Rimini and the Young Go-Hards

We met in Florence. They loved hip-hop and rap and straight up gangsta shit. One even wore a Tupac shirt the day I met him. If there is a better indicator of a substantial human outside of a Pac shirt, it may only be a Dallas Cowboys hat. Dutch boys, J and A (even though his name starts with an 'E' but it's pronounced like a long 'A'), they're good kids. One 19 and just staring university, the other 18 and still finishing high school while living at home, they were indeed kids. I love youth, and since I've been on the road, I've had a vampiric attraction to their carelessness and unbending will. The call sign we settled on quickly--and beat to death in our time together--was, "J, A, ladies lemme hear ya now, Y, Z." Because HOVA would want it that way.

We talked about Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, two shows watched by every single person in Europe. J even offered keen insight into Breaking Bad. He felt it was a satire on America's lack of a safety net. "In Holland, there would be no Walter White, because we have a system." No new junkies strung out on blue meth, a high school chemistry teacher's hands left unbloodied, no protracted police chase hemorrhaging tax dollars, all because they have a system. That had not occurred to us, Dude.

They were, "Euro Tripping," as they liked to say, and I got to ride in the slip stream. We went out in Florence and got absolutely bent. We went to an Irish pub and then to a club. Two Dutch girls recognized they were from the Netherlands only by their dancing. It's some Dutch super power I don't fully comprehend, but they recognize their fellow citizens on sight alone. Fine Dutch ladies, at that. Or, "vlees," as they taught me. Flesh is the literal translation, but a kind of boyish label applied only to that which is Grade A.

J banged some English girl on the floor of the hostel bathroom. He even managed to escape the noose of the dreaded cuddle session. Good kids. We agreed to meet in Rimini a couple of days later. We even booked the same hostel. 

After a punishing walk from the Rimini train station--the kind where you take off your pack next to a street lamp while the sun bears down and think, "Well, I guess that's it for us,"--I made it to the hostel. It looked so close on the map. And a quick note on packs: a good pack is like a child, or what I'm assuming having one of those things is like. You love it to death, it's your everything, but you're always glad to be rid of it. At least for a few days. 

As soon as I walked in, I saw J and A seated on some pillows in the common room. They shot up, and it was big hugs all around. They had already befriended a crew of rowdy Swiss boys and two American girls. One of the American girls taught English in Kuwait. We chatted while I checked in.

"That's cool. I need a job like that," I humored her. Small talk is a tedious exercise, and it's almost endless on these kinds of adventures.

"I can get you a job. All you need is a bachelors degree."

"Well, I don't have one of those."

"Not even a bachelors?" Disdain dripped from her twisted face. "Come on, man."

I hated her instantly. The only one entitled to throw my lack of ambition and direction in my face is me.

I went to my room, dropped my pack, and slipped straight into my swimsuit. At the bottom of the stairs I overheard a gravel voiced man talking about Austin. He was in short shorts, had a flat brush of platinum dyed hair, and a paunch trapped inside a white tank top. Hey, I'm from Austin. He sized me up and didn't like what he saw. An absolute diva, hostel manager, and Rimini party maven, to him, I was some nadir of cool where fun went to die.

"You better be ready to party. This is a big weekend," he growled like an English Harevy Fierstein. 

I left the hostel, grabbed two big Birra Moretti--Moretti, the miserable sunken eyed drunk on the label complete with green fedora casting a shadow over his face, is my Patron Saint--and went to the beach. Stretched out on a small spit of sand, it fell into me. A sensation I've battled against with uncountable childish endeavors and boondoggles, I was feeling old. 30 in some hostel with a bunch of kids. I'll be 31 in less than a month. I drank my first Moretti and fell asleep. Beach sleep is the best, dreamless and isolated. I woke a while later, cracked Moretti number two, and swam in the ocean. The water was warm and shallow.

I returned to the hostel some hours later. The place was already gripped in a haze of cigarette smoke, consumed spirits, and turgid sexuality only the young can excrete with such unbridled aggression. Shower and change, catch a shave, yes, I am going on the pub crawl.

After I secured my ticket for the night's festivities, I was given a band that read, "FOREIGNER," and a red t-shirt bearing the name of the hostel and pub crawl. Handed a pair of fabric scissors, I was expected to customize the cheap tee. To show off my personality. Everyone else had opted for the tank, some more revealing the others. A young American working at the hostel, from Seattle and with an unfortunate name, proudly told me he had been banned from making tanks. Some of the girls complained they were too skimpy. I opted for the toga look. The party maven, who had on a pair of high heels and was leading a Beyonce dance along, took a break to look me over and say, "Ugh. You're such an American."

We drank. Beers turned into shots and shots turned into more shots. The Swiss boys loved to play the game where they'd point at your shirt, and if you made the mistake of looking down, you'd get a nose full of finger and then have to buy a round of shots. Even before we left the hostel, sideways eyes and brazen coupling swept through the little lambs. Eventually we poured into the streets and went to the clubs. At each club we ordered a couple of drinks and were rewarded with two shots on our way out. Around the third or fourth club, my blood went bad. 

This is a phenomenon I've finally given a name. When I was younger, it would spill out onto everyone in an ugly fashion. In my old age, I've come to recognize the moment and excuse myself. When the blood goes bad, my vision goes from blurred drunk to hyper clear. Every face around me is fashioned from my perfect disgust. Howling goons feebly trapped in this mistake of supposed life. I want to prowl around and grind in their ears how they'll be dead and forgotten. How their love will count for nothing. How misery and despair is too good for them. Instead they'll feel nothing, a void from which they are too afraid to escape. The second rate scaffolding they call their person would collapse under the weight. It's like the valve on my well regulated self-contempt is blown open. Why don't these girls choose me? Why am I not your demigod on whose every word you hang yourself like thieving peasants? Why must I know the truth? A little voice turned booming megaphone chanting, "you deserve more, more, more." So I disappeared into the night without so much as a goodbye and went straight to bed.

In the morning, I woke and was upset I had angled for another day in this cesspool of wasted youth. It was the first time I had considered going home. Wherever or whatever that is. I went downstairs and J, A, and the Swiss boys were already awake. Perhaps manufactured, but I could see the hit I'd taken in their esteem. Even J and A, my advocates, looked a little weary of this 30 something. The night was recounted, what I had missed. Believe it or not, they got drunk. J banged a girl who worked at the hostel in the laundry room. Good Kid. Where did I go? Oh, I just have this tendency to wander off. No big deal. Went looking for trouble, went to the beach, laughs all around.

At lunch by myself, the most disgusting hamburger you've ever seen, there was a tempestuous internal board meeting. Any perceived good qualities were dragged out and castigated down to atoms. Bad qualities were exalted and piled on the table, perhaps the only stock on which we can leverage future enterprises. At this particular meeting, Nausea had a strong presence. That fucking burger was like 8 Euros.

Back at the hostel, I did some writing. As Bukowski once noted, "I can't stop writing, it's a form of insanity." Lost in my own madness, the safest place for a mad man, I began to feel better. J and A (ladies let me hear you now) found me and we decided it was time to go to the beach. The three of us, the Swiss boys, and a clutch of big Moretti went to the shore. Of course I couldn't say no to the beers. I'm still desperate to fit in. The beach was nice. We sat in the surf and drank beer and fucked around. Man, those European boys love grab assing. We made jokes about Holland and America. As my spirits were on the rise, I made a joke about how all the Swiss kid's grandparents still had Nazi gold. Not funny. Well, they didn't think it was funny. Still kind of a sore subject, I suppose. So much for healing. 

As Moretti went down and we began to grade the, "vlees," to which there was a bounty, the day felt better. The Swiss boys began to fill their empties with sea water and sling them around. One red headed woman was caught in the fray of such grab assery. As we all turned to each other and giggled, we agreed she probably hated us.

"I do hate you," she called in her American accent. "You just got beer all over me." 

We told her it was just ocean water, but it didn't matter, she wanted to join us. A dancer, actress, singer combo from New York she now lives in London. She had spent the summer in some Italian town taking a language course. She talked tough, didn't take shit, and had an attitude. Good woman. 

As we dried off on the shore, we discovered that we all stayed at the same hostel. Next came the age exchange. She was 21. After a bevy of 18's, 19's and 20's, it came to me. 

"40," one of the Swiss boys sneered.

"Really, 40?" she chirped.

"I'm 30," I corrected. 

"You look pretty good for 30."

"I moisturize."

We made our way back to the hostel. I showered and changed. Yes, I'm going to the foam party.

When I got downstairs I found J. I needed some water and he needed to find an ATM, so we ventured out into Rimini. The first ATM was out of cash, so a short trip turned into a goose chase. A woman with her face painted white wearing an all white dress accosted me for water from my bottle. I finally filled her cup and then she demanded another. It was the first time I'd raised my voice in months. We wandered around and discussed the finer points of Murphy's Law. J occasionally stopped a person on the street and asked  in Italian if they knew where to find an ATM. He lamented how he has to take care of A whenever they travel. Like his mother he said, having to mind all of the passports, itineraries, and tickets. He was, despite what I might think from our time together, the quiet and responsible one back home. His home, Rotterdam, we talked about that, too. On this particular subject, he was passionate.

"We have a saying in Rotterdam, and it's like, 'shut the fuck up and do your work.' We're a builders town. A strong town. After the Nazis bombed during World War II, the whole city was destroyed. There was no place to go, and lots of people died. But even the next day, we started rebuilding. It's one of Rotterdam's most famous stories."

Good kid. He finally found an ATM. 

By the time we returned, a small band was playing on the hostel stage. They played mostly American songs, lots of Pearl Jam, with the occasional English rock standard peppered in there. I found A and the Swiss boys on the terrace. They'd acquired a couple of blonde Canadian girls. Red was there, too. We drank. We drank beers and drank vodka-red bull from a bucket and took shots. At some point A lost hist ticket for the foam party. He had to buy another one. Properly lubricated, we sang along with the band. At one point, the band played, "Blister in the Sun." As I'd been hooting the words to every song, a mic was suddenly pointed in my face. It was the break down.

When I'm a walkin' I strut my stuff, and I'm so strung out. I'm high as a kite, and I just might to stop to check you out. A-na-na A-na-na. Body and beats, I stain my sheets, and I don't even know why. My girlfriend, she's at the end. She is starting to cry. Let me go on, like a blister in the sun.

I was cheered in my effort. The lead singer was thrilled and tried to drag me on stage. Even the party maven looked down from his high heeled perch and was pleased. I guess this old American had a flicker of something similar to fun left in him after all. 

At one point or another we added a Scottish kid who was born in Moscow. He now lives in Glasgow. Under his mop of curly black hair, he kept his eyes trained on Red. He lived and died for her attention. They'd been part of the same summer course in Italy, and he followed her to Rimini. Uninvited. It was clear who was chasing who. And on the other side, who had no interest in said pursuit, much less pursuer.

Around midnight we all filed out of the hostel and caught a bus. Once on the bus, uncut pandemonium. The bus must have had testosterone pumped into the air ducts, because the guys went berserk. The bus shook under the cacophony of competing soccer chants. People banged the windows and pounded the roof and smashed the overhead lights until one of the screens fell from the ceiling. Some chants would start, be drowned out with jeers, and another chant took its place. At any given point the bus seemed like it would split open, launch every screw, exploded from the inside by boys intoxicated on booze and anonymity. One person tore the emergency window hammer from the wall. Someone else used it to smash a window. When the bus finally arrived, J had bloodied his knuckles from pounding everything in sight. 

Where conventional certainty led everyone to believe this foam party would be held at a club, we pulled up to a water park. We made our way through the turnstiles in staggering fashion, and the group disintegrated. I ended up with the dark haired kid, Glas-Cow or Mos-Gow--depending on which combination of his homes you prefer--and a former Navy man with a busted skull. We snaked through the park and followed the thump of bass. Eventually we found a low in the park where the wave pool was located. The crowd was shirtless and massive. Down the stairs and into the throng, we could hardly get our beers before the first foam drop fell from a tower erected in the middle of the dance floor. We quickly got separated as house music and taut, tanned revelers and trips to the bar wedged their way between us. All alone, I thought, "Well, shit..." stripped off my shirt, and pushed into the thick.

Squeezing past sweaty bodies--clad in little more than bikinis and thin films of foam residue--I didn't stop until the low end felt like it might shatter my coccyx and the tweeters shrieked in my ears. I danced my ass off. I danced like I haven't danced in years. I danced with the fecklessness of a long forgotten 18 year old who used to go to raves with his cool older brothers. Arms flailing, feet off the ground, shouting along in a language I didn't speak, it all spun into a climax. A column of fire. 

The DJ started a count down, and in my best Italian, I chanted down from ten with the masses. At, "UNO," the beat dropped and foam spilled from the sky. On the tower supports were spinners casting off rainbow halos of foam. Wide mouthed tubes hung over the edges spewed drifts of aerated soap. Suddenly a mound of foam was on top of my head. I turned, and it was the Navy man with the busted skull. We hugged, chest to chest, and danced. 

It was a baptism of Euro house and Palmolive in a font of sweaty young flesh. Excpet on the other side, instead of some Phoenix returned to his youth, it was a 30 year old who was relieved. Relieved he didn't have to battle through his 20's again. Relieved he could still cast himself on the tide of heavy beats with no regard for elusive cool. Relieved he got to be on some far off coast--a place once relegated to untouchable daydream--doing something utterly ridiculous. The DJ rounded out his set, and I emerged from the pit a man in full. Well, as close as I'd ever let myself get.

The party moved into an area in the middle of the park, a covered amphitheater where another DJ rattled off some deep trance. If that's what the kids still call it. I turned in one side and saw Red making out with one of the Swiss boys. I made my way further in and found J and A. We hugged and danced and bought each other drinks. The Canadian girls danced on a barrier and looked down at me with big smiles. One ran her hands through my slicked back hair and laughed. The American girl who judged me for not having a degree was being soundly ignored by the Swiss kid who plugged her the night before. He'd found someone better. It made me happy. A drink got knocked onto one of the Swiss guys. For some reason, he got real bent out of shape at me. My drink was intact. His friends told me to ignore him, so I did. Eventually Glas-Cow found us. Exasperated and shirtless, he had one predictable question. Have you seen Red?

"Yeah, I saw her over at the edge making out with one of the Swiss dudes," I guffawed out of my shit eater. 

Instantly, like I offered him the answer on his mother's gravestone, he was devastated.

"I'm gonna see if I can go find her," he replied broken to bits.

"Why?" I called, but he had already pushed past me.

A few minutes later he returned to me, his face darkened into something degrees deeper than a scowl. "Will you come have a cigarette with me?"

Sure, why not. I followed him out of the dome. We settled on a patch of grass largely reserved for the league of heavy petters. One guy had his hand buried so far in his girl's yellow bikini bottom you couldn't see wrist. 

Glas-Cow sat and smoldered for a minute. I waited for him to talk.

"You know, it doesn't piss me off she didn't choose me, but why that asshole?"

"I think it does piss you off she didn't choose you," I replied.

"She's just so smart and so confident, why would she...settle for that?" He spit the last few words from his mouth like poison.

"Man, you can't let it bother you. We're in the middle of a fantasy. An illusion. We're all allowed to live outside of our respectable selves for a few days. In real life, that Swiss cat might not stand a chance--I don't know--but tonight..." I shrugged. "I mean, he's got a six pack." 

There was no humoring him. "No, fuck that. It's because I'm not an asshole. People think I'm a nice guy, but I'm not. I can be a real..." his voice trailed off.

"How old are you?" I asked.

He turned his face to me, downcast. "I'm 16," he whispered.

But a young thing. "No offense," I measured my words, excelling at insult and injury, it was clear he couldn't stand much more of either, "but a 16 year old and 21 year old, that's...it's ambitious, brother."

"I didn't expect her to be in love with me, but I expected her to at least get with someone...worthy of her."

"Well, that's not for you or me to decide."

"To be honest, and you can't tell anyone this, if we got to the hostel and she was crying because something bad had happened...I'd be happy."

I like to write, kid. You can't tell me anything. "That's...well, that's pretty harsh. But I'd be lying if I said I haven't felt equally insane things about the women I've loved."

He lit a cigarette, the flame like the fire under his rolling boil. 

"Are you, and feel free to lie to me, are you still a virgin?" I queried. 

He lit up like a Roman candle. "Not since two weeks ago!"

"Good man," I patted him on the back.

"A girl from the program. We went out one night, got wasted, got back to the dorm, and just decided to go for it."

"Well, hell, young'un, you've done better than me this summer." I could see his mind purge the small victory and switch immediately back to Red.

"We hung out all the time. When it's just us..." he dismissed the ill got fantasy, "I thought she had character. But not anymore. I wish I was enough of an asshole to not feel anything. She'd LOVE me then," he sneered.

I saw his disgust, his stupid, angry heart scattered in pieces around his hunched frame. Instead of trying to gauze his wounds with bullshit "Good Advice," brand advice, I put my arm around this trembling fawn and told him what I wish someone had told me at 16.

"Yeah man, it's good to be an asshole sometimes. Every now and then, you should wanna watch the world burn."

"Believe me, I do," he replied.

"And feelings and shit, fucking awful. Other people, especially the people you like, the worst. You're either gonna be trapped, beholden to someone who likes you too much, or you're gonna be grasping at someone going the opposite direction. And you'll try to keep them. But you can't. And you won't. Equilibrium is fleeting, almost like a myth."

I talked with my cigarette, waiving it in the dark like I was conducting a symphony.

"And it's gonna turn to shit right in your mouth more times than it doesn't. You know a zero of an nth of a percentile of a person. Even the people you give the most. People talk about love, like its some constant, but it's not. Gravity is science, love is... Really, it's a pretty cruel expectation. It's not even a thing, not in a quantifiable way.. It's happy coincidence. At best!"

He tried to interject a couple of times, but I was on a roll. Preach.

"No, at best, it will all end in hurt. Even if you find the love of your life, and it's perfect, one day you'll stand over her grave. Or, if you're lucky, she'll be left to cry over yours. You'll never be accountable for anyone else's choices. You've just got to take what they give you. That's all you get to keep. But, in that, they can never take it from you."

I paused and he looked to me, eyes wrought with teen tragedy. I tightened my grip on his shoulder and brought him in for whatever condolence my sweaty, bro half-hug could count. Good kid.

"Unfortunately, you've still got the worst part of it in front of you. But..." I sighed, "if all of that madness doesn't make you want to pull your heart out of your chest and dive into the fray, you don't deserve to be human."

I took my arm from around his skinny white shoulders, his concave chest pointed inward, and added one last piece. Maybe the only part that matters. "Oh, and get a couple of girls and just hurt the shit out of their feelings. You'll be better for it. And trust me, you're gonna get yours. Might as well make it count."

After a few moments, he chuckled, "Is there anything good?"

"Sure there is. But we've all heard enough about that. Maybe too much."

"Shite," he grumbled in his Moscow come Scottish brogue. 

I planted my hand into his naked back, "It sure is. The stuff of life, my boy."

And as we sat there, the far off repetition of bass and treble tossing sexually charged drunks into one another, I felt really good. I'd turned a corner. I got to be the Elder Statesman, the shepherd doing my best to guide the children through the craggy pass of youth. Even if one word found purchase in his young, uncertain soil, that's kind deed enough for me. And as my words played back in my head, as all advice we give is really advice for ourselves, I uncovered a long imprisoned feeling. I want to love again. This time, with feeling.

Me and Glas-Cow made our way to the bus and headed back into Rimini. In a cafe by the hostel, we found J and the two Canadian girls. J had almost gotten into a fight with the terribly named Seattleite who worked at the hostel. Was it...Thadson or Ketcherly? I forget, but it was that terrible. As it turns out, one of the Canadian girls had hooked up with him the night before, and she had no interest tonight. He saw J as a natural rival and they had it out. It didn't come to blows, even though J would have rolled that jerk off, but threats were uttered. The fellow with the terrible name's parting salvo was, "Well, no new friends." The dreaded Drake diss.

They ate, Glas-Cow had a coke, me and the other Canadian girl talked about country music.

"You like old school country?" she asked. 

Oh boy, a kindred spirit of sorts? "Sure, I love, like, Jimmie Rodgers."

"I mean, like, Garth Brooks."

I was seven when his first album came out, old school indeed. "I'm more of a George Strait man." 

A wandered through the door with hugs for everyone. Glas-Cow began to shift his irrational admiration to one of the Canadian girls (who he would follow to Rome. Uninvited). J grinned surrounded by his no new friends. And I sung, "Carrying Your Love With Me," to my country loving Canadian friend.

"Oh my God! Do you know every word?" she asked, sure to be part of an effort to get something else to come from my mouth.

"Man, Monte knows, like, everything," J added.

"Yeah, you're like an encyclopedia, man," A chimed in.

"I don't know about that," I added, eager to hear more. "Maybe Wikipedia, poorly sourced."

"Well, you have knowledge on all sorts of things. It's cool," J offered. 

"How long are you traveling, Texas?" the other Canadian girls asked. Their name for me was Texas. I won't waste the words telling you how much I loved that. Or maybe I will.

"Six months," I replied.

"That's amazing. By yourself? I couldn't do that," she returned with what little admiration her indifferent character would afford me.

"Well, kids..." I said putting my arms around the ones I could reach, "maybe someday when you're all grown up like Uncle Monte, you can hope to be so cool, too."

They laughed. That's right, I'm 30. About to be 31. 

And with that, as I laid on the beach detoxing in Puglia two days later, Birra Moretti in hand--cause you can't just stop all at once, that's how you die--I realized it was time for me to leave Europe. 

This old continent has given me enough. And there is a lot of world to see.