Frank Polizzi - Somewhere in the Stars

“I just met you and you’re making me laugh.”

“We all have to laugh at ourselves, don’t you think? Can’t take yourself too seriously. Life’s too short, right mate?” He slapped Nick on the shoulder.

“Seize the moment.”

“There you go. That good ole American can-do spirit. Well, I guess I better continue with my work. Jolly good money to play with my rocks.” Nick laughed again. “Better be heading back for Panarea before it gets dark. Never can tell on the sea.”

“It was fun chatting with you. Look for me at the café in Panarea, if you get bored playing with your coglione.”

“Ah, I knew there was some Italian in you, Nick Spataro.”

“And some Dickens character in you, Nigel Dickens.”

Nick smiled and Nigel chortled as they shook hands. He returned to the sailboat, floating out of the safe inlet. He headed out about a mile when all of sudden a charcoal fog swept in out of nowhere, closing in from all sides. He found himself moving much faster that he would have preferred, as if being pushed by unknown currents that crisscrossed at different times. There were eight islands as far as he knew, so if he happened to run aground on one of them, Nick hoped his body wouldn’t be splintered up like the boat.

Nick realized he had drifted away from the archipelago, considering the time he was already out on the sea. Then the first bolt of lightning struck, crashing on the horizon with howling wind and a rising sea, and thunder afar cracking out booms, closer and closer, which brought him back to Salerno when he first heard the Acht-achts, those horrible eight-eight shells, pounding incessantly. Sweat was pouring out of his sulfurous smelling body, till one of those electric bolts hit dead center at the main mast, causing Nick to lose control of the boat and tossing him and everything else around. When the boom swung low and swift at his head, he was slammed on the deck like he had been thrown by a deep-chested wrestler and knocked unconscious. It was as if Nick entered an abyss where he spiraled down around an upside-down cone trapped in a dark cavern, everything locked up like Houdini in the Chinese Water Torture Cell, but no chance for Nick to squeeze his way out.

The following afternoon the sailboat had drifted back into the waters of the Aeolian archipelago. Salvatore, standing on the deck of an Italian Coast Guard craft cruising at maximum speed, spotted his sailboat. The crew members got Nick aboard the boat and a medical team revived him, as Salvatore hovered over Nick’s sun burnt face and assured his friend that he would be okay, while they bandaged his skull, trying to ascertain the severity of the concussion. A coordinated team set up a bridle to tow the sloop and then the helmsman cruised to Panarea. By the time they got back, the entire village was huddled by the dock with Isabella at the front. With Salvatore in the lead, the medical team carried Nick on a stretcher to the café where the local doctor waited.

Isabella followed on the side the stretcher. “ Madonna , thank God you are still alive. I don’t think I could take another death.” Her son grabbed onto the stretcher as he walked with Isabella, while Nick winked at the boy and glanced at Isabella.

“It all started with Vulcano, the gateway to hell. Thought I was done for.”

“ Basta with these dark thoughts.” She crossed herself. “You have everything to live for.”

Nick squinted his eyes and said: “Grazie Isabella. Tu sei molto gentile .” While they were entering Salvatore’s place, Isabella noticed Caterina, who watched from the top of the incline on the road leading to the villa . Isabella waved to her friend who turned away, walking back to her hideaway.

A week later in the early evening, Nick sat in the café having an espresso when a notion popped up as if he had just come out of a drowsy daydream. “Salvatore! Salvatore!”

“Mannaggia, Nick. I am not your Mamma. ”

“One more request.”

“No sailboat.”

“I need your rowboat.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Nick. You are breaking my balls now. No boats for you. Nenti!”

“I swear I’ll only take it to Isabella’s villa. ”

“You mean you want to find Caterina.”

“I didn’t say that exactly.”

“If you want to play Rodolfo Valentino, in bocca al lupo. But don’t wreck my boat. Capisci?”

“I promise.”

“You are one mixed up Sicilianu Americanu . It’s a good thing for you, Mr. Nick, that I like you. So go ahead and make a fool of yourself. I know about these things when it comes to women.”

That evening Nick hugged the coastline of Panarea south past San Pedro, gliding into a small cove. He could see Caterina’s guesthouse lit up and rowed near the tiny rocky beach in front and anchored the boat. The volcano on Stromboli shot out a volley of sparks on this very clear evening. The stars lit up the sky in a panorama of clusters. He played the waiting game because, on such a beautiful night, she was sure to venture outside. A half hour later, he heard the beads rustle and Caterina stepped out onto the terrazza. She wore a blue sarong, its color picked up off the string of lights on the perimeter. She hadn’t noticed Nick as her eyes followed the fire from the volcano.

“Caterina.” His voice echoed across the water. She spied him in the boat.

“Go back to your parents. You are ruining this night for me.”

Nick stood up. “I’m not leaving this spot until you ask me to come ashore.”

“For what? Some Romeo and Juliet scene where we both wind up dead.”

“Do you want to hear the truth?”

“Talk is cheap.”

“Since I left you, my feelings have been out of kilter. It’s like motion sickness on a boat but time hasn’t cured me. È vero, sono un cretino. When I returned home, there was no faithful Penelope waiting for me.”

“That’s your problem, not mine.” The volcano was smoldering gray puffs, as the fire died down.

“See the constellations out there?”

Caterina looked at the sky. “Allora, I see the Pleiades very clearly. Perhaps this is a good omen for you? Didn’t you tell me what a good sign it was supposed to be when we were in Roma? All lies, you tell me! Then like your stars you vanished without warning. I suppose you would call it a natural phenomena.”

“Nature is unpredictable and I learned it the hard way.”

“What were you doing out there anyway, trying to kill yourself?”

“It was just bad luck, Caterina.”

“On second thought, no. You’re too narcissistic. The sympathy game suits you better.”

“If sympathy works with you, that’s okay with me.”

“You men just want to win all the time. Ride out any storm, defy the flow of lava.”

“Maybe so, Caterina. I already proved to myself that you can’t stop nature’s power. But there’s one thing you shouldn’t stop…”

“Words and more words.”

“Shouldn’t stop the natural power of the heart, even if it sounds corny.”

Caterina retreated to her house, the beads crackling in the night air. The lights went out and Nick sat down again, stationed on a darkened sea, the volcano leaving a wind-blown ash cloud on the horizon. He turned away from the house and lay back in the middle of the boat to gaze at the stars, propping the small of his back on life jackets. The soft waves lulled him into a drowsy state where he imagined that he drank from the waters of Lethe, so he would never have to remember his own odyssey to the islands of wind.

Several hours may have passed or at least that’s how Nick perceived it, when he felt the bow tip. He assumed the tide was beginning to shift and opened his eyes to stars that blinked in no special pattern. He conjured the floating stars into the shape of Caterina’s face, that she was somewhere in the stars and she would always be there for him, no matter what his miserable life was like on this planet. Nick couldn’t blame Caterina for rejecting him because it was the worst mistake of his life. He had no right to think that she would take his pathetic self back into her new life on an idyllic island in the Mediterraneo , no less. Suddenly, Nick felt chilled drops on his forehead. Caterina knelt beside him smiling, her hair hanging loose, pressed to her sarong, her breasts visible through the cotton cloth. He knew this was not a dream as she wrapped herself around him. He felt the cold sting of her wet shape for a second but soon their body heat took over, as they nested in the same wooden boat on the same cobalt blue sea under the same dazzling stars.