Every empire should be explored like this - fallen leaves and rolling columns, seven fallen curvy climbs to the overpopulated rumps, fallen at my feet around four in the morning, fallen asleep.

Suffice it to say that my first night in Rome ends on the streets, wandering (map in pocket) from one end to the other looking for and returning from a night club - called Suite. Arriving at midnight, I have already been lost a dozen times since arriving in the morning, and the online chatter who parlayed off the name of the club failed to include much other than a street address. In the nightlife world, as I would come to understand it when I was much much (can I say this at 27?) much younger, would thrive on its obscurity and the knows-knows of a club night that circulates venues. And in this case, it lands me in a district outside of Rome’s core, praying I don’t have to use the scant Italian I do know. Phrases like, “I would like a beer.” Or the infamous, “I’m a stupid American”.

“But you seem so nice,” the boy standing outside the club says after using my nationality as an excuse. I am handing him the piece of printout that has the online chatter’s slight references to the club called Suite. The boy I introduce myself to is visiting from Spain or Portugal or some Spanish country but his English and Italian throw me to shame (later, I find that languages were his college specialty). His name I have forgotten, but at the time, it was crystal clear because I swore I would remember names (for as long as I needed them) and his was on my tongue. He then introduces me to his friend, a salesman for Gucci, who nods agreeably, is temporarily attentive and then says he will get us all three in. And that is how the door works. There is a group of people that stand around and those in the know get to go inside faster than those people not in the know. The drag queen at the door looks over the crowd, and in the way that big city queerboys like to gain meaning in their lives by making choices of the socially prepared, he points.

We are pointed to. Gucci boy kisses the queen. We enter and I feel stupid - like I cheated. Inside, as I would discover at the other disconights, the world is both similar to every other gay club and then momentarily different. Everyone here wears expensive clothes (except me) and everyone here looks exotic (except for me) and everyone here can’t dance (I’ll reserve comment). They look exotic because I am the foreigner - and the clothes…I would learn it was all about clothes. I was wearing jeans and a tank top. I was not saying anything worth hearing to most people - in America or abroad.

Every night in Rome was spent on a dancefloor, and every night I heard a wonderful array of dance music that ranged from trip-hop to the sweetest of house confections not yet brought over the Atlantic and everynight I would get sweaty and everynight I would be amazed at the lack of rhythm in the elite’s asses. And their clothes must have been uncomfortable in the heated rooms and at one point, pushed into a crowd of barely bobbing boys and girls, I got flustered at trying to avoid their fashionable ensembles as they pushed past to hit the bar or VIP lounge, excusing myself for sweating on them as I tried to pretend it was just me and a DJ and not 500 of our not-so-closest friends. Then, I stopped apologizing, and eventually, I began to sweat on them on purpose. I began to lavish the idea of marks on their wardrobes and turning a 150 dollar tight shirt into a stinky rag. There was thrill in it. But not that first night. That first night at Suite, I was apologetic and awkward.

I was approached by a couple locals before hitting the dancefloor. One of them, an employee with a local hotel chain that I saw nightly at every other club (Suite was hip on Thursdays and Muchassassina on Fridays - means Killer Cow - with Gorgeous on Saturdays and Sundays left to a strange brew at Max’s).

After all the lights whirled and the beats slammed (and Andre had refused to join me that night so he could acclimate faster to the six hour time difference), I was standing outside of the club as confused as I had when I found it, knowing up this street would take me to the Tiber River and that would be the benchmark of both Empires and my way home.

Walking that stretch at night let me watch the ruins in dark and think of them without electric light (some had been turned off but never all - since vandalism is everywhere - always political) and how one can build an empire so large without cranes or corporations, the mechanics of a new type of bureaucratic empire that put a McDonald’s 50 feet (there are signs letting you know your distance to each one) from the Pantheon. It is a new empire that guarantees the Swatches are the same if not similar, the Benetton will be from airport to New York like it is here, that the idea of something/someone/someplace will far outstretch physical boundaries, cultural needs, and lingual histories - is what founds both the Roman Empire that stands quiet and marble before me and golden arches looming (checks sign) 150 meters down the next street.

You would be awed by it - the Venezia Piazza, the Trevi Fountain, the many wonderous and amorous gestures to someone/something/someplace that are now subjects of postcards (did the people building it ever live long enough to see it completed, their backs breaking under piles and piles of rock, their children owned, their deity not always the one in the statues). At night, with all the people gone, you can begin to walk Rome sans distractions and cameras, stands of souveniers and grocers. You can begin to sense the reason it was palace to myth and menace - and why it fell so heavy from empire to knick-knack.