The Fellini Remark
We were living together and everything was going great. She was feeling energetic and optimistic which was the opposite of the way things were when we first got together. And added to that she was looking great too. It was like living with me had brought out the best in her in all kinds of ways.
Now when we first got together she’d had all kinds of problems with her mother, her surroundings, her weight and even what she wanted to do. You see she had lost her father a few years before and for some reason felt all alone in the world. Her world had gotten out of balance and there was nothing anyone could do to help her. Or so it seemed. Every guy she was with tried to use her in one way or another. And according to her there had been many. One even tried to get her to hustle for him.” And did you?” I asked…”I don’t want to answer” she said “because that’s all in the past now. Way, way in the past.”
With me she’d had several breakthroughs and according to her had found someone to love. Someone who had loved her ion return and she was for the first time in a long time, happy. Because as she put it, it’s always easy to fall in love. But getting someone to love you in return is really the hard part. And for that she was grateful. So grateful that she went back finished school and got her degree. And victory of all victories she actually lost all the excess weight that everyone had been bugging her about since she was about fifteen and was suddenly transformed into a good looking, handsome and even beautiful young woman with gold colored hair and a bright welcoming smile. She had become something to behold and she was mine. To say I was thrilled would be understating it. I was in heaven because I too had gone through a long dry period and was finding that life with her was great.
Then one afternoon last summer she came home from somewhere and told me that some guy on the street with an accent tried to pick her up. He was a nice looking guy she said. And that the accent he spoke with was European, or so she thought. Possibly Italian or maybe French but she wasn’t sure. “I had just gotten off the train and he started talking to me. I didn’t answer but kept on going but so did he. He just walked beside me talking and just trying to get my attention. Finally when I couldn’t ignore him any longer I turned and told him that I was living with someone and wasn’t free to see anyone even if I wanted to. And you know what he said?”
“No, what?”
“He said the oddest thing. He said; Oh if only Fellini was alive to see what has happened to the girls of this city.” And then he said “excuse me” and left.”
“What did he mean by that?”
“I don’t know. But isn’t that interesting?”
I told her yes and didn’t pursue the subject any further. And neither did she.
I didn’t realize it at the time but that was the beginning of our breakup that came three weeks later. She had found herself and no longer needed me for whatever it was that I had been giving her for the time that we had been living together. The world outside was hers for the taking and she now needed to see how much of it she could take. So one day she said to me in a sad, sad voice; “I’m sorry and I love you and all that. But I can’t do this anymore. I feel trapped and enclosed and I need to be on my own. So I’m moving out.”
So that’s what she did. She found another apartment and we actually continued seeing each other for a short while. Then she said she couldn’t do that either. She had met someone else. So we ended there it once and for all. That was three years ago and do you know I still miss her? I’ve been with other women, had other adventures but I still think about her. And I wonder if she ever resolved her problems with her mother or reconciled with any of her old friends. Of course I’ll never know but I still wonder nevertheless.
Fellini wasn’t American and as far as I know he never spent any significant any time in any city except Rome. So I never understood that guy’s comment to her that day. But obviously she did because for us it was the beginning of the end.
– RD.
The Stark Naked Pen 