I gave the same speech that I had given at Jack’s previous wedding, adding a few Russian phrases for effect. Jack started to cry as he stood up and hugged me like a big teddy bear. It was quite touching, but, when he wouldn’t let go, it became uncomfortable. Eventually his bride pulled him away, sat him down, and patted him on the head. I was quietly grateful.
I snuck out the back way and paid one of the chauffeurs $200 to drive me home. I walked into the bedroom before midnight and looked down at Nancy under the covers reading a book. She pulled back the sheets to reveal her red lingerie. She tied the red bandanna around her head and with her finger motioned for me to join her.
“I’ve been waiting so patiently,” she said in a sultry voice.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” I ripped the stupid tuxedo off and joined my better half.
Chapter Thirty-Six
It was a beautiful day in Washington, DC. After going through a detailed security check at the White House, my wife was ushered into a private room while I was escorted to a folding chair in the Rose Garden. There was a podium and about ten chairs in a single row thirty feet in front of it. The photographer was busy setting up. No press was allowed. This was a private ceremony.
Suddenly, I went flying out of my chair as General Pierce came up behind me and slapped me on the back. He laughed as he helped me to my feet. “You need to work on your upper body, Joe.”
He sat down beside me and continued, “Your wife insisted that you be invited. She’s a real asset to our country, a true patriot.”
“That much I can guarantee you, sir. She’s one in a million.”
“Damn right, she is.” The general reached into his pocket and pulled out a flask. He took a swig and pointed to the initials carved into the leather exterior. “T.R.JR.” He proudly said, “Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.! You know who that was?”
“President Teddy Roosevelt’s son.”
“That’s right, Joe. I doubt there are a thousand people in our country who know about his amazing contributions to our nation. A true hero — a Medal of Honor recipient, like his famous father — fought in both world wars. The only general on D-Day to land on the beaches with his troops, at the age of fifty-six, with the help of a cane.”
He handed me the flask. At first I was hesitant to take a sip, and then I decided that if I wanted to survive this conversation without any major injuries, I better take a long and honorable swig. “Smooth.”
“Johnnie Walker Blue, only the best.” The general took another swig and handed the flask back to me. Who was I to refuse?
“Ever miss the excitement of combat?”
“Yeah, like I miss a swift kick to the balls.” He stood up and looked at an arriving group of other high-ranking military personnel. “And now I have to go socialize with a bunch of armchair generals,” he said with a bit of disdain.
I shook the general’s hand. “We’ll be in touch, Joe.” He walked toward the other brass.
I sat back down and thought how wonderful it was that the general had my wife’s back, even if it meant eliminating me. The President made a short but touching speech and then was handed the medal, which was attached to a red, white and blue ribbon that he tied behind my beautiful and brilliant wife’s neck. We all stood and clapped as a Secret Service agent tapped me on the shoulder. “The President would like to speak to you. Please follow.”
I looked over at Nancy, whose eyes caught a glimpse of me walking away. It felt like I was moving a thousand miles away from her with each step I took in the direction of the agent. I was escorted to a side room and was told that the President would be in shortly. In the meantime, the chief of staff entered and briefed me on the context of the meeting. The president wanted to know if I would be interested in running his west coast re-election campaign.
The president entered a few minutes later.
After leaving the White House, Nancy and I went sightseeing around the city. She hung on to me in a way she had never done in public. She wrapped her arms around my left arm and rested her head on my shoulder. She barely spoke; even before some of the most magnificent monuments in the world, she made very few observations — this from a woman who had a hundred things to say about the placement of an apple on the kitchen table.
Back at the hotel, I watched Nancy get ready. We had a reservation at the finest restaurant in the city. She was dressed in a white slip, sitting before a mirror putting on makeup and fixing her hair. I walked up behind her and rubbed her shoulders. “The President wanted to know if I’d run his west coast re-election campaign. I told him it would be an honor, but my calendar was filled with a major project that I couldn’t abandon or delay under any circumstances.”
“You told him no?” Nancy was shocked.
“I told him that because the project I’m working on is the most important thing in my life — being the best husband I can be to the most wonderful and beautiful wife in the world.”
Nancy started to cry, and I handed her a few tissues. “And what does the general want you working on next?”
She shook her head and replied, “I told them that we planned on starting a family and I wouldn’t be available for quite a while. The general comes off as a tough guy, but deep down he’s a real pushover.”
She stood up, threw her arms around me, and held on tightly. “I love you so much, Joe.”
We canceled our reservation at the restaurant.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It’s hard to say why a dream you’ve been having for years suddenly changes as though it’s been edited like a film, but that’s exactly what happened. For the most part, it stayed the same up to the point where my prick of a lawyer, in a hurry to get to some living customers, drops my coffin off by my parents’ grave and the cemetery police gather around and start singing “La Marseillaise” from the movie Casablanca. Ilsa, the beautiful Ingrid Bergman, suddenly appears beside me, and as I go to kiss her, she changes into the even more beautiful girl of my dreams, Nancy. Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” comes to mind: “My darling, my darling, my life and my bride.”
We kiss passionately as the lid of the coffin springs open, and as we walk toward my parents’ graves, the cemetery police stop singing and start enthusiastically clapping. We look down at my parents’ names engraved on the tombstone, and directly below are our own names, mine and Nancy’s, with only our birth dates present … the rest to be filled in much later.
Instead of walking over the Whitestone Bridge, we find ourselves walking over the Brooklyn Bridge from the Manhattan side. Nancy holds my hand as she gives me a tutorial on the building of this magnificent structure. The chief engineer, Washington Roebling, was a genius. The soaring towers on each side of the bridge are monumental achievements that stand up against anything built before or since. The mathematical precision, alignment of the cables, and the stiffness built into the surface of the bridge are still to this day, 150 years later, the blueprint used for building many suspension bridges.
The bridge is empty except for the two of us. The sun is just starting to rise as the sound of a trumpet can be heard in the distance. I look away from Nancy, and there is Louis Armstrong (Satchmo), walking down the middle of the bridge, playing his horn with a band of musicians following him. He is singing “What a Wonderful World.” As I turn back toward Nancy, I feel an overabundance of joy and happiness, and then I wake up, humming the tune.
Acknowledgments
To Teresita Ann, a beautiful addition to the family.
To Cagney, a life way too short, but a source of great happiness and inspiration.
And to Iguana Books and its wonderful and talented staff.
-o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Targeted Demographics Page 17