Issue 20

Christopher Clubb

The first time I begged for money on the street was while I was in Italy. I had been living in England, studying abroad at Lancaster University. And I chose Lancaster because it was my only option and also because they had a good physics program and I was still a physics major at that time. But I didn’t feel like taking such classes, so I enrolled in photography, painting, and history. I was most excited about the history course because I knew the past had always been presented to me through the context of American greatness and I was hoping for an effect similar to the one I had when channel surfing through foreign TV stations and glimpsing the shallow absurdity of my own familiar programming, which was somehow illuminated in the negative spaces.

The dollar was weak against the pound. I had been sustaining myself well enough though on tea, beer, and biscuits. This seemed to me almost like living off the land in a culture that I was apprehending through stereotypes. It was during this time that I learned to appreciate apple cores. They are flavorful enough and have an interesting texture. Plus, there is something magical about consuming the apple in its entirety. On my own, far away from home, the way I was getting along made me feel resourceful. And so I knew I could travel to Italy without much money.

I knew four people in Italy, other students from my college that were studying abroad at the same time, so I didn’t have to pay for a bed. And this was the only real expense that I had seen necessary to calculate for. This was because throughout my life I had noticed a consistent difference when judging my own ratings of the enjoyableness of things up against the ratings others provided. So, I didn’t plan on enjoying myself much, and when classmates in England raved about certain features that I was urged to add to my itinerary, I just nodded along with a smile, like “I’ll be sure to do that, cheers!”

It wasn’t until I started to get bored that I realized I didn’t know where I was or how I could get into contact with the friends I had made arrangements to stay with in Rome. Without internet access or phone service, I recalled the kindness of strangers. Simply, I asked the first person I heard speaking English if I could borrow their phone, as I did come prepared with a scrap of paper in my pocket with a number I could use in case I could somehow make a call. Thanks, lady.

I met Mike and Lex at the Lemon Tree Courtyard at the college they were enrolled at due to a few differently checked boxes on their study abroad applications. When I commented on the beautiful lemon tree that bathed the space in a soft shade, I was asked, “What lemon tree?” And then, “That must be why they call it the Lemon Tree Courtyard.” Maybe a few girls giggled. Though it was obvious that they had no authority on the matter, only just then becoming aware of it, I asked if it would be okay for me to grab a few lemons. “Sure.” I put a few lemons in my bag.

I spent most of my time in Italy doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, as far as I knew. I walked around and I looked at so many things. The light was different and I didn’t understand how or why. Then, after I had finished reasoning why the light was different, figuring the sun’s angle to my position on Earth as the culprit, I investigated the how thoroughly.

I walked down streets at random, if not on whim, moving confidently as if I were dutifully following the program of a guided tour, perhaps lagging behind when struggling to grasp such sights as Italian litter reclining in an Italian gutter with the impossible-to-understand Italian light reflecting off its sleek rain-washed surface. I absorbed my surroundings with a steady awe. It was only when I would find myself before some immense remnant of the past that I would feel a lack of esteem in my travel habits. I wondered if it would have been better for me to know more about history, if it would have helped me enjoy my experiences, if my dim knowledge of the world through the ages was responsible for my inability to enjoy things, such as real guided tours. And for many moments in my aimless ambling, I regretted dropping my history class.

It’s not that my expectations about the course weren’t satisfied. I was earnestly interested in the material and the way it was presented to me. It was only that, of all the subjects I was used to choosing between, history always came last. I had heard from many respectable sources in many different ways of encouragement that history is a great source of wisdom, but I never believed it applicable to my particular instance of living. On the first day of my history class, the professor commented on the low enrollment, just a handful of students, but promised that we could all continue on undeterred.

By the third class I was the only student still enrolled. There was something charming about the way this weathered-looking old man would power through a lecture while maintaining eye contact with his only student, a wide-eyed (scared) American youth only inches from his face. If it were a physics class or an art class, this one-on-one education would have surely been a high energy engagement of ideas, but learning about the period when alcohol was banned in England, the briefest prohibition in history, well, the conversation was more one-sided. The material had to be stated to be learned, and so it was impossible really to proceed in any other way. I would only sit there at full attention and nod like “I believe you” whenever he finished summarizing his interpretation of the records.

Dropping the class felt like a breakup, and I didn’t even have the courtesy to tell him face to face, our usual setup. What would I have said? It’s not you, it’s me? My other classes were going well, anyway. The photography class especially, because I was allowed to borrow an expensive camera from the department. But trying to capture moments as I was experiencing them in Rome made me feel slimy. My camera bag became needless weight. Certainly needless, as I have no trouble recalling that corner a few blocks from the Vatican where I sat on a curb and ate a slice of pizza. I can still feel the open access to the world that a warm breeze brought me in a dark parking area on a small hill. A baby Jesus was taken from an overturned trash can as a souvenir for my mother, but I’m not sure if she still has it. I think I took a few pictures of an old man releasing balloons near a large evergreen. It was almost Christmas.

There were quite a few things that I had a hard time processing, and I developed an unexpected obsession with one specific anomaly. I really couldn’t believe that the pizza and gelato could taste so good. And so I had to keep gathering data. Quickly enough, from the first samples, I reasoned that what I was eating was the same thing I had always eaten, composed of the same basic ingredients, but I was stumped as to how it could taste better. On my last day in Rome I had only enough money left to get me to the airport, but I faced a troublesome question: how could I possibly remain in the country while at the same time not be eating pizza and gelato? It was a puzzle I couldn’t solve. As I ate the last bit of heaven I could afford, I eyed passersby, planning my approach.

“Excuse me. Could I trouble you for some change? I’m trying to get to the airport.” “How much do you need?” Well, begging was not as troublesome as I thought it would be. And so I was certain I had made the right decision concerning my budget, but then, what’s this? A woman is gesturing at me, but I can’t understand what she’s saying. No, not at me. Someone behind me. No, not at someone behind me, but my behind. She offers me a tissue. I supposed a bird had shit on me. I set down my bags and took off my coat. As I was cleaning, my bus arrived.

When I realized that I didn’t have my camera, I also realized that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it while on the bus and so I let the worry wash away and continued to savor the view through the bus window. I did take action once the bus arrived at the airport and I found some official, though my problem was dismissed with a shrug and the word “gypsies.”

I didn’t make my evening flight and had to wait for one the following morning. Lying on cold linoleum, trying not to stare at all the others steadily spreading throughout the area, all apparently just as discomforted, I was hungry with absolutely no money and almost no food. Being hungry because of my own foolishness seemed much worse than appearing foolish because of my own hungriness. It’s always the first thing I recall when for some reason I remember my time in Rome, eating lemons at the airport.

Staring at the bright flowers scattered about in all possible spaces in between palm trees outside LAX, I wondered why I ever felt critical of the displaced aesthetic. After coming home for the first time, I was told my university credits would not be transferred until I paid for the camera. So, my records remain abroad. I never figured anything out about my experience or about my place in it. And even now I wonder how a bird could have shit on the small of my back—it really was a remarkable shot!