Water is heavy.
Typically my shopping bag contains a couple liters of juice and a liter of milk, plus other non-liquid items. Trying to heft all that plus a liter of water onto my shoulder is a challenge. So a couple of weeks ago, I chose a water delivery option. Right around noon, one of the guys from the supermarket drove up in their little Ape (three-wheeled pickup) and handed me a six-liter pack that lasted until this morning. On my last shopping day, I ordered another to arrive today.
I’ve been trying to get out for a walk earlier than has been my habit. Today I moved the needle up a notch and was out by 10:15. I went to the little piazza with the trees for a photo, circled around to Via delle Pertiche No. 2 on Via Angelo da Orvieto, and from there straight towards the sky-bridge so I could get of shot of that as well. On the way, I passed Gabriele from Metà in his Ape. We waved.
My first memory of Gabriele probably dates to two or three weeks after I moved here. I was in need of a light bulb. American training suggested the supermarket, so that’s where I went. I couldn’t find one. It was almost closing time and three of the guys were hanging out behind the counter. As I needed only a lightbulb at the moment, I felt I should announce that I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for so they didn’t think I was trying to sneak something.
“Well, what are you looking for?” asked Gabriele.
I told him.
“Oh, no, we don’t have those. But there’s a store on Piazza della Repubblica…”
I knew which one he meant. The – duh – light bulb store.
“I know where you mean! You think they’re open?”
“Until eight, so if you hurry!”
“Great! The light bulb store!”
“Obviously!”
And that was it. But somehow he’d made me feel welcome here in a way that I hadn’t yet experienced. And in doing that, he involved his two workmates in welcoming me, too. From then on, I always thought of him as the spiritual head of the supermarket.
At the time, the people associated with Metà optionally wore red smocks over their street clothes. He always wore one, striding around town taking orders, delivering small parcels, bowing to people he knew. He reminded me of a princely figure from a renaissance fresco. And in the store, he kept his co-workers in good spirits. Over the next few months, I grew enormously fond of the whole lot of them, to the point of rationing my visits the way you might sips from a bottle of rare liqueur. The products they offered were – and still are – standard supermarket fare, but the atmosphere they maintained was, to this old man of the theatre, like walking into a really high-spirited rehearsal. It became a kind of emotional home.
Two years later, I ran into Gabriele in Piazza Ranieri and we had our only real conversation to date. He had just turned 29, was from Calabria – as at the time were several of his workers – he lived in Allerona Alta, a beautiful medieval village about twenty minutes out of town. I tend to make celebrities of people I admire, so the encounter sealed itself in my mind; I was now owner of special information.
This morning when I passed Gabriele in his Ape, it never occurred to me that he might be out on a water delivery. Someone else had delivered water last time, and I’d been told to expect it closer to noon. So, I continued looping around the via’s and vicolo’s. A few minutes later, as I turned onto my street, the Ape was sputtering along at the far end, about to turn onto Corso Cavour.
Right! That was probably my water delivery! He had my last name and address, but I doubt he knows my first name, much less my last. I began practicing excuses in Italian, and resigned myself to having to carry the pack of bottles home myself.
I always leave the gate a little ajar when I go for a walk. First, there’s no real reason to lock it. Second, I like returning to push the gate open without using a key, it puts me in a pleasant mood (I have a life-long history of hating locked doors, but perhaps that’s for another time). As I approached, I saw clearly that the fact of the gate’s being ajar would escape anyone not expecting it, so again I rehearsed the phrases of apology. I pushed the gate. The paper recycling bin waited where I’d put it, and no, there was no sign of water.
I picked up the bin, shut the gate, and went towards the front door. There, on the bottom step of the exterior stairs was the six-pack of water. It displayed an unmistakable air of patient waiting.
There are several people I would choose to have as children, if such a thing were possible. One of them lives in Allerona.