Tom Foran Clark

In Naples, by candlelight, Pike and Emery drank their cherry brandy from blue plastic cups. Pike carefully folded and put away his papers. They ate apples and oranges and submarine sandwiches piled high with pickles, tomatoes, and cheese. For dessert, ginger cookies. They spoke of the evening’s confusion, the taxi-cab driver, the old lady that flipped Pike off, the beauty of languages (including sign language), world politics, weapons of mass destruction, and past Christmases.

Hearing delicious strains of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite wafting in from a neighboring room, they opened their door to the hallway. With this, warm air rushed in. It was warm out, as well. At midnight, they were outside when the scheduled fireworks went off all over Naples. Cheers went up all over. It was beautiful -- particularly in those skies over squalid Naples. Pike and Emery shook hands. Then Emery took him in his arms and gave him a great big bear hug, being careful not to accidentally re-open any of his cuts, gashes, or stitched membranes. That’s the last thing Pike needed.

Standing there out front of the palatial four-star D’Innocenzo hotel with their hands in their pockets, Pike and Emery talked some more about things in general, and about Pike’s proposed pilgrimage -- to reach the Pico Sacro, or Sacred Peak, in Spain. Pike said the trail to the Pico Sacro was, with Rome, one of the most cherished destinations of religious pilgrims. Back in their room, the two spoke some more on this by candlelight. They emptied the brandy bottle and went to bed. Almost reverently, Pike put his map and book under his pillow, then blew out the candle.

It was raining Christmas morning, and it stayed raw, gray, and drizzly the whole day. Out on the streets, Pike and Emery saw perhaps fifteen or twenty Santa impersonators, only three of them hefty! -- the others were all haggard and skinny, as befitted Naples, sadly. Out on the Bay shoals, fisherman were hard at work, gathering and repairing and casting nets. Fish sellers on the quays had put out their regular offerings of mackerel, shrimp, clams, squid, octopus, and mutated, uncatalogued deep sea creatures of the polluted Mediterranean that may not yet even have had names.

They went by the Castle Del ‘Ovo and passed the statue of Caesar Augustus standing on a pedestal in a park staring absently into the wolf’s-gray mist. Lovers leaned on oceanfront railings, kissing and hugging. A couple of very old ladies appeared on the scene. Their hearts went out to them, the two old dames, blithering idiots, squabbling like two-year-old siblings, their faces twisted up in miserable, inscrutable pain. Pike and Emery could see they had no comprehension of the source of their squabbling, and no perspective on the their pain. But the ladies could not put their sadness or bickering in any perspective or attribute it to any cause, and it just went on and on, until they were out of sight and out of hearing range -- and of course it was wrenching to think how this went on far beyond their sight and their hearing.

Nearby were tennis courts. Vigorous young men and vigorous young women in matching white tennis outfits, all of them probably from vigorous and moneyed families, played tennis in the rain. This, on Christmas day -- that was sad, too.

All manner of beauty and off-putting abnormality could be found displayed in Naples. It was like a parade or procession of what can go wrong. On the Piazza of Trieste and Triento Pike and Emery bought ice-cream from a quite happy-go-lucky old man whose face had erupted in purple boils. His was an unruly beard of grotesque, squid-like, bubbled skin. Pike conjectured this was a survival tactic, his so cheerfully selling ice-cream.

Less stricken, deformed, boil-scarred, shunned humans also populated Naples. Mostly, the two saw perfectly healthy men proceeding gaily through the streets, arm-in-arm, or just standing around doing nothing -- save talking. The talk, the talk, the talk. They’d stand there talking, smoking, drinking, accusing, defending -- all eager to raise their voice, boast harshly, gesture hugely. This was clearly fertile mulch for mobs, and syndicates, and secret handshakes -- life lived poorly, boats going nowhere. To this picture add the sailors. They come to Naples from all over the world, young men from all over, all apparently practicing their strides and swaggering. There were also the hundreds of rats running through the streets. There was a glutton’s feast of rotting food in heaps throughout the city.

For Pike’s Christmas present, Emery bought them both two shots of the selfsame whiskey that Pike had so happily enjoyed in the company of Arlen Townsend in Assissi. Pike’s insightful, delectable gift to Emery was two shared shots of Courvoisier Cognac.

In Naples, the bars were also candy shops. A plain, straight-haired brunette girl wearing what looked like a nurse’s pinstriped dress grew lovelier and lovelier with each whiskey and cognac they downed. Finally, Emery boldly went over and bought a biscuit with white icing, a pineapple slice, and a cherry on it. He smiled with sincerest affection when he paid the girl, and with his change she handed him a private note -- like the slip of paper inside a Chinese fortune cookie: "Piazza Bovio, 19:00." Smiling kindly to her through the haze of the Courvoisier and whiskey, winking, Emery put the note in his pocket and sallied back to his chair.

Pike and Emery continued up confining alleyways cluttered with wash hung out to dry on lines stretched bewteen windows on either side. Tiny cars came speeding through, honking, regardless of how many men, women, and children were squeezed in there with them.

The two helped push-start a family of five crammed inside a tiny red stalled Fiat. They pushed it to the top of a hill and let it go. The engine kicked in, all right, and off the family went -- never to know even the names of their benefactors, and vice versa.

At 19:00 sharp, Pike and Emery were at the Piazza Bovio. So were a dozen or more swaggering, gullible sailors.

Back at their palatial room, there were fresh sheets and blankets on the beds -- and new candles in the candelabra. They didn’t light the candles or talk about the evening at all, but instead just hit the sack.

They checked out of the palatial D’Innocenzo in the morning, profusely thanking the maids, bell-hop, and desk clerk. Out in the clamorous streets, excited school kids ran after them, grabbing at their packs, hitting them with their lunchpails. The riders veered away, toward the sea. It seemed they’d never escape the uproar and the crushing sadness. Then they reached Pompeii .

Pompeii was quiet. Scorching lava from Mount Vesuvius had long since silenced Pompeii. Vesuvius had erupted, and Pompeii had come to a shrieking halt. Using teaspoons and toothbrushes, excavators had dug it out. Yes, Pompeii was quiet now. Beyond eerie and unnerving, in the amber, liquid light of late evening Pompeii was also exquisite.

They left Pompeii at nightfall and rolled south in darkness on the road to Salerno. Even at that time of day, the road was busy. There were still houses all along the road. Pike and Emery figured the only way to get out of this seeming infinite suburbia would be to turn away from the ocean, and ride toward the foothills.

They turned off down a side road and pitched their tent in a field. They slept uneasily. The commotion of traffic did not cease the entire night. At the crack of dawn they gave up expecting the noise to dwindle, diminish, ease up or otherwise go away. If anything, it was probably only going to get worse.

They got back on the road, trekked up a mountain to Cara de Tirreni, then rolled down to Salerno. Nowhere along that route did the congestion, danger, or clamor lift. But finally they were well rewarded for their strategy, and for their diligence, which paid off in spades. Under blue skies, sparkling diamonds danced on the waters of Salerno Bay. Nothing much was happening there. No waves crashed to the beach. No, there were not even waves at Salerno.

Pike and Emery sat on the sand awhile, treasuring the silence and the calm, then Pike got it into his head to go and smooth the edges of his hangover with a couple beers. So the two went over to a bar that was hopping with some youths who’d traveled to Salerno from Bari, on the opposite coast. They were high and buoyant when Pike and Emery went in -- not only from beer and wine, but also from hash in a pipe -- and when they closed in around the two in a circle, they grew just about riotous. "Americans!" -- they knew. They wanted to know every little thing about Pike and Emery, insisting they explain their unlikely presence. This was expedited and facilitated by not a few, but several beers. Pike somehow began to talk in what sounded like fluent Italian. "Copisco, Allesandro?" Pike asked after a lengthy disquisition that had some of those kids rolling on the floor. "Non copisco, Mimo? Rosario? Ugo? Ricky?"

Allesandro was the most mischievous among them: he smiled like the Cheshire Cat. Whenever Pike or Emery would hold our arms out, gesturing or posturing, Ali would do likewise, mimicking. Mimo, short for Domenico, was the suave one, his hair black and shining and his attire, pressed shirt and slacks and satin vest, very elegant. Ricky’s hair, in contrast, sprouted up disheveled from his head like a bird’s nest. He borrowed Emery's harmonica -- a sweet Country-Western refrain. Rosario, the one girl in that bohemian Italian entourage, was quiet and serious. After a while, as if to enhance the growing intensity of this encounter, she put on large glasses -- "bay windows," Mimo commented. Short and pudgy, Ugo came around behind Pike and put his hands on Pike’s shoulders and massaged them, also gently touching the wounds on Pike’s forhead, nose, cheeks, and shoulder. Every now and then, Ugo would repeat back to Pike something Pike had said -- like an echo.

Pike and Emery's new bohemian friends invited us to join them for dinner at the Salerno University Mensa, and even offered to inquire about lodging at the college for them, but Pike and Emery declined, choosing instead to just roll on. Emery knew beer-sodden Pike would be looking forward to that motley crew's seeing them off -- and the sooner the better.

The two rode out of Salerno and continued down the coast. At nightfall, they came on an empty barn only forty or so feet from the road -- very convenient. It wasn’t long before they were asleep.

Voices woke them in the middle of the night. And flashlights. Cars assembled in a circle around the barn, shining their highbeam lights. "They’ve come for the map," Pike said. He scrambled out of his sleeping bag and stood up. A man ran in, wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, carrying a flashlight in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. His light fell first on Emery, then on Pike. Other men piled in behind the first man.

"You speak English?" the Yankees fan inquired.

"No parlay your dog-gone language!" Pike said, standing on his jacket. “We don’t have any idea what you want!”

"The man’s eyes now went to the bikes. Then they were again focused on emery and Pike.

"Bicicletta," Emery said.

The men formed a circle, to have a huddle. Then their spokesman again turned toward Pike and Emery. "Okay," he said. "You sleep." With a single motion if his arm, they then dispersed.

"Bastards!" Pike said in harsh condemnation of them after the danger had passed. “You did it, Emery,” he said. “You got us out of that one.” Neither of them could get back to sleep again after that. Pike kept muttering, “Bastards!” As for Emery, he could not for the life of him shake the simple haunting tune Ricky had played on the harmonica for them in Salerno earlier that day. It haunted him. It kept him up all night.

At dawn, they saw that clouds had again rolled in. The temperature had dropped a little, too. There were towering Eucalyptus trees all over; the two hadn’t even noticed their presence the night before. On the wet grass around the barn were the tread marks of the cars that had brought the posse of vigilantes in the night. Seeing these, Pike and Emery hastened their departure.

Just before noon, Pike and Emery rolled into Paestum, spending a little time on the beach before making their way to the ancient temple ruins -- noble Grecian pillars rising up from a lush pasture of clover, dandelions, and red poppies. Black crows arrived in glorious Paestum, complaining bitterly of their presence. "You can’t stop us either!" Pike screamed at the cranky birds, defiantly insisting he and Emery would pitch their dog-gone tent right there that night.