Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
At the top of the hill in the old town of Sperlonga, Italy, there is a bar called Scheherazade. It’s basked in a purple and red glow– hazy lighting that invites a passerby to escape from the narrow, crowded streets and into the folds of a Lynchian dream. After a day at the bottom of the hill, burnt feet from impossibly white sand and memories of small fish drifting by my ankles, I stepped inside. My hair was still damp and sticky. Everything smelled vaguely of salt. Nobody seemed to mind. Those who lived here were used to it. Tourists from Rome bathed in the mystique of a casual beach town. My friends and I, all from Charleston, South Carolina, breathed a sigh of relief to finally be back in a place where we could wear swimsuit tops as shirts again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
The bar was as small as a bedroom. The counter spanned the entire left wall, and to the right there were only a few stools and a saloon door that opened into a lackluster bathroom. A narrow backdoor at the end of the bar revealed an outdoor oasis. Nestled in one of Sperlonga’s many side streets, there was a few couches and tables in front of a large, domineering marble staircase. Here, they laid pillows and cushions for guests to sit comfortably. The highlight of this scenery was not a permanent fixture, but rather, a roaming stray named Nerino, or “Little Black.”
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
One could instantly tell that Nerino, although a stray, knew what it was like to have a home. Whenever a guest exited the bar and onto the patio, he trotted over to them and offered himself for petting. His small snout and cartoonishly large eyes pointed directly upward as I rubbed his back, his pupils darting back and forth, surveying who he will demand attention from next if I dared to stop touching him for even a moment. I learned after a brief conversation in broken Italian that he was fed by the father of one of the bar’s workers, but I never got a clear answer as to if he frequented this spot because he had no refuge indoors, was looking for his owners, or if he just simply liked the love he received from strangers. I realized the answer didn’t matter very much. He was happy.
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Like almost every night I have spent in Italy, I made a few friends. There was a man with a motorcycle who let us try on his helmet. A woman in a white dress paraded around with her friends for her bachelorette party in the bar next door, only to see my friends and I again in an inflatable sumo suit at Scheherazade. An older man kept attempted to talk to us in Italian about Nerino. We nodded and smiled, hoping we got the jist.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Scheherazade is an apt name for a local bar. It harbors stories each night, drifting into your memory, presenting you with the gift of something to reflect upon as you lie in bed. I will not claim that the spot changed my life, nor that one would be incomplete if they never made it to the little inlet in the stony streets of Sperlonga. I will say I have found sincere beauty in the friendliness and sense of camaraderie that is so particular to Italy, and this place is an excellent example of that.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.
-Richard Siken, Scheherazade
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