Farah and I talked about getting married all the time.
Two Jewish college students in a long-distance relationship, we co-imagined our future together over the phone during our months apart. You could measure our love in prepaid long-distance phone cards.
The other half of our relationship – the emotionally-heightened time we were physically-together during holidays, visits, summer breaks – were frenzies of bong hits, live music, clumsy massages, late-night munchies and a fetish for making each other cum in public without being caught.
Those two halves sound incongruous, but it was a very 120 Minutes-era romance: two broken weirdos in our families, school and society who'd found each other across the patio of a crowded coffee shop in Coconut Grove.
It was love at first "save me."
Those kinds of romances never last.
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Early warning sign: Farah gifted me a paperback of Georges Bataille's The Story of the Eye, proclaiming "this book is sooo fucking hot!" After the first few pages where Simone sits her bare ass in a saucer of milk to cool herself off (yes, hot), we watch French village society and organized religion slowly devolve into priest orgies, arson, murder and necrophilia.
At twenty-one, I closed the slim book mind-blown by Bataille's anarchistic visions, but also how obviously my "love" had entirely missed the point. She'd clearly just had a wank over the pussy-in-milk scene and passed it along to me, and it affected my reptile-brain, politically.
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Farah was the eldest daughter of a wealthy family of Ashkenazi Jews who'd survived the same concentration camps as my clan but landed in Mexico instead of the USA, so our families were very alike but also very different. Her father Ruben was a big real estate developer with a big belly who built big luxury mansions all across South Florida. Their massive home with five cars in its endless driveway sat at the center of his crown of achievements, the sun around which their huge extended family orbited, most based in the heart of old-money Coral Gables.
Her mother Esmé was tall, fit and beautiful, with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of humor. In the two years I dated her daughter, I only saw Esmé's eyes behind her sunglasses once. They both loved that I was Jewish and hated that I didn't speak fluent Spanish.
I was skinny and broke, a film undergrad surviving on hard-boiled eggs in my studio apartment (somehow I always had money for cigs and weed). Farah's family opened their home to me whenever I wanted to come over – even when she was away at school – and like an unloved mutt, my tail wagged wildly to accept that love. Plus, their Mexican-Ashkenazi home cooking blew boring American-Ashkenazi fare out of the sky: the sad shtetl food my bubbie made was punched up with lime juice and homemade salsas, smoked chiles, fresh fruit. I was for all future simchas at my own parents' homes, truly.
Within months of us dating, Farah had announced – without consulting with me – to her whole goddamned extended family that we were getting "like, super-serious about marriage." The change in the wind was palpable: now the King of South Florida Luxury Real Estate offered me the seat next to him at meal time, we shared expensive cigars after meals overlooking the waterway behind the house. Cigar in his teeth like Groucho Marx, he punched me not-gently in the shoulder and asked:
RUBEN: What plans do you have, after graduation? You're going into a business?
ME: No, I'm going to make movies.
RUBEN (annoyed): Where? In [makes air quotes] Hollywood? What kind of movies... big blockbusters?
ME: Well, there's actually a whole revolution happening right now in independent film--
RUBEN: What films? Tell me the names of some films.
ME [on the spot]: Let's see; I love Wings of Desire, David Lynch's Blue Velvet... Jim Jarmusch's Dead Ma--
RUBEN: "Blue Velvet"...?!?! Like that [pantomimes a limp wrist] kind of movies? They don't make money!
I opened my mouth to speak but closed it again, cheeks flushing hot, angry.
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And so, to prove a point, Ruben invited me out days later to the opening night of a "real movie" with the whole family: Independence Day starring Will Smith. Picking me up their Land Cruiser, we reached the theater to find familes lined up around the corner:
RUBEN: They got two showings every hour! This movie's going to be gigante!
Farah's family took up an entire row of the theater, including me, siblings, parents, grandparents. Together we watched aliens explode the White House, the President and Will Smith fly fighter planes to protect America from a technologically superior hive-mind... and by the grace of early nineties CGI, fucking win.
It was absolutely idiotic. The whole crowd cheered on cue like trained dogs at every one of Will Smith's Schwartzenegger-esque one-liners. Farah, feeling me dying more with every brainless explosion, squeezed my hand underneath the popcorn bucket before slipping her hand down the front of my pants:
FARAH [mouths silently]: I'm sorry.
After the film, we all climbed back into the car. As Ruben turned the ignition, he called back to me:
RUBEN: You see that, Danny?! That is a blockbuster movie! [we lock eyes in the rear-view] So tell me, Mister Film School... what did you think?
The heads of Farah's family all rotated like cameras to slowly focus on the film student's review of ID4. I laughed nervously, cleared my throat, and surgically, rationally, savagely yucked the fuck out of their yum.
They never invited me to family movie night again.
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Some nights/weeks later, I was back at their dinner table. Dessert was finished and their housekeeper Clara was clearing away the coffee cups and plates sticky with cinnamon and dulce de leche, when Ruben patted his belly sagging below his polo shirt and winked at me:
RUBEN: Danny. Let's go to my office.
I didn't know his house had an office. There were entire sections of this mansion I'd never been in before. As I got up from my chair, Farah wouldn't meet my eyes.
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The door closed behind him with a solid click. His office was wall-to-wall mementos: framed photos of Ruben smiling at ribbon cuttings, Ruben in a yellow construction helmet, Ruben with his kids at various ages, Ruben and Esmé's wedding in 1970s Mexico City.
Above a leather loveseat was the largest photo of all: a black and white photo of a young and lithe Esmé laying in the grass, wearing nothing but thick black eyeliner, her knees tucked up by her shoulders so absolutely every inch of her was visible.
I could see her eyes now. She was always a stunning woman. Ruben had begun talking to me, but I couldn't look away from his young wife's flat stomach, her long legs, her--
RUBEN: Danny. I am speaking to you. I know you want to be a movie-man, but listen: I don't care what you want. Farah, she loves you and she wants to have your Jewish babies. All I want is for my daughter to be happy.
He twirled his index finger in the air without breaking his gaze:
RUBEN: You see this house? You like this house? I can build one for you. You want money? A job that pays like mine? Well– not the same as mine, but you're a smart boy, you could be of use to me – I will make sure you are set up for life. All I ask--
ME: Marriage.
RUBEN [wagging his finger in my face]: No. Happiness. Grandchildren. Nothing else fucking matters to me. Be good to Farah, and I will give you a very, very good life. Do you understand what I am offering to you?
I sure did. A gilded cage.
He clapped me on the shoulder and squeezed it hard, with feeling, with warmth, held it there for a beat before letting go, like fathers do on TV. He opened the door and released me to the living room where everyone was sprawled out on the couch, laughing at The Simpsons in español.
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The next time Farah came down from school, it was for her grandmother's second wedding. Her "Abuelita Miriam" had lived alone for twelve years after her grandfather passed, but Miriam decided she wanted to spend what remained of her time with her new age-appropriate boyfriend Manolo:
FARAH: Isn't that beautiful? I know it's what my abuelo would've wanted. So I wanted to ask you: [pregnant pause] will you come to the wedding? As my date?
I said: Sure.
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The wedding was to be held in Ruben's waterfront mansion. I parked my beat-up Toyota Celica down the block – Ruben asked me to park it out of view – and entered the familiar home, now pulsing with teams of caterers, every room filled floor to ceiling with fresh flower arrangements and a trail of rose petals leading out to the back terrace where the wedding was held.
Farah came downstairs wearing full makeover make-up and dressed to the nines: I'd never even seen her like that before. She was a different person; an older, trying-to-be-serious version of herself. Her dress flowed shimmery satin down from her waist to swish around her legs, while it pushed her breasts up and out like weapons. But it also cut high up into her armpits where sweat began collecting in elongating half-moons. Every fifteen minutes, Esmé would swoop through in her sequined cocktail dress and slip her sweaty daughter a fold of paper towels to absorb her problem.
I didn't own a suit (still don't) so I picked one up at Goodwill that fit pretty well: olive green, double-breasted, no visible stains. I shaved down my beard to stubble, pulled my long hair back into a ponytail. I looked – and felt – like an alien, shifting my shape to approximate the appearance of "Daniel Goldman" so I could blend in and fill up on hors d'oeuvres.
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After greeting Farah's aunts and cousins and second cousins, an usher took my third glass of wine out of my hand and escorted me to my seat. Way up in the front row, next to Farah, her siblings, her parents. We waited patiently in the sun. Farah's armpits had soaked her dress to her ribcage, her nervous leg hammering the heel of her pumps on the patio deck like a sewing machine:
ME: Hey, are you okay?
FARAH [acting weird]: Of course! I'm just soooo excited for thi–
"Here Comes the Bride" began to play: first the telltale organ, then joined by live bass, harp and flute. We all turned to see Abuelita, looking resplendent in heavy makeup and a red veiled dress that reminded me of Gary Oldman playing Count Dracula. Abuelita's fiancé Manolo waited for her on the bima, a skinny goat of man whose eyes shone beams of love from the crinkles as he watched his bride slowly kvetch her way towards him on her son Ruben's arm.
From here: a fancy Jewish wedding ceremony, but between two very old people. You know how these go: prayers, the rabbi's speech, the vows, the breaking of the glass. Everyone on the patio applauding and blessing them and smiling.
Abuelita takes Manolo's hand, interwines her fingers with his, and walks over to the rabbi. He kisses her cheek. She takes the microphone from its stand:
ABUELITA: Now that we are husband and wife, married in front of all our most loved ones... I must ask: is there anyone else here who would like to get married?
She was looking directly at Farah.
MANOLO: Remember! The rabbi and the caterer are already paid for!
I had never been to a wedding like this before. So loose with the matrimony, with the love of the collective family that--
Next to me, Farah took my hand in hers and squeezed hard, her eyeballs spiraling:
FARAH: Do you want to?
ME: Uhhhh... wut?
FARAH: Like, why not? We already talk about doing this all the time! [gestures around us] Plus, everyone's already here!
Facing her desire to be my wife was like a spaceship getting pulled slowly into the sun's gravity: elemental heat, inescapable and unapologetic. And just over the bare shoulder of that burning sun were the leering stares of her entire family, holding their breath, waiting for me to answer.
This was an ambush and I'd walked right into it.
Sitting right there, in my olive green Goodwill suit, suddenly I was gone.
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I saw a young tree, its still-flexible trunk, its branches growing up, expanding outwards, splitting off into different directions. Seeking the sun, growing with no intended direction, expanding into multiple possibilities.
Who could I be here? Who could I be somewhere else? Where could I live? Who could I meet? Who else might I love? Would they understand The Story of the Eye?
I thought of the mansion Ruben promised to build for us. The never-ending cut-and-paste of family weekends with these people who didn't care to know me, satisfied I fulfilled their genetic requirements. The cushy nepotism job I'd never need to excel at so long as I gave Ruben and Esmé full-Jewish grandchildren.
I heard the roar of the surf, a wave crash onto a beach, white foam swallowing our two years of long-distance sand castles and dissolving them.
As the wave receded, nothing remained.
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I was back on my folding chair on the back terrace of the mansion, facing Farah's expectant, marriage-crazy eyes:
Me: No. [an eternity passes before I add] Not... now. Not like this.
The whole family – I mean, her entire extended two hundred strong Mexican-Jewish family – loudly groaned, in wounded animal pain, in disbelief.
FARAH: What?! DANNNN! Wh– why not? [cue tears] I thuh- thought this would be so ruh- romantic...
ABUELITA [from the bima]: I don't understand what is happening. Faraleh, you said that he was ready...!!
RUBEN [standing up, hands in his hair]: Mama, we all fucking thought he was ready!
Farah's face darkens, red to purple. I can't tell if she's about to vomit or if she's having a brain hemorrhage and about to die in my lap.
FARAH [panting]: This can't– this can't be huh- happening...
ME: You – none of you – asked ME if this was okay! You can't just spring this on somebody--
An invisible tsunami rolled from the crowd through my body as all doors to the hearts of her entire family slammed shut at once. First I was in and then I was out.
Farah hunched over her knees, convulsing with sobs, her spine whipping her torso cat-to-cow, throwing her heavy head down and back. I thought about calling for a doctor – and this room was thick with them – but everyone already firing psychic guided missiles of hatred at me from their folding chairs.
I reached down with my hand to pat her heaving back. It felt weird to do as I'm the one who hurt her but... I couldn't do nothing. At my lightest touch, Farah flinched and sat up straight. Looking me full in the face, her eyes red with anger, ropes of crying snot hanging from her nose and chin:
FARAH [sotto]: ... I don't understand... how could you do this to me...
FARAH'S LITTLE SISTER: O my God! Danny, you're such a dick!
And her little sister's curse "Danny, you're such a dick!" rippled throughout the entire simcha until it was very clear: I was no longer welcome here. I should leave.
I got up and walked back through the house. Looking around at the mansion, I figured – and rightly – that I'd never be here again. As nervous caterers were ordered to begin wheeling out carts of food to distract from the drama, I remembered that I had absolutely nothing to eat back at my studio apartment.
Waiting for the coast to clear, I tiptoed into the kitchen where more carts of food sat unattended. One had a fan of mini-baguette caprese sandwiches lounging in a forest of lettuce leaves and carrot roses, and I filled my Goodwill suit pockets with them.
As I stuffed one last mini-sandwich into my mouth to go, I noticed the wedding cake. And the second wedding cake next to it: one classical white chantilly cake with the bride and groom action figures on top, and a second one with chocolate fondant and our names written in cursive buttercream: "Daniel & Farah... Surprise forever, My Love!"
That was the wound that stuck. I felt her face, her sobs, the closed doors of her family's hearts. There was no coming back from this.
I dragged my index finger through the buttercream "Daniel" like a snowplow, scooping it off the cake and wiping it onto my tongue. It was sickeningly sweet and then gone, leaving only a scar in the chocolate fondant above poor Farah's name.
Then I walked out the front door, down the endless driveway, past the private security, down the street, and around the block to my fucking embarrassment of a Toyota Celica. Collapsing into the driver's seat, I undid my ponytail and let my hair fall down around my face. Had I dodged a bullet... or royally screwed the pooch?
I reached into my glove compartment, brought out my trusty one-hitter and packed myself a fat blast. I watched the security guard watching me, getting into his golf cart, ready to roll over and chase my jalopsy off the street.
I flicked my Bic lighter, took an absurdly lonnnngggg hit, blew it out slow and deep, like a lover. Catching my own glazed eyes in the mirror, I confirmed aloud:
ME [exhaling]: Bullet. [still exhaling] Definitely dodged a bullet.
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