The Clown of Rome

john was coming from st. peter's. Steph had never mentioned St. Peter's in her emails, so going there had been okay. When he reached the empty street along San Spirito Hospital, he spotted the man, chubby, bearded, with thinning hair. The man held a binder. John angled to avoid him. The man lunged and grabbed his hand.

"Where are you from?" the man asked.

John tried to free his hand. The man wouldn't let go. "Ohio," John said.

"I know Ohio. Cleveland. Ohio State." The man spread a smile across his face, false and thick. A mayonnaise smile. "You like Roma?" His English was good, with little accent.

"Sure," John said. He tugged again on his hand. The man tightened his grip. John's blood, sludgy from his hangover, quickened in his veins. His wallet and his passport hung like easy prizes in the zipped front pocket of his ridiculous hiking pants.

"I'm out here to raise awareness. I'm a student, and I visit children in the hospital."

"Sure," John said again. A student, with that balding scalp and jowly face.

With his free hand the man opened the binder and balanced it against his chest. He paged through it to show photos of himself in a clown getup standing next to children in hospital beds. But not a full clown getup. No rainbow wig, no mask of paint. It was half-assed. A red nose, red spots on his cheeks. That was it. And the kids—John only glanced at the pictures, but to him they didn't look that sick. The man kept speaking, but John stopped paying attention, eyed the end of the street. When the man let go of his hand to fiddle with the binder, John took his chance, twisted away. He was headed to the apartment; he'd been out all morning and there might be an email waiting, even if it was barely dawn in Ohio. Last night, one minute after swearing to himself he wouldn't, he'd written Steph I want to die I want to die twenty times over.

The man caught up, clamped his hand on John's arm, tight.

"I'm asking for a donation," he said, keeping pace with John, digging his hand into John's arm.

"Sorry."

"Just two euros, one."

"Sorry."

"For children."

"Sorry."

John walked faster, making for the open light at the end of the street. An intersection was there, a bridge over the Tiber.

"Not one euro! Selfish American! Go on!"

And that was that. The man let go, and John got to the intersection.

Here traffic, laden with tour buses, churned and clogged. Here two nuns, gray habits flowing, waited at the crosswalk. Here German schoolchildren, skin flushed by the Italian sun, marched along in cliquish, flirting clumps, matching backpacks slung on their shoulders. John looked behind him. The man had turned his broad back in retreat. When the signal changed John went across to the bridge and on to his apartment. There he checked his email. Nothing. Then he used the bathroom, peeled off his sweaty shirt and replaced it with another.

________

steph was supposed to be in Rome with him. That was the plan. Her plan, in fact. She and John were to arrive on separate planes, each find their way into the city, and go to the Tazza d'Oro just off the Piazza Rotonda. Stand at the bar, Steph wrote, have an espresso, put it down, turn, and there I'll be. It was her fantasy, meeting him like that, as if it were an accident. As soon as they saw each other they would race up to the apartment—theirs for a week—strip off their clothes, and make love, the windows open to all the noises of the city. I want church bells, Steph had written.

The morning John landed, he'd taken the train from Fiumcino, then a bus from Termini station, and stood at the Tazza d'Oro bar for three hours. He drank an espresso, then another, then another...