Soccer and Politics

I wrote this after my junior year abroad in Venice, Italy. 1981

The bus violently pulled close to the curb and flung its
doors open with a burst of loud air. I jumped up the two stairs and
swung around the shiny steel post, planting my feet firmly, in front
of the ticket man. “Five hundred Lire,” he repeated, and I slid the torn
bill from my right pocket and placed it in his long soft hand.

The bus lurched forward and everyone grabbed for a strap.
We were pressed together, moving as one. An old armpit pressed
softly into my face. Hot pungent air filled the bus. Damp shirted men
with lazy ties dropped their faces into wet palms only occasionally
lifting them to take some air and look at young women. Patient old
ladies sat dry and calm, missing the point. The heat no longer reached
them. They wore coats and felt hats.

I stepped down onto the cement curb and the bus sped away. I
walked straight down the sidewalk counting out five long strides
between every tree. I reached Flavio’s bar on the third stride after
the twenty-second tree. Franco stood, old, cane in hand, waiting
out front.

“I’m sorry to be late Franco”, I said, pointing to the traffic and
then the sky. We sat down. Franco ordered a bitter campari for me.
He drank beer from a shot glass. “When are you leaving us”, he
asked me knowingly. I told him again, “I must leave tonight .
School starts Tuesday. I will miss you Franco, you have been
good to me.” “You go, and do well”, he said. Go and see everything
you can and one day you will like a place and just stay there. It will
happen. You’ll get tired of leaving those you love.”

The waiter brought my drink and Franco and I just sat
there, as we had almost every Monday afternoon that summer,
watching the groups of old men talk soccer and politics