Tony Mastroianni

High school janitor, Dino Armstrong hated winter because there’s nothing worse than the cold and/or there’s nothing worse than working, as he so eloquently put it in Dino Tales Under the Sun, published in 2011 by Ring Ring Books. The summer, however, was pure elation for Dino. Ever since the age of seven, his parents would put him on a plane and ship him off to his maternal grandparents whose seventh story apartment in the Pizzofalcone section of Naples, Italy, which despite costing the same amount of money as his home in the United States of America, boasted views of Piazza Plebiscito from behind with its equestrian statues of Carlo III and Ferdinand I of the House of Bourbon and all the torrents of kids down there and their endless soccer games and the leashless dogs running wild and this and that that made him feel like he wasn’t missing out on the Sandlot days of summer in America, on top of the view of the Royal Palace and the little slice of the sea and Vesuvius.

It was only there that Armstrong felt himself. When and where he felt healthy. Felt normal. Felt full and hungry at the same time. Felt loved, tan, pampered. Fell in love. Maybe countless times or maybe only once and bad. Probably and maybe only once. When his grandparents passed away and left him their home, it’s when and where he got the idea to pen a memoir cast in the mold of Under the Tuscan Sun from which we have an excerpt:

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I met her years ago. We were young and had accents in each other’s native languages. Common words don’t do her justice and too specific or academic words limit her to a definition. Annamaria had the kind of aura that leaves you with an aftertaste. My god, she was gorgeous. She had long black hair and a chipmunk face which made her too cute, but not a corruptible type innocence of too cuteness. What I mean is she was the most beautiful girl in which my eyes ever tried to lay. I was attracted to her in a sexual way and a marriage way. It was the first time ever maybe. I didn’t even know that was a thing yet. I wanted to hold her hands. I wanted to kiss her temples. I wanted to go out and stay in and watch Gilmore Girls and make love in beautiful and disgusting ways with her. I wanted to live in a house or a giant shoe and have too many kids with her. I swear to god, I was in love at second or third sight. When I left at the end of that summer, I thought I'd never know happiness from the inside the way it’d been teased in front of me. This isn’t to say she knew any of this.

When I came back next summer my super crush was renewed somewhere between ten and infinity fold. I’d run into her unexpectedly every now and then. Of course, every time I left my grandparents’ house all I ever hoped and tried for was to rather unexpectedly run into her. And I’d run into her at parties and bars and she’d always be the coolest and most attractive on every level person there, talking about Foucault and Star Wars. I saw her at a conference on Jose Saramago once and though it didn’t take much to be the coolest person there, she was. Then, every time I did see her, she’d say hello and ask the best small talk questions ever like, “How’d you get green paint on your shoes,” and I’d never know the answers. Ever ever. I’d be all caught up on hello. She alone had this effect on me like she could make me levitate a couple inches from the ground or even fly, but simultaneously make my vocal chords punch out on their only job. After every encounter, after I’d get home, I’d have this little pep talk with my vocal chords like “all I need, I just need you to work perfectly when she’s around. You can do it. I know you can.” But nothing. All I ever did was swallow hard and make that cartoon gulp sound when my adam’s apple hit my gut. What I needed was a plan.

I passed a couple evenings in my room with a couple of bottles of falanghina. Thinking. Planning. Plotting. I came to the conclusion that maybe Annamaria, she was too perfect for anyone, myself included and that even if I couldn’t trick a girl like that into liking me, maybe what I could do was trick myself into thinking she did.

The plan was I write a duet. I was good at shit like that. It’s a narrative duet between a guy named Dino and his true love—pizza. I’d sing things like, “Oh pizza, you got me down on one knee,” and she’d say, “I do! Let’s marry in Vegas in a casino,” and I’d sing something like, “You’re so much more than sauce and cheese,” and she’d sing, “Oh I love you Dino.” Stuff like that and we’d record it on my computer and I’d be able to listen to the girl of my dreams profess how much she loved me whenever I wanted.

For months sat on benches with a semi-intelligent looking book. The one that facebook said she liked. I waited in Piazza Miraglia. Piazza Bellini. The other side of Piazza Miraglia. All the Annamaria sighting spots. Sometimes I’d sit in Piazza San Gaetano, in front of San Lorenzo Maggiore because that’s where Boccaccio met Fiammetta and I liked the foreigner in Naples meets muse thing going on in the background somewhere.

Sometimes I’d think I’d see her from a distance, but it was never her. Figures lie and liars figure, my mom always said. And sometimes I'd pretend I thought I saw Annamaria, but it was always equally as disappointing as when I actually thought it was her walking toward me and never was. It went on like this for a while. I just ended up reading a bunch of books.

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Summer rolled around again the next year and it was beautiful. I didn’t have a wife or girlfriend or even a recording of one, but I had the sea and the sunshine and even though pizza margheritas were a bitter reminder of my failed plan, I still had them. Buffalo mozzarella can be bitter sweet like that.

All things Annamaria considered, my life was good in the summer. I was expecting two family friends from the states to join me for a couple weeks. I didn’t like them, but I liked the idea of some company at night and showing people this amazing city for the first time. They were going to love it. They were going to love this apartment, the balconies, the view of Piazza Plebescito and that little slice of sea. I had a tray of marinated anchovies ready for them. I had jars of marinated eggplant. And when they asked me to give them a little tour of where they could buy shampoo and the like, I showed them the two fastest ways to the sea: either go down, around Piazza Plebiscito, down past the statue of Augustus and you're there—or—down the stairwells in Pallonetto to Borgo Santa Lucia. I told them I liked the Santa Lucia way better. Someone made triangle slabs of concrete flush against every step so scooters could ride up the stairs and I told them that since the wind from the sea blew very strong here, that after it rains everyone hangs their clothes out at the same time and the whole neighborhood smells like laundry.

After that, I took them to the decumani to show them where to get the best coffees and cheapest Peroni’s. I showed them all the best pizzerias, from one side of Via dei Tribunali to the other and to Piazza Bellini where I tried to explain everything everything. I was like a UNESCO guidebook doll that they accidentally pulled the string on. I told them that this was the in piazza, the movida piazza and that that giant pit with the walls peeking out from ten-ish feet below was the original Greek city limits of Naples and that Naples is the oldest metropolis in Italy, dating back to the Magna Grecia days and that the piazza was named after Vincenzo Bellini, a super famous, important composer who went to that music conservatory right over there and how beautiful it is to sit outside the conservatory and listen to the potpourri of instruments and voices coming out of all the practice rooms at once and I was talking and talking and talking and sipping a beer and they were nodding and I was talking and I saw the figure of a beautiful woman in a smart, purple dress on the other side of the street and I said—Nope, can’t be—and I kept talking about the Federico II library on the opposite side of the square and how in 1224, Fredrick II opened the second university in Italy, the third in the world, first public university ever and she was walking back in the opposite direction, her shoes were awesome and my chest was beating out of me.

She was already gone.

I waited a few seconds to pull myself back into normal human form. I said, guys, let's go that way. I want to show you where the Nation Archeology Museum is.

She was sitting on the steps under the library. I pretended to roll a cigarette. I pretended so well that it was already between my lips when I pretended to accidentally notice her. I waved hello and she waved us over.

I was projectile sweating.

“How are you,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Annamaria, do you sing?”

“No,” she said.