Reportage 2, Week 2

We sit in the back of the taxi, a white car turned dark in the dust and con of that ancient city now full of dirty skyscrapers and chain link fences, Napoli. The dim blue light of the GPS illuminates nothing but our hands, finger to finger, clenched. We lost Franco, the poacher, the king of easy fishhooks. Our driver is Micele, older, who asks us where we will visit in Naples, though he doesn’t care, and though he knows we have already decided to never return after tomorrow’s train to Roma Termini. He tells us he loves Napoli, but there is a problem. “Night is problem,” he says, heavy eyes glinting in the rearview like fat gold and his chest touching his belly under his thick polo shirt. “Mafia,” he adds. I remember the screens at the station, “nonsaleable” on every two euro train to Pompeii. That’s when Franco had turned from another frustrated tourist on another machine, sonno pronto, ready to lend a hand toughened from baggage handling and the Neapolitan night. The train workers were on strike, he said, and we believed. We believed in the orange and yellow vest slung over the passenger seat, the laminated sheet of prices we would later lament over.