Books & Rough Business

VIII

147 Tullio Pironti VIII Naples and its Lungomare continued to tickle me with their seasonal pleasures , the crisp indigo waters of winter, the redolent tides of spring. Still it was months before my walks revived me enough to take the kind of interest in the press that I had before Joe’s passing. Especially thought-provoking was the way he died, a heart attack; you had to wonder about the intensity with which Joe had lived. He’d gone full tilt as the norm. You’ll have the book, he’d told me, in two weeks. An extraordinary man, and a friend such as I’ll never have again. But Pironti Editore continued to get extraordinary cases. Eventually these drew me out of my grief—especially since one of the most amazing was a man Joe had called my attention to. Typically, too, he’d saved the best of the story for last. I didn’t discover Joe’s last surprise for me till he’d been gone several months. It was the following spring that at last I got to meet his colleague at RAI Television, Enzo Aprea. Aprea and I got together in Piazza Dante, though I made the arrangements at a different restaurant. It would be a while yet before I could meet another writer at Dante e Beatrice. I knew that Joe’s colleague had a book project in mind, and I knew what Aprea looked like. I’d seen him on television—or so I thought. We’d spoken on the phone, too, and I found his voice almost as intimate and warming as Joe’s. In any case I closed up shop that night feeling better than I had in months. It was one of the first fine evenings of spring, filling all the restaurants around the old piazza, lightening my heart along with everyone else’s. 148 Books and Rough Business The host, I was at my table early. The blue RAI van didn’t keep me waiting, soon pulling up along Via Toledo. Apparently the network had arranged a traffic variance, because the vehicle rumbled up onto the quadrilateral stones of the square itself; I had to wonder why Aprea rated such a grand entrance. But the newsman wasn’t first one out. Rather the driver emerged, a burly man for the job, and when he slid open the side door he pulled out a folded wheelchair. He set the chair up before ducking back into the van, and for almost a minute all that the others in the piazza could see was the back of the driver’s blue jacket. The man within it first worked at something deeper in the van, then came out backwards, slowly, bent over like a crab. When at last this driver turned—driver and medical aide, must’ve been—in his arms he carried what I first took for a very small man. But he wasn’t a dwarf or a child, he was Aprea, the face I’d seen onscreen, youthful though bearded, quick to spot me among those on the restaurant patio. The news commentator had no arms, no legs. He needed this driver and aide and wheelchair. Yet as his assistant set him place and fastened the seatbelt around Aprea’s middle, the man himself smiled my way happily. What could I do except offer a startled smile in return? Startled, oh yes, though I hoped it came across as natural. I was thinking of Joe, of what he must’ve told this guy, of how they must’ve chuckled at the thought of what a shock I was in for. I was thinking back to what I’d seen of this man on TV, the face only. And I was telling myself: Relax. Don’t make a fuss. I rose and stepped from the table. “Dottore Aprea.” “Dottore Pironti.” With that smile, with his small beard showing a patch or two of white, he made you think of mellowed-out beatnik. “Marrazzo told me all about you.” He had nice things to say about Joe, and about our friendship. All a pleasure to hear, as Aprea joined me at the table. But then a tall man, long-legged, came strolling by. “Pironti!” Aprea threw out, interrupting himself. “Hey, watch me trip this guy!” This came out slick and easy, a moment’s improvisation—like everything else he said, really. A man with honest charisma, a vital force more powerful than the...