The Road to San Donato by Robert Cocuzzo

Author:Robert Cocuzzo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781680512458
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

How is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world!

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dad was fighting the impulse to naysay the city—and I couldn’t blame him. After pedaling through the tranquility of Tuscany over the last week, Rome grabbed us by the collars and screamed in our faces with spit flying. Cars were intent on mowing us down as we walked the streets. Throngs of people impatiently mobbed the sidewalks. And as much as I felt obligated to seek out the requisite archaeological sites of this historic city, I didn’t want to spend another minute in Rome. We yearned to get back on the road where the villages, the people, the very air we breathed were museum quality. Those scenes were so rare, as if we found them hidden behind a canvas. The Italy on the road wasn’t in the guidebook. You couldn’t pay five euros to see it. You needed to earn it, one pedal stroke at a time. We were desperate to get back into that rhythm, but first we needed to get my bike fixed.

The bike shop in the heart of Rome wasn’t at all what we hoped. It was simply too clean. There was no greasy tune station. No wall of tools. The air smelled like aftershave. A handsome, immaculately dressed man greeted us in English. “Gentlemen, welcome to my shop,” he said. “What do we have here?”

“We’re having some problems with the derailleur,” I explained. “The cable snapped and now I can’t shift gears.”

“Oh, I see,” the shop owner said. He barely glanced at the bike before calling into the back room: “Andrea!” A bespectacled Andrea emerged through the curtains, wearing a scarf and white chinos. He lowered to a knee, careful not to actually touch the ground, and assessed the situation.

“It’s in there,” Dad said, pointing to the spot on the frame where the cable had disappeared. “It snapped up at the handlebar and now we can’t get at it.”

Andrea eyed the bike, before waving off my father and muttering to the other man in Italian. “He says he’s got it,” the owner translated. “Come back in an hour.”

Dad took another long look at the bike and then back at Andrea. He shook his head and left the shop. “That guy has absolutely no idea what he is doing,” he said. “I mean, he’s wearing a scarf! What bike mechanic wears a scarf?”

We sat for cappuccinos at an open-air cafe in a nearby piazza. Attentive waiters in black ties floated from table to table. We ordered a couple of biscotti and watched pigeons fly in formation from one shady perch to another. I closed my eyes and basked in the sun. Then my phone buzzed in my pocket—a text message from my mother: Call me. I dialed her up.

“Hey, Ma, how’s it going?”

“Where are you guys now?” she asked.

“We’re in Rome. Waiting for my bike to get fixed.”

“Is Dad with you?”

“Yeah, he’s right here.

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