The Grape Harvest - Part 3 #TravelFiction

Mike realizing he could do no more decided to live with his look as well as his garb and went for the door. Just as he pulled the handle his iPhone buzzed on the nightstand. Another fucking birthday reminder he thought as he went to the phone and saw the SMS - "maybe you shouldn't"

There was no number attached to the message yet this note was clearly not the work of internet marketing. Mike instinctively looked about the room now as the sun was breaking the fog in all directions and created individual search lights through the bits of dust as they appeared to be in perpetual flight. Of course there was no one there but this was now two cryptic notes less than 20 minutes apart in arrival and neither with a claimed author.

Mike was now off kilter and his stomach no longer knew the pang of hunger only the ill-ease of the unknown. It was clear his presence in Piedmont was no longer any kind of secret. On the clean side of the bed and from under the still fluffy pillow Mike retrieved a Beretta 84FS Cheetah .380 auto pistol and tucked it into the discreet holster in the pocket of his grey Hugo Boss trousers. He had hoped this might be a real vacation but it was now looking more like business as usual.

A shootout in the breakfast room of his favorite B&B in Italy was not exactly how he intended to start his morning, but he figured if its going down, let's get this shit over with.

Mike, much more at ease with a task in mind rather than the consideration of his own inequities calmly strolled down the two flights of steps to the breakfast room below. It was always nerdy to walk down the stairs with ones hands in his pockets he thought as his shoulders tugged his lanky body forward down each run of the staircase with his hands battened to the inside of his trousers and gripping the weapon confidently.

As Mike entered the classic Italian breakfast room he was surprised and relieved to see that the room was not empty as he had expected, but bustling with hotel staff and 3 tables of guests.

Table 1 was a mother, daughter, and two small puppies in very tacky sweaters. Clearly NE USA Mike thought. Table 2 was the ubiquitous German family of 4, Dad was pushing 50 with a reddish-brown mustache, a look of human disdain, and always the fucking orange juice and poached egg. The Mom was just about as ugly a woman as Mike had seen in sometime with cankles that actually pushed the walls of her shoes like rampant botulism in a 7 year-old tin can of Okra. The children were younger than one might expect from parents of this age, but Germans are often over 40 before embracing parenthood.

Of course it was a boy and a girl Mike thought smugly as he considered their khaki pants and brightly colored hiking shirts. He was convinced if there had been a shootout that it would have been the most extraordinary thing that Hansel and Gretel here would witness before retiring to a matratzenlager in some hut in the alps 60 years from now.

The room was rectangular with paned glass doors and windows on 3 sides. On the fourth wall was the entrance to the hotel, the breakfast buffet (sprawling), and the entry to the kitchen. Adjacent to the kitchen entrance were 2 Savoy doors leading out to the courtyard and ultimately the vineyards and car park. There was a small table set for two facing these doors, and at the table a youthful female with chestnut hair sat, sipping a cappuccino and gazing out into the breaking fog.

Here we go, Mike thought as he unconsciously hissed at 1 of the dogs in a sweater and made his way along the buffet towards the lone female. Sensing danger was not imminent he could not help but grab a very sexy looking triangle of Robiola di Capra Castagna and pop a small morsel of the cheese in his mouth. The taste of the 3 milk cheese stopped him in his tracks for at least 5 full seconds as the salty bite of lactic brilliance unfurled and laid bare its milky breasts before Mike's discerning palate. Mike, let loose an audible, "oh God" as he pushed his tongue to the roof of his mouth to force-press the salinity deeper into his taste buds.

The young woman recognized Mike's voice immediately, left her fix on the outdoors, turned around and said, "Dad?"

...to be continued

The Grape Harvest - Part 2 (Travel Fiction)

Mike looked over the note one final time. Was it Mary, the American who works for the winery? Who even knows he was here besides his agent and the villa staff? He was hungry so he was just going to have to find out. The mirror called to him one last time and he decided that the black V-Neck masked his cheese belly better than the light grey sweater he was wearing. He changed quickly and rubbed his hands down across his abdomen hoping he might smooth away a bit of the curd that had developed along his midsection.

Mike had always been lean and with a high metabolism. It was only recently that his drinking had begun to breakdown the muscle along his core and give his belly button a 270 degree look at the world. Belly buttons are not to be noticed he thought as he took in the largest breath of air he could manage while thrusting his shoulders back. He wanted to gaze a final time in the mirror before exiting the safety of his room, for what awaited him at breakfast.

Only moments before the note arrived, his entire life's ambition had been to devour unpasteurized cheese. Now just like every other time in his life it seemed, someone wanted his attention and that was suddenly the only thing that mattered. If this was some kind of joke Mike would be livid but in reality he knew he would be faking his anger because the truth was he did not want anyone to be there; other than cheese, salumi, and solitude. If the joke would be intended to give him a hard time for the way in which he insisted on anonymity with the hotel it would be a short-lived gaffe because if no one was there it would indeed be better than if someone was. Mike was now predicting, rationalizing, and imagining, which under normal circumstances serves an author well. On this occasion it was fear of seeing someone he did not want to that fueled his latent mania.

The door handle was just at his reach when he decided his hair needed water and that there was a potential flake of dry skin on the shoulder of his black V-Neck. Fucking skin of an elephant he thought as he stripped off the shirt and stood transfixed on the space where his right pectoral muscle met his underarm. Why can I not tone this fucking spot anymore? He thought as he pushed at the reasonable mass of muscle and the slightest amount of fat.

Mike turned on the hot water and stood picking remnant sleep from his left eye as the water heated. He always had an enormous amount of sleep on his lashes that seemed to multiply in the first 20 minutes of being awake. Today was no different and frustrated he grabbed the wash cloth again and rubbed hard at his eyes before looking back at the wispy lashes that used to be full and beautiful. After years of this ritual the lashes could no longer manage to grow at the pace in which Mike destroyed them with violent wipes across his brow each day and the incessant picking that accompanied his hours in the desk chair.

This is why he was here. Italy was a unique routine and place he could escape from the banal of his day-to-day life. However, over the years as Italy has adopted more and more of the comforts of America Mike's habits have followed him. Now, even his phone worked in Europe and the cost was so low it made no sense to turn it off. Even vineyards have Wi-Fi so he had been awakened this morning before dawn by a Facebook birthday reminder for a "friend" he had never met and didn't even like.

In this remodeled 16th century villa the floors were warm, the ceilings were high, and the desk staff spoke better English than Mike spoke Italian. He had thought of going to Vietnam to write this year but the humidity and the heat made him drink too much coffee and enjoy too many massages. The pink whelps on his back from his last Vietnamese massage remained visible and tactile for almost a month.

He wanted to be in Asia but they did not have unpasteurized cheese and they sure did not have Barolo. At the end of the day, the kind of drinking that Mike did was special. He liked to drink and loved to smoke but certainly did not enjoy paying for either. If he had to pay it was Ruche all the way and smoke was an option he could ignore because the price per gram exceeded his enjoyment of the herb.

After his eyes Mike ran the wash-cloth under his armpits pulling at the bits of curdled antiperspirant and tearing at a few hairs in the process. The little sting of pain was a morning reminder why he preferred to keep his pits shaved but could not in Italy as the 220 volt converters always burned out the motors on his electric groomers and he was just too lazy to use a razor there. At least he could still suspend one domestic habit. Mike always became a little aroused when grooming, because the transformation to beautiful was like the final touches on a sculpture of his own body. Yes, he was a little heavier than he wanted but he knew, when he could be rational, that he was much more tone than most men his age. Yet, hearing it from a voice of reason was not nearly so satisfying as hearing it from a woman.

It was time to go downstairs as he slid the V-Neck back over his head and adjusted   the fit on his shoulders to accentuate their maximum width. Mike loved V-Necks because a shirt collar touching his carotid artery and Adam's apple felt like breathing into a plastic sandwich bag. While his constant need to tug and pull at the fabric around his neck usually ruined shirts in about 3 wears.

As the shirt came to fit over his chest Mike pulled it down sharply to accentuate its length. Then he brushed at his shoulders and all the way down his shoulder blades with his left arm. His right arm was so stiff from use that it never served much of a purpose for dusting, scratching, or inspection of blotchy skin on the back. Now, he thought to himself, I am where I need to be to meet this mystery suitor.

Mike pondered the full bottle of Vera Wang for Men sitting in his travel bag. As much as he wanted to make an impression on his breakfast date be it male or female, he simply could not break with tradition and wear cologne on a day he would be wine tasting. It simply was not done, and while Mike secretly hoped he would find himself ensconced in some carnal cocoon later that day he was not willing to sacrifice the aromatics of one of the world's great wines for the sake of applied pheromones.

After so much mirror time Mike was concerned there would not be enough time to return to the room after breakfast and evacuate his bowels before his first scheduled tasting. Mike simply could not function in a state of relaxation and good humor with a full colon and his defecation strategy was now seriously jeopardized by the arrival of the mystery letter.

Although the need to release could be perceived as funny, Mike was always discreet about his private time because he knew deep down it was better to be the teller of a joke than the subject of one.

...to be continued.

The Grape Harvest - Part 1

Mike awoke, and as was often the case did not immediately know where he was. In that space between light and shadow he dreamed. Mike called these awake dreams and often began speaking aloud to characters that were not present, even before he was unconscious and by all accounts, still awake.

This morning his dream framed images of his uncle shot at close range by his cousin and then a victim list on a television news broadcast. The confusion of time shifting always makes perfect sense in a dream and when Mike would become cognizant of an absurd shift is usually when he would wake or on other occasions fall deeper into the dream.

On this day the unfamiliar room was the catalyst that brought Mike from the awake dream. He had not paid much attention to the place the night before as the wine was much more interesting than the room. Although lovely, the sheer size of the place was much grander than any he had experienced in Italy before. This was certainly not Puglia he thought as he leaned back onto a second pillow and gave a fleeting last glance at the remnant dream images in his head.

Why would he dream about something so macabre while in a place of beauty he thought as he reached for his iPhone to check some of the photos from the evening prior. Indeed there was the final shot; closeups of wine globules beading along the side of the last bottle of Nebbiolo he had taken back to his room. There next to the phone on the side table was the bottle as well as the red-purple stain on the white linen doily. "Oops, that was stupid," he said out loud.

It was Hard for him to believe he had been here before because of the foreign way in which the place felt. In addition, all the rooms were unique as was often the case with Italian lodging, and this was certainly not the room where he had stayed previously. As he glanced towards the window though, he knew he was at least in a familiar land.

The sun was beginning to ramp up for its daily fight with the fog and there was a muted light making its way through the sheer curtains. Ahh Piedmont, Seattle in a Farmer's overalls, Mike had written on the notepad provided with the room. How could he use this in a post? Would any of his readers know what he meant by that?

He got to his feet and caught himself in the mirror. There was nothing like being nude in a foreign place he thought. It was refreshing to feel strange air on familiar places. The flooring was warmed from pipes beneath making the walk across the wood such a treat for the feet. Mike considered this elementary rhyme as he pulled the door open to the bathroom and entered the bright grey sky-lit room.  At morning attention knew it would be difficult to release immediately and as he waited with no change in his condition he contemplated sitting on the toilet to relieve himself. Instead, he stared into the bathroom mirror for a different perspective of his body.

The hair on his chest was clipped to a pattern he could live with while his facial hair was strikingly absent. He had worn a beard since she told him he looked sexy with it all those years ago. Mike wanted to look sexy almost as much as he wanted to drink, just not quite.

As the urge to urinate became almost unbearable Mike ran his hands along his back, stepped back to a typically uncomfortable distance and fired away into the elegant porcelain bowl. This particular commode lacked the vulgar shit shelf of many European toilets. He knew after breakfast and coffee he would return here and the prospect of inspection was never a pleasing consideration while reading something relaxing. Mike wondered if all people considered the design of a bathroom to be either functional or decorative as he did.

He warmed a wash cloth at the sink and began to wipe the sleep from his eyes and the pillow styling from his newly cropped hair. His hair when cut and on the barbershop floor reminded him of big puffy balls of pubes. It was unfortunate, he had thought for most of his life, to have hair more appropriately textured for the scrubbing of pots and pans than running fingers through. So he never really let anyone touch it. Kind of like someone with a big stomach feels pain when it is jostled, Mike's head was psychosomatically sensitive to touch.

After his daily wash cloth ritual he began to be stirred emotionally at the thought of the breakfast downstairs. At this villa there would be no less than 6 unpasteurized cheeses on offer along with a homemade jam derived from the juice and skins of second crop dolcetto grapes. He had always perceived dolcetto to have a taste like an intense jelly and when he learned that his suspicion was indeed a reality it made him giddy. Now, at long last he would be back in his breakfast heaven.

As Mike reached for his underwear that he had washed in the sink the night before, there came a knock at his door. Mike, frozen for a second not knowing what to do or say found the words just as the door was rapped a second time:

Mike - un attimo per piacere

Hotel Employee - abbiamo una lettera per lei Signore

Mike - per io? la lettera e per Mike...

HE - (interrupting) si e vero

Mike opened the door slightly so as not to expose his current malady and took the letter. When he looked down he realized it was in the Villa's own stationary. He began to say something to the hotel employee but she was gone.

He tore open the envelope and inside was written a single word:

Colazione? (breakfast?) ....to be continued

The Places You'll Go

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go

- Dr Seuss

Mike stared blankly into the pages of the book. While the gesture seemed to be from a place of love he still could not wrap his hands around how a woman could love him and still want to leave. Mike had liked many girls in the past and chosen to walk away from them mostly in pursuit of someone he found more attractive; he had never chosen to walk away from anyone he actually loved. So, while it was written right there on the jacket cover of the book, "My love always, R", he believed it was a lie and that realization hurt much more than simply being left.

Mike hated pain, physical and emotional, which only exacerbated the gnawing emptiness that was making its way from his mind to his gut. How can I still be sitting here and listening to this shit, Mike thought as he thumbed his cell phone as she began to read the words of the book as if consoling a second grader. What the fuck, we have talked about intention, the origins of the universe, Taoism, Buddhism, orgasms, marriage, God, Polyamory, and now she is reading Dr. Seuss to me. Is this just how simple it is for her that a children's book can deliver the appropriate message at this pivotal moment in life?

Every part of Mike wanted to run, but for one of the few times in his life he could absolutely see no place to go. This girl, this Dr Seuss reading girl had become his entire existence. 4+ years of top-notch beverage service, Sommelier of the year,Food and Wine up and coming professional, and 2 prestigious and high-paying positions pissed down the drain for a drug wrapped in a woman's skin. Mike thought to himself, what would she do if I just took out my cock and pissed all over this fucking book, her, and the dash of this piece of shit Ford? I mean, what could she do? I ought to whip it out and piss out this misery right now.

Instead, Mike reached into his backpack and pulled three mixed CDs he had made her the night before. You see, she had broken up with Mike almost 4 months prior to this day, yet they remained living together, working at odd jobs, cooking for friends, and even keeping up an estate while the owners were away. No, Mike knew all too well he was not going to give up without a proper ending and the postponement of misery was something he had mastered in his youth avoiding football practices, homework, punishment, and especially apologies.

Mike knew he wasn't wrong and even though the night before she moved in, Mike had confronted her about sleeping with a drifter, he knew he was the guy to tame her. You see, she was no ordinary girl; her love meant something that all of Mike's education could have never prepared him to face. Mike had already been married when she came into his life and he was certain marriage had prepared him to understand the nuances of femininity and this "scheduled" breakup was proof positive she could not live without him. Mike still knew that no matter what she said or did, he could play to her guilt and compassion and keep her around a bit longer. Mike hoped that he would find work again and perhaps meet someone else at a new job to replace this disingenuous caretaker he had allowed to control his every waking thought for the past 11 months.

It was 3 days now before she was leaving for Burning Man. Mike thought the whole thing a playground for the abjectly miserable and phony artists who claim acceptance but adhere to rules that Mormons would find suffocating if the shoe was on the other foot. She was off to that great burn to find something inside her that had been missing since she met Mike. Months before and  just after a 35 minute fuck session on the living room sofa she told Mike that she was afraid his personality was a little big for her and that it did not allow her to shine through. Years later Mike would discover it was actually something  that was not big enough for her that was in fact a deal breaker.

The words continued out of her mouth and Mike could not ever remember a Dr Seuss work actually being this wordy. Get to the goddamn point he thought so I can cry and cry, ask her not to go and she will magically cancel on Burning Man and hippie love while we reset our break-up date to sometime closer to Christmas. As fate would have it, Mike had run out of severance, run out of work, and now was out of a home, nearly out of a car and had to return to family to bail him out of at least his financial meltdown.

This was now 2 major relationships that had crumbled since the divorce. This time he actually went so far as to get engaged once again. Right there in line at the post office waiting to obtain her passport Mike fired off the idea of marriage while images of her and the drifter 69'ing at some shitty swimming hole ricocheted through his mind. He smiled at her and said, why don't we get married? We can move to Europe and travel for the next 3 years (on absolutely 0 money). She thought, I really want to start my Church for deadbeat artists and Hipsters, but what the hell, I will say yes. Just like that, they were engaged and this was going to be paradise.

6 months later she came to Mike with a big smile and told him that she was so proud of him and all that he had accomplished. It was true, Mike had curbed his natural temper, shifted from his conservative political ethos learned at his very expensive college, grown a beard, openly smoked pot, read Rilke, and burned incense while drinking Yerba Matte with rice milk. Mike had indeed become a model bum, and even more, a docile one. Now, she was so proud of him on this day 6 months from their engagement at the post office she decided to tell him that she needed space and it was time for her to shine, just like he was shining.  After all his hard work to adapt and shrink his personality, bury his confidence, and eviscerate his self-esteem Mike's fiance' told him it was over.

Now, 4 months had passed since that day and Mike had managed to use every ounce of cunning, patience, and his last red cent to try to hold on to this prize and former bride to be. Mike had nothing on earth but the moments when she would invite him into the shower or smile as they cooked Tempeh and rice. Of course the showers were few and far between, even for the purpose of cleanliness, and the tempeh had given way to sneak-away moments of Meximelts and Filets-O-Fish. Mike was starving for nourishment of a comforting kind and starving for something that he had lost that morning on his balcony four months ago; hope.

"Oh the places you will go" echoed the words of the little white bound book she was reading to him as if she was trying to coax him to take his medicine before bedtime. Mike wanted sleep, he wanted the kind that comes with driving this donated shit truck right over the edge of the highest overpass in town. What if I just rip out the pages of this book and stuff them into her mouth, nose, ass, and all of it, duct tape it in and let's just see the places she will go, he thought, as his eyes welled with tears and he told her he loved her while thanking her for the amazing gift.

Mike dried his tears and went with her shopping for burning man costumes. She modeled the items for Mike each more revealing and absurd than the one before. Mike smiled and thought how he would drive onto the Burning Man site and race through the hordes till he found her no doubt in some Kool-Aid and meth sponsored "camp" calling out for Mona Lisa while juggling crystals and wearing an anal plug. He pictured how he would  turn a flame thrower on every man, woman, and child in the tent and whisk his misguided but innocent girlfriend away to safety knowing  she would finally acknowledge that Mike had won her and she would cancel the breakup and apologize for fucking a drifter and going to Burning Man, and breaking his heart, and ruining his career.

That night Mike slept alone at his friend's house and she stayed on the estate with the family. At 1am Mike's friends beat on his door and begged him to join. The fog of the Ambien, the empty space beside him in the unfamiliar bed forced Mike to cover his moans with his pillow as he hoped his friends would surely give up soon and  pass out from copious quantities of ostentatious wine, grappa, and hydroponic weed. Mike never envied his lonely friends before this night, but as he glanced over to the magazine-bright cover of Dr Seuss he knew it would have been better to have been on the other side of that door. Because that was the only place he wanted to go.