Milan was an interesting assignment for me, who had never been outside the U.S. before. The trip there had been exciting -- getting my first passport, changing planes in JFK airport in New York, seeing Manhattan from the air as we circled around to land. Then the real treat: they put me up in the front of the plane all the way from New York to Milan, because they needed my single seat in economy for two people traveling together. I didn't sleep a wink. Well, maybe a couple of hours after the movie.
When I finished the two week job, I did it too well. I got asked to stay for another week. All this time, I was completely lost outside the office. I speak no Italian, and after work would just walk around the city, absorbing sights and sounds. Il Duomo was a trip, and I liked the Galleria especially. The prices were way out of my reach, so I did little shopping, and ate mostly at little Bars, where cheap pasta and pizza was the staple. Most of the city seemed a little seedy, industrial, frozen in time. Italian men are a treat to watch, too. They seem to have this thing about walking around with semi-erections in their trousers all the time. I only got caught looking a couple of times, and rather than hard glares, I got the "don't you wish yours was as big as mine" stares.
On Friday at two pm, I was supposed to jump on a jet plane and head back to Dallas, arriving just in time for the exhibition Cowboys game on Saturday. My Dad had tickets, and I couldn't wait. Forty yard line, half way up. Perfection! The call that changed my life forever came through at nine that morning. The local manager's secretary, Gabriela, came into the computer room and said I needed to come upstairs to get a call. I was finalizing the code for a little algorithm we'd put into a search programme with one of the programmers, and she was doing fine, so I went with Gabby to her office.
"Jer!" said my boss as soon as I picked up the phone and said 'Pronto!' "Hey, Dick, you're working late!" It was 1:00 Am in Dallas. "Had to catch you before you left," he said. He sounded a little tipsy. "Want me to bring back some prosciutto?"
or "Need you in London on Wednesday morning, Jer. Have to make a presentation to the Board, want you to do the same gig you did for the analysts last month."
My cherished Cowboys were gonna have to do without me. Especially . . . well, never mind. I had a crush on a particular tight end, but he didn't even know I existed, probably wasn't gay, and even if he was, wanted somebody bulkier than my mere hundred seventy-eight pounds on a six-foot five frame. I'd spent hundreds of hours lifting weights, running, eating double Macs and milkshakes, trying to bulk up, but I never gained a single pound. My pants were even getting looser, not tighter. All my 32 in. trousers were getting too big for me. "How come me?" I said, in as plaintive a wail as I could muster. Hard to do when you have a deep bass voice. "You got rave reviews, Jer. The board liked the analysts' take on our software, and wants to see what they saw."
"I could come back tonight and fly over with you Monday night."
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"Nah, you need a break. Why don't you take a few days and wander around a little, relax, come on over to London on Tuesday morning and we'll get things set up for the presentation. I'll show you a little of the City, we'll fly back on Thursday morning." There was no refusing him. I figured he was just trying to save the airfare. He's a bear on costs. "Okay, Dick" I said. "Would you ask Susan to call my Dad in the morning and let him know?"
"You got it, Jer. See you at the Hotel on Tuesday," he said, ready to hang up. "Wait!" I cried into the phone. "What hotel will we be in?"
"The Savoy," he said. "You're already booked." He hung up, just like that. Great. Here I was in Milan, dying to go back to Dallas, bags all packed and ready to go, and he wants me to play tourist for five days while he moseys over to London, just so I can hold his hand for a one hour board presentation. I asked Gabriela to check on flight availability to London. "There are no flights," she told me.
"Alitalia is on strike." That's one thing I could never understand. I was in Milan for three weeks, and there must have been forty strikes of one sort or another. This was the second time Alitalia was on strike since I got there. I asked Gabby about British Airways, but she just gave me a pitying look, the poor dumb Americano, and told me that if Alitalia was on strike, Malpensa was closed, because the airport was run by the airline workers. The international airport, where the flight for New York was scheduled was open, because . . . because it was Italy, I guess. Okay, escape by plane wasn't possible. Train! Were the train drivers on strike? Fingers crossed, I asked Gabby.
"No, the trains are running, Signore Mills," she replied. "I shall cancel the taxi to the airport." I was supposed to have left at noon. Three hours and I'd have been able to see the Game! I asked her to book me a seat for the next overnight train to London. I had to go through Calais, where I could catch the ferry to . . . Dover, and then go on to London. (The Chunnel had not yet opened when all this transpired.) She said she would, so I went back downstairs to finish the algorithm with Maria. At eleven, Gabby came down and told me she had not been able to get anything for Dover, because all the TEE's (Trans Europe Express) were "complete" to Paris and Brussels, but she could get me a compartment on the Amsterdam Express, where I could take an express train to Calais the following morning, Sunday. Great! Another night in a city I had no knowledge of whatsoever, except that it had a reputation for drugs, I think. I told her to go ahead and book it. I didn't have much choice -- I'd checked out of my hotel, and the hotels in Milan were full -- Gabby checked. Something about a fashion fair or whatnot. The upside was that I got to spend another lunch with Signore Potrini and Maria and Marco, the people I'd been working with. Gabby gave me the train ticket just before I left, and I gave her the enameled vase for flowers I'd found in a little shop near the Castello Sforzesco, to replace the water glass she used. She liked it, and that made me feel good. The four of us went to a Taverna right next to the train station tracks, and I had Melanzana Parmesana and another of those wonderful pastas only the Italians can make. Unlike the trains and planes, the restaurants seem to function incredibly efficiently. Maybe the Italians have their priorities right
After a long lunch and pleasant good-byes, they dropped me at the front entrance to the massive main railway station, built by Mussolini in the "Horrific Heroic" style, and I lugged my two bags up the steps and inside. None of the Americans With Disabilities Act niceties here -- you either marched up the steps, or went nowhere. Works for them, I guess. I eventually found the track my train was supposed to leave from, and it was already there, but you couldn't board it yet. It left at 17:01 pm, and boarding was not permitted until one hour before departure. So I sat on my big suitcase, right by the gate, and waited the half hour plus. I was glad I was in front by the time four o'clock came.
There was a mob of people massed to board the train, and Italians have no concept of a line. They all try to get to the front at once, sidle and push, really quite amazing to watch. When the gate was about to be opened, I was right in front of it, and popped through the gate like a champagne cork, saved from being trampled only by the narrowness of the gate and the enormous bags some of the people carried, meaning only one or at most two people could get through at a time. My carriage was the last on the train. I only had to walk a few dozen yards before I saw the carriage number, although of course I had to walk to the front of the car to board. The car attendant even helped me with my luggage, showed me to my compartment, and put the big bag up on the rack for me. Gabby told me I should only tip him when we got to Amsterdam, and I guess he knew that, because his hand didn't go out.
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