What Were They Thinking?
27 Young Love
NEITHER JOE NOR I was inexperienced with women. We were both raised Catholic, but I figured what the priest didn’t hear, God didn’t know. I kept confession to how many men I’d killed and when I got drunk. I was sure that made too much noise for God to miss compared to a whore whimpering out His name. Four years in the army, living with men and crawling through jungle swamps, left me with a distorted view of women and no opinion at all when it came to love. I didn’t have time.
Unfortunately, all I had was time when I got back to Chicago. I didn’t even have a job. All I had was a friend.
“Sylvester! You brought my son home safely to me. My faith was well placed.”
“Your son was just as important in getting me home safely, Don Joseph.”
“My grandfather learned in the old country and passed on to me, ‘A Spaniard makes a steadfast friend or a formidable foe. Choose wisely.’”
“May I present my mother, Donna Maria de Torelló Cortales.”
“Donna Maria, welcome to my home and this celebration of our sons’ safe return.”
“Thank you for your kindness, Joseph. And it is nice to see you, Sofia. I hope you are well.”
“I am now that our sons are home,” Joe’s mother responded. “Is this lovely creature with you Gabriella?”
“Oh, Gabriella married and moved to Milwaukee. I’m afraid she won’t be joining us. This is my youngest, Isabella.”
“My, how time flies. Memory paints you as a rambunctious adolescent. What a lovely woman you have become.” It was hard not to notice Little Joe hadn’t taken his eyes off my sister since we came through the door. Hmm.
“Thank you, Donna.” That was demure for my sister. She seemed to blush each time she looked up. Certainly, she’d seen Little Joe before.
“Let me introduce you to my cousin, Liliana. She is getting a taste of America before we find her a husband.”
My heart stopped. A total dish stepped out from behind Joe’s mother and curtsied. I was in love.
Dinner was pleasant. I let Joe handle talking about Nam. To me it was all very simple. I went there. I killed people. I came home. Mission accomplished.
“Sly, I’ve got a problem,” Joe whispered to me. We’d taken a glass of whiskey and a cigar into his father’s study.
“I’m with you,” I said. “What do you need.”
“I need your permission to court your sister,” he said.
“That little brat?” I laughed. “God, can’t you do better than that.”
“You remember her as a fourteen-year-old. We’ve changed in four years. So has she. Sly, I think Isabella would be approachable if I had your permission.”
“Joe…” I looked into my friend’s eyes. He was always the one to take charge. It was unusual to find him looking so anxious. Not since he killed his first gook. “I don’t know much about what she’s been up to in high school. You know things are different now than when we went to school. Just… uh… you know… treat her right. If you’re looking for something permanent, you’ve got my permission. If you just want to fuck her, go find a whore.”
“Sly, you have my word. I will treat her honorably.” I grinned and we shook hands. “There’s one other thing,” he said as we blew deep blue smoke into the air.
“What’s that? You want me to ask her out for you?”
“Not exactly. My mother… She brought her cousin over from Italy to see if we could make a match.”
“Liliana?” My mouth got dry in a hurry. I gulped a bit of my whiskey.
“Yes. It’s not going to work. Lily and I figured that out the first night I got home. She’s a fine woman but we don’t have a spark. At all. Still, Mother is trying to get us to go places together all the time. Would you mind… uh… sort of doing doubles with us? For a while? Until we can make sure Isabella and I get along?”
So, Mama Cortelli was going to send Little Joe and Liliana out together and I was supposed to bring my sister along to join them. Then… Well, then I could spend time with Liliana. If she was willing. And if my sister was willing. And if our mothers didn’t send a hitman out to do what Charlie couldn’t. Yeah. Sure.
“They are cute together,” Liliana said as we walked a good ten yards behind Joe and Isabella. I’d noticed that once she was out of the presence of other Italians, her accent all but disappeared. I could get used to listening to her. It had been three weeks since the dinner and this was our fifth outing.
At first my sister had been furious that I gave Little Joe my permission to date her. Who did I think I was, anyway? Mama came to my rescue and patiently screamed at Isabella about proper behavior and that she should pull her head out of fashion magazines and pay attention to what a good thing I had done for her. When Joe called to talk to her, though, she was all sweetness and floated around on a cloud for two days before our first group date.
“You are not upset that Little Joe didn’t want to court you?” I asked.
“I made sure that Donna Sofia understood that my trip to America was exploratory and that I would make no commitments to her son unless we both fell in love. The first evening Joe was home it was obvious to both of us that we would not fall in love,” she laughed.
“Why was that?”
“As nice a man as he is, Joe is a manager. He will be a big boss like his father. He was even your manager, wasn’t he? I don’t want to be managed. If I fall in love, it will be with a partner who wants what I want.” She slipped her hand through my arm as we walked as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.
“And what is it that you want?” I asked.
“Why, Sylvester, are you applying for the position?”
“I might have the necessary qualifications if I thought it was a career position.”
“Hmm. That is the first qualification of a partner for me. As long as we both shall live. If my partner were unfaithful to me, he would not live to see the next day.”
“I see. I assume you acknowledge the reverse would also be a condition of the partnership.”
She stopped and pulled me abruptly around to face her.
“Sylvester, I am not an American girl. I will not burn my undergarments and practice free love. When I swear my vows, no other man will have touched me and none ever will. My partner will find everything he needs and everything he desires in my arms. A failure in that would be a failure of the partnership and I will not fail.”
I saw such passion in her eyes when she delivered that statement that I could not help but believe her. What this beautiful young woman was offering was what men like me dream of. And I was lost in her eyes.
“Liliana, I would be honored if you would accept me as a suitor for your hand and not simply as someone to occupy your time as your cousin and my sister court. What you speak of is also my desire.” I lifted her fingers to my lips and brushed them softly. She smiled.
“Why, Sly, I believe you have just become what you Americans refer to as ‘my boyfriend’.”
Courtship is a rather Old World concept. In America we date. We go to movies and make out in the back row of the theater. In fact, I was fairly sure that was what Joe and Isabella were doing as soon as we were out of sight. We weren’t very good at being chaperones. I could see sparks flying whenever the two walked into the same room. Their relationship was electric and they were engaged in two months’ time.
Donna Sofia was disappointed that the union with her distant relative did not come to fruition but as soon as it was clear that Joe and Isabella were to be married—as soon as possible—she set her focus on Liliana and me. We were far more tightly chaperoned than we had managed with the other couple. And for our part, we enjoyed it. There is something about being on the receiving end of that much attention. Many of our ‘dates’ were spent in the sitting room at the Cortellis’ home playing cards and talking. Liliana proved to be a devastating gin player. It seemed I was constantly distracted by our conversation—or by Lily’s beauty—and missed completing my sets. Eventually, Donna Sofia became bored with our staid behavior and found she had nothing to chaperone. Lily smiled at me when our chaperone left the room as if it had been her plan all along.
We’d held hands and had chaste kisses at the end of the evening. We’d even put on some popular love songs and danced together in the sitting room. It was intoxicating to hold her in my arms.
“Joe was too short for me,” Lily said one evening as we danced. “I could not imagine laying my head against his chest as he held me in his arms. With you, I need not imagine anything. I can feel the tenderness in your embrace. I can melt into your arms.”
“Lily,” I said. I sank to my knees in front of her and held her hand. “Will you marry me?”
“It required only your asking,” she sighed. I stood, took her in my arms, and kissed her. This kiss was not chaste. She’d spoken of passion and pleasure, but this was the first taste I’d had of it. There was a clearing of throats behind us and we abruptly broke the kiss and turned toward the door where Sofia and Joseph were standing.
“I believe it also requires our permission,” Don Joseph said formally. I went directly to the man. Like Little Joe, Big Joe was shorter than me but I didn’t slouch in front of him.
“Don Joseph and Donna Sofia, you have consented to let me court your ward, Liliana Corti. In the course of that courtship, we have fallen in love. I come to you to ask your blessing on our union.”
“Well put, Sylvester. There was never a doubt that we would bless this union. Sofia has already invited your parents to Joe and Isabella’s wedding. They would be here to bless yours if that is not moving too fast for you,” he laughed.
“Thank you, Don Joseph. May I present to you for the first time, my fiancée, Liliana Corti.”
“Come, both of you. I was beginning to think I’d slowed things down so much that you would never get to this point,” Sofia said. “Then as soon as I leave the room you become engaged! I should have left weeks ago.”
Little Joe and I worked for the union—in other words, Big Joe. We went wherever there was trouble to help settle things down. Little Joe used words. I used brawn. Officially, I was Little Joe’s personal bodyguard. We were called in if the workers threatened a wildcat strike, if bosses were putting on pressure to dump the union, and during strikes to keep things from getting violent. Big Joe paid us well for our work.
Once a month, we showed up at our reserve training center for a weekend, most of which was spent either playing cards and drinking beer or training newer reservists with their arms and basic skills. Nothing on these weekends ever went beyond what soldiers learned in Basic. We’d already received orders for a two-week training camp in April and were told we would be serving as rifleman trainers.
As a result of these two activities, we kept our firearm skills up and neither of us was ever unarmed. It wasn’t difficult to get an AR15 so we could stay sharp on disassembling and assembling the rifle. We took them to a shooting range once a week and ran eighty rounds of ammo through them. That was standard military training issuance at the time. We’d run as many rounds through our M1911 pistols. Then we’d disassemble and clean, timing each other on each step.
We’d been doing this since we enlisted and it felt natural to keep our skills up. We were glad we did.
We were headed to a diner after the movie Saturday night. I knew Big Joe sent a bodyguard to tail us when the four of us were out together. It was still a little weird to me to double-date with my sister. She and Lily always walked between Joe and me, so we seldom had a chance to chat on these dates.
I heard a scuffle behind us and turned to see two bruisers standing over our bodyguard about ten feet back. I pushed Lily into Isabella and yelled at Joe.
“Take the girls and go.” By the time he responded, my pistol was in my hand. All I had to see was the flash of a gun being pulled from a shoulder holster. I fired twice. There were two of them.
Joe came running up beside me with his gun drawn but there was nothing left for him to do.
“Where are the girls?” I demanded.
“In the drugstore. They’re calling the police.”
“We want police involved in this?” I asked.
“No choice.” We heard the sirens closing in and laid our pistols on the ground and held our hands out.
It took two days before I was released from custody. Big Joe had his attorney down at the police station reaming them for what was clearly a case of self-defense from two war heroes who had offered no resistance to the police. It was easy to release Joe. His gun hadn’t been discharged. I’d killed two men. The fact that one had a gun in his hand and the other died with his hand still on the knife in our bodyguard’s back should have made it an open and closed case. Somebody wanted to make a name for himself.
Big Joe found out which corporate bigwig was behind the whole thing and we never heard about him after a small article in the paper mentioning that the guy had been washed off his sailboat into Lake Michigan and was presumed dead. Stupid to go out in a storm like that.
“Tell me about it,” Lily said as she sat across from me. Our wedding was just three days away and she’d chosen to have our date in the sitting room of the Cortellis’ home. Just like when we were first dating. I was a little worried about what that meant.
“Lily, there isn’t anything to tell. Two men killed our bodyguard and were coming after us. I stopped them.”
“And you’re okay? You aren’t feeling guilty for killing two men?”
“I’m fine. I don’t feel guilty.”
“What do you feel?”
“Nothing. It was just something that had to be done.”
We sat there in silence for a long time. She sighed.
“Sly, this won’t come back to bite me in the ass later, will it? I just want to know you are the man I fell in love with.”
“Lily, I will always do whatever is necessary to protect you, care for you, show you my love, and cherish you. Last week, it was necessary to stop a couple of thugs who wanted to hurt us. To hurt you, not just Joe and me. Next week, what’s necessary might be to pick you up and carry you across a muddy street. That’s what I’ll do. There will never be a moment when I feel bad about protecting you or showing you my love.”
“I was scared. First, I was afraid of being hurt but Joe had us out of there so fast all I could think of was that we left you behind. Isabella had to call the police. I couldn’t do it. You’ve never talked about what you did in Vietnam. You always let Joe tell the war stories. Are you truly all right?”
“There’s nothing about my service in Vietnam that I need to talk about. It was a different life and we served our country like they asked us to. We’ve got three and a half more years of reserve service in which we have to report one weekend a month and two weeks a year. The draft rate is slowing down. They held a lottery two weeks ago and said they estimate less than half the number of inductions in 1970 compared to 1969. I’m not going to get called back into active service and if I can spend two weeks a year helping other soldiers survive, I’m glad to do it. As far as I’m concerned, the war is over.”
“Is it over in here?” she asked, laying a hand on my chest.
“It is, Lily. I promise.”
“Sylvester Cortales and Liliana Corti, have you come here to enter into Marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?”
“I have.”
“Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?”
“I am.”
“Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”
“I am.”
“Since it is your intention to enter the covenant of Holy Matrimony, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his Church.
“Sylvester, do you take Liliana to be your wife? Do you promise to be faithful to her in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love her and to honor her all the days of your life?”
“I do.”
“Liliana, do you take Sylvester to be your husband? Do you promise to be faithful to him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love him and to honor him all the days of your life?”
“I do.”
“May the Lord in his kindness strengthen the consent you have declared before the Church and graciously bring to fulfillment his blessings within you. What God has joined, let no one put asunder.
“Let us bless the Lord.”
“Thanks be to God.”
I was married.
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