by: Lauren Jonik

I buttoned my black pea coat and spied my breath in the dim light spilling from the window of the internet café I just exited. I regretted that the sun had set. All of the other businesses on the block had closed. Two men looked me up and down before reaching for the door, their gazes obvious and lingering. I walked to the end of the street, but had nowhere else to go. Even if I knew how to translate “get me out of here” into Italian, the only people around would have been all too happy to accept it as an invitation.

“Dad, “I’ll be fine. You and Mom can go sight-seeing and we’ll meet in an hour,” I asserted the day before. After travelling for two weeks in close quarters, I felt stifled and was anxious for space. The internet café-slash-candy store on a main thoroughfare in Rome was an oasis. Gaining breathing room and time to wade through my email in exchange for fifteen Euros per hour seemed like a fair trade. It was 2007. Already over thirty, I had been living on my own in New York City for two years. I routinely took the subway home alone at 3 a.m. after shooting concerts. I explored unfamiliar neighborhoods alone in my adopted hometown the way my younger brother had done in foreign countries when he was twenty-one. But, even after having fought off a stranger who violently attacked me in the elevator of my friend’s building in the middle of the afternoon, my father still viewed me as a little girl. “You take care of her,” he instructed while pointing his index finger at the perplexed shop owner and his petite, dark-haired
wife, both of whom were only semi-fluent in English. With an embarrassed faint smile, I planted myself before the nearest available computer.

Later that night at dinner, I admonished my father. “I am a grown woman. I can take care of myself. I know a few Italian words and can communicate. Give me a little credit.” He stared at me blankly. His silence was awkward and unusual. I picked up the silver fork from the crisp white tablecloth, twisting it between my thumb and index finger. The candlelit ambiance of the small bistro didn’t lend itself to a family fight. The arrival of my penne arrabbiata demonstrated the perfect timing that the conversation lacked. The scent of fresh basil and pungent garlic soothed my senses.

***

“You’ll be fine,” my Dad assured me. As the warmth of a May afternoon enveloped me, I balanced unsteadily in the driveway on the new present I just had received for my tenth birthday. With its sleek, maroon chrome frame and hand brakes, it felt like a bicycle for grown-ups. I had waited for this day. Tightening the black strap on the heavy motorcycle helmet my parents insisted I wear, I was ready.

“Okay, let’s go,” my dad instructed. At forty-two, my father was a consummate athlete who ran marathons and biked forty miles at a time for fun. Intelligent and with quick mind, nothing moved slowly in my father’s world. I nodded my head up and down while tottering back and forth. “Just follow me.”

My worn sneakers with Velcro closures pushed down harder and harder on the pedals. I inhaled and exhaled heavily as we climbed the incline of a hill a half a mile away from home. An instant after reaching the top of the hill, the curve of the road fell into a steep decline. Still pedaling, I relished the sensation of speed that came with my acceleration. I giggled while my long honey brown hair flew behind me. Realizing that the bottom of the hill narrowed into a small bridge wide enough only for one car to pass, I needed to slow down. I yelled, “Dad! “DAD!”

He was too far ahead to hear me and hadn’t looked back since the start of the first hill. Making a split second decision, I clutched the left hand brake as hard as I could while descending. I closed my eyes. Surreal freedom was followed by darkness. When I opened my eyes, I was on my back. Branches of the tree I had seen from the top of the hill now resembled a strange canopy above my head. “You’re okay. You fell. Get up,” my father’s voice echoed from someplace close, but it felt distant. He hadn’t seen me grip the wrong brake, the front tire stop abruptly or the bike throwing me forward, an angry carousel horse bucking its rider. My father pushed by being a force that pulled. His gaze never left what came next.

***

While wandering through the narrow Roman cobblestone streets the following day after the incident in the candy store, I spied a small typed sign taped to a glass door. “Internet – 1 Euro all’ora.” I couldn’t believe how cheap internet access was here compared to the other place. Not knowing when I would have another internet opportunity, I decided to take advantage of the bargain. I returned that evening, a November chill blanketing the city. There was only one key to the apartment where my parents and I were staying. I hadn’t brought my silver flip phone with me on the trip. We had to pre-arrange a meeting time and place to reconvene whenever someone went somewhere alone.

My father walked me to the cheap internet café. A small bell sounded as we entered and a Chinese man glanced up from behind a make-shift desk. A few other patrons casually noted our arrival. The dingy white room looked as if it had never been new. Stark fluorescent bulbs hung from the ceiling. Two rows of computers lined the long, narrow space. “She wants to use the internet,” my father said. I feared my entire lecture had been lost on him, but that was all he said. The man nodded and pointed to an empty computer. My father unceremoniously said goodbye.

He would come back to get me in two hours. The bell clanked against the door as it latched closed. My fingers already were typing in my password.

The internet connection was slow. A man in his upper forties sat down at the computer next to me. His shirt was unbuttoned half-way and his hairy chest was accented by cheap gold jewelry. His suit coat looked like something a villain in a bad 1980s movie would wear. I momentarily wondered why he was wearing sunglasses inside of the building when it was already getting dark outside, but my train of thought was interrupted by, “You’ve got mail.” Scrolling through my messages, I suddenly smelled cigarette smoke. Great. I began coughing and while turning my head to avoid inhaling his stream of exhaust, I glanced over my shoulder. I was not prepared for what I saw. The man using the computer behind me was transfixed on the plethora of naked female flesh filling his screen. The fact that he was sitting in public surrounded by strangers didn’t seem to faze him. “Just read your email, just read your email,” I muttered softly to myself. I attempted to avoid connecting to my surroundings.

Ten minutes later, the bell struck the glass on the door once again. Three tall, slender Asian women entered. They were wearing short, sequined dresses that showed off their doll-like legs. Long, straight black hair cascaded down their open backs. Wow, they really got dressed up to check their email. My eyes followed where they walked, but much to my surprise, they did not sit down at one of the empty computers. Instead, the owner led them to a door in the very back of the room that was emblazoned with a large, red STOP sign—the only depiction of any English language words in the entire building. More expensively dressed women soon entered and followed the same trajectory. Men who mysteriously also did not have any interest in checking their email arrived.

The ingredients collided in my brain all at once. Sleazy-looking men plus women dressed in revealing clothing plus porn plus, plus, plus. . . It all equaled one thing: I had to get out of there. Immediately. But, I still had another hour and forty minutes before my father would return to meet me. I could walk back to where I was staying, but there was no way for me to get in. If I wasn’t where I said I would be, my parents would be concerned. My suspicions about the true nature of the business were heightened when attempting to pay for the time I had used. The proprietor didn’t know how much he usually charged for internet access. I took out a one Euro coin and held it up. He nodded up and down. I didn’t care that I was overpaying.

Shivering in the cold, I suddenly had plenty of time alone. I no longer wanted it. I walked around the block and around again. Only motion felt safe. Upon my second return, I noticed what daylight has obscured. A small, but bright neon pink sign hung high and to the left of the door of the “café.” It read “Lassuria Sexxxy Bar.” Nothing with three “x’s” in neon could be good.

I wanted to yell for my dad, like I had when I was ten and trying to figure out how to slow down on my bike. I wanted to him to hear me and respond and see me. After my bike toppled over, he made me get up on my own. “How are we going to get my bike home,” I asked shakily.

“You’re going to have to walk it home,” he answered.

“I can’t,” I replied, my bruised body already hurting.

“You can’t leave it here. Let’s go.”

As I grasped the black handlebars, the skin on my palm stung from the new scrapes. My father walked his bike next to mine. The journey home is made easier with someone walking beside you.

The men in the sexxxy bar had left me alone because they had seen me enter with a man when I arrived—and not just a man, but an older man who carried himself with a commanding presence. Perhaps, they viewed me as his property in the way they viewed women as commodities who were bought and sold.

As a child, I was torn between wanting to be older and feeling like I already was. I didn’t want to need protecting. Anger rose up within me that the culture I was born into necessitated it. I didn’t have words for it as a young girl, but my body sensed that there were expectations and limitations assigned to me. Conflict flooded my cells. I craved a kind of freedom that never saturated my daily life, but I also yearned to feel safe. My father’s energy took up so much space in my home. I envied my younger brother who grew up in a world that didn’t require him to look over his shoulder. He didn’t need to be taught to be afraid, a lesson reserved for my father’s only daughter. As I traveled the world, I longed for the sensation I first felt on my bike—the motion before the fall. I never wanted to fall—or be pushed, but drawn forward by a spirit of untainted possibility.

My father returned early to the “internet café”—his impatience and inability to be still finally working to my advantage. With a relieved sigh, I hugged him. “I’m so glad you’re early.” And, I meant it.

Penne pasta photo courtesy of: Engin Arkyurt

Bar sign photo courtesy of: Daniel Hansen

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Lauren Jonik is a writer and photographer in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has appeared in 12th Street, The Manifest-Station, Two Cities Review, Amendo, The Establishment, Bustle, Calliope and Ravishly. When she is not co-editing TheRefresh.co, she is working towards her Master’s degree in Media Management at The New School. Follow her on Twitter: @laurenjonik.