Santa Maria Capua Vetere
by Scott Nelson
28 August 2019
Should you ever find yourself in southern Italy, then visit Santa Maria Capua Vetere. It has neither the Renaissance beauty of Florence, nor the scenic canals for which Venice is so well known. It lacks the chaotic charm of nearby Naples. It mirrors Rome in its bustling streets – excessively noisy relative to its modest population – but lacks all the stuff of la città eterna. It is the home of my good friend, Giorgio, fratm, and it is because of him and his friends and family, who have become our friends and family, that my wife and I try to visit at least once a year.
Coming off of the highway onto the Via Galatina heading south, you’ll notice a minefield of potholes that the locals are adept at avoiding. The Old Wild West restaurant on the left and the Globo Megastore on the right make you feel almost as if you were somewhere in the middle of North America, were it not for the fact that only someone assuredly unacquainted with the real old wild West would opt to name their establishment such.
The simple fact that the Old Wild West has been there for as long as I’ve known the town is a miracle. Shops, bars, and restaurants have a strange way of disintegrating and re-emerging every couple of years. Nothing major ever seems to change. What was once a bar serving excellent Campanian wine has now been turned into a burger joint. A pizzeria that used to belong to Giorgio has changed hands. It remains a pizzeria and its interior is just as it was under Giorgio’s management. Strategically situated right in front of the university it has always been popular regardless of the owners. Its present owners tell me they intend to extend their franchise all over Italy and eventually conquer Europe. I hope they succeed.
Time stands still when I visit Santa Maria. Some of my friends there are well-travelled and worldly; some of them so much so that I wonder what could possibly keep them there. Family, I suppose. The economy is in a constant state of crisis. Those who focus on career typically end up going abroad. The others stay behind and come closest to realizing their dreams only in forlorn conversations that quickly brighten up as the subject turns to more important matters, such as family, friends, and food – and the conversation somehow always turns to food even after you’ve stuffed yourself on a four-course meal (hint: don’t fill up on the primo piatto, which is pasta. It’s a trap.).
Giorgio was one of those career-oriented souls whose intrepidity brought him to Vienna nearly ten years ago in order to start a business in a country whose language was about as foreign to him as the English language. I met him as I was tutoring in English at the time. We became fast friends, although Giorgio’s English paradoxically appeared to improve the less frequently he conversed with me. Needless to say, I’ve since spared Giorgio the potentially deleterious effects of my English lessons by ceasing with them altogether. As for Giorgio, he ended up selling his company after a few years due to increased regulations on the import and export of electronics and then returned to Santa Maria.
The life of Santa Maria is in the people. While Santa Maria’s most famous monument is surely the amphitheatre – potentially the first in the Roman world – that saw the beginning of the Spartacus uprising, the people these days are far more interested in socializing, with the mighty amphitheatre serving as a backdrop to whizzing scooters and horns honking hello. The inhabitants smoke more heavily than they should, albeit many having switched from cigarettes to vapes and other devices. Many are tattooed and wear bracelets without any apparent meaning. They are possessed of a constant need to communicate. The ding of a text message received instantly grabs their attention, but they are never so arrested by one conversation to be distracted from another. They all drive without seatbelts. In fact, to prevent the car’s incessant dinging, indicating that you should buckle up, they all purchase seatbelt tongues without the belt, which they insert into the buckle to fool the car’s system and spare themselves the inconvenience of a belt stretching across their chest and impeding their movement.
They are gay and superficial in matters of politics and the grand questions that preoccupy philosophers. Santa Maria’s population is perhaps roughly equivalent to that of the citizen population of ancient Athens (approximately 30,000), significantly larger than the ideal polis size recommended by the philosophers (approximately 5000), and yet still considerably tinier than our modern metropolises. If their concern for politics is skin-deep, their love of community is profound. Maybe it’s the fact that Vesuvius could explode at any minute, but they have a carpe diem attitude towards life. This may be why they are also some of the most welcoming people you will meet. I have had many experiences of their warmth, one of which puts them in as benevolent a light as it does me in a humbling one.
For it would appear that one of the casualties of vacation mode for me is common sense in general. I am now, and will remain forevermore, intimately acquainted with the consequences of fuelling an unleaded car with diesel. I was insistent on using diesel as I could have sworn the lady who rented the car out to me was equally insistent on that point. Every failsafe mechanism was foiled by my brilliant ingenuity. The gas cap read “unleaded only”, but I feigned illiteracy. The nozzle wouldn’t quite fit in the hole, but I am so well-versed in pouring wine without the bottle touching the glass that I employed infallible dexterity to angle the precious fuel into the unwilling tank. The diesel handle itself seemed terrified at obeying the command of my firm grip, but I countered by swiftly inserting my bank card into the machine and putting aside 100 valuable euros to aid me in extracting the filthy, powerful liquid. The handle continued to buckle under my manly pressure, but perseverance is one of my virtues, and I continued to pump that liquid in until I had expended 37 of my hard-earned euros. The car started as I ordered it to and it carried us a kilometre before it waged revolution against my every command.
The tow-truck driver was understanding of my idiocy and even though he needed to head in the opposite direction, he taxied us many miles to our destination. Even those of us who are obviously neither of their community, nor of the community of common sense, are nevertheless taken in.
When Giorgio returned from Vienna to Santa Maria he began to feel a growing sense of duty to the community that has made him the generous man he is. He now walks around more than he used to, noticing more of the streets and the environs. He has been taking courses and training to become a police officer in his community. He is increasingly proud of his home.
In the centre of the town I saw three old men sitting on a park bench conversing about the prices of various goods. They all wore polo or dress shirts with cigarette packs in their breast pockets. On the bench across from them were seated five old ladies, dressed well, with their bags on their laps, three of them with canes at their side. They laughed as they talked about their families. Between them on the centre bench there were five young boys staring down at their phones and playing. They were chatting about the game they were playing. Attached to the noticeboard directly behind them was a collection of obituaries.
I’m sure there are many places in the world just like Santa Maria. But I know Santa Maria and its people. They are the salt of the earth.
