Boundless, autocratic imperialism—Mr Watson’s sidewalks. He’s taken over the neighborhood, block by block. Intruders—from Chihuahuas to Ridgebacks—are stared down, then sniffed at every orifice, especially the secreting ones. A formal canine handshake. Females are welcome. Neutered males too. For everyone else, malicious obedience—dispensed by a diminutive creature with an oversized ego—awaits. Dog rules are simple. I watch and learn. So does he. —H
H is going potty, I tell you. With some luck he’ll hold out a couple more years, until I catch up. Then we can get lost together within two blocks of home, arguing about which lamppost we’ve already peed against.
People on the terraces will watch with the kind of compassion that used to be envy. They knew us when we had a spark in our eyes. Meat on our bones.
And shipshape cortices.
H loves animals. Everything with four legs and a tail. Still trying to get him to reconsider cats. Cows I can live with. Some even look like super-sized me—just without the brains, plus a big, unsightly sack of milk dangling between their hind legs. I can feel the trots just thinking about it. I’ve always wondered what the four handles are for. Humans only have two hands. Bulls have none.
Now he’s taken a fancy to birds. Ever since a robin—a misshapen creature with a brake light down its front—started harvesting god-knows-what from his broom while H scrubbed the deck. The next day the bloody bird was sitting on the butcher’s block in the kitchen. As if it owned the place. Migrating from Sweden to Brussels. Probably flew business class on SAS to get here. They still serve liquor on the morning flight. A robin on juice.
It’s taken up residence, picking at whatever’s left of the sweet T-bone on my block.
H named it Olav.
Then he went to the supermarket: packets of peanuts and fat balls stuffed into half a coconut. So now I share my garden with Olav, a family of pied wagtails respectfully waiting their turn for the peanuts, the odd jay, and a pigeon so old I don’t even bother to bark at it.
He looks more like Saint Francis by the day. Birds swarming around his head. Me at his feet, doing the groundwork.
I should have known. Rome was the rehearsal. He had already started cooing over the seagull chicks on the roof opposite the flat we rented a few years ago. He even wrote about it in the book he co-authored with R, weirdly meandering between screeches and aperitivi.
Know what? The aperitivi are far more interesting.
Back in Rome, on our way south, I feel like Olav migrating. The cobblestones are still there. So are the tourists, trundling their wheelie bags so loudly I clamp my tail between my legs, nuts mashed against my thighs. Ouch. Glad I’m not a cow. There’d be milk all over Via Giulia.
But it’s the churches I like most. They’re cool and silent. And forbidden. R smuggles me in from time to time, tucked under her arm. Says I’m one of God’s creatures, so I have every right to be there. I try to make her use the word “unique” in front of creatures, but she’s already looking through the lens of her Leica, squeezing me so hard that I nearly wet myself within sight of the rows of marble pillars waiting to be baptized.
I keep the faith: sit, stay, don’t pee.
Or does religion affect the expulsion of bodily fluids?
For a moment I thought Saint Peter’s Square would be the place I’d drown. An old man had died the week before we arrived. And suddenly there were all these people dressed in robes like him—his was fancy, but theirs were drab frocks in brown, black, or white—suffering from a collective infection of the lacrimal glands. Except the man in the blood-red cassock and zucchetto, who seemed to have taken the same drops that H used on my eyes when they watered.
I yanked the leash to get nearer. My survival depended on the clarity of his vision.
I guess the church’s too: procreate to survive.
Where do I sign up?
A lot of men already have. I see them walking the streets of Rome behind futuristic four-wheeled contraptions that require an MSc to set up and a PhD to strap their baby in. Modern men. The ones dispatched by their partners to parade the offspring. I’d resist. I restrict my contribution to the survival of the canine species to insemination. That’s hard enough for a sire. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of getting brutally separated, buckets of cold water, and the like. Rather sobering and soaking wet.
And now you realize where post coitum animal triste comes from.
But not these millennial males in their thirties. They promenade in brand-new Veja trainers alongside their stroller like true elites, left arm stretched sideways, a single hand on the handlebar. An iPhone in the other. In case they get lost. H walks me like that when he’s scooped up one of my smellier poops in a green plastic bag, keeping it at arm’s length and as far from my nose as possible until we reach the first garbage bin.
Babies smell of digested mothers’ milk. What’s wrong with that?
Perambulate, pontificate, and procreate. I could get used to Rome.
Olav wouldn’t stand a chance: a flapping seagull snack. Forget the peanuts and greasy coconuts.
And me, a migrating Jack Russell: pomp and circumstance in a scarlet cassock.
For vision and survival. What else?
https://www.aestheticnomads.com/
Contributors:
Hans Pauwels, words - Reinhilde Gielen, photographs
Artworks
Reclining Figure, Henry Moore, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
Saturnalia, Ernesto Biondi, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
Untitled, Alberto Biasi, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
Bacchus & Ariadne, Natale Carta, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
Cancellatura, Emilio Isgro, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
Surface 553, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
The Fall of Hyperion, Cy Twombly, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
Leoni, Davide Rivalta, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
Locations:
Basilica di Santa Sabina all’Aventino, Rome, Italy
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
Chez Dede, Rome, Italy
Hotel Palazzo Shedir, Rome, Italy
Ristorante Nino, Rome, Italy
Caffé Perù, Rome, Italy
Bulgari Hotel, Rome, Italy