Road to Rome

It's raining.Not the sleet of a few weeks ago when there was more snow than rain, real spring drizzle, with fine droplets coating the glass and darkening the gray morning light.The wood was gone, and although Marco couldn't see the fireplace, he could smell the acrid smoke of dying flames.He'd better get up and open the window and clean up the ashes.

Then Marco realized what was blocking his view.He hugged Antonio at an unknown time in the middle of the night. The priest may not have noticed it, and he may not be able to break free. He is still asleep at this moment, with his back against Marco's chest.Marco lay there motionless, listened carefully to Antonio's breathing for a while, raised his hand tentatively, and slowly retracted it.To his left is the wall, and to his right is his temporary roommate who has not yet woken up.Marco grabbed the window sill as a support and sat up, the pain in his waist was not unbearable.He moved cautiously toward the end of the bed, stepping on the cold floor first with his right foot, then with his left.The floor creaked under the weight of old planks with the usual creak of old planks, and he glanced at Antonio.

Nothing happened.The priest did not open his eyes, nor did he move his fingers on the pillow.Marco stood for a moment contemplating his face, then pulled another blanket over Antonio.

He managed to clean up the ash, because he didn't have the strength to drag it out and dump it, so he put the whole bucket aside.Marco ignites the dried moss and pieces of paper with the aid of the residual fire, slowly coaxing the flames to reignite.Antonio obviously didn't have any experience in wilderness survival. He cut the pine logs in a mess, and it was difficult to build a tower shape that was easy to burn.Marco had to spend a good deal of time sifting through the oddly angled logs and trying to pile them together.

By the time he had made the tea and put the open can of peas on the fire, Antonio woke up.Maybe he woke up when Marco accidentally knocked over the tea pot, but at this moment he chose to come over under a blanket, leaned next to the fire, and accepted the strong tea that Marco handed him without saying a word.

The soup in the can was slightly bubbling, Marco was burned to the finger, cursed in a low voice, poured the peas into the soup plate indiscriminately, roughly divided it into two parts, and pushed one of the plates to the priest, who also accepted the food, patiently Chasing the escaping peas in the soup with a rusty fork.Marco waited for him to condemn last night's unnecessary physical contact, but the priest seemed in no hurry to bring it up.The rain intensified, and although the sun rose higher, the light dimmed, and the rain pattered against the roofs, and the wind blew through the woods, shaking the wet pines and the budding twigs.

"It's raining," the priest said suddenly.

"I thought you'd never find out about it."

"It seems that I can't go back to the city today."

"Really can't." Marco said, not quite sure whether the other party is seriously considering the possibility of returning to New York, or trying to make a joke clumsily. If there are people in the world who are absolutely incompatible with wisecracks, then Antonio must be one of them , "Maybe wait until summer."

The priest smiled, picked up the teacup, and turned his gaze to the fire.Marco thinks the timing of his smile is always unexpected, making it impossible to tell if he really thinks it's funny, or if he secretly thinks Marco is a complete idiot.Marco absently crushed the remaining peas with a spoon, looked at the teacup, then at Antonio, then at the fireplace, unable to think of what to say.Marco has been turned down before, of course, but usually in noisy bars, where he and his prey have steps to get off each other, one pretends to pick a new beer, the other disappears on the dance floor, never both. A sleepy cabin in the woods, facing a battered fireplace and a pile of cans.

"I think we should get the radio out." Marco dropped his fork and broke the silence.

Antonio's attention was on him immediately, so quickly, like an owl at the sound of a mouse: "There's a radio here? And you're just now deciding to bring it up?"

"There is no need to use a tone of strong condemnation, Father, you also know that I was not in the best condition a few days ago." Marco smiled at him, purely to annoy the other party, not to appease, "And the signal in this place is very poor, the radio Never receiving anything, you'll find the best entertainment here is me."

"Where's the radio?"

Marco raised his left index finger to point overhead, and Antonio stood up, looking up at the shadows between the wooden beams.Marco allowed himself to search aimlessly for a while before he snapped his fingers and directed the priest's attention to the small wooden beam at the junction of the roof and the wall.There was a cloth bag stuffed in the tenon joint, Antonio stepped on the chair, tried a few times on tiptoe, and managed to pull it off.

"Watch out for my head, Father," Marco complained.

"It's impossible to touch you," Antonio retorted absently, taking the cloth bag back to the fire and opening it.Marco knew what was inside. The last time Dad came here, because there was only white noise on every channel, he was so angry that he smashed the radio several times with a wrench, and then threw the wrench into the bag, together with the screwdriver, nails, rolled into a ball wires and this useless machine.He watched the priest take out a wrench from the cloth bag, looked at it for a while in confusion, put it aside, and took out the radio with a cracked casing in both hands.

"Perhaps you should learn to control your temper, Mr. Costa."

"What? It wasn't me, it was the last time I was here, Dad was going to, no, I don't have to explain to you. Why did you immediately think it was me- well, I guess it's not completely broken, you can try Try. But I told you, nothing will come."

After 15 minutes, the radio was plugged into the diesel generator, but there was no response and the power light refused to come on.The priest unplugged the plug, unscrewed the screws one by one, disassembled the casing, and fiddled with the fire for 10 minutes, ignoring Marco's joke about the radio and the priest.After reconnecting the power, the radio came alive, and Antonio smiled, but the smile didn't last long. As Marco expected, no matter how the antenna and frequency band were adjusted, there was only white noise and louder white noise in the speaker.The priest dragged the wires, carried the radio to the four corners of the wooden house, lifted it up, put it on the ground, put it on the table, put it on the window sill, and finally took it out of the door, without any improvement.

"Look, there is no signal."

"Because the weather is bad." Antonio turned off the radio, put it on his lap, and protected the antenna with one hand, as if he was worried that Marco would rush over and break it. Get closer to the road."

"Great, doesn't look suspicious at all standing on the side of the road with a radio in hand."

"Don't you want to hear the news? We are already here..." Antonio moved his lips and counted, "Nine days? It should be, at most a day or two."

"Of course I want to hear it, but hearing the news and being unable to do anything is worse than not knowing anything."

Antonio watched him, and Marco didn't know what he was looking for in his face, and was about to drop a wisecrack.The priest suddenly stretched out his hand and gently put it on Marco's arm: "I'm sure your family is safe and well. You are all escape experts, according to what you said."

The wisecrack faded from my mind.Marco cleared his throat, and thought of a new sentence temporarily: "According to the New York police."

"It's not a compliment, Mr. Costa, don't be proud of it. When someone tries to comfort you, say 'thank you' or they will regret talking to you."

"Thank you, Father." Marco drew out his voice mockingly.

"You must have been a terrible student."

"Probably the scariest one in the history of the school, took a lot of whipping, but in return I fucked a couple of monks too."

Antonio withdrew his hand and wrinkled his nose, as if smelling sour milk: "Is the verb you used just now metaphorical or literal?"

"A little bit figuratively, mostly literally 'fuck,' where I jacked my dick in—"

"I know the definition of the word."

"I think you need to practice pronouncing certain words, Father. Start with 'mafia' and 'fuck' and of course 'ass' or would you rather say 'anus'? Don't hide in pronouns and metaphors all day Later, you see, I also know a lot of elegant words, but I just choose not to use them."

Antonio sighed and glanced at the roof, as if hoping some ceremonial seraph would descend suddenly and rescue him from this miniature vulgar hell that Marco had made.Marco likes this effect, the swear words are like small bombs, disrupting social situations, taking off people's masks, making people squirm, and even scurrying around, revealing their real tails.But the priest didn't seem panicked, just helpless, as if Marco Costa belonged to natural factors beyond human control, like a hurricane coming from the sea, or a big dog chasing a garbage truck and barking for no reason.

"Listen, Marco." The priest moved the radio to the floor and clasped his hands. "No matter what you say or do, I won't sleep with you, so you can stop this childish..." Antonio bit bit his lip, and took a while to find the right words, "Stop the childish provocation. However, considering that we have to live together in the short term, and this is your property, I can't make unreasonable demands like 'no contact' -"

"In short, what do you mean?" Marco interrupted his official tone.

"Briefly, I mean, I'm suggesting that we stay together as roommates for a while, sharing food and sharing a bed. I'm ok with some unavoidable physical contact, so you don't need to sneak out early in the morning. In the meantime, you Commit to stop inappropriate flirting and communicate like civilized people. That way we won't waste time on unnecessary spats and jokes."

"I ask to reserve the right to joke."

"And I reserve the right to pretend I didn't hear these 'jokes'." Antonio held out his hand, "Deal?"

So you know what happened early this morning, and you're just holding it back until now. "Live together, but don't flirt. Sleep together, but don't have sex. The worst deal in the world." Marco held the priest's hand, which was not warm as he remembered, "Deal."