ROMAN, AGE 21
Roman shoved his backpack into the overhead compartment of the Boeing 777 and slid into his seat. He stayed awake long enough to feel the rush of takeoff, coming to somewhere over the Atlantic, just in time to lower his tray as the flight attendant served dinner. He fell asleep again while the two middle-aged women to his right went over their week’s itinerary in Rome.
Sergio Panetta had given him directions to the Cremonesis’. He got lost, but several nice-looking girls who spoke heavily accented English guided him to public transportation. Once in the right neighborhood, he walked the narrow streets with laundry hanging on lines outside windows. There were many more bicycles and motorcycles here than in San Francisco or Los Angeles, but he knew how to survive traffic.
Baldo and Olivia Cremonesi didn’t speak English, but they embraced him in welcome and jabbered rapidly in Italian. Within an hour, their home was packed with relatives eager to meet the American who had painted a fresco for their rich cousin in Hollywood. A dozen Cremonesi aunts, uncles, nephews, and nieces, not to mention Santorini neighbors, crammed into the house. Olivia fretted over Roman not eating enough and kept pushing food at him. The table was laden with dishes he’d never seen before, and all of it smelled good. But a man can only eat so much. Younger members of the clan practiced their English on him, peppering him with questions about America and about Sergio, who had become a family legend with his success as an import-export business owner.
Roman had hoped for quiet lodgings for a day or two until he could learn his way around the city and find a good hostel, but the Cremonesis had the next few weeks of his life all planned out. They’d even appointed a relative to act as guide to the Eternal City. Luigi was young, out of work, and eager to show their American guest around. Grinning at Roman, he raised his wineglass. “We go tomorrow. I teach you everything you need to know.” He winked. “We look for girls.”
Olivia smacked Luigi on the back of the head and erupted in excited Italian while waving angrily at Baldo, who hollered back. Luigi laughed. Baldo raised his hands in surrender and cried out, “Olivia!” Others laughed, too, saying things to Luigi with glances at Roman.
Roman didn’t like being the center of attention. He didn’t like being in a crowded room among strangers who had no qualms about hugging and kissing him the minute they walked in the room. He didn’t want anyone making plans for him for an hour, let alone days. And he didn’t want anyone showing him the city. He hadn’t come to Rome so people could take over his life. He’d rather sleep on the streets than stay in this house.
The longer the evening wore on, the quieter he got. Olivia noticed and spoke to him in Italian. She put her hands together against her cheek and pretended to sleep. He saw an excuse to separate himself from the throng and nodded.
Olivia called Luigi and waved toward the stairs. Luigi told Roman a bedroom was ready upstairs and down the hall to the left. “I pick you up at noon.”
As soon as Roman closed the door, he pulled a sketch pad from his backpack. Leaning against the headboard, he drew rapidly: Olivia in the kitchen with Baldo leaning against the counter, an adoring look on his face. He wrote Grazie at the top and signed Roman Velasco at the bottom. He stuck the picture in the dresser mirror and looked out the window. It was a straight drop to a cobbled alley. He wouldn’t be escaping that way. He’d have to wait for the party to end and the Cremonesis to go to bed.
He pulled out his guidebook on Rome and studied the city map. By the time the house was quiet, he had memorized the city layout. He felt a twinge of guilt leaving in the middle of the night, but not enough to change his mind. He closed the front door quietly behind him. Filling his lungs with the air of freedom, he let it out in relief. He could find his own way. He’d been doing it since he was seven.
It was a couple of miles to the heart of the city, with several places to stay. He walked quickly, putting some distance between him and the Cremonesi house. Mopeds were locked in racks or chained to trees. He remembered what Jasper had said about traveling Europe on a motorcycle. He might buy one if the opportunity presented itself.
It was after midnight, but people were out and about. He figured the rules of survival were the same in any big city. Keep your eyes and ears open. Know what’s going on around you. Just as he had in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Roman moved in the shadows, where he felt most at home.
Roman found his way to an inexpensive guesthouse not far from the Pantheon and near a bridge that crossed the Tiber. Vatican City was only blocks away. He paid for a full week and slept for a few hours before going out to explore the maze of cobbled streets. He wove his way through groups of young and old, hearing Italian, French, English, German. Tourist groups were everywhere. He watched the locals. He ate and drank what they did while he hung out in piazzas sketching buildings, fountains, and girls in short black skirts and high-heeled black boots. The city was a visual feast by day, a hive of activity at night.
He spent a day wandering the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, another sitting on the Spanish Steps and drawing the Trevi Fountain. He bought a ticket to the Vatican and gawked at art-glutted halls, lingering in a corner of the Sistine Chapel, studying Michelangelo’s masterpiece until his neck cramped. Rubbing it, he watched groups of tourists with their guides driving them like cattle. He followed along. Every wall, ceiling, and floor was a work of art. Priceless treasures were everywhere: jeweled crowns, gold-covered statues, diamond rings and pendants; masterworks by da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio; tapestries that had taken dozens of artisans decades to weave; mosaic marble floors.
Within minutes of entering the vast complex, his awe transformed into disquiet. By the time he stood in Saint Peter’s Basilica before Michelangelo’s Pietà, encased in bulletproof glass, he wondered whether the vast collections of priceless treasures, the massive acquisition of wealth through the ages, was really for God or merely a show of power. Where had all the money come from to build this monument to religion? From conquest and the conquered? Did the devout fork over offerings?
Hundreds of visitors streamed through, jamming the basilica. Hundreds more walked the halls, and more lined up outside, all eager to pay the hefty admission prices. How much money did it take to get into heaven, anyway? Was there a heaven? Or hell? Did God even exist? Roman had never lived with anyone who thought God was real, let alone necessary. “Live and let live” was religion enough for him.
The crucifix bothered him. Why would anyone worship a man who claimed to be God and yet died on a cross? He thought of a sign in the Tenderloin, right across the street from the flat where he and his mother lived: Jesus Saves. Saves from what? Jesus couldn’t save Himself. How could He save others?
Two old women in black dresses and shawls stood nearby, tears running down their faces. When they walked away, he followed, curious. They went into an alcove and knelt on a low wooden bench. They held strings of beads and murmured prayers. Roman stood by the wall and sketched them. They stayed for an hour, rose, moved to the aisle, knelt, and touched their forehead, heart, and each shoulder before they rose and quietly left. The tears had dried, and they looked peaceful. He stared up at the statue of Jesus, hands and feet nailed to the cross, body emaciated and twisted, face contorted in agony.
Anger filled Roman. He didn’t know where it came from or why. He left the basilica and walked the streets surrounding the Vatican. He saw plenty of graffiti, but none he’d be proud to leave behind. A group of avant-garde youths were hanging around San Lorenzo in Roma Centro. He moved among them, listening and watching until an English girl stopped him and started up a conversation. An Italian girl joined them and said they were all going to Trastevere. Roman spent the evening drinking and asking where he could buy art supplies.
Returning to his lodgings, he sketched a cassocked priest, fingers encrusted with rings, an elaborate crucifix hanging from his neck. He wore pirate boots and had one foot on top of a treasure chest while nearby a skeletal peasant woman cowered with her hand outstretched. He crumpled the drawing and tossed it across the room.
Roman slept fitfully and dreamed about his mother.
Next morning, exhausted and in a foul mood, he found his way to Ditta G. Poggi and bought another sketch pad and more charcoal pencils. He loved the smell of the store and lingered as patrons came and went. A buzz spread when one man entered. He bought tubes of oil paint and expensive brushes, then placed an order for cochineal insects he could grind into powder to produce a specific shade of carmine.
Roman asked for Belton Molotow and Spanish Montana spray paint. The weight of the cans in his pack gave him a sense of purpose. He returned to his rented room and practiced drawing the scene etched in his mind. He simplified it. Fewer lines, more contrasts. He’d have to work fast, and that meant every line and curve had to express something important, something that created an impression. Black, white, red, and gold—four colors, more than enough to make his statement.
Satisfied with the piece, Roman had to practice until he could do it in less than three minutes. When that didn’t work, he bought butcher paper, masking tape, and scissors, and made a stencil. When he had everything ready, he walked the streets to find a place to put up his piece. He chose a wall near the Piazza del Risorgimento, and Sunday just before dawn to do it. He put on his black jeans, T-shirt, hoodie, and gloves. He grabbed his gear.
A window slid open with a bang as he taped the stencil to the wall. He kept his head down, his face hidden, as he pulled out the cans of spray paint and went to work. He finished in under three minutes, removed the stencil. He heard someone laughing as he stowed his gear and took off running.
He didn’t think his graffiti would last a day, and he felt a rush of satisfaction when it was still there three days later. When a college student at the guesthouse said he’d go back to New York City if he had the money for a return ticket, Roman offered to buy the guy’s motorcycle for the price of one seat in economy class. The two storage compartments on the bike were more than enough for what little he’d brought with him.
Roman drove north to Florence. He stayed a month, then moved on to Venice. The summer heat made the air taste like sludge, and crowds of tourists jammed the city. Roman headed for the Swiss Alps.
In every city where he spent more than a day, Roman left a statement behind, a piece of graffiti to speak to the masses. He’d been traveling around Europe for three months when an idea fixed itself in his head, a challenge that would land him in a French jail—or gain notoriety for the Bird. He headed for Paris.
He spent three full days at the Louvre, haunting the halls, feasting on the art. He watched the guards, checked out the placement of security cameras, timed distances, memorized corridors, floors, and hallways. He bought slacks, a white shirt, a trench coat, and a fedora, then went back to buy a large book on Renaissance art and a canvas bag with the museum logo.
When Roman had his plan and everything he needed to pull it off, he did his first oil painting on an eight-by-ten-inch canvas—an owl on a pine branch, one eye open, the other closed, its beak a smug smile. He signed BRD in small bubble letters in the bottom right corner. He bought a gilded frame and museum wax.
On his last day in Paris, Roman went back to the Louvre. He looked like any one of a hundred other well-dressed visitors perusing the masterpieces in the hallowed halls of the world-famous museum. He wore the fedora pulled forward and down to obscure his face from security cameras. He paused here and there, pretending interest in a painting or plaque, while savoring the adrenaline rush.
Roman knew exactly where he was going and had the timing down to the minute. It took less than that to take his painting from the museum shop bag and press it on the wall space next to an oil of two hunting dogs. Skin prickling, he felt a guard looking his way. Roman shifted the museum shop bag as though the book inside had become heavy. The guard lost interest. Roman stayed for another minute, smirking. He took his time leaving the hall. The guard walked right by his painting without noticing it. Chuckling, Roman left, wondering how long it would take for the staff to realize something didn’t belong.