La Cage Aux Trouble — 24TH STREET THEATRE, Theater News

Written By Jay McAdams

I wasn’t about to miss my first sunrise in San Giomin… San Gimon… on my first European vacation. So I woke up with the sun, got out of bed quietly so as not to wake Deb, and slipped on my pants and shoes and then grabbed my sports coat on the way out of the hotel room. My dark blue sports coat was the only jacket I brought since I’d read in the travel book that men should wear a nice jacket into the churches in Italy. It’s a matter of respect. So this pinstripe sports jacket was it. I’d been wearing it everywhere.

We’d learned the day before from a man in the park that there is a trail around the town’s medieval wall with a stunning view of the Tuscan valley below. So on my early morning walk, I went out of the giant ornate city gates and chose the trail that follows the wall.

Even the centuries-old wrought-iron gates were gorgeous. Italy gorgeous. I loved how everything looked old here, even if it wasn’t. Ever since we’d arrived here from Florence yesterday, we’d been watching a stone worker repair an ancient wall after a plumbing leak. The town was small enough that you’d circle by the stonemason every half hour or so. Although it was a new repair job, he worked tirelessly to make the new parts of the wall match the old wall perfectly. Somehow he’d made the new wall look centuries old. Ah, Italia.

As I walked the trail I noticed something sticking out of the dirt in the ravine below. I looked around to see if anyone was nearby, then slid down the dirt embankment to the ditch at the bottom of it.

It was a birdcage half buried in the dirt. The cage really was quite old. Anyone could see that. There was no writing on it anywhere but it was obviously an antique. I dug it out and dusted it off. I climbed back up onto the trail, holding the cage high above my head for leverage as I climbed. I was proud of myself for finding what could be worth a lot of money. “What if this really was an ancient relic?” I wondered.

I thought about Robert, an Italian we’d met at a red checkered tablecloth traditional Italian restaurant in Florence. He told us that he’d found some ancient relics behind his basement wall. He told the authorities and not only did they come and tear his basement apart, they kept the relics.

“Any old art or relics, the government will keep,” Robert said. “If you find something old, don’t tell them. I’m sorry I told them.”

As I walked on, I imagined Michelangelo talking to his pet bird in this cage as he painted the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. The more I looked at it the more it made sense that this was indeed an Italian antique. Probably quite valuable.

I carried the cage all the way around the town wall and arrived back at the town gates. It was barely 7am so there were still very few people out in the streets. I carried the cage past a shop owner who was hosing off the pavement in front of his store. He stared at me like I was a thief.

“Probably just my imagination running away with me?” I told myself.

But then as I approached another shop owner who was opening her metal rolling door, she too stared at me. And then another shop-keeper. And another.

“Maybe I’m really not supposed to have this,” I thought. “Maybe Robert was right.”

I buttoned my oversized thrift-shop sports coat and stuffed the cage underneath it. I looked like a pregnant tourist with a square baby. Perfectly inconspicuous. As the merchants stared on, I felt the sweat beading up on my forehead. I walked faster until I came upon a little alley. I rounded the corner to a narrow cobblestone street that led up a steep hill. I leaned against the stone building on my right and took a deep breath of relief from the glare of the shopkeepers. Then I looked up to the top of the hill. There was a police car parked sideways blocking the street, it’s blue lights on top flashing. POLIZIA was emblazoned on the doors. Beside the car, stood two cops in blue uniforms with bright red stripes on the sides of their pants. Their hats were the square European cop hats from the movies. The cops were looking down the street right at me.

I felt the blood drain from my face as sweat rolled down from my hair. I thought about the movie Midnight Express. “Would I die alone in an Italian prison?” I might, if I turned out to be stealing Italian antiques. I stood frozen against the wall as if it were a cloak of invisibility.

“They have to be looking for me,” I thought. “At this hour what else would cops be blocking a tiny alley for?

I slowly took on an intentionally casual posture and turned around and walked back onto the main street. To my surprise, they did not seem to be giving chase. Still, I was 100% convinced that the POLIZIA could only be looking for the American antique thief.

There was no other explanation for the cops. In my two weeks in Italy, I had not seen even a single cop or police car, except at the train stations. Now here they stood on a tiny road just after I’d “liberated” this old cage from it’s leafy grave alongside the ancient town walls.

I walked fast to the park, where the man had told me the day before about the trail. There were low hanging Olive trees, so I ditched the cage there in the trees. Cage? What cage? I hung it on a low branch and hurried back to our hotel room to hide from the police.

I opened the door in a hurry, seeing Deb still in bed. I quietly closed the door and crawled on the floor to the window. I stood up to close the blinds and then slid down the wall to peer out of the very bottom of the window for the police.

“What are you doing?” Deb asked waking up.

“Sshhhhhhhhh,” I admonished her, lest the cops might hear. “This is crazy, but I think the police might be after me,” I whispered from the floor as I peeked through the pink geranium hanging outside our window.

“You’re right,” Deb said while yawning. “You’re crazy,” she said, rolling over to sleep some more.

“Be respectful,” I whispered. “You’re in Italy”.