Preludio

Hey Dinty?

Yeah?

Tell me a story.

‘bout what?

What you did in Italy.

You wanna know about Italy?

Yeah.

What about it?

Like what you did there.

Well… I went dancing.

You danced?

Yeah.

…

…

Were you good?

Performance Note 1

Here’s the difficulty of creative nonfiction: you have to convey not just the facts of memory but its color too, and in this recreation—using language—you must choose which colors to emphasize, which facts to share,² so no matter how hard you try, you always end up writing about something that only ever sort of happened (doubly so when you include both alcohol and sleep deprivation in the research phase) and are thus left with a work that is only ever a kind of nonfiction, in the same way memories only ever seem to be real, even if years later they make us cry, make us shiver.

Departure

I left New York on a Thursday—the 25th of May, 2023—at around noon, having slept for only four hours, because the day before I’d attended the last class of a two-year acting program and so spent the night drinking and playing cards and taking pictures and eating bad Mexican food with friends.³ I took an uber to Newark, regretted packing so much, checked my bags, drank the worst coffee I’d drink till the airport coffee I’ll drink upon return, boarded my first flight, read, ate, pissed, tried to sleep, watched the first half of Groundhog Day, got off my first flight, pissed again, used the free United blanket I was given as a scarf and looked at myself in the mirror, walking to my next flight thinking damn this looks good on me. Next I got on a bus to the second flight, had my first interaction in Italian, got picked up by a certain Maurizio after finding my bag after getting off the second flight, and was driven to Alba.⁴ At that point (having arrived in Alba right before noon on Friday), I checked in to Il Seminario⁵, dropped off all my stuff, grabbed my notebook and computer and “hauled ass” over to the festival center for the first electronic music workshop, which I ended up being about two-and-a-half hours late to. I then proceeded to go to lunch with the rest of the fellows, went back to that festival center for the second half of the workshop, dropped more stuff off at the Seminario, and waited for a bus for about a solid ninety minutes (at least).⁶ Here’s the clincher: we took a bus to Asti, hung out with the other composers (keep in mind that this is now Friday evening and the last even remotely full night of sleep I got was Tuesday-to-Wednesday), found out I spoke more Italian than I thought I did when I had a rather long conversation with a local security guard about the festivities the composers and I had wandered into, then went to a concert where I heard Dvorak’s American Quartet performed live for the nnnnnnth time, made a bunch of jokes about it in and outside the concert hall, acted as translator between the festival head and an Old Italian Lady, and then proceeded to go to dinner (this is about the time I was beginning to put together that we composers were not the only people/program present), during which I got slightly drunk (but professionally so) and which lasted—according to my memory—about seven courses (though I had to forfeit the tiramisu once it arrived) after which we walked back to the bus (whose driver had told us to be back at exactly mezzanotte, che ho una famiglia) during which I somehow got involved in teaching two of the composers (and one of the students from the other group) the difference between marica and maricón, which somehow morphed into a conversation with V—that student from the other group—which lasted the rest of the ride back to Alba.

“And that was how the skirtmisshes began.”⁷

Promenade Primo

We met in Asti on a Friday, headed to a bus headed back to Alba, Cuneo, Piemonte, Italia. We talked about books and about language. We talked about a bar and I went to bed. On Saturday we saw each other at the hotel breakfast and V joined me and one of the other composers at our table. We talked about D&D and tongue twisters, and as I left, I turned to see them mixing apricot jam into their coffee.⁸ A couple days later, we sang happy birthday to one of the composers and that night (while asleep) I got a text asking if I dance. The next day (Thursday now), we went dancing. It ended awkwardly and we didn’t speak Friday. There was a wine tasting Saturday. Then came Sunday. And on Monday we left.

Conjecture

What’s real is the art: the frame, the interpretation, the recreation, the memory. Everything else just happens.

Scherzo

The first time—the first planned time—we met outside the Seminario, after a concert of art song which I didn’t attend for reasons I don’t entirely recall. I was lying down under a tree outside the main entrance. It was dark, bugless. V met me there sometime between 10 and 11 pm and we walked to the town square in the center of which there was a sort of fountain—but only sort of because the water wasn’t the thing you noticed about it: what you noticed about it was the sculpture of the girl in the center, tall as any of the surrounding buildings, kneeling, looking back with the water gliding slowly by her knees then gently off the base’s edge, and most accurately viewed coming up the Via Vittorio Emanuele, from which V and I first entered, then left some hours later.

The second time was three days later on Sunday, before the last concert.⁹ In the temperamental Italian clima, armed with a single umbrella, we left in search of a book café.

Epigraph

“(Stoop) if you are abcedminded, to this claybook, what curios of signs (please stoop), in this allaphbed! Can you rede (since We and Thou had it out already) its world? It is the same told of all. Many. Miscegenations on miscegenations. Tieckle. They lived und laughed ant loved end left.”

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

Interludio

So there they are. D and V. Dancing tango in North Italy. They don’t know each other, not really, but there they are: Dinty tripping and swaying and V doing their best to teach il folle some moves but—OOP!—there D is again, now leaning against V’s new piercing and falling like a fool apologizing profusely after realizing what they’ve done.

 And yet somehow, somehow they keep dancing, play some music. Just the two of them. Oh so late at night in that town square, Italians walking, biking by. And they will never [sic] dance again, not together. But there they are, laughing and dancing and smiling. And smiling.

(On the way back V will learn D’s age. And D will learn the names of V’s friends. And V will knock over a hanging chair and D will put it back quietly. And D will attempt to kiss V’s hand as they shove their middle finger in D’s face. And D will make fun of V. And V will punch D. And in the elevator they’ll both say it was fun. That it was a good night.)

Journal Fragment

“It’s past 12am on the 2nd. I just danced with V in the town square in Alba. Ballroom stuff. And it was nice. We met and we talked and we danced. And it was simple. And fun. And beautiful.”

Performance Note 2

Each moment of experience is a web of possibilities: possibilities and inconsistencies and contradictions that perplex the journalist and for the depiction of which nonfiction has few resources. Which is to say: at every moment there is a projection of possible future moments, some of which feel more possible than others, sometimes to the point of feeling inevitable, and so in a statement such as “they will never dance again”, the truth lies not in the factual veracity of that statement—(for until it is disproven, or one—or both—parties expires, there will be no knowing for certain)—but in the emotional truth of the utterance at the time that it is uttered.

After Joyce: The Fly on the Wall

What did you see?

Nothing really. The lights were off for most of it.

Even the smallest detail?

…there were fish.

Fish?

On the clothing on the floor. The light from the lamp bent round the wall in such a way as to illuminate, to highlight them.

Anything else?

A pair of jeans. Maybe more. I didn’t get a good look.

…

…

And how did it begin?

Many ways. From what I saw though, it began with coke and with vodka.

As a means to inebriation?

I don’t think so.

Then what?

An excuse to be together.

…

A way to begin.

…

…

And then?

Then they talked about sewing and about clowns. They talked and they laughed.

Were the jokes—?

No.

…

…

What else did you see?

With the lights off, the stuff out the window was clearer.

?

Just an Italian countryside town. All the same when you’ve lived here all your life.

And when seeing it for the first time?

Each light above the houses like a beacon from ships lost at sea among the hilltops, each stone its own hue, each breath fresher and each moment standing a bit closer together.

Sounds poetic.

It was. But awkward. Quotidian.

Meaning?

One continually bumping into the other’s recently pierced ear.

Ah.

Yes.

…

…

But the quotidian too can be poetic.

…

If you don’t ask it to be what it’s not.

…

…

…

What happened next?

They hugged, they swayed. Somehow eventually made it back to bed.

And then?

You know.

And was the first moment of intimacy before or after the lights were shut off?

Before.

And after?

And after.

The first kiss?

I don’t remember. I feel like it must have been with the lights on, but then how did the lights ever turn off? 

…

…

…then?

They left for some minutes.

What for?

Insurance.

…

…

Did they come back?

Yes yes. They were rather quick about it.

And when they arrived?

More joking. Gradual warming. Windows closed.

For how long?

Some time.

Any difficulties?

Being in a hotel full of musicians, it was discovered earlier in the week that the walls were not particularly adept at preventing the travel of sound, of both instrumental and human varieties.

Ah.

Yes.

And how was this dealt with?

Attempted stifling. Though the point was eventually brought up that this was, in fact, their last night in said hotel.

Oh?

Indeed.

…

…

And did they finish?

Eventually.

Eventually?

Later than the time that was agreed upon.

Why agree upon a time?

So that both parties could rest before morning transit.

Oh.

Yes.

So they separated immediately?

Not quite.

?

After cleaning they laid together.

And?

?

What did they do there, laying together?

They spoke.

…

They kissed.

…

They held each other.

…

…

…

Until one had to leave.

Inevitable.

Of course.

…

…

And the parting?

All in order. Rather touching.

Very good.

Yes.

…

…

…

…

And… where will they go from here?

One will go to Venice, the other to Mondovì.

Hmmm.

…

And then?

Eventually they will both return to the states, albeit different ones, at different times.

Ah.

And at some point, most likely, they both will leave again.

…

…

Where will they go?

Who knows.

…

…

Where will they end up?

Setup

Kurt Vonnegut once quoted his uncle as saying: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Punchline

And there we are on that bed in Italy, having met nine days ago: there I am, kissing them, fucking them, kissing them—always returning to the kissing because the hope is that something above (below?) language can be communicated in that way. And the night plays out backwards and forwards in my memory, to the side and expanding, and here I am not yet a week later (and then again revising weeks later) writing, worrying about what’ll be lost come the years, but grateful. Calm. Thinking to myself (trying to think to myself): “If that wasn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Chosen Frame of Interpretation

Nothing that can or will happen in the future can or will affect the quality of that night. Each night in its own. Each moment existing as the only moment. In and out. In and out.

Epilogue

I can’t spend the night.

I know.

…

…

Come on.

…

… 

…

Let me make sure I have—

Phone.

Right.        Thanks.

Bag?

Bag.

Cool.

…

…

…

…

…

…

Cool.

…

…

…

…

Here. I’ll unlock the door.

Good idea.

…

…

…

…

…

Goodnight.

Goodnight…

Intermission

But what are you trying to get at?

I’m trying to describe a connection.

What type of connection?

A connection to another human being.

And what about this connection merits description?

It confuses me.

How?

A fleeting, surface-level connection upon first interaction makes a relationship that deepens over time sensible; but the experience of a deep and intimate connection with another human that is simultaneously temporally constrained has left me… confounded.

Ok, but what does the sex have to do with it?

It’s not about the sex, not really. It’s about everything that comes along with it.

Like what?

The kissing before. The talking, the laughing. The awkward pauses and the worrying about noise. The jokes about underwear and the hug afterwards. The walk to purchase condoms and the precious minutes in bed together, wrapped around each other, safe and happy, chatting into the night about nothing, looking at another person’s smile, thinking—

Back in the States

So how was Italy?

Oh, you know… it was good.

Did you fall in love?

I started to. I think.

And?

Well I kind of stayed suspended I guess.

How’s that?

We moved towns.

Oh.

Yeah.

Well then.

…

Epigraph

“But there is nothing enduring in this world, and that is why even joy is not as keen in the moment that follows the first; and a moment later it grows weaker still and finally merges imperceptibly into one’s usual state of mind, just as a ring on the water, made by the fall of a pebble, merges finally into the smooth surface.” 

- Nikolai Gogol, The Nose (trans. Mary Struve)

The Heart of the Heart of the Story

It’s a feeling. A state. A state that contains many contradictory feelings.

So you’re trying to get at the way love hurts?

What? No, that just makes it sound corny. Besides, it’s not pain I’m trying to get at, at least not this version. There’s more to it than that.

But you notice yourself running out of words.

Yes.

Why?

…the writer’s job is pretty much the same as the wordsmith’s. Given a thing, you’ve got to create something in language which allows you to talk about that thing. (Remember Macondo, where early on “muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para mencionarlas había que señalarlas con el dedo.”¹⁰) Now, with objects, this is a fairly simple task. You give the thing a name that seems to fit and move on. (Here we basically ignore whether or not Cratylus thinks it correct.) Concepts are more difficult, though, and for this reason people often resort to their own names: Gerrymander, Boycott, etc… As you continue to raise this level of abstraction/experience, you begin to realize that these complex ideas can’t be contained in a single word.¹¹ And so what the writer does is come up with a specific ordering of specific words not only to describe the thing they’ve been presented with, but to evoke it in the reader, since our own visceral experience will always be more real than any literary description.¹²

And this is why you’re out of words?

No.

Then why?

Because I don’t know how to get any closer.

Echoes in the Night

Come. Lie down with me for a bit.

…

Come on…

Let me clean this up first.

Oh right.

…

…

…

…

What are you laughing at?

Nothing.

…

…

…

Come on.

…

…

…

…

…

You good?

Yeah.

…

You?

Yeah... I’m good.