This is the final part of Michael Internicola’s story “Train Robbers”, which we have been running over the last few days. Read Parts 1,2 and 3 if you haven’t already.
"TRAIN ROBBERS (PART 4)"
by Michael Internicola
It wasn't until I left Switzerland that I fully realized Charlie was leaving me soon, "Jules... Spain was unreal. Just so interesting. You hear about the other countries but never Spain. Wish we could go to Greece soon."-her face was frozen still. Five days before it was Friday. I ate lunch in a place and watch some guy sweeping the floor in crappy clothes. His boss was watching right over his shoulder smoking a cig. I remember that feeling of having to pick it up a notch when the boss is hunting you down. Sometimes I felt that my job might be on the line if I didn't show some kind of hustle. I don't like that feeling. Char was sleeping in the room. She didn't feel good again. Last night we drank after a fight involving food. From there we watched a band. I kept waiting for some kind of lighting bolt conversation to happen or a monumental break but nothing seemed in sight and if this book didn't produce some kind of financial upheaval then I was stuck again but the other half of me is here and I really didn't care what ended up of me.
It's hard for Charlie to accept that because she loves me so much. She thinks I'm too critical of others and not of myself and I say she sounds like a mother. So, I travel a bit. I take a different girl here or there. I settle for a few months. I work to move on. Sometimes I'm angry at the world for not putting me on a pedestal. What can I say? It's the truth. I've been writing this book for nine months. Besides seeing different things I can't tell if I'm any different. I imagine there is safety or a place out there where I will be totally fucking happy instead of great times and bad. I accept the bad times less and less as the years go on and they're moving fast...too fast. I'd be a pussy if I said it bothered me. I felt no stress.
I was building muscles on my body that I couldn't even see or feel or touch or smell. Much like a dog, I felt like a wanderer. A distant cousin to the canine family. We left Spain after listening to Char have diarrhea all night. It got on my nerves. I never knew a woman was capable of making such noises, "If you were the one sick."-she was yelling from the can, "...can't you just be nice."-"What?"-I asked, "Don't worry."-she said, "I'm history in a couple weeks. Then you can girl it up with all these feminine things that don't poop."-what kind of girl would she be if she didn't tell her hair dresser everything. How can I seriously look her in the eyes down the line?
How can I look at her kids and know that they could have mine? It can't be happening. Can't be happening. MONTEROSSA, Italy...we arrived around seven to this small fishing village after Char talked with a few Americans in Barcelona. this is where we both got food poisoned and I won her a stuffed animal. We took the local train, switched a total of three times and landed safely. let's Go Europe describes Monterossa as a quaint little town. We paid L50.00 a night to sleep next to a man who looked like my grandfather.
they put us in some apartment complex and said we could stay as long as we wanted. Outside the place was a carved statue of Neptune watching over and protecting the city. Charlie and I ate at the restaurant, ordered ea bass and a bottle of wine before retiring early. Waking up the next day I was sick. In fact, I didn't get out of bed until two. Char was sick as well but she managed to leave the room and mail her letters. She was disillusioned all the way until ten when she called me fart face and couldn't go to the bathroom. We hiked to a village one town over but I broke out with the sweats and had to sleep for the next four hours. I took five fake pictures by a mound of dirt before that. The room smelled like infection and there were flies everywhere. One especially who did continuous circles above my head...yah...yah...yah...we kept calling him. The next day we left for Rome.
The ride from La Spica was a tough one. Rome was dirty and sketchy. When we got off the train we were immediately labeled as tourists by guides of some sort. the legit ones had government issued badges but still it was very weird. We settled into a hotel and paid about 80 American. The Coliseum was right outside the window. All in all, Rome was different than we expected.
The mountains didn't show anymore. The sun peaked around stones that may have been there since Christ, The Vatican and what have you. The sky was orange which meant the next day would be a good one. The fever had come and Char was still the same. After eating a bit we moved back to the hotel where I watch the English patient in Italian until I fell asleep. My stomach hurt thinking about the trip to Milan. The hills and small cities on top of them.
The Alps that divided the clouds. And Char...reading then in bed...what's the use of complaining anymore? We've moved past that. I could hear her thoughts unwinding while she looked at me. The time she cried in Vegas because I left her alone. The time I was going to move to San Fran and leave her behind. We'd done everything humanly possible in front of each other that two people could do. She swore she was in love with Satan and I felt she was about to snap and be checked into a funny farm. I have a hard time being a bigger man that the situation. The moment I looked at Char I knew she was different. Rochelle wasn't. I only say because I owned her and eventually she hated me for it. Charlie was different. Black dress and football game in the same sentence kind of different. AND she is leaving me holding on to what? Jesus, I love this girl with all my heart. I really really do. I can't say goodbye. I can't pretend there is a chance I will not see her again for the rest of my life. She's just laying there watching, being gorgeous. I remember at that moment wanting things to be clear. I remember her laughing at me with those bubble gum cheeks. Charlie's hair was in front of those pretty green eyes. I wanted her to be happy so badly. She sat up and winked at me. I am reaching so high, inside the top of her mind with my tongue gently caressing her mouth, then down in between her legs and I'm watching her with her eyes closed suddenly and her head moving side to side against the pillow. And then she looks at me, rubs her hands all over the top of my head and I look at her...slip up to her face and enter her country. She is staring at me, burning to be inside my skin and humping and humping and humpi...to a place where a small boy is flying a model airplane with his grandfather in a park where nobody has ever taken him before. He is outside enjoying the sunlight on his face for one of the first times in his life and his grandpa is going to buy him an ice cream because that's what grandpa's do. And they stay there protected, they do, until the sun runs in the same direction and he looks at his grandpa doing something out of ordinary that makes him very happy. Other people gather and he watches the old man showing off and taking about what he knows. How he made the wood plane with own bare hands. He is proud of his grandpa. It's his dad's dad.
It is the only thing that made sense that day. And in the foreground the boy is in the plane going wherever the wind takes him. Charlie loved her grandpa too. he is turning it off in the shade by a tree. they drive home in the new Monte carlo where grandma has dinner already made. later the neighborhood would turn to shit. the house would get broken into several times and a T.V.
would be stolen. Grandma lets the boy try the salad to see if it's good, "Enough vinegar, Julie?"-she asks, "Perfect, grandma."-he answers and smiles. And their conversation isn't important. he knows he is loved and that's all that matters. He experiences a momentary lapse in thought. Thinks about a girl at school who doesn't like him. Thinks of his telephone number and escorts the dog outside in the yard to pee...to a place where we lay with no principal in the universe. He's been taken to a place where I don't know. A place where only Charlie and I finally exist...I can feel it coming.
I can feel her body. I rub my eyes and begin to cry coming back to her in my arms, "I love you. I love you with everything."-I tell her, smiling about what I can't say.
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Michael Internicola lives in New York City.
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PREVIOUS WORK
"TRAIN ROBBERS (PART 3)" by Michael Internicola
"TRAIN ROBBERS (PART 2)" by Michael Internicola
"TRAIN ROBBERS (PART 1)" by Michael Internicola
ART by Vanessa Hall-Patch
"DOUG'S HAMSTER" by Beau Levitt
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