Pióro

9 July 2002, 6:10 am

Mar woke up.

“Where are our bags?”

Our day-packs were not on the floor where we had left them. We were on a train somewhere between Foggia and Bari, coming up to the eastern coast of Italy. The train was minutes away from pulling into some small town.

We had a booth to ourselves, one of those six-person jobs where three of you stare at another three. Since we had the place to ourselves, we crashed out on the two benches. Our big packs were locked to the luggage racks above. On the floor, our day packs were locked to each other, but not to anything solid.

When Mar noticed that the day bags were gone, I spent a few seconds wandering in and out of the booth. Since I’m never one to believe that someone would steal my stuff, I checked under the benches. Surprise, nothing was there.

Mar had actually seen the guy walk out of the booth. While I was in a daze, she walked down the car to see if she could see him. She was in bear feet. I slept with my shoes on.

Martha has a beautiful and very quick mind.

“Go that way and talk to one of the guys. Hurry, we are pulling into a station.”

I do not have a beautiful quick-thinking mind.

“What guy?”

“The train guy.”

“Right.”

By this time, I put it together: find the train guy/find the bags before the train takes off from the station. If not, the bags are really gone.

I walked down the train glancing in open booths as I went. I found the train guy two cars down.

“Our bags have been stolen,” I said in my best any-other-language-but-Italian.

He said, “Train?”

“No! Bags. Stolen.”

“Train?”

“No”

Charades time. I pointed to his bag.

“Bags…”

Then I made a grabbing gesture with both hands and finished the move off with my best tip-toe-the-football-into-the-endzone impression.

Train guy got the picture. We craned our necks out of the car, up and down the platform. There were only a few people getting off at this one meatball town, all of whom looked very law abiding. I was feeling desperate.

Then, the train guys made the universal noise for “There he is!” It seems the train exit for bag-snatching fuckers is not the platform but the tracks on the opposite side. The wise Italian train system makes both sides available at the station.

I yelled, “Those are our bags!” Can you tell I’ve studied too much Shakespeare? (Now thou hast slain me!) Thankfully the track-side door was open, so I lept from the train and ran across the train tracks without first looking both ways (sorry Mom). Shithead bolted. I sprinted after him out of the station. I shouted, “Stop that fuckerrrrrrrrr!” I think I’ve seen too many cop shows. Obviously that lady with the stroller hasn’t; she didn’t help out in the least as dickhead ran by. I followed him across some street without looking both ways (again, sorry) and up another. All I could think was, “ Stay on him.”

I don’t know what asshole was thinking when he lifted our bags. He was very good to place my glasses, which were on my bag, on the window sill. But for all his care, I don’t think he had a clues as what was in those bags. Now, I’m not a good packer and I like books—bad news for a travel-bag. Martha’s bag was reasonable: it had a digital camera and some odds and ends. But” to this bite-sized bag of booty was my nasty ballast: a journal, a notebook, a can of tuna, a jar of olives, a phrase book covering twelve languages, the mediaeval classic Gargantual and Pantegruel, the Lonely Planet travel-guide that covers every country in Europe, including Luxembourg and the latest copies of NME and The Ecomonist. So I was gaining on him.

Thankfully, numb-nuts fell hard on the road. I think he scraped his face. I gave him a good shove to the side. The shove was effective. I was surprised, as I’m sure those of you who know my level of pumptitude are also surprised. He gave some whiny protest. I think there was a cop walking (!) towards him. Maybe I should have left him my phrase book. It has “Do I have the right to a phone call?” and “Can I speak with my lawyer?” in twelve languages.

In my daydreams, I always imagine that I kick the crap out of the bad-guys. But I’ve never been in a fight. I don’t think I know how the kicking out of crap is done. I was dazed. I picked up the bags. There were people watching. The train guy was waving me back. Another train guy made me stop and look both ways before crossing the track. I gushed many breathless “grazie’s.”

There’s a moral here somewhere. I think it’s, “Read lots.”