--I said I could like you very much.
--I heard you. I could like you very much, too. Although I'd hate to have to tell you my feelings about you when we first met. Now, I asked if it was clear we're never to see each other again. Please acknowledge, or I must leave this instant. It's no good, you know, to think otherwise.
--I agree.
--You do?
--I do. I hope I didn't disappoint you.
--No. Surprised, perhaps. Refreshing, certainly. Perhaps I was wrong! So wrong! Course I don't want to chase my tail in a circle, not with this guy, not with anyone, but it certainly is a disappointment. I would hope to see some sparks from the forge trying to beat down my resistance! Too easy! Too easy!
--Surprised? When you get to know me, you'll learn not to be surprised if you expect the unexpected. I agree with your wishes to win your favor! To gain your comraderic regard. I agree we shouldn't see each other again, but, because of the monumental admiration we have developed for each other, we should see each other again, just once more, for old time’s sake. Her laughter zapped a hole right through the whole and entire iceberg encasing his heart. She just threw her head back, one hand going to her mouth, the other to her chest as she cracked up. --Come on, it wasn't that funny. Did I surprise her that much? No, she's not laughing to curry favor, why should she? If she only knew.
If he only knew I'm laughing with joy! What a discovery I make in myself of myself! It's not loneliness! It's the isolationism that seems to surround me. I know I can't consider it at this moment, but I will analyze this feeling by myself when I'm alone. The bits of the parts and the parts of the whole will never amount to the entirety, but the complexity of the answer is the answer to the complexity. Is it self-imposed exile? Is it thrust upon one? Is it inborn, ongrown, fata morgana? What of its disposability? So, my friend, it was just a matter of my having the option; and knowing, knowing the choice had not been denied me. I haven't changed my mind. I still don't want to see him again. I don't really know if that's what I really want, but it's enough just to think of all the fuss and complications and considerations. Learn to live with the work, or the regrets; or, the work and the regrets. There isn't much more to hope for, except to play the game of life which must be the only satisfaction in a world of dissatisfaction. Go away! Leave to me my isolation. --You have a certain...appeal. A charm.
You sit this close across from me and say that!
--...something behind your face that suffuses an attraction. Something...something like... What is the word I'm trying to come up with? I can feel my forehead get all tense, the muscles by my eyes strain as if by squeezing my skull the answer will pop up like a cash register number. ...like a madman!
--A madman? A madman, Madam?
--Yes! The mystique of the maculated mind.
--Of course!
--You understand?
--Perfectly.
--Without explanation?
--Unless to confirm to you I do.
--You would take no offense?
--Only if we had had a previous intellectual consummation and you were now challenging the degree of perspicacity. Immortality.
--What?
--Immortality. The answer to your question. Shall I put in the hachures?
--No, rather a more esoteric delineation.
--The personification of the infinity of Man is thought to be contained in the property of darkness...
--Stop! That is beyond me.
--Clever! You are an outrage! So quickwitted.
No. I'm an artist. I work to remove the blackness.
--Of course, or you would never have understood the philosophy I expressed. You do realize Mary, that in these last few seconds of our life together here in this delicatessen, one fact has become underscored and clenchqualified.
--I think I know.
--Let me say it, as I should be the one. We belong together.
--There are those who would disagree.
--Be it whomsoever save you.
--To be destiny, it cannot be of our own choosing.
--And cannot be in our own denial?
--Now you are the clever one. By that you say that whether we agree to meet again or not, we shall if it be so decreed by destiny?
--Yes.
--I trapped you.
--No. I believe what I said with all my heart. I stand or fall on such preordination.
She tossed her head back, laughing. --I can't believe this! Such as we are eligible for destiny?
--More. Foredestination.
--There's no such word.
--There is now. It's rhetorical reduplication for emphasis. It must be so, I'm betting my life. Or, we need not consider the gamble, the fluke, and agree to meet, perhaps if only to exchange information about our families, what occurred between them, to understand how such dissolution occurred to better interpret through the universality of this particular anger all angers. If I had the one wish that must best benefit Mankind, I would not choose to banish all physical ills; rather ensure the evaporation of all anger, all angers. That only as a digression, not as a lecture, please, just so you can understand by my heartfelt desire the measure of the dream. Surely not the man, I could be lying, something I could never do to you. But! Back on course. If you'd rather not take a chance, let's agree to meet tomorrow night...
--No. First, I don't care what happened between our families...
--I don't believe that.
--...and next... I must get rid of him! How entangling are his values which I value so much! Trouble, trouble! And such! I must put him off! I shall be busy tomorrow night...
--I caught the tense.
--So you did. Very well then. You may pick me up at work. Will you use the Seville?
--No, but one day I shall own a car.
--Well, then, will it be dinner at the Four Legumes?
--T'is to be devoutly devoured. Don't you see every impossible request you make proves--tests--our predestination? I'm agreeable with whatever you decide: to meet, or not to meet; to see each other, or not to see each other; to propose or to dispose. Whatever your wish. It really makes no difference what you say. We're going to be together again anyway.
--My wish is we shall not see each other again.
--Very well, we shall not see each other again! If my intuition be correct forasmuch as I find it invincible, if you are correct, then you have your choice exactly as you wish. And, if we meet again? Just suppose.
--Accidentally? Strictly accidentally? No funny business. Pure accident?
--You said it, to be destiny it cannot be of our own choosing. You should feel very secure then to make a handsome declaration should we meet again--by accident, as you say.
--What would satisfy you as a `handsome declaration?'
--Oh! Satisfy yourself! We shall meet again, and from that moment on, we shall be powerless, caught as we are in the send of the sea. God! She's beautiful!
--I don't trust you!
--You listen to me! I wouldn't trust St. Joseph if he sat down and joined us at this table! I have more reason to justify that feeling than anyone else living today. You say you don't trust me, not because you don't know me well enough--which you don't--but you can trust your instinct, a bit!--but because you believe that in my pursuit of your loveliness I would resort to anything in my command to achieve my aim; that I would resort to trickery, or deception, or collusion, to ferret you away from your safehouse by suddenly `appearing' before you at some very soon time and proclaim our destiny that indeed we did meet, albeit not by accident as I avow. Sobeit! Recognize the fact that a few days ago neither you nor I were aware of each other's present day existence. As with most momentous events, our meeting came without a momentous pronouncement. We were there. Almost lost to each other. But we weren't. Why? I'm willing to rely again on such movements of the spheres. There really is no need for you to do so inasmuch as you possess all the attributes one would normally, or nominally, require; somewhat lacking in this fellow! Ah! Ha! Do
not protests or you fly the flag of false modesty for yourself and duplicitous charity for me--which simply means being a good person you do such work more for yourself than for another? I am not a handsome fellow. Were this storybook, I would be. If I am none of those, and could not be any of the others, what am I then? I wouldn't claim to be a modest fellow. I'm not. I'm as complex as any other of earth. Am I complicated? I'm not. I can be as transparent as a ghost's shadow. I'd like to be thought of as an enigma. Someone that fills all particulars yet meets not the smallest boundaries of the broadest generalization. In spite of the fact that we shall meet again, I wish to reveal to you my innermost secret. So deep and so dark is it, that I've never said it to myself right out, like that; just hinting about it--you know how you do when your mind works like that, like when you're a kid and you're supposed to pet the pony for the first time you sort of miss the animal by a mile but pretend you did and Gee! Isn’t petting the pony fun!--but you know by the essence the full fetor? Unashamedly, I must confess I'm rather eager to tell it, I'd like to hear its timbre; to envision its full weight in bright light of birth; to be ushered full-blown through vocal chords, rending throat and tongue, gashing gums and lips; guilt flying and flailing a standard in a gale, terrified to look while preparing a subatomic sliced slide for the multi-micron telescope. If I hesitate in the telling it's not because courage is lacking, rather it's to effect the savoring of the telling. How long has it battered at my conscious portals? It made its presence known at the age of awareness. My parents. There. Dead. It doesn't seem a worthwhile secret anymore... Degassing a balloon is deflating. Ugh! What disappointment! Was that all? Wait! Let me say it again, complete. I wish my parents were dead. That's it. That's it? I don't know from where it derives. I don't know if I really care. But, there it is. It used to be a dark secret that entertained me on carbon nights. Fauh! Are they all such let-downs? I mean, really, are such harborillucinations merely decorative crepe? Do you care if my parents live or die? I mean, really? Me, too. Now, wait. Let me try another. This one a little more blatant. Somewhat very personal. This is a fact. I've...ah...let me say it this way: I've never had an affair. I can see by the look on your face you've heard that before, right? Sure you have. I can surmise the teller of such tall tales wished to put you into a quite sympathetic mode that might make you feel womanhood's power to indoctrinate him into Nature's way, to show him what for he was put on earth; but the extent of his ignorance went so far as to underestimate your intelligence. You didn't fall for it. I wouldn't fall for it. I'm not asking you to do anything with the fact except to store it for future reference, save us from saying more to save us from a sticky subject. You see, I really believe, such as in this case, that the admission--true or false--is worse than the manifestation. I could never conceive being a traitor to my country, certainly so within my human means; then, to admit that I am a traitor to achieve whatever end I have in mind would indelibly stain my soul just by the mere thought of it compounded by its utterance. I am what I am, and that's what I want you to see, not some illusion painted by a coward afraid of the reality of his own genuineness whatever it might be. Like a pufferbellyfrog I could inflate my capabilities to heroic proportions considering two aspects. First, the short range. If I'm discovered, one would stand to lose the most. Only a fool would chance it. Be assured my interest in you is long range. How can I prove it? With the passage of time. You may contain any and all favors until you yourself are satisfied. I mean, too, it is your life, and you must be willing to take some risk, too. Interimtorily, for you my third arcanum: The amalgamation of compulsive despairs monitory to disconcerting perpetrations. In a word: Suicide. I shouldn't have said that? I should've inferred, subtly as slow drifting fog, not to jar the senses? A decade ago, perhaps. My lifetime has less room to maneuver than beer in my bottle. I wish to be as lucid as Lucite: I keep you free from even the most inferential of infractions or involvements with me and my world. What I'm saying is that even if you wished to accept some whit of responsibility--which I'm not offering, mind you--for whatever will happen to me you cannot, you must not do so. First, you're not entitled. Second, it's plain it's not right. And third, why would I want to cause you the slightest harm? I'm not being decent--I'm being realistic. I mean, suppose you're watching the evening news on television when the camera comes in on me standing on the ledge of a building high up, you watch as I do a half-Gaynor, then hear me make a rather emphatic exclamation point by the curb. Would you say the poor man did that because you rejected him? Wouldn't you be giving yourself too much importance? If it took me eighty-six steps to get to the top of the building, confronting you on the last step doesn't entitle you to also claim the other eighty-five! Please remember why we have taken this route--not for me to reveal a secret about which you may inaugurate built feelings on any level, rather to have you see me--Sam Scopia--exactly as I am. This truth is the only beauty I possess beyond what I create and do with my hands. ~This, so when we do meet again you may reassess the import of my words, and consider the ramifications of our bonded destinies. Should we not ever meet again, or when it's too late for anything, know this if only by the silent vibrations from the harmonics of my heart-stricken lamentation that deep to the quick of my soul I shall be filled with the colossal, burdensome agony of discompassionate wretchedness. I can see your grin carry the question of how long could I possibly remain in such a state? If you would deride my outpouring, you might quite sarcastically take the cheapshot of saying just until the next skirt came along. I would say not a moment beyond our moment. Not a moment beyond that illumination. I'd need nothing else to die. No matter this. Accept your fate, Mary Dolorosso, we shall meet again.
--Perhaps... Perhaps? What a way to leave it! She maneuvered the pillow into a tight-on ball in the crook of her arm pushing her cheek hard into it disregarding the Vitamin C lotion with which it was smeared. Gina, in desperadum frustratum, stayed up to watch the unmerciful transudative effluvium from eye technologii to eye catatonii. Solemnus solitudinus. Mary fought to transport her mind back to the trainstation of her thoughts, encountering the intellectual dissonance she translated into silent stridulation because it came from the anxietude that screamed against her own holy spirit, a guilt-induced psychic flagellation she could neither will away or want for more. Not incapable of understanding the tumult with concerted effort, Mary rather endured the pain of it all than confront and challenge the nefandous causes. That is, when she could. The subject of death was awesome. If only she'd been exposed to some singular positive aspect early on. All she got now was its inky muculence surrounded by priestly incantations, smoking censer, and ghastly cadavers. First, there was one of her aunts. Go up and kneel and make the sign of the cross and say a prayer for the dearly departed and look at her ugly, bunion-swollen black shoes; the calloused hands manicured nightly by acres of scrubbed floors now bound tightly to rest by rosary beads; and the face! The jarring conversion from living flesh to a hagmasque frozen at the flowingpoint of wax accented with firebombs of rouge, and lip paint surrounded by pink crevasses atop ancient humanoid features and roughcombed hair. What peace did she find? At least auntie knew what admission ticket to where was bought for the price of her death. They all were reminded every Sunday: Heaven or Hell! Clasp those perishable hands and pray your eternal soul isn't sent to be eternally roasted to the eternal will and pleasure of the Foreveraround devil. She wondered if her parents would be allowed to come visit her there to hear her tormented cries and wailings for relief. What a crazy adult world! What was it all for? Uncle Sebastiani had an answer--as he did for everything--like all the fire and brimstone of Hell; it wouldn't do if it didn't make a dollar. He would say the Pope would die broke without the Prince of Darkness. Well, at least that was something positive. But that didn't help his wife who died in the Loony Palace because she couldn't stand the thought of death and dying, and thinking about it and being reminded about it every Sunday, and all the Novenas, and Holy ~Days, and praying for the eternal rest of all the dearly
departed souls, and Fridays even though one didn't have to eat fish, and wondering why dear Christopher had to be desainted however they did that to leave him merely the patron of travelers, and a lot more besides. The thought of death just sucked the brains right out of her skull. Crazy to prefer the death of the living. But not her. Not Mary. Not when she found out what that kind of thinking could leave one to be. Besides, though not as ghastly, was another psychic aspect that was just as dominant, but subtler. Tracing its source was like following a distant wisp of smoke through a cloudy sky, although instinctively she surmised it came from a great distance anchored in The Order Of Things because she understood her personality and character could be stripped from her body there would still be that need. It came with the machinery. Like holes in a body. Like the senses. The need never sat easy. It nettled. Constantly. It was the reason she continued to see Vito Cidrugli, who happened to tug her attention that second. The immediate focus was on their date that night. He had enough smarts to know enough to ask her out for dinner to celebrate the award she would receive at school that night. Sure, Louisa already made a fuss about that. There would be no one else happy for her. Her parents would be thrilled first for any money that came along--and Mary had her own idea about that. So, it flattered her that Vito thought enough to make it a big thing. He would ask where she wanted to go, which was smart because she was accommodative enough to stick to medium priced places, though he would've been agreeable to any place she chose. Tonight, he was taking her. Someplace nice. A surprise. Good. She liked surprises. Nice ones. Which made her drop Vito, and pick up the shuttle toting Gilda. She loved, envied, hated, was indifferent to and worried about her, all at the same time. But not tonight. Tonight was face the consequences for her own actions. Whatever happened to Gilda would be of her own choosing, though not legally of age, she had the authority of her own convictions. Mary really didn't care what happened to Gilda: Whether she ended up free as the air, married to some Latin prince, or chained to a bed for coal miners to fuck. Payment in full was just getting out of that place; anything else good would be a bonus. Cardboard shadows of her parents tracked by which sent petite undulations of fear through her guts so she slammed the gate on them and Gilda, and at long last allowed herself to hop aboard the shiny train replete with thoughts of Sam Scopia. --Perhaps... Isn't that what she said about meeting each other again? He was so positive! So certain! An involuntary reflex action caught at her esophagus. So? She was excited at the prospect! She couldn't hide that fact from herself if she wanted to! But why? The air of mystery? The excitement of the unknown? The grandeur of acknowledging her destiny? It certainly didn't come with the promise of a handsome face, now, did it? That didn't matter as much as the appeal she felt that answered that untraceable pull deep within her. Once that sensation came to the surface, it brought with it the explanation as to why she agreed to see him that night which earlier plagued her as a bee frizzing her cranium. She met him because he asked her to. She met him because she wanted to. She met him because...because it was her destiny! Oh! Bullshit! Lord! Where did you ever learn to use such words? You're just a sewing machine operator, having dreams, putting on weight... Perhaps I should go on a diet? Sure! With all your suitors taking you out for all these fantastic dinners... And what if Dad finds out I was with Sam Scopia? So what? I'll never see him again. That's the end of it. I can't worry about that! Think about Gilda! No! The award tomorrow night. No. Think of the exultation on his face when I left Sam tonight. He didn't try to kiss me. Maybe I should've...you know...done something, like a quick kiss on the cheek--as a sister. Why would you have to do that? Wind up and plant one on him he'll never forget because he's never going to see me again. Is he?
A Matter of Love in da Bronx Page 17