The Rules of Attraction Read Free Page B

of in love with but I had lost her phone number and wasn’t even that sure if she was in Italy. So I wandered around and met this totally cool guy named Nicola who had greased-back hair and wore Wayfarer sunglasses and who loved Springsteen and kept asking me if I’d ever seen him in concert. It was then that I felt like an idiot for being an American but only for a little while since I finally got a ride from some French guy in a white Fiat who played Michael Jackson really loudand air-jammed. Then I was in some town called Brandis or Blandy or Brotto. Kids eating ice cream, all the movie theaters playing Bruce Lee movies, all the girls thought I was Rob Lowe or something. Still was looking for that girl, Jaime. Bumped into someone from Camden on the Italy Program and this person told me that Jaime was in New York not Italy. Florence was beautiful but too full of tourists. I was speeding heavily and I spent three days without sleep wandering around. Went to this tiny town, Siena. Smoked hash on the steps of this church, the Doumo. Met a cool German guy in this old castle. Then I went to Milano where I hung out with these guys in some house. Slept in a big double bed with one of them who kept playing The Smiths and wanting me to jerk him off which I really wasn’t into, but I had no place to go. Rome was big and hot and dirty. Saw a lot of art. Spent the night with some guy who took me out to dinner and I had a long shower at his house and I guess it was worth it. He took me to a bridge where, like, Hector fought off the Trojans or something. I was in Rome for three days. Then I went to Greece and it took me a day to get to where the ferry leaves. Ferry took me to Corfu. Rented a moped on Corfu. Lost the moped. Got on another ferry and headed for Patras and then Athens. Called a friend in New York who told me Jaime wasn’t in New York but in Berlin and she gave me the phone number and address. Then I went to the islands, went to Naxos, got into town really early. Used a bathroom and some guy wanted ten drachmas but I only had German deutsche mark on me and I didn’t have anything else, so I gave him my Swatch instead. Bought some bread, milk, and a map and I started walking. Saw a lot of donkeys. By nighttime I had walked halfway across town. Hit an archeological site and lost the trail I was following. I just got stoned and watched the sunset. It was nice, so I headed for the water and bumped into some guy who dropped out of Camden. Asked him where Jaime might be. He told me either Skidmore or Athens but not Berlin. Then I went to Crete, fucked some girl there. Then I went to San Torini, which was beautiful but toofull of tourists. Took a bus to the South coast, went to Malta and it made me sick. Started hitchhiking. Then I went back to Crete and spent a day at this beach full of Germans and went swimming. Then I walked some more. That’s all I did in Crete, was walk. I didn’t know where I was. Everywhere was full of tourists. So I went to this nude beach. Hung out, got naked, ate yogurt and swam with these two Yugoslavian guys who complained about inflation and wanted to make me a Socialist. I bought a mask and snorkled and we caught octopus, live, and beat them to death on the beaches and ate them. I met some guy from Canada, who had stolen a car and done some time in prison, and we hung out and talked about the state of the world, drank beer, caught some more octopus, took acid. This went on for three days. My ass and dick got sunburned. One of the Yugoslavian guys taught me how to sing “Born in the U.S.A.” in Yugoslavian and we sang it together a lot. There was nothing else to do, since we had killed all the octopus, and I had learned how to sing every Springsteen song in Yugoslavian, so I said goodbye and left the nude beach. I hitchhiked some more, saw a hell of a lot of donkeys, found a Donald Duck comic in Greek lying in someone’s backyard. In Greece, while hitching, some truck carrying watermelons