Ten Euros, or How I ended up at Rodì Milice - PART I

As it is long, this post is divided into three, scheduled to appear one per day over the next three days.

I lost faith in humanity only once during my journey, on the state road no. 18 linking Salerno to Reggio Calabria. It was a sunny day, the first after a stretch of rainy, cloudy, windy days, and my spirits were high. I was marching down the coast of Calabria, making good progress, uninspired by what I had seen in the last few days, but ever hopeful for one of those magical moments that change the direction of my trip, always for the better.

Earlier that day, I had even felt the exhilaration of near-miss, when a man stopped me for a half-hour chat about walking. He was a Santiago di Compostela veteran, a big-time walker and a teacher to boot, my kind of guy, but he was from Cosenza, in the mountains, and there was no chance I was heading up there. Even so, he offered to show me around should I happen to pass through, and I was just happy to break the monotony, as it had been a week since I had met anyone on the journey besides hotel and restaurant employees.

I was listening to Bach's Italian Concerto, lost in the music as a way of tuning out the constant hum of cars as they sped within inches of where I walked along the shoulder, when I spotted a car that had slowed to a stop on the other side of the road. Thinking nothing of it, I nonetheless removed one ear bud, and so heard the man's request for directions.

When you see a man with a giant red backpack and trekking poles striding along your local highway, do you think he's a local, and therefore able to answer your navigational questions? No, you don't. I knew there was another question to follow, the standard Calabrian question "where are you from," accompanied by a smile and a curious shake of the head. I answered, he was surprised, the "what are you doing here" question followed, and before I could react, he had pulled a U-turn on this busy two-lane highway and was now next to me, facing in the opposite direction from where he had originally been heading.

My heart started to beat just a bit faster, not quite out of fear so much as of animal preparation, but I was on the whole very calm. This man had two children in his harmless Peugeot station wagon, about four and seven years old, and was not threatening, just curious. He asked a few more questions, I politely answered, asked me if I was looking for work, I said no, and without skipping a beat, he asked if I had change for a 20. My bullshit artist alarm started to sound, but the children were my guarantee, so I handed him two fives, even though I had two tens in my pocket, as a way of cutting my losses should he drive off. Instead of a ten, he handed me a credit card, and quickly added "listen, I don't have it now, but I'll be right back with it." I demanded my money back, he said "look, here it is, no problems man." He handed back the two fives, and began the story. His daughter, the four-year-old, had hit her head playing, and he needed to take her to the hospital. First he needed gas, but the nearest gas station wouldn't take debit or credit, and he had no cash. However, he owned a nearby hotel, just a mile down the road, and his wife was there. I could go to the hotel, get the money from his wife, wait for him to return, and would be his guest, free food and lodging, and even work if I wanted.

I knew he was lying, but I looked at his son's angelic face, and his daughter, lying face down on the backseat, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, just enough to test his story. Where was she hurt? Playing along the side of the road (Lie #1). If the hotel was so close, why not drive back to get the money from his wife, who was there? She's in the kitchen, and can't hear me, and I don't have the time (But you have time to ask me questions about my walk? Lie #2). Do you have a business card? No, just my brother's, who owns an auto body repair shop in town (If he's your brother, why would he write his name on the back of the card? Lie #3). Where is your daughter's wound? Show him the wound, son (there's no wound, the girl doesn't respond to her brother's touch, and yet the father isn't that worried. The son shakes his head with a pitiful glance. Lie #4). And yet my stomach turned when I saw these little children, so well-trained by their father, so ready to con a stranger out of a pitiful amount of money. How pathetic, how base it all was, the sniveling, curly-haired Calabrian father, the beautiful child actors, boldly telling lie after lie when the girl's supposedly injured head was actually 100% intact.

"Listen," I murmured, almost whispered "I have not had a single bad experience throughout this whole walk." I was begging him with all my soul, silently pleading with him to move on, give it up, don't destroy these adorable children for ten euros. He all but snarled at me: "you think I would lie to you for such an insignificant sum? Ten euros is nothing, c'mon, you can spare it." I was so crushed, so disgusted, sensing this con artist willing the ten euros out of my pocket.

And so I gave in, defeated, and handed him the ten euros. "On your honor," I said, in my meekness, and limply shook his hand. He repeated his first statement, looked at me with repugnant and indignant eyes, as if I were the villain in this encounter, and as he sped off, I saw his son plastered to the rear window, both palms on the glass, smiling triumphantly at me.

I turned off Bach and walked a mile or so down the road in silence. When I came across the first gas station, presumably the one that only took cash, I asked, out of twisted curiosity, about the man and his hotel. The three or four people gathered around did not answer at first, asking instead "where are you from," and when I had answered the same questions I had answered just thirty minutes prior, I repeated my own questions. They squirmed, pretended to know the hotel and its owner, and I saw them lie to protect a man they didn't know, rather than admit to a foreigner that a Calabrian could possible be a horrible human being. I saw it, drank the glasses of water offered to me as a consolation, and just before leaving, asked one last question to the attendant. "Do you accept credit/debit?" "Sure," he said, and that was all I needed to hear.

The one feeling that dominated as I trudged into town, bag seemingly weighing double, was fear that I would see this car again. I had memorized the license plate after seeing his son in the back window, already smug at seven, and now the adrenaline pumped every time I heard a car approach from behind. Was he coming back to rob me? What lies would he invent now? Taking a deep breath, I fell back on my Marcus Aurelius training to help put a stoic lens on the situation, but behind the tint was the unavoidable feeling of betrayal, not by this petty thief but by humanity. Would I be able to trust anyone again on this walk? What if another car stopped to ask me for information? Would I lose out on all future positive experiences because of the fear of one more bad one?

I took a seat on the boardwalk right as I entered Paola, Calabria, looked blankly at the late afternoon sun, and returned the sullen, distrustful stares of passersby, so tired of these god-damned gawkers lacking all sense of decency as they stared me up and down, but then refused to return my evening's greetings. Fuck you, you pretentious, backward simpletons. You don't know me, you don't know why I'm here, and you don't deserve to know. If you're not going to be civil, then mind your own business.

So I sat, wallowing in my own resentment and fear and shame, when an old man walked by with his dog for the second time in the ten minutes I had been sitting there, and actually returned my salutation. "Where are you from?" I cringed at the same fateful question, but this time I received a different response to my answer. "You're lying to me," he said, and believed it. Taken by surprise, I forgot my worries, proved my American identity with some English, and soon I was playing with the dog and chatting with this old man, who made me feel safe, no longer vulnerable. I asked about lodging nearby, he suggested a place down the boardwalk, and said they were low priced. With a lack of tact that the naive call honesty, I asked for him to repeat his name, and he immediately caught on: "So you want to carry my name to the hotel, eh? Ok, fine, but you have to promise to comport yourself well." "Of course," I said, hand on heart, and I saw his eyes twinkle with compassion and affection.

"My name is Valentino S______; I'm the man who brings the Algida ice cream (Mi chiamo Valentino S; sono l'uomo che porta l'Algida). Have you eaten anything today?" I had eaten two oranges all day, and told him so, or at least without the "all day" attached (no need to start the violins a playin'), and he said to me "stay here. Don't move. I'll be back in ten minutes." I did as I was told, staring back at the sunset, and reflecting on why it was that I had just met the Good Humor man (Algida is owned by Unilever, which also owns Good Humor) at this precise moment, just when I was feeling such anger and frustration.

He came back with a plastic grocery bag held closely to his thin but by no means feeble frame, and with a smile to make ice melt, proceeded to describe the contents of the bag. Two sandwiches sealed in plastic, one of prosciutto crudo, the other of egg and cheese, an apple, a pear, a bar of chocolate, and a beer, thoughtfully opened in advance. So that's why he had held the bag so closely to his chest, I thought, and for some reason that particular detail struck me with a pang of intense emotion. He wanted me to eat, was so happy at my positive reaction to the sandwich, "one of Algida's large product line," and quietly explained why he had me wait on the boardwalk. "You see, my wife is very ill, and she cannot see guests. I must be home to help take care of her, but I need to take the dog for a walk each day, and that is when I get to go out. Please excuse me for my lack of hospitality."

I pictured this conjugal scene, the tender affection with which this lovely man cared for his dying wife, imagined the attention to detail he showed with the opened beer writ large with the love he bore this eternal partner, and I forgave with all my heart the man who had conned me earlier.

"Valentino, you may not know it, but you have reaffirmed my faith in humanity. Something very ugly happened to me just over an hour ago, and I was sitting here feeling very unhappy. Thank you for your kindness." He did not ask what happened, but looked at me in silence, studying my face. "You know," he finally said, measuring each word, "we Calabrians are a difficult people, but we are beautiful in our simplicity and our frankness. If you open you heart to us, we will repay your kindness many times over."

His expression lightened, I registered what he said and soberly nodded in assent, and we said goodbye, as he had to return to his wife.

And I will never forget how I watched him leave, slowly making his way along the crosswalk, under the overpass, and back to his house. Once he was gone, I turned back to the sun, just at that moment disappearing under the horizon, and the sandwich he had given me stuck fast to the giant lump in my throat. I took a sip from the bottle, cold and moist with condensation, washed down the sandwich, and began to cry. I sat at that bench, oblivious to my surroundings, and sobbed like a child, head in hands. Yes, I was releasing those negative feelings, letting them drain out of my soul, far away from me and my silly walk, but the real reason I cried then, and the reason I cry as I write this nearly two months later, tears blurring the pages of my journal, was out of love and gratitude and tenderness for this old man, this bringer of ice cream, and for his darling, dying wife.

I had a good cry on that bench, felt the brisk sea breeze of dusk start to blow, and when it was time for me to stand back up, I realized that I had learned a valuable lesson about trust and attitude and the power of a well-timed act of kindness.

This is, in itself, a story of conflict, anger, resolution, and acceptance, a self-contained, neatly packaged tale, all of it true, and conveniently sized. But I have learned that life does not work that way, and as with this story, there is always more to tell...