Monday, November 11, 2002 6:09 PM Joe Coluccio

I go to look for America,

On a train from the North down to Copenhagen, a young man entered the railroad car with a flourish. He had on a charcoal gray overcoat that looked for the world to me like a cape flourished by Dracula on a brisk flap, evening, Carpathian Mountains. He imperiously removed it, folded it, set it on the seat next to him with a soft and practiced elegance. He then withdrew a fine black leather covered volume out of his dark tailored jacket interior breast pocket. It was a work of Goethe writ in Gothic German script. His controlled stable manner made me uncomfortable. I sulked in my fleece lined folk singer rebellious tan winter coat, the odor and gummy feel of too many hours traveling in a land that I had little hope of understanding. Ratiocination and will fled my being, sucked from me like bleeding sap. I was miniscule, damn near invisible, against the plush seat wishing for some sleep, some resemblance of relief. The cars clacked out of the station, Holstebro, I think and the shut night down businesses echoing familiar after hour’s commercial lights passed, with strange long names spelled in curling fantasy Danish letters. It added to my growing sense of alienation. The Young Man continued reading Young Werther, occasionally looking out into the dark landscape, paying scant attention to me.

A Christmas Service, late Eve night at the Duquesne Chapel, my cousins around me. I have been absent from the catholic church since the days of kneeling old St. Joes in Verona the Latinate Mass. Confused I listened to the perfectly understandable and unbelievable prosaic English, born of some English odious King James rhythm . O the oblivion of chanting custom, I stood as others stood. I echoed words in a perfect pantomime of blessed beatitude. Before bread breaking wine drinking, the priest said something completely unexpected, he asked each of us to give a sign a peace (be with you) to any other around us. A family, directly in front of me, matron mother and patter eternis, a college son clothed in a charcoal gray great coat and elegant manner and daughter, turned and kissed one another. Complete and naturally. I feebly shook hands, my weak hands with cousins and collegians, squeaked something that lilted peacelike in the incense air. The mass continued without me. World without end.

My father's mother, severe woman with her hair gray drawn up in a bun, long black sack dress to the tops of her black and uncomfortable shoes cooking spinach in a large pot on the stove watching a black and white tv match-up between Haystacks Calhoun and Gorgeous George. She roots for the one in the white shorts, always, no matter. My father is scolding her in Italian. Ma, you can't only eat spinach. You gotta eat something else. I have no idea what he is saying. She shrugs her obstinate shoulders. I don't know if she realizes I'm alive. Her face reveals little emotion. She reminds me of an Indian Chief with her wrinkled handsome face. I wonder, finally, now what wisdom, what strength, what love was in her.

A clipping service, he says, we run a clipping service. You would be in charge of these women clipping newspaper and magazine articles. A clipping service? How could such an idea never even occur to me. Do you think you can handle it, says the guy with a moustache and a striped shirt as we look out over the Tenderloin, Market Street down near the bus station. It don't pay all that much. Sure, I say, not at all sure. Who do you clip things for? I ask. Movie stars, politicians, football players. Lots a people, we clip 'em and then paste 'em on these sheets. Big half octave pale brown sheets and then send 'em off. A world of information. I don't get the job instead go to work for a cleaning and tailor's supply house a 12 th Street just off Broadway, Oakland California.

David Lawrence Convention Center. I enter and look at all the people seated in the lobby scribbling pencil stubs the crossword puzzles. The wind is considerably taken out of my billowing sails. Ooof! My wife has managed to get me a place in the Jeopardy try-outs. Far worse this is than any college admissions. I tentatively sit on a pinned cushion until we are called to an upper floor and ushered into what looks like every class room in which I have taken a test. Desk with side boards to set our papers upon. We are handed the sheets and told that if we miss more than five we will not be part of the program. Up a notch or two the mercury of my anxiety level goes. The test is absurdly hard and aimlessly trivial at the same time. I recognize that Clara Peller said where's the beef, but miss the name of Charles Revson’s book. Silly me. Scores tallied I am accelerating once again in my car outside the David Lawrence Convention Center on Penn Avenue.


and find ravioli, meatballs and thank god vino!