The Beast
On Tuesdays during the summer there is a market set up in
the morning until lunchtime in Tirrenia.
When we lived there it was a nice way to spend a Tuesday morning; a
fifteen minute walk down streets shaded by tall pine trees to the sprawl of
stands, where vendors didn’t need to call out to passersby, but attend to the
wandering eyes and hands and questions of price at a leisurely pace. Everyone comes to Tirrenia, especially in
the summer time, especially on Tuesdays in the summer time to shop for sandals and
scarves, plastic kitchenware and potted herbs, clothing and roasted
chicken. Since the American community
around here is so small, and there’s not a lot to do locally, except baking
your skin or your dinner, it’s rather unlikely not to run into someone you know
in the market.
I hadn’t been down to the Tirrenia market since the previous
summer and it was already July, so I headed down before the morning sun got too
hot. As I wandered through the mess of
people and past each stand, casually eyeing the merchandise, I was surprised
not to see anyone around I recognized.
When I got to the chicken truck, its side open, revealing the showcase
counter and slowly turning spits full of whole chickens, I looked for
Alberto. Alberto usually bought a
slow-roasted chicken every Tuesday during the market season, but I didn’t see
him in line. I stopped at the stand
with the rough silk tablecloths, runners, curtains and pillows and tried to
spot the last set of curtains I’d bought from this very stand. Nothing new today. After a half hour of milling around with nothing of real interest
catching my attention and feeling a little lonely, a familiar face passed me
by, his black, curly coat brushing my calf as he made his rounds through the
market stalls, trotting assuredly on his way to someplace important. I smiled and went on my way, uplifted
somehow having seen him.
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Why, 'The Beast'
We passed him every time we left the neighborhood, following
the road that wraps around the backside of the Grande Golf Hotel, by his house
and out to il Pisorno, a treacherous stretch of road leading away from the
coast. Every time the car rode the bend
and approached his house, he was there, poised and waiting to bark his insults
at us and fearlessly chase us on. His
stature was short, and his fur curly and black, so we regularly hit the brakes
when he disappeared from view, afraid of running over this valiant guard
dog. Often when alone, I slowed with my
window down to speak to him, thinking we could come to some sort of agreement,
as I never wanted to risk hurting him, rushing, perhaps. He would listen to nothing and continue to
bark, rushing right up to the car before circling it with the conviction of an
animal guarding a house made of meat. I
spoke to him with a smile every time, nonetheless, and was soon on my way.
There came a day when the little black flash of fury did not
appear as we rounded the bend in the road.
Being so used to seeing him and preparing to either speed up or slow
down to accommodate his darting, I was slightly startled by his absence. I rolled by, peering through the ever-open
gate from where he usually emerged, if not sleeping in the shade on the street,
but nothing. Two weeks passed and he
wasn’t there. I asked Chris every few
days if he’d passed our little neighbor on his way out, but the answer was
steadily a no. Then one Tuesday in
early June, I’d walked down to the square to check out the summer market and
saw him. He was trotting down one aisle
of stalls as if on duty, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. I was relieved and had to laugh at myself
for having worried so much over a dog that very likely might take a finger if I
reached from my car window on one of the days I stopped to chat at him. But this little scrapper had become an
endeared part of life here, here in Tirrenia, my first home away from that of
my childhood; here in Italy, a thousand miles from everything I knew. This little growling matte of lazy black
curls was a reason to smile this Tuesday morning, and I watched him disappear
around the corner stall, in the direction of his street post a few blocks away.
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