By de Bergerac


Act 1

Scene 1.  I am tired, cranky, more than a little whimsical and high on Chinese food and Joan Osborne. We are in a second class car aboard the EuroStar headed for Rome, in surrondings plush and muted. It's a great relief to be sitting after the morning's adventures in Venice Mestre, a Keystone Kops episode involving the attempt to locate Venice Proper, as in, you know, by the water, lost luggage tickets, all coming on the heels of a nearly sleepless night. 

We have been traveling together; my mother, her friend and I for five days. The train is fairly full finding three seats together (somewhat to my relief) is an impossibility. My mother and her friend are somewhere 'back there' and I am on my own.

     Well, not completely on my own, there are two men occupying to of the other four seats in our little grouping. One of the men is watching me from the window seat opposite me openly. My own covert surveillance gives me a sense of aggressive insecurity.  I have an impression of shaggy blond head, with hair carefully styled to fall into his eyes and a complexion still plagued by remnants of adolescent acne.  I imagine him to be in his early twenties; growing successful, though not as quickly as he would like people to believe. He has put his virility on display in the forms, of a designer walkman and the telefonino he never stops fondling. 

     I turn my eyes to my other companion. Telefonino's sidekick. Straight from Central Casting,  the role of the ambling, good-natured neighborhood pal. The childhood friend who takes other peoples complimentary cookies and who is sitting in a seat that he has not paid for. I know, because the seat he occupies belongs to me. They are talking, I am certain about women --not women really, but
body parts. And from a few sidelong glances thrown back to meetings of the eyes, I am very much afraid that one of the collections of body parts under contemplation is mine.  This of
course, makes me predisposed to hate Telefonino; which I do with all the elegant disdain my poison pen can muster. As for his
sidekick, well, sidekicks rarely rate detestation.



Scene 2.  The legal occupant of the seat inhabited by my backpack stakes his claim when the train reaches a station and I do a little claim-staking of my own.  Telefonino and I are now seatmates and his friend moves briefly to the seat I vacated before ambling away.  I am aware of being under scrutiny, my annoyance at this intrusion is due in no small part to the
fact that I am not at my best. After a hectic morning spent lost, dealing with missing baggage claim checks and nearly missing the train, I'm a little hungry, a bit hot, and 
incredibly flustered. Definitely Not in the mood to be scoped out in any detail. 



Scene 3.  It seems, however that Telefonino has bigger problems.  The T and A conversation with Sidekick was more explicit than I realized, because soon it becomes obvious that his mind (and his hand) is wandering, continuing along the same southbound train boarded before sidekick left. Presently, Telefonino's squirming hips signal that he has reached a
crossroads. Using his hands and fanny pack as camouflage, he excuses himself and sidles past me. I am guessing the realization that I know exactly what is going on would have removed the necessity visited upon him requiring him to leave his seat. I know him. I have seen him before; one of those guys who has little bit of money and a lot less sense; the type that
fantasizes about becoming a porn star due entirely to his own fantastic estimation of his technique and technical qualifications.
(to be continued)