Racing the Sun(95)

I finally find one with a vintage, mint-colored sign and go inside.

Vorrei un pezza de pizza margherita, per favore, I mouth the words to myself as I walk under whirring fans, the smell of garlic and fresh dough hitting my nostrils. I’m not even sure if I’m saying it right, but I’m going to try. My mind feels completely fogged up, like all the Italian I’ve learned has gone out the window, and I can’t think straight.

I get to the counter of the shop, barely noticing that the handful of patrons are all gathered by a TV in the corner as a sportscaster speaks rapid-fire Italian. The sound of his voice gives me a headache; I’m definitely not going to miss how loudly the Italians speak.

“Vorrei un pezza,” I say, forgetting the rest. The steely-eyed, Dalí-mustached man at the counter picks out a slice with mushrooms. Not what I wanted, but I’m not going to say anything. It’s still probably delicious and the man looks like he wouldn’t speak English to me, even if he knew how.

I slide two euros toward him and take the slice, turning around to the condiment station to put on some red pepper flakes, when I hear the sportscaster on the TV yell the name “Desiderio Larosa.”

I nearly drop my pizza, and as I turn to look at the screen, it hits me that of course he is racing today. It must be televised. It’s a feeling that makes me both happy and sick.

But when I turn around to look at the screen, the sickness turns to stomach-churning nausea. They’re showing an accident on the racetrack.

A motorcycle is on fire.

One racer is trapped beneath the front wheel, the flames licking his legs. He’s not moving.

Another motorcycle is flipped on its side, its racer thrown a few feet away onto the grass. He’s also not moving.

People are rushing to the scene, and someone is dragging the body of the man on fire away while another person sprays him down with foam. Others are running to the other man on the track, leaning over him, gesturing wildly.

And still neither man moves.

The caption underneath says Desiderio Larosa e Roberto Casadei. Un uomo morto, l’altro ferito gravemente.

Morto.

Morto.

“Someone please!” I suddenly yell across the shop. “What is happening, tell me what is happening!”

The people in the shop look at each other in shock and I feel the walls start to close in on me. The TV station flashes to a picture of the hospital in Rome and someone being taken out of an ambulance, but I can’t see who it is. This must not be live but it didn’t happen long ago either.

Morto.

Dead.

Not Derio. No.

“Someone please!” I scream again, and a middle-aged woman comes over to me, babbling in Italian and trying to comfort me.

“No, no,” I tell her, grabbing onto her shirt. “I don’t speak Italian. Derio, Desiderio Larosa, is he dead? Morto, morto? I know him, he’s my amore. Mio amore!” I thud my fist against my heart. “Is he dead? Morto?”

She has tears in her eyes and she nods. “Si, si, mi dispiace.”

I look at everyone else in the pizzeria. They all seem solemn, some looking at the screen and shaking their heads, others eyeing me with pity and sorrow.

This is not happening. They are all wrong. They have to be. I stare back at the screen, blinking, feeling an icy sheet of shock wash over me. The woman beside me pats my shoulder and keeps telling me she’s sorry.

This can’t be happening.

I can’t breathe.

I’m going to vomit.

Suddenly, I’m curled over, clutching my chest, my stomach, my heart.

No, no, no.

Another person comes to my side, a man, but I don’t see him. I don’t feel him as he leads me over to a chair and sits me down. Someone gives me water. The middle-aged woman is crying. The steely-eyed man brings me a fresh slice of pizza.

When I can finally raise my head, I stare at the screen, trying to read it, interpret it. They keep showing the crash in slow motion. The racer on the outside is passing on a corner and his bike skids out and goes flying into the racer on the inside. He’s ejected into the air and lands in a way that you know he can’t survive. He’s completely limp. His bike crashes into the other bike and the other one bursts into flames, flipping into the air with the other racer until it smashes down on him.

Seconds later, as the fire starts up the racer’s leg, medics run over. It’s a replay of the scene that had caught my attention.

Derio always said his weakness was passing on the outside during a turn. That’s how he was injured the last time. Derio always wore red when he was racing before. The man who went flying through the air was wearing red. Derio is taller and more muscular than most Italian racers. The man who landed on his head, motionless, has the same figure.