An online novel by Gillette Edmunds

Michael spent the afternoon with Hardwood. They took a cab out of town and up the rolling, olive green, brush covered hills to Tivoli. The cab driver dropped them in front of the Villa d’Este. In stifling heat they wandered through the garden’s paths and stairways, past artificial waterfalls and simple bowl shaped fountains.

Hardwood wanted to know how all the fountains worked. He got on his hands and knees and crawled around the base of them looking for clues. Michael watched from the paths. Hardwood couldn’t understand the plumbing. He thought there was a problem with the plumbing. The water just trickled out one spout in the middle of a big basin. Michael sat on a bench and looked out over the hills. Hardwood found a groundskeeper. He came back with the news that everything worked just fine, the water pressure was low most afternoons.

After the garden, they walked the streets of the town. The buildings were of stone and very old until they reached the edge of town. Here there were a few brick houses and some metal farm buildings. A country fair was going on at the end of a small street. There were gaming booths and rides for the kids.

Wandering to the back of the gaming area, they saw a line of crewcut Italian men, all in T-shirts and dungarees, testing their fists against a mechanical punching bag. The man at the front of the line cocked his fist behind his ear, then ran at the bag and flung his fist into it as hard as he could. The bag, hung from a metal lever that extended from an electrical box, jerked back and stopped. All the men not in the line gathered around the electric box to watch a red and green gauge spin and stop. Seeing the results, some laughed while others yelled or squared off for shadow boxing while the next participant reset the bag, returned to the head of the line, cocked his fist and prepared to attack.