         “No, not me. I merely stowed away on one of their boats and when they caught me I ended up here,” I said.

         “You are an adventurer?

         “That I am, and a writer,” I said.

         “That sounds charming,”

         “It can be, until you get locked against your will in some depressed cellar on a pig stinking island.”

         “That is not fair,” he said. The nerve of the guy to say what was or wasn’t fair. What, because they are poor then kidnapping for ransom is somehow acceptable behavior? I figured that they’d been doing illegal activities for so long they eventually justified their behavior. I figured arguing with the guy was pointless. He was a young idealist and they are the most dangerous. It was guys like this young guard that the dictator’s look to manipulate into mass killings. It wasn’t the first time I’d run across bizarre cultural behaviors that made absolutely no sense to most of the world outside of their own situation.

         The following morning two burly guys entered the cellar. I was made to sit on the chair and mercifully given a mug of steaming black coffee that was quite good. One man was holding a rifle of some kind and the other had a pistol in a holster attached to his belt.

         “This is not personal,” the large bald one said. “We are just businessmen.” I couldn’t help but start laughing at that statement.

         “I make jokes?” The man said obviously offended.

         “Oh, I thought you joking,” I said which pissed him off even more.

         “You fucking people think you can come to our island and do as you please?” the man said. He was making absolutely no sense.

         “I was on my way to visit a tourist attraction and spend money here. I have no idea what you are taking about,” I said.

         “Do you know why you are here?” the other man said.

         “I thought I did, but now I have no damn clue.”

         “I don’t care for your attitude,” the man with the bushy hair and moustache said. “And neither does my partner.”

         “I honestly don’t care,” I said.

         “The ransom on your head is four hundred thousand American dollars.”

         “Good luck with that,” I said. I could see the confusion in their faces.

         “We need an address and phone number so we can make our demands.”

         “I don’t have any family, I work as a freelancer so I don’t have a company and I don’t have any money personally, so you are shit out of luck pal.”

         The bald man reeled back and delivered a strong backhand bitch slap that sent me flying backwards on the chair. My head hit the hard ground but not directly so I wasn’t knocked completely senseless. For whatever reason and I don’t to this day know what it was, I again started laughing and couldn’t stop.

         “He is fucking crazy,” the busy haired man said to the other.

         “You mean to tell me there is nobody on earth that would pay for your release?”

         “Not a quarter,” I said pulling the chair back up and sitting down again. I reached over and took a sip of the coffee. The right side of my face was numb and my lips were starting to slightly swell. My head was pounding and there was a low ringing in my ears but nothing too severe.

         “Then I guess there is nothing left to do but kill you. You are worthless to us.”

         “Yup,” I said taking another sip of coffee. I could tell the bald one was about to come unhinged. I wondered if he would beat me to death or if he would use the pistol and if so, would it be one shot or would he unload the entire clip into me in a frenzied rage. I imagined it was the most awkward hostage negotiation in the history of the business if you want to call it a business. I think of it more as a lazy man’s racket.

         “Tomorrow you will dig your own grave and then we will be done with you. Tonight you can think about your decision and whether you would rather provide us with the information that we want to know. I guess they could have tried to torture me but they may have realized that it was useless and I would only have made a big mess.

         Finally both men stormed out of the cellar leaving me to my own devices. I heard them speaking out in the hallway to the young guard but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. It is a strange feeling being a condemned man, knowing that you are doomed. You sit there and think about life and that that is it. All that and then poof, it is over. I figured there were worse ways to go, but it was somewhat offensive being executed by a hairy stinker like baldy or even his buddy, muff. I wasn’t into it. There just wasn’t enough honor in it. As night wore on I started to wonder about something that I’d noticed earlier. The two men had rushed out of the cell so disjointed they had forgotten to lock the door and as far as I could tell the young guard hadn’t done so. As the night wore on I wandered over to the cell door and peeked out through the bars. The young guard was sitting in a chair leaning up against the wall sound asleep. I figured I was dead regardless so I tried and door and to my surprise it was unlocked. I simply walked out the front doors of the place. I walked back to town and slipped into a bordello where I was able to catch a little shuteye. By morning I purchased a ticket on the next ferry to the mainland and was gone. I don’t know what ever became of the two burly men but I assumed the young guard took my place in the shallow grave for allowing me to escape. I didn’t ever plan on returning to the island and haven’t to this day.

BROKEN DOWN IN MOROCCO

If you want to talk about exotic and your $500,000 won’t get you ten minutes on a Sebonack toilet, there is always Morocco. And no it’s not a rice krispy covered chocolate-shelled ice cream bar on a stick sold from rusty carts with flat tires on Ludlow Street. It’s a wild land of mint fields and pointy silk shoes, mysterious rug shops and endless stone mazes filled with shops, restaurants, magic lamps and mystery.

         I arrived in the place by sailing across the strait of Gibraltar in a beat-up old white tugboat I assumed was formally used to ship Manhattan’s bum population to Rochester in the late 90s. Our route took us near the great rock where the Barbary Macaques howled and hurled orange stones at us, and hundreds of dolphins slid through the blue water like a dream. The tiny landmass packed with humanity and industry. A thousand years of war and conquest carved into white stucco, cargo ships and power lines.

         The hot Mediterranean sun baked us and the young European women on board practically stripped naked and sprawled themselves about any unsecured space like hookers at the crossroads of the world. Cheap beer and chorizo was being sold by street kids for a quarter a piece, bad music drifted over a sound system purchased for peanuts from some defunct Siberian gulag and nothing but time and a sure hangover stood between us and bazaars of Tangier. Forget first class passage on the Titanic.

         Morocco was like stepping into a time warp. The city of Tangier was a modern enough urban setting with somewhat of a 19^th century feel, narrow streets and rustic dwellings and beautiful coastline. Sailing into the port you are met with a view of white houses cascading along the rocky hillsides seemingly stacked upon each other in layers though it is all an illusion. The people went about their business as any city. But it was leaving the city and heading first out into the countryside and then into a medina that the imagination is captured. I rented a car with a driver and thirty minutes out into the middle of nowhere the car broke down. This was back in the time of when cell phones were the size and shape of a shoebox and miraculously this driver had one. “Are you calling for a tow truck?” I asked. The way he looked at me I knew he had no idea what I was talking about.

         “I’m calling my cousin,” the man said. I figured he was a mechanic. There was an olive tree a few yards off the road and I went over to sit in the shade. The temperature had to be in the mid-eighties and I had only half a small bottle of water left. After an hour or more the cousin showed up with a jack. My hired driver, a man that supposedly drives for a living didn’t even have a jack in his car. When he finally pulled the spare out from underneath an area in the trunk it was flat. The cousin didn’t have a tire so the man got back on his phone. The entire scene was so ridiculous I wandered back over to the olive tree and lay back down in the shade. I actually enjoyed my time in the shade. It was peaceful and I was able to do some good writing. The man and his cousin just sat around talking and laughing. It was like being down at the corner bar. Stuff like that must be so routine they just accept it for was it is, one of life’s hiccups.

         Finally another car arrived and my driver explained to me that I would now have a new driver. I said fine and the driver said that I still had to pay him.

         “Pay you? You broke down, weren’t prepared and we’ve been stuck here all day,” I said.

         “You still owe me that is the way it is here,” he said. It was the most rotten hustle I’d ever seen.

         “You stinker, I should kick your ass all over this dusty road!” I yelled.

         “That is ugly, ” the man said. He had the nerve to call me ugly while trying to justify his stealing from me. I was afraid the other driver would side with this skinny crook and leave me to walk back to Tangier so I just paid the vulture and jumped into the other car. After bartering and me being forced to agree on an outrageous charge for the transportation to Fes, we were on our way. Unlike the last guy, this one was chatty and asked me many questions. He said he had a brother living in New York working in a tobacco shop. He was nice and we hit it off. He made the rest of the trip to Fes pleasant. He even allowed me to smoke my cigar in the car while he chain-smoked pungent cigarettes.

         I arrived in Fes, a sprawling maze of stone streets and alleyways, shops and restaurants and animals and people everywhere. This would do for a while.