Philip Nutman - Cities of Night

He turned into via Piciano, moving slowly along the northeastern edge of Villa Borghese. Each step he took, however, increased his steadily deepening depression. His mind performed cartwheels. Images from the past appeared in a montage of disillusionment: Vanessa stating she’d need the money back by early November as it was for Christmas; Michael crying after the violent argument; Alison, his agent, informing him he had to cut back on the sex scenes, especially the rape of the pregnant woman in Dead Dogs and Englishmen , because every publisher she showed it to found the novel gratuitous; Wilmott, his bank manager, turning down his request for a loan; Michael leaving, bags hurriedly packed, tension charging the smoky air of the flat.

“You selfish, self-pitying bastard!” His lover threw the words at him as he gathered his belongings in the hallway. “I’ll be back for the rest of my stuff tomorrow, and I’d appreciate it if you won’t be here. I don’t ever want to see you again!”

Meredith was silent, a contrite expression on his face, a bottle of Scotch still in his hand. Michael was so angry they’d come to blows over the damn thing. Embarrassed, he tried to hide it behind his back but Michael saw him.

“Put the bloody bottle down! Stop pissing your life away.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Michael fiddled with the straps of his baggage as Meredith watched him, not sure what to say or do.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

No response.

Michael looked up, tears in his eyes.

“You’re always sorry afterwards. But words aren’t enough. When you drink you’re like a little kid — and that’s all the bloody time! ”

Meredith stared at the carpet.

“This is it. Over. Dead. You killed it.”

With that, Michael was gone, the door slamming like a gunshot in the heavy air.

Although he’d felt a tremendous sense of relief after the last of Michael’s possessions had been removed, the first few nights without him to hold had been an empty, cold time. But there were always other bodies to be found, and since the split his sex life had been a calm sea dotted with occasional faces floating like driftwood through a perpetual twilight. It was easier that way. Still the immediate problem was how to find someone in this godforsaken place. The local cruising scene, if one existed, was nowhere to be found, and the only form of night-time sexuality he’d seen was transvestism, which held no appeal. The only possible place he could think of was the Spanish Steps.

While passing them the previous night, he had been surprised by the number of people spread out on the impressive monument and the relaxed atmosphere. Couples entwined passionately, all but copulating, locked into their own romantic universes. Cigarette smoke drifted on the breeze, mingling with the sweeter aroma of hash as a guitarist had strummed old songs. The Steps were a short walk away and would be a good starting point. Failing that, the main railway station would almost certainly provide what he was looking for.

He’d gone but a few yards and had turned into via Veneto when he came across the first gaggle of transvestites he’d seen that night. One, a blonde wearing an awful wig, tried to waylay him, but he continued without stopping, scowling. When he reached Piazza Barberini, he paused to scan the headlines of English newspapers on sale at the cramped news cabin. Try as he might to focus on the front pages of The Sun and The Star , his attention was drawn to the tawdry colors of the hardcore magazines on sale.

Teenage Lolitas promised all girls under sixteen with text in English, German, and Italian. Who, he mused, cared about text? He’d always smiled at the French slang for such publications — books to be read with one hand. But what he found most interesting was the plethora of fumetti — pocket-sized, crude, explicit comics filled with a staple diet of black magic, murder, sadomasochism, rape, and mutilation. There were dozens of titles ranging from entrail-eating zombie stories to tales of futuristic sex and violence and more mundane narratives of adultery and wife swapping. Nothing was left to the imagination, atrocities bursting forth on each page like rotten foliage. He’d found one in his room at the pensione . After skimming thirty pages of dialogue he couldn’t translate, his eyes had widened at a sudden explosion of brutal sex and degradation — close-ups of fellatio, sodomy, and a young man having his skull smashed open after orgasm by the husband of the woman he’d just serviced. Somehow, he felt these popular comics told him more about the Italian cultural psyche than he wished to know, a worldview consisting of naked lust and commonplace violence. But after all, this was the country that had made throwing people to wild animals the main form of entertainment. He laughed aloud as a black vision eclipsed all else; so this is what it all comes down to — two thousand years of civilization and it’s the same as it ever was. This is where it ends.

A sober-suited business man examining S&M Sextacula peered intently at Meredith over his horn-rimmed glasses, and Meredith walked away with the bitter laugh still staining his lips.

As if submitting to the dark reality was his only means of finding hope, he felt a strange sense of correctness in his situation, and he suddenly saw it for the killing joke it was — a long, hollow laugh in the face of nothingness.

He continued to chuckle to himself until he came to the junction, his attention shifting to the pleasing smells coming from a restaurant on the corner. His stomach growled in appreciation. He entered without further thought, drawing the aromas from the kitchen deep into his blackened lungs.

Like the previous night, the Spanish Steps were littered with people. Small groups and couples. The lone guitarist, now surrounded by a small crowd; here and there, young boys on their own or in twos and threes; couples, limbs entwined like vines, smoking, kissing, caressing. At the bottom he turned left under the pretence of looking at the Keats house, allowing his gaze to wander in the hope of making eye contact.

Directly in front of him, two teenagers spoke softly, the taller of the two nodding towards a pair of giggling girls seated a few feet above them. To Meredith’s left, near the seat of the Steps, sat a solitary handsome youth dressed in brogues, tapered trousers, and a red pullover. The writer walked towards him.

“ Buona sera ,” Meredith said as he sat beside him. The boy — no older than seventeen he judged — nodded.

“Do you speak English?” The boy nodded. “Perhaps you can help me,” he continued slowly. “This is my first time in Rome. Can you recommend a good nightclub?” The boy did not turn to face him for several seconds, then looked in his direction, staring past Meredith. Above them the guitarist started murdering “Ticket To Ride.”

“There are some.” He spoke softly, trying to enunciate correctly.

“Anything to suit a man my age,” Meredith said. The boy looked at him then. Meredith stared back at the boy longer than was polite. He lit a cigarette.

“There is a place. Not a nightclub.”

Meredith waited for him to continue, but the boy was not forthcoming.

“Would you show me where? Is it far?”

The boy remained silent, then: “Pardon I have to meet my girl,” he said crisply, standing. “I have to go.”

The boy began to trot towards the fountain at the base of the Steps. A slender blonde girl was heading in his direction. She smiled, waved, opened her arms. The boy ran to her. They embraced. Meredith watched them sway away arm in arm.

“Bitch,” he muttered under his breath. The boy was nice looking and had a good mouth. “I bet you’re going to suck his little dick until it’s as dry as a twig,” he added before a coughing spasm cut off his bitter words. He ground out the cigarette.