A Matter of Love in da Bronx

by Paul Argentini

  So this is how it is? I used to wonder about it as a little girl. What happens when there is no more. I don't mind. We have to die sometime. What is taken away if we go sooner, rather than later? Nothing if you hold nothing of value. Without Sam there is less than nothing, so, what is there for me to miss? It's not like I'm leaving Sam behind. That would be terrible. Only my mother, I regret a little. I would like to have had a moment more with her. Strange how I feel her closeness to me now. At least the mystery I wondered about is cleared, how I could be conceived by a man who was paralyzed, who couldn't walk, and was stuck in a wheelchair! Poor Mama. But, I don't need her strength, or some other rationale to do this. The fact Sam and I are in love. On here in the Bronx can such a love be forbidden. Perhaps some others would disagree, but, who else besides Sam and Mary know the compulsion, the magnetism, the fury of true love? So, how can others even begin to understand. I hope I don't do something wrong, get frightened, or give Sam reason to regret what we're doing. He's so sweet. How thoughtful and considerate. He would've made a perfect husband. He would adore me, as I adore him. He would put my happiness above all else and all others. He would be faithful, and true. And we would grow more and more in love each day. We would always have... had...that. Oh! I wonder! Will something come to help us? This is not fiction, Mary. It's not on television. This is real. This is happening. We are no more than five minutes from the end of our lives! If God were to stop my love for Sam, and not his for me, knowing that, I would still do this for in the least of my love for him there is also the most of it. What a pity we couldn't have had the simple pleasures of being lovers. Oh! God! Help me to be brave. I love you, Sam, I love you!

  They stopped again, this time Mary gasping for air. --Almost...almost doesn't...make it...worth it, ...does it?

  Well, I don't know...but, it's supposed to be the most...beautiful way...so I hear. I guess we can stop right here, a little higher and perhaps the cops will spot us. Here, we can slip through the break in the railing. I'll go through first. Okay?

  --...Oh...Oh...Okay...

  --Are you all right?

  --Even if I'm not, it'll only be for a little while. She smiled glumly.

  Sam scrunched down, working slowly to ease himself through the tight squeeze. --Now you. Sort of make yourself small...

  Mary struggled a bit, urging her way through. --Sam!

  --What is it?

  --Oh! Sam!

  --Do you want to think about it?

  --No, I don't want to think about it, I was just caught a bit. With Sam guiding her, she stood beside him. Sam! The call filled with terror.

  --Hold on, Mary! Hold on! Don't look down! Just don't look down! Mary!

  But her eyes were fixed on a bare spot of light that seemed two miles away into the blackness. She swayed, to one side, then forward, out to the abyss. Frantically, Sam grabbed her tightly, pulling her to him, close. --Mary! Don't look down! Look at me! Look at the cab! Look at the cab! Jesus, look at the cab waiting down there. That's it! That's it, not down, look around at the cab!

  --Oh! Sam!

  --My dear Mary, we don't have to. We can go back...

  --I won't do that to you again, Sam. I'd rather have the few hours we've known each other than an eternity without you. There's no changing that. But I'm so frightened, Sam. I'm just absolutely terrorized, my insides are like ice. Oh! God! Where's your hand? Here. Hold my hand. Kiss me... kiss me...

  --Mary, I'm scared stiff, too. I'm sorry about all of this... I'm shaking like crazy.

  --I'm shivering hard, too.

  One to the other searched through the grim blackness for the other's eyes. They saw each other in each other. They could sense the music of the universe sing through their souls as they stood just inches from their path to eternity. There would be other loves in the world, they knew, but none, ever like theirs. It was the most joyous, and the most saddest moment in their lives filling and tearing their hearts at one and the same time.

  --I love you, Mary.

  --I love you, Sam. I'm sorry we didn't leave a note, or something...

  --I left the envelope and the rings in the cab. Look, that stupid cabbie down there! What the hell's he waiting for?

  --Maybe waiting to drive us to Hawaii where lovers don't have to pay for what their parents did. Your father, my mother; your mother, my father...

  --Wouldn't that be nice... Yes... Wouldn't that be nice. Mary! What did you say!

  --I said I'd rather have the few hours we've known each other...

  --No! Not that! About Hawaii... You said: Your father, my mother; your mother, my father! We’re not brother and sister! My father and your mother are your parents. Your father and my mother are my parents! We’re not related! Mary! My darling! My darling! Quick! For Christ's sakes don't look down!

  --I won't!

  --No, Sweetheart! don't look down, don't look anywhere except back on the bridge! Climb back through! Climb back through! Hurry!

  --What? What?

  --Just do it! Please! Gingerly they sidestepped back to the opening. Sam holding her waist, patting her fanny, laughing out loud, guided her through; then popped through the opening himself.

  --Sam! I don't understand!

  --You will! I'll explain! YAAAAA-HOOOOIEEE! Oh! God! Wait right here! Just promise! promise! promise! you won't go away! Sam took off racing toward the cab, whistling wildly at it all the while.

  An instant later, as if he anticipated the call, the cabbie with the pith helmet pulled up beside Sam amidst horns blaring and driversswearing as they fought to work around the stopped vehicle. Within moments, Mary collapsed in the seat beside Sam.

  --What I said, Cabbie, is do you know where we can find a Justice of the Peace?

  --Why, sure! I got a brother-in-law in Philly what can tie the knot. How that suit you?

  --Sam, what are you doing? I don't understand!

  --Sweetheart! Don't you understand? You and I! We can be together! You and I can get married! There's nothing to stop us! Sam and Mary can be lovers!

  --How is it possible?

  --Well, you said it back there. Your father, my mother; my mother your father! Don't you see?

  --No.

  Sam said he would explain, but first he told the cabbie to stop someplace where they could get a half-dozen bottles of Dom Perignon, a box of caviar, some Italian pastries to serve as a wedding cake, and some real Dr. Pepper to serve as their wedding symbol. Then, Sam ordered the cabbie to take the scenic route over the Verrazzano so they could see the lights. Sam was sure the cabbie understood that with a goodly sum for a just recompense, he was to make Philly with all possible haste. There, Love's thrilling thralldom awaited them. The cabbie was about to say something then caught himself. No one was interested in what he had to say. Certainly not these two, hard-locked in a passionate kissing embrace, unreservedly lost in space. Lost to love.

  POSTSCRIPT

  THE COUPLE was the personification of plain, pure love, exciting romance and champagne bubbles up the nose. The world loved them more because of the tenderness between them rather than some torrid, steamy, seamy, horny passion. Also, the fact that they tried to keep it low profile--shy, private people that they were--endeared them to everyone's hearts. It seemed they were tragically doomed lovers, all forces on earth conspiring to deny the consummation of their love.

  Unquestionably those forces would've succeeded with any lesser love, but the purity of their devotion to each other provided a catalyst comparable to the harmony of the spheres that emerged singularly spectacular and triumphant, an aspect of little importance to them, but one supreme in the annals of lovers beyond the existence of the universe. If these two completed each other's heart, and did it so divinely, then the possibility for others was infinite. For giving them that, all peoples, all over, everywhere, would adore them completely. They might've stolen away in anonymity, as if they were grains of sand on a beach except what they had between them was recognized as the majesty it was by one who shared very
much in their story, and thus, as an observer, came to know more of the marvel than they realized. Including the wedding plans they only dreamed about.

  The wedding was to be their love made visible. The fact that it ran for the whole month of June, that preparations began two years earlier, that the videotapes alone would require a viewer to sit before a screen night and day for ten years were the mere mundane aspects of an event that in the annals of human accomplishments would never be surpassed, the first and last of its kind. Il Teatro d'Amore in Rome--the originator--features a three-hour condensation of the wedding. It's been running with a full house for every single performance for the last ten years except for the night the Pope died.

  For anyone interested in the costs, the estimates for everything ranged quite modestly from seven-and-a-half million to five billion dollars.

  Also, for those interested in such things, the estimated value of the gifts--goods and services--stretched from one-billion to seven-and-a-half-billion dollars.

  The bride was beautifully gorgeous and blushing brightly. The groom was handsomely charming, and captivatingly kingly.

  Her gown was exquisite. Made of the finest silk, it was eight months in the designing stage. It took over a year to hand sew every stitch. Every inch of seam was welted with pearls, with huge ones used as buttons all the way down her back, and up her sleeves. Bordering the pearls and tracing every hem and edge were white on white embroidered tiny hearts. The train, one continuous piece from the front hem of the dress to the very end, required sixteen ladies-in-waiting to manage the twenty yards of material also trimmed in pearls and hearts. On her head a shimmering tiara of pure platinum with five ogee spires each holding a matched pearl the size of the bride's thumbnail. A canopy veil of yards and yards of material was held suspended over and around her by two ladies in waiting. In keeping with tradition she borrowed a piece of relic of St. Theresa; wore a blue ribbon which adorned St. George's helmet; one of the oldest Roman coins ever minted from the Rome Museum to carry in her shoe; and the largest pearl ever found in the world fashioned into a ring, and given its final polish as it was slipped onto her finger to be newer than new. She chose to carry her mother's tattered white leather covered Bible, and, allowing that the orchids strewn in their path wherever they went would adequately fill the flower requirements, she chose as her bouquet a mere few strands of stephanotis. It was a knockout of an idea--not every new bride could afford orchids, but who couldn't have stephanotis? Naturally there was an immediate shortage.

  His royal white uniform was starkly plain depriving it of its military cut, the only condescension epaulettes ornamentally fringed with gold. The thread throughout was gold with tiny, tasteful gold braid piping. White tie, gloves, cummerbund, swallow tails, and a tiny white rose boutonniere completed his outfit. A hat was deliberately omitted, as was a sash, and a chestful of medals. He wore only a small bronze medal awarded to him for saving the life of his terrier when he was thirteen years old by a foreign organization known as the Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

  As a wedding present he gave her a sixteenth century castle a short distance from Rome in the mountains of Tivoli renown for its powerfully beautiful gardens, art collection and wine cellar.

  Her present to him was a state-of-the-art United States Navy destroyer with helicopter and captain's gig.

  They had thirty weddings and honeymoon nights, each in a different country, in a different suite. Later, each country was to adamantly and loudly claim that conception of their first born took place in their land which occluded epigynocological considerations. They started in the Vatican, and brought their festivities, their joy, their love to such diverse places as Buckingham Palace, the Versailles Palace, a farmer's hut in the Sudan, the White House, The House Romanoff, Palace of His Most Supreme and Divine Majesty of the Rising Sun, The Temple of The Inca, and ended at the Taj Mahal.

  Of all the chores attendant to such a wedding, the easiest was the largest: the guest list. Simply, they sent an invitation to the world, which said that merely everyone was expected. No one felt neglected, or left out, because they repeated the wedding and reception every place they went. The only change from the very first vows they took was that the Pope officiated, but felt he couldn't absent himself from his duties for a month--as much as he would enjoy the task. There was no dearth of cardinals wishing and willing to substitute.

  Everywhere they went the weather was totally unnoticed it was so perfect.

  No musician was idle with performances around the clock wherever they could assemble, from the lowest foot-stomping three-piece country western band to rock and roll to jazz to popular to semi-classical to opera to classical. For the entire period, no voice cracked, all were on perfect pitch, in time and playing superbly. The groom even joined in to show his versatility with a kazzoo.

  In addition, there were the magnificent, hours-and-hours-long parades replete with marching bands, performers, animals, vehicles, banners and presentations.

  It seemed everyone found their most favorite food and drinks to a surfeit, but consumed with such joy it caused neither train jolting hangover, nor added a single ounce to their own personal avoirdupois.

  And best of all, everyone could join in and participate to just the exact extent they wished. There were no favorites. Any girl, twelve or less who had the same name as the bride could serve as Maid of Honor; and for however long--a couple steps, or a couple minutes--one could be a maid of honor, or lady in waiting; and, any lad twelve or less who had the same name as the groom could serve as Best Man, and anyone who wished could be an usher, or groomsman; or perhaps pass out cigars, mix drinks, or point the way to the rest rooms.

  As a result, by the first of July, everyone in the whole world could brag about the fact that they participated in the blast, or completely ignored it. Including terrorists who were promised to be fed to the hogs if they so much as snapped their fingers. There was no one, no place, who could say it didn't take place and that it wasn't a smash of a wedding.

  The affair itself was as timebound as the stars. The entire wedding was cued to the minute to insure that nothing was left out, and that no one was kept waiting a moment longer than they wished. They could set an alarm by the itinerary--different each time--wake from a nap, see what they wished, and return to their snooze with confidence. The procession always started the same, a Vatican guardsman followed by a drummer exactly one and three-tenths-miles in front of the first platoon of horsemen. The royal guards, a band, another platoon of horsemen, and then two resplendent coaches the first carrying the bride, the second the groom, on the way to the ceremony; then, a glorious open coach for the hours-long tour of the city. All along the route, flowers were strewn, beverages served, and cheers and blessings returned. The ceremony itself: the vows, the Mass, the signings, the singings, the dronings, the ringings; all necessary, all beautiful, and all taken quite tolerantly. But even that couldn't be disguised in the cheer that went up when they were pronounced husband and wife, and the world heard the first notes of the wedding march, and the reappearance of the couple facefirst from wherever they took their vows: the Sistine Chapel, the veldt, the seashore, the mountains, the glacier, wherever they could proclaim their love and fidelty to one another.

  There wasn't a green or dry eye in the whole blooming blue marble of a world.

  It seemed that one moment in the entire two-hour ceremony captured and recaptured the hearts of the world. It was that singular moment when, despite the kings, queens, potentates, princes, lordly, famous, divine, wealthy, stately; the Pope and high religious mucky-muks; the splendor of the Cistine Chapel; the captivating magnetism of pomp and circumstance; the bride and the groom turned to one another and acknowledged their oneness with a look of divine solemnity and pleasure it made the world gasp in unison, and with their kiss send exquisite shivers from head to toe through their collective bodies. It was love the way the gods meant it to be. Amen.

  How nice it was, everyone proclaimed, t
o be shown what the world was really all about.

  There were more marriages throughout the world in the month following the wedding than there had been in the previous five years. In fact, the idea was so hot, near-strangers took the step. And who couldn't predict the soaring birthrate less than a year later?

  And when the to-do was all over, whenever anyone thought about the wedding, a sparkle would come to their eyes, they'd shake their head a little with the wonderment of it all, and a smile would remain on their face for a long, long while. It was the one very discernable moment in which two people accomplished more than all the politicians, ambassadors, potentates, princes, presidents, governors, and guru-rus in all history when the world was not only truly at peace, but the peoples--well, not exactly loved--but thought kindly of one another.