It Begins

At first, I planned to start the story at its natural beginning, with the marriage proposal itself. As I thought about it though, I realized that there was an even better starting point. Do you have any memories where, it's not something overly important, but for some reason you can remember the intricate details of an event? That's how this day was for me. It was February 2003, a week or so after Valentine's Day. Perhaps it stands out in my mind because I went and saw City of God in the theatres that afternoon, a movie which may possibly be my favorite of all time. But I digress.

Anyway, after returning from the movie, I called my friend Pam.* Pam was really my sister's friend, but I'd gotten to know her and her boyfriend Paul somewhat through my sister. We weren't really on a calling basis, but on this day, there were special circumstances. Like myself, Paul is a huge boxing fan, but unlike myself, Paul had a black box, which meant that Paul and Pam's place would be showing the Mike Tyson-Clifford "The Black Rhino" Etienne fight (we have now established the date at February 22nd, for those who were curious). I spoke to Pam, and headed through the pouring rain over to their place, an apartment a few towns over to which I had never before been.

Now, I don't know if you're a boxing fan, but if you are, you'll recall that the fight was absolutely terrible. Tyson basically knocked Etienne down the first time he hit him, Etienne's leg bent a little funny, he spit out his mouth piece, collected his check, and went home. But the fight was not the highlight of the evening. Not even Tyson's terrific post-fight interview (with the infamous "broken back"/"spinal" comments) was the highlight. No, that was the crowd. Among those in attendance was Mikey, a close friend of Paul's and a fellow alumnus of our high school. Mikey was somewhat of a legend amongst people I knew for being the "blackest" Eastern European white boy anyone had ever met. Three quick Mikey stories, possibly apocryphal:

1. As a young teen, Mikey crossed the GWB to go into Harlem to buy weed. On a bicycle. His sister's bicycle.
2. When asked what he would do if he was ever mugged, Mikey said he would immediately begin yelling incoherently and stripping naked. Once he was down to his boxers, he would take his belt and begin spanking his ass with it. Why? Because no mugger wants to screw around with a crazy person.
3. After leaving the club on a particularly "snowy" night, Mikey was overcome by his stomach and opted to just drop trou and go. On the street.

On this night though, Mikey was not buying weed, getting mugged, or having the coke shits; no Mikey was with his 9 months pregnant wife, who if memory serves, was due the next day. Being himself, of course, Mikey had married a Mexican immigrant and was living with her, and her family, in an apartment in Paterson. This girl seriously looked like she was about to burst. Pam, being a nice host, got her some cantaloupe, which (having never been pregnant) she knew pregnant women crave. The poor woman didn't want it, but Pam rubbed it under her nose saying in a baby-talk voice "can-teloupe, you want some can-teloupe?" until she eventually ate it, either succumbing to the fruit being waved inches from her face or possibly out of fear for her life. Hmm, this going a lot longer than I expected. Well, I'll leave out the part about searching for beer with Mikey, half of the town's streets closed due to flooding, him freestyling at the top of his lungs.

Ah, but back to the point. The reason I bring this up is what I heard Pam say that night. The baby that was practically falling out of the young woman in her house got the conversation (not my conversation) turned to futures and husbands and babies, and someone asked Pam when she and Paul were going to marry. Her response? "If I don't have a ring by my birthday [in June], it's over." And that was February 2003.

Epilogue: At the evening's conclusion, I got to drop Mikey and wife off at a friend's place. Nothing helps you ignore biblical rains like the morbid fear that a lunatic's wife is going to birth her child in your father's Saturn.

*I've changed everyone's name. Some may be the same as other people within the group/from our high school, but all have been changed.