I sit on the bunk bed in the small bare room. The sliding window is half open, so are the blinds, and a faint cold breeze searches the room.
Through the not blooming branches of a tree that almost reaches for my windowsill, comes in from the outside the rumble of the city, endless engine noises covering sparse traces of voices and creatures. Occasionally cars run 20th street, but mostly it's the constant pushing uptown of the traffic on 8th avenue to give the rhythm.
There's an indistinct smell in the room, a mix of clothes scattered around and in the bag, shoes, the old faint red carpet, and the car exhaust rising up from the street, gasoline, tires, dust, maybe some remote coffee place spreading aroma along the sidewalks.
I try not to move my leg and wonder what the best position is supposed to be. My feelings, mostly shame for this failure of my body. An old injury, the right meniscus that got broken so many years ago, waking up again, so badly, without an obvious reason. Sure it must have been the weather, I argue, 'cause changing weather always caused my right knee to hurt a little, to swollen when I used it too much. And I always limped a little, unnoticeable. But it never happened to hurt so distinctly, for so many days without ever getting better -- at moments so stiff and painful and unavoidable. What a shame.

I am worried by the thought that it might be self-sabotage, too. That's probably what the feeling of shame relates to. On some level, am I maybe causing this to be so bad so that the whole trip is screwed? I wonder. Out of fear? Out of guilt? Because Libi everyday reminds me how lonely she's feeling, how unreasonably far I am going? Because my father ignores my emails, ignores to acknowledge my being away? My keep trying to be in my own way?
Because I still fail to get hold of concrete reasons for my choices, and to mark significant steps forward?

Could be, I mean. After all there must be an explanation, I say to myself. I might need a traumatologist, or I might need a psychologist, or both. Together analyzing me. Plus an acupuncturist maybe.

I felt so bad this morning that I had to cancel a get together with Robert, one of the fellow Userlands contributors, because of this fucking sabotage (if he ever received my message, which, at this point, not having received any answer from him, I worryingly start to doubt). And it's not like I make new friends everyday. But it was crazy to think I could go around walking, when just half a mile around the block it's painful to do.

I sit on the bed, writing and drawing, the room enlightened by a uniform white light pouring in through the blinds. I look at the knee and it looks fucking normal. I touch it and it feels normal. A fucking normal knee that hurts every time I move it.
I have these absurd fantasies of being frown upon, wondered about, by the latino girls cleaning the rooms, and the guys at the reception, or by the guests I meet more than once a day while limping up and down the stairs.

Weird limping guy by the half-mad half-desperate expression on his face, roaming around the hostel. Call black-uniform anti-terrorism homeland security squads and have him shackled away, over.

I get out to grab a cup of coffee and something to eat. It feels pretty lonely to stay in line at the Deli, random individuals as we are, each of us getting the preferred food the way we want, each going its own way to eat it by ourselves. I'd rather have the wrong, the least special food and have it shared at a table with these people. Everything feels wrong. I limp back at the hostel. Soon I fall into a worked up, raging sleep.

I dream with clarity of my father's face, so regular and severe. He doesn't look at me, he looks so much younger, taken by his life, going away. In the dream I clearly know he's wishing he had a different son, the one he wanted, someone who was expected to come out different from everything else, brand new, of the brand new world, and certainly not so similar to his mother, or what's worse, to his grandfather. Not so fragile or introverted or a day dreamer.
He wishes for it, but it's not like he cares much.
He keeps looking away, seems like having better things to do, and in the dream I want to ask, what about me, can't I have better things to do now?

A different version of this quite short story has been published on the amazing anthology Userlands edited by Dennis Cooper for Akaschic books, NYC.
Honestly I always hated that version of my story, it came out all wrong because of a series of stupid personal reasons that got in the way, and I always regretted it especially because of all the other amazing Userlands authors that surround it with great pages.
Anyway. What follows here is a version of it I might consider now decent and final, and that I read with defective pronunciation at Bluestockings, NYC on March 22nd 2007.
Some of you reading this might be reminded of an old post on this blog which in fact was the original inspiration both for the first and second version of this very piece.

*

you weird people by corpodibacco

I know that the smile of the grocery girl is because of my mother, her crazy looks, untidy hair, her odd clothes, the strange hat, the jabbering. You all must be weird people, says her smile, putting those useless animals before yourself.
I cave in with my own phony smile. Like I'm not like my mother. Not to be confused with her. Not of the weird people.

Outside the grocery store dogs and people move about in the brown shadows of the trees, and the metal bodies of the parked cars shine dryly, the edges white-hot under the sun.
We move out into the light and I reach for the trunk, squinting, crate of carrots in my hands, warning the old man that the car is a mess, 'cause that's the way my mother keeps it. He says okay and starts to fight his way into it, moving empty bottles around, dried sheets of old newspapers torn to pieces, the snow chain case that will tumble against his feet every time we accelerate, various slabs of dried mud spatter all around the inside, including the seats. As we slam the doors the overloaded ashtray exhales out gray and white particles that flit between our legs.
Dogs share the car, I apologize to him. Would he appreciate it if I started blaming my mother for everything? I wonder. I am willing to. He repeats three times, No problem.

In two minutes we are at the pharmacy, a quiet door gaping out on a narrow lane abandoned in the shade. At the opposite end of the alley the village suddenly disappears, and the curvy hills shine in the distant land before the Italian sea.
The old man and I part ways with a wave and a grumble, but then he calls me from the other side of the road, and he says, the grocery girl, she's my daughter. She's a good girl.
In my paranoia I figure he has a scheme that I should marry her.
The round face of the pharmacist takes its time to scan mine. There's a priest-like morbid aura about it, eyes of repressed sexual desire in the gloomy colors of the store as he hands me back the prescription.

Later I stop by an abandoned lot along the road across the olive groves in the countryside. The landscape is marked by scattered trulli and modern cement angular houses half hidden by the green.
The cats flock over meowing and rubbing themselves against the edges of the low stone walls as I get out of the car. I have detailed instructions about where the cat food has to be dropped. The small bowls and the old aluminum pans, one for each cat, are important. The pecking order is important. My mother is crazy.

Back on the shattered road I think of her, and how it would be if she died. Because she's at the hospital I am entitled to this thought. As the road winds down the hill bordered by more stone walls, further into the land I am not familiar with, I imagine a funeral, words of condolence and affection exchanged, how I wouldn't cry, unable to, maybe later on, and how unsatisfactory the long awaited sense of liberation would be, secret joy for a new life that in the end doesn't come about.
I wonder if the disappointment produced by my imagination makes me a better person or is it that I am just unprepared, that there is no way to be prepared but to imagine, and be disappointed.

As the car jolts against the roots cracking the driveway, the eight dogs rush out of the house barking and howling against the fence to cheer for my approaching smell and figure. The wind is ruffling their fur, scraps of toys and rags are scattered in the yard, their animation is irrational and sweet. All my perceptions are now flattened out to a uniform complacent, absurd lack of criticism, as I mentally go through the returning-home procedures. One bone-shaped biscuit for each of the dogs, in a rigorous hierarchical order. Two biscuits for the biggest one. The oldest barks fiercely and runs across my legs. He knows he comes first.

Hours have gone by when I'm finally done feeding the dogs and the horse and cleaning the stable.
At this point outside it is quiet as inside, only residual puffs of wind are stirring the foliage and shaking the hanging clothes. At moments, there's the crunching noise of the horse chewing on the last bits of carrot scattered in the hay. That's when I feel how after all my mother was right, to come to live this far from everything, here where communities are remote lights out in the dark and being this far and invisible is the safest thing you're left with at the end of the day.

But then some of the dogs are barking from very far out in the field, possibly at a fox. They're too far to be called back. I mentally pray not to find the fox slaughtered in the field the next day, not to have to get the shovel and the black bag and be seen from across the field again, gleaning the fox remains strewn about the meadow, carrying the rolled up formless bag to the dumpster down the hill, carelessly tossing it as if it were no corpse. But the dogs continue to bark, excitedly.

Anything sorts itself out,
except the difficulty to be, which never does.
      -- Jean Cocteau

Every now and then during the day I call myself stupid for something that crosses my mind. Memories of past scenes from the story of my life pop up unexpected in my head and drive me into a concealed embarrassments that can be shaken away only by calling myself "stupid" briefly, unheard. Of course the embarrassing events of the past are not really embarrassing for any sane person but me, but that's how it works. Petty stupid things dominate me in that moment, like a wrong word, a trivial mistake, someone I disappointed for something. I mean, years ago, even.
It's stuff nobody probably remembers, not even me until bits of it come to surface again. When they do, I am cutting a tomato for lunch, or browsing a website, or reading, or htmlzing a website, or pruning the woodbine, it doesn't matter. The memory unfolds, and I regret it.
I don't seem to be able to control at all the embarrassment that follows, so useless and neurotic, all by myself, if not by blaming my weakness, my oddity, my confidence or lack of confidence. There must be some pleasure in it, but I don't really know which is.

It's like that thing that keeps happening when I'm in bed alone, about to fall asleep.
-- No not masturbation, another one --
When I'm in bed alone, and I get drowsy over the book I'm reading, and I know I am about to fall asleep, suddenly, in the wrong moment so to speak, I realize that undoubtedly I will die, sooner or later, maybe in a short while-- I will cease to exist and there will be absolutely no place left for me, for my mind, my personality, my body, my feelings, my voice. All blacked out. Nothing left.
I mean, it's not something that will happen if I am not careful. It will just happen, for sure, one hundred fucking percent. Me no more. And all the rest of the planet going on.
At the unbeatable plainness of this vision my heart start banging in my chest fast, and I have to move about in the bed to push the whole thing away. Insane person! of course it's no use to worry about dying, I repeat to myself, since it has to happen anyway. I think about genes, and about all those rules of Nature I like so much to read about, and I wonder why I don't seem to be able to get along with it. Should I take drugs? I wonder.

It's all because you have too much spare time, says a voice. For your wanderings, it says. Because you lead an absurd life, it says. It's because, says the voice, you are closed up into yourself, cowardly worried to be deluded, unwilling to cooperate with your future, your destiny --all that sort of crap, says the voice.
I wonder about the voice, then I stop -- maybe I am opening the fridge, or jumping onto the tram, or washing dishes -- and I have a sudden revelation.

Sudden Revelation: to do nothing is the only way to understand how everything is vain.

That's when my mother calls. The cell phone vibrates in my hand, showing her name. I haven't heard from her for weeks. I haven't called, neither she has. For a moment I have the vision of her face, her figure walking down across the grassland to the ulives behind the stone wall, followed by dogs. She wears a captain hat, and looks away.

(to be continued. Second part is ready but it all came out too long)