by Maria Mocerino
EXT. ROUGH HIGH SCHOOL IN THE 16TH ARRONDISSEMENT IN PARIS, FRANCE
Romina is an ID checker, a frustrated Italian woman, at a rough high school in the chicest neighborhood in Paris. She speaks to VALENTINA at the gates of school as they are required to verify everyone’s IDs before school and send the latecomers to the office for penalty.
…ID, thank you. You know you think they would get it by now. No? Every morning we ask for their ID. Can’t they just have it out? It’s like they do it intentionally. These students- just absurd. Last week, you know that student, she almost killed that girl with a metal rod… Wanted to bust her head open… And that boy, what’s his name, the firefighter who always is looking at you, who threw himself in the middle so she wouldn’t get hit… He’s in the hospital. Wonder how he’s doing…ID!! Or that boy that attacked you, what was that even about? ID!! THANK YOU.
I was engaged to a man in Italy for 11 years… ID. Thank you. 11 years can you imagine? An idiot. ID PLEASE…Every month I would have a crisis, a complete crisis and break up with him. ‘I can’t do this, I don’t love you anymore…’ you know, stuff like that. WHERE IS YOUR ID?
Anyway, every month I would break up with him and he would suffer and cry for a week or so…
ID…and then things would work themselves out. A sado idiot…NO. RULES ARE RULES JEAN. You can’t come into school. NO. Everytime Jean. Everytime.
In the 11th year, we decided to take a trip to Costa Rica to visit a friend of mine who left his whole life in Italy. He started organizing trips for rich Italians, Americans, tourists who wanted to go on an adventure, you know, tours into the jungle, rafting, diving from waterfalls, that sort of thing…Yoohoo, nice try, ID Adele… So we decided to go on one of his excursions. Thank you. And for a month I was tortured. By a man. But not just a man. Our tour guide…Thank you.
Rippling muscles, wild, seductive. Barechested. Wet with sweat, surrounded by dirt and big leaves. A man of the jungle. I became totally obsessed with him, sexually. I was an animal in HEAT. But there was one problem. I was with my boyfriend. But it was impossible, I needed to fuck this man. Thank you. Excuse me, ID, don’t pretend we don’t do this every day.
My boyfriend knew. He knew. It was obvious the tension between us. He smelled it. And things began to get very competitive in the jungle.
It started like little boys in kindergarten, ‘anything you can do I can do better,’ but quickly the jungle man started cutting down leaves with a machete, and of course my boyfriend had to do it too and almost broke his hand. Over the weeks, the jungle man just stopped wearing a shirt completely. It was…distracting. Then he even started diving off waterfalls, at higher and higher levels. And every time, my boyfriend went flying off into the water after him. I remember this one waterfall, a very high one, oh it was bad, he freaked out in the middle. Bellyflop. It was bad, very bad. Seriously, I thought my boyfriend was going to die. It was just like the discovery channel. You know when the Alpha male is challenged by another male…and they fight… Now I understand why the females just stay out of it. There was no way I could have stepped in. It would have been against the natural order of things. I cannot explain it but it was the jungle. Civilized gets thrown out the window. The rules go right back to animal.
One night after watching monkeys and generally being in the jungle, we had a Barbecue. And my boyfriend went to bed early. I could feel the heat coming off of the jungle man’s body. We were finally alone. I mean I had stopped having sex with my boyfriend for a month because I would masturbate to this man in the shower, you understand? So it was beyond reason. We began to touch each other but then he told me to go back to my boyfriend and I snapped out of it, “what am I doing? You are right.” Maybe he was being cruel, maybe he was being honorable…but I went back to our hut.
The next day we went rafting. He took us to a rough part of the river. I remember laughter, the kind that is stereotypical of rich people. I was nervous by the waves. They were just laughing as if they were on the Riviera, until the raft hit something and my boyfriend went flying off into the river. No more laughing. He was struggling in the water. I was screaming. The boat continued down. We lost sight of him. It was bad, very bad. The man of the jungle was not moving. He was still. Just… staring at him. No one jumped to save him. No one could. No smarts, no money, no polite gestures of good social upbringing could have saved him. Only one person on that raft could save him. And everyone knew it. He was waiting. He was not just waiting. He was… debating. Should I? The competition between them was that intense. I yelled, “What are you doing?? He’s going to DIE.” He looked at me very calmly. The boat was rocky. And that’s when I thought, No. Some things are more important. I cannot love someone that would let my boyfriend die…
You, you’re LATE. What’s your name, yes yes, that’s it. Fabian, whatever, I cannot let you into the building. Your ID is no good to me now. You’re LATE. 45 minutes. Oh yes, the metro. Of course. The metro. Yes, I know you, but rules are rules. This is the way it is done. Don’t just stand there gawking at me. I don’t care how far you have to travel to get here. It’s not my problem! Go in and fill in the paperwork or just go home! At least you’ll have a long way to think about how you’ll start getting to school on time. Madness! What madness non? What a bunch of animals…Don’t we do this EVERYDAY?
Maria is currently writing about the sport known as “Christmas in Naples” and the legendary actress Barbara Harris. Her interviews have been featured in The Rogue Mag, her editorial work has been published in The Irish Examiner and Business Insider, and her creative work can be found in Bending Genres. When she’s not writing, she’s singing and traveling.