To Catania

The past few days have been scattered with feverish memories, tossed together to create a timeline of events with edges blurred together.
I vaguely remember the ride from Napoli to Giovanni Village, the port of which I would ferry to Sicily, Valhalla of the Mediterranean. I sat alone for a long time in my car, which was very nice considering it gave me time to sleep, but about an hour away from our destination a strange man with a large backpack that made a clinging sound with every step entered into my compartment. The way the Italian compartment cars are designed, so that there are three bench seats on each side of the rectangular “room”- (if you dare to call the scant space a room)- allowed us to sit on opposing sides, each allowing us to have our own bench to lounge upon. We did that, sitting in silence for several minutes, until he looks to me and says “Are you traveling?”. I didn’t respond immediately. I was groggy and his English was bad, the worst that I had heard yet, but after several seconds I managed to understand him and answered with a facile “yes”.
It was a strange question to ask, something that should have tipped me of to his unusual nature, but I was tired, I was sick, I was unable to realize such things and began to match him in conversation. More than once in the next hour he pulled out a beer from his back pack, no doubt these aluminum cans where was caused the sound, the full ones jostling around with the empties, an aural representation of his pathway to intoxication. Had my nasal passages been clear of mucous I would have undoubtedly smelled the alcohol on him, but in my congested state I was unaware.
As he drank his three or four warm beers he told me about his life. His name was Frank, and he was from France, “Frank the Frank” he said. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed the humor was lost in translation. He was an art renovator, as to say that his job was to go around the country and touch up great works of art. He was on a trip to Sicily to work on a great cathedral in the center of the island. “The most beautiful cathedral in the world-ee” he said, pausing and then shooting me a look of disbelief in his own words, “One of the most beautiful” he said in correction. I was extremely surprised at this wondering how such a clumsy and graceless man could work on literally priceless pieces of art, but when he pulled out his kit of tools that which I could not possibly find a use for, but he masterfully navigated through it, reason enough for me to give him credulity.
After several minutes of impersonal small talk about what he did or where I had been, Frank strayed from the preset path.
“Do you know-ee why I drink-ee this?” He asks me. I smile, pretend I can’t understand him and think of something to say to change the subject. “I drink this for three days because my wife has left me”.
“Oh dear” I think to myself, There is was, the ringer, the one thing I couldn’t possibly fathom he would say. “After twenty-ee years-ee, she left me”. I looked to his hand and saw the a white thin white tan line amongst his bronze hands proving so.
“Oh God” I manage to utter, “I’m sorry”, but just as I finish, and probably short moments before I had finished he says “She left-ee me for another man”.
“Please don’t say an American” I thought, “Anyone but an American” .
“For a German School-ee Teacher”
I reflexively breathed a heavy sigh of relief, but immediately furrowed my brow upon the beginning of my exhale as to disguise it as some sort of unfamiliar but sympathetic action. At this point Frank began to drink more heavily and his English became less and less intelligible, but, there was only 25 minutes left I was capable of nodding and saying “that’s horrible” upon on occasion when his glances called for it. Hungry for solace like a small child eying some piece of candy he cannot afford, I felt pity for him.
I got off the train and headed to the towards the port to continue my progress towards The Agora Hostel in Catania, Sicily.