The Italian Honey Badger
On Wednesday morning, I walked out the door hellbent on getting my overdue bills paid. Overdue to me, anyway, I was six days late. The Italians have a 30-day grace period, though. That amuses me. In the States, your lights would be shut off in 30 days!
Upon exiting to the street I immediately remembered – It’s Labor Day (Festa del Lavoro). My normally bustling little street was quiet as a mouse. Every business locked up so tightly the storefronts disappeared into the ancient city walls. I immediately walked back upstairs, grabbed a blanket and headed towards Giardini Margherita. It was going to be my next stop after the post office anyway.
This park was full of people. Giardini Margherita is my favorite place to relax, read, write, exercise, people watch and bask in the gorgeous spring weather. Every where I look there’s a completely new experience happening – everyone blissfully disinterested in what their neighbors ten feet away are doing. There’s old people walking or pushing even older people around in wheelchairs along the path. Siblings playing ball and bickering. Girlfriends playing cards and gossiping. A ring of hipsters hitting a ball around. Students trying to focus on their studies – the books and papers sprawled on the blanket appear to be decoys for their social agendas. Mommies and daddies with toddlers on their shoulders out for a midday walk. The fit getting fitter. The stoned getting higher. And the man on the bike in the business suit – probably getting richer. I even saw a girl change from a pair of skinny jeans into a skirt without showing any of her goods. It’s a melting pot of awesome out here.
In an environment like this I feel completely free. I’m not self-conscious about what I’m doing, how I look or what people think. It’s the sort of relaxation you feel when your lounging at home, all alone. Nobodies energy around to affect your own. Just you, your thoughts and whatever the hell you want to do. Except you’re surrounded by a few hundred people. But it’s easy to relax when you don’t know them and they’re completely unaware of you.
I’d found a cozy spot in the green grass just outside of the tree line where I could be in the sun for a while and then move my blanket a few feet into the trees and be in the shade. I sat with my knees up, using them as a desk as I wrote a story in my notebook. I would look up from time to time and watch the group of Italian students across the lawn doing Frisbee passing and catching drills. On one such occasion I noticed someone off to the side staring at me. I looked over to find a shirtless man with dark blue doctorish-style pants eyeballing me. Upon eye contact he began what looked like a Krav Maga sequence. Let’s be clear, I really have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to martial arts. But, John Defee gave me a brief Krav Maga demonstration once at the office probably eight years ago and that’s the first thing that popped into my head. I held my gaze and watched intently, as I believe was the shirtless guy’s intention for me. He wasn’t an unattractive man, but something about him just seemed… different. And he appeared to be out of shape because the show was over almost as quick as it began. Alrighty then. That was strangely awesome.
I noticed my arms were getting a little too much sun so I thought it would be a great time to disengage from this scene and transition my camp under a shade tree. I settled in and got back to my writing.
Wait? What the? No more than ten minutes had passed and the shirtless guy was in front of me again. But, this time, he was much, much closer.
I’m going to assume he’d had too much sun, too. Or, maybe, honey badger just didn’t give a shit. Because this time the routine began with what appeared to be a mimed performance of knocking someone down with a leg sweep, holding them around the throat with one hand and pointing and mime yelling what I imagined to be the Italian equivalent of, “Stay down! Stay down!” And then he stood up into a relaxed pose and put his hand down his pants.
I’m not sure if he was saying, “Hey, baby. Don’t worry, I will protect you.” or “Check out my sweet first-date moves.”
Either way, I giggled as I gathered my things again and moved far away to a park bench where I could sit down, get lost in the crowd and write this story.
HFB!!!