A Matter of Love in da Bronx by Paul Argentini Page A

mean by the Virgin Mary? What is virgin? Ah! You say the ecclesiastical ramifications surpass the mere mortal concepts of the proclivity of Man, sorry! Small "m" for man, you say? And your answer then is "sin." Free from sin? You mean it has nothing to do with puberty, that age at which a girl-child may conceive? And what pray tell is conceive? Ah! Yes! Conception is the starting of life anew. And how do we accomplish this...conception? The intermingling of sperm and ovum? Yes, Mary, my dear, one does that by fucking. If that's so dark, and deep, and sinful, with so much fuss made about it, why is it so pleasurably exciting? No answer given, none received. But her own. Nature puts it in us to do it with no control; Man tries to put in control. Until that time, for her, it was a matter of poking and probing around in the shadowy areas while listening, asking, wondering. And, there, right on the sidewalk for the entire world to confront, were two of God's creatures demonstrating the latest and hottest techniques. Ka-splash! The big, fat lady douses the dogs with a pailful of water. --Get your little fucker stuck and get more of the same. Just don't go public in front of my building, Pooch. Yeah! Yeah! Go! Team! Gimme an F. Gimme a U. Gimme a C. Gimme a K. F-U-C-K! Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuck! A lot of rattamatum for a piddlyping. World is as world does. Mary wouldn't mind, not a bit, if only she wasn't left out of the action. A virgin. Intact. What fun? None. --Whore! You're outmaking the whore! A father's screed. About ten minutes late, what did she know from a mousecan match? He comes to greet her in his rolling chair like a brakeburned eighteen-wheeler barreling down the pike not stopping exactly in time so the footrest clipped her ankle, same place as yesterday. He could do on and on till Kingdom Come for God's sakesgimmeabreak! And once, just once, to savor the sweet, bitter, biting juice of disrespect, she'd like to pull a wad of bills out of her purse to report she cleared an easy eleven-hundred in tricks for the night, and would it be all right if she kept a C-note for herself and gave him the grand if she pleaded with him real nice? Venal spitemite, he'd take it. But no chokeroll tonight, Pop, just a tired gal with a sore ass and screeching feet, and another three-hundred-sixty-five days to face this year starting tomorrow, the beginning of the end of my life. But he doesn't stop! Following me around, distorting his face with ugly besetting bestializations giving me horripilations and a vision of my death in a smoking stinkpool of self-conjured redgreenpurple vomit. Come on, Ma! Lily Dolorosso! Pull yourself away from the television and rescue your daughter! If I move in where you are, Ma, I get it from you both! If I go to my bedroom, I may be safe until morning, but it makes for a long, bladderfilled night. As if she got the message by thought-telephone, her tall, sad-faced, grey-haired mother materialized to pose as the model she might've been, framed in the doorway, hands resting lightly at shoulder height on the jamb, a preview to a crucifixion. --Mary! Why must you get your poor father so upset? You know how much he worries about you, the poor man!
    --Levva mind `poor man!' Out this late she can only be sleeping with the niggers, or Puerto Ricans!
    Lie down with a hound dog, one wakes up with fleas. Look at my laying down place; I should be making it with snakes. But before I have to listen to this double-barreled barrage of begriming insalubrity, I shall hie myself away to my stormbarred castle, drawbridge and moat. She threw the bolt to the bathroom door, turning on full force the tub water to drown out mother's grating implorations and father's odious condemnations. Blessed be those that get tired. Them. Soon, I hope. And the weary her. Almost meticulously, she set on the floor purse, portfolios. Next, down the john cover. In super slow-motion, ignoring the occasional Wham! To the door by Father Dolorosso, still in