"American Marriage"

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who go away and those who live together. I'm proud to belong to the former. My wife, Celestere, used to say that I was a country boy at heart, but I didn't like that. At the very least, my hometown is not rural at all. Arrow is actually a small town in Louisiana. When you hear the word "country," you always think of growing crops and baling hay and milking cows, and I've never picked a cotton crop in my life (though my father did), or touched a horse or a sheep or a pig, and I've never thought of doing any of those things. Celestil would laugh and clarify to me that she did not call me a farmer, only a "countryman." She was from Atlanta, and she had country blood on her. But she was, in her own words, a "southern woman," as opposed to a "Southern lady." For some reason, she was happy to be called "Georgia Peach," and so was I, so be it.

Celestil thinks she's a cosmopolitan person, and she's right, but growing up, she slept in the same house. By contrast, 71 hours after graduation, I was smoking a cigarette and boarding a train away from home. I would have liked to have left earlier, but the train doesn't stop at Ayrault every day. By the time the mailman handed my mom the cardboard tube containing my diploma, I was already living in my Morehouse dorm room, in a special program for first-generation scholarships. In order to let us get familiar with the unfamiliar environment and review the basic knowledge, the school invited us to enroll two and a half months in advance. Imagine 23 black boys watching Spike Lee's "Black Academy" and Sidney Poitier's "I Love My Teacher" over and over again. I don't know if you can feel it. Infusion education is not always a bad thing.

All my life, I was supported by anti-poverty policies: Head Start when I was 5 years old, then Upward Bound, which followed me through high school. If I had kids, I wouldn't let them grow up on aid. But let me give these policies their due.

I learned the rules in Atlanta, and I learned them quickly, and no one ever called me stupid. In fact, home is not your destination, but your starting point. You can't choose your family. You can't choose your hometown. Like in a card game, you have five cards in your hand, three of which you can change, but two of which you must keep are family and hometown.

I'm not saying anything bad about Arrow, but there are obviously worse places to be from, and anyone who's seen the world knows that. Mr Arrow's state, Louisiana, has few opportunities, but at least it is America. America is probably the best place for a struggling black man. But we were not poor, and I must make that very clear. My dad toiled at Buck's sporting goods by day and handyman by night; My mother has been serving dishes for years at the "one meat and three vegetables" fast food restaurant -- they work so hard that my family seems to be broke, but in fact my family is not so miserable.

The three of us -- Olive, me, and Big Roy -- lived in a sturdy brick house in a nice neighborhood. I had my own room, but then Big Roy built on the house and added a bathroom. Shoes outgrow, you don't have to wait to replace them. After I got financial aid, my parents did what they could to send me to college.

Of course, my family doesn't have much. If I were to compare my childhood to a sandwich, there would be no extra meat sticking out of the sandwich. We don't have much except the necessities of life. "And nothing less." "My mother would say, and she would take me into her arms and give me a hug as sweet as lemon drops.

I came to Atlanta convinced that my future was a blank SLATE of possibilities. As they say, we Morehouse people have a pen with which to write the future. Ten years later, my life is pretty sweet. If someone asks me, "Where are you from?" I THEN ANSWER HIM: "A CITY!" -- I've become so close to the city that I call her by her nickname. If anyone asks about my family, I'll introduce him to Selestere.

We were married for a year and a half, and during that time we were very happy, at least for me. We may not be happy in the same way as other couples, but we're not like your average middle-class Atlanta black man with a computer under his pillow and a wife with blue boxes of jewelry in her dreams. I was young, ambitious and on the rise. Celestil was an artist, passionate and flamboyant. We're like a full-fledged Love Jones. How can I put it? I've always had a soft spot for womanizing. When I'm with them, it gives me a sense of engagement, not just a fling. Before Selestil, I dated A girl, also born and raised in A-town. This girl, at an Urban League gala -- use your imagination -- pulled out a handgun and pointed it at me! I'll never forget the silver.22 with the pink pearl fritillaria handle. We were enjoying a steak and a creamed baked potato when she quickly put the gun back in her bag under the table and said she knew I had betrayed her and that the mistress was a chick from the Black Bar Association. How can I tell? I was scared, but then I wasn't. Only Atlanta girls can do such a vulgar thing with such dignity. I'm afraid she's lost her head in love, which is understandable, but I don't know whether to propose or call the police. We broke up before dawn, and it wasn't me who brought it up.

After Pistol Girl, I stopped dating women for a while. I read the news as much as you do, and I've heard that there are more black men and women than there are black women. Unfortunately, this happy news hasn't affected my social life -- all the girls I've ever liked have ended up in someone else's arms.

To be sure, proper competition is good for all. But Pistol Girl's departure gave me goosebumps, and I went back to Arrow for a few days to talk to Big Roy. There was always a Big Brother quality about my dad, as if he was there before you showed up and would sit in that recliner long after you left.

"Don't want a woman who plays with guns, boy."

I tried to explain to him that what made it so extraordinary was the contrast between the shock of the gun and the night of revelry. Besides, "Dad, she's just messing around."

Big Roy nodded and took a sip of beer foam from his glass. "If that's playfulness, what does she do when she's crazy?"

My mother called from the kitchen, "Ask him, who is that woman with now? She may be crazy, but she's clearly not. Who would abandon little Roy without a spare?" -- As if my dad were her translator.

"Your mother wants to know who she's with now." Big Roy asked, as if one of the three of us really didn't understand English.

"A lawyer, not the Perry Mason kind, but the contracting, clerical kind."

"Aren't you a clerk, too?" "Big Roy asked.

"It's totally different. For sales people, paperwork is temporary, and it's not where I belong, it's just what I happen to be doing right now."

"I see." "Big Roy said.

My mom was still in the kitchen, saying, "You tell him he always gets hurt by white girls. Tell him not to forget some of our girls in Allen, and tell him to choose one of them. '

Big Roy said, "Your mother said --" I interrupted him. "I heard you. Did I say the girl was white?" Of course she is.

My mom has good instincts about this.

Olive came out of the kitchen, wiped her hands on a striped rag and said, "Don't be mad. I didn't mean to meddle."

No girlfriend will ever satisfy Mom. All my buddies say that their moms warn them endlessly, "Don't bring her into the house if she can't use your hairbrush." "Ebony" and "Black Jade" both claim that every black man with a little money is experimenting with interracial relationships. I just want to marry a black girl, and my mom is worried about my color choice.

I thought my mom would like Celestere. They are too similar to say they are related. They both have a neat beauty, like Thelma in Good Times, my first TV goddess. Instead, in my mother's eyes, Celestil, while she looked okay, was from a very different background -- Jasmine in Bernadette's clothes. Big Roy, on the other hand, was so fond of Thelestil that he would act as if I did not marry her. But even so, Olive held firm.

"There is one thing that would soften your mother's attitude toward me." Celestere once said.

'What is it?

"Pregnant." She sighed. "Every time I see her, she looks me up and down to see if I'm holding her grandson hostage in my stomach."

"You're exaggerating." But the truth is, I know what my mom's up to. A year later, I was ready to make a baby and raise a new generation to grow up with new rules.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the way we were raised, but the world has changed and so has the way we raise our children. One of my plans was to never talk about picking up cotton. My parents always told me about cotton, real or figurative. White people often say, "Digging ditches kills people." Black people often say, "picking cotton kills people." I'm not going to let my kids know that their lives are built on somebody else's bones, and I'm not going to let the third generation Roy sit in a movie theater watching Star Wars or whatever and think that sitting here eating popcorn is a right that someone else's life bought. They can't know that, or they can't know that much, we have to teach them the right way. Selestil promises that she will never tell them about having to work twice as hard to get half as much as everyone else. "Even if that's true," she said, "you can't say it to a 5-year-old?"

She is the most appropriate type of woman, not a rigid strong woman, but her pedigree shines with confidence like the sheen on black shoes. She had the artist's mania, but not the obsession. In other words, she doesn't have a pistol in her bag, but she has the passion of a pistol girl. She is an individual, as you can see from her appearance alone. She was tall, five foot nine, with flat feet, taller than her father. It was as if she had chosen her height, though she could not have chosen it herself. Her hair was so shaggy that she looked a little taller than me. Even if you didn't know that she was skilled in needlework, you could feel that she was a unique person. Although some people -- and by "some" I mean my mom -- don't see it, all of this means she's going to be an excellent mother.

I was suddenly tempted to ask her if she would name our child, son or daughter, Future.

If it were up to me, we'd be having babies on our honeymoon. Imagine us lying on the glass floor of the sea pavilion. I didn't know such a thing existed, but when Celestere showed me the brochure, I pretended to be totally in agreement and told her I was hooked. So here we are, lying on the ocean, just relaxing and enjoying ourselves. The wedding was more than a day ago, and we spent 23 hours alone in first class on the plane to Bali. At the wedding, Celestere dressed up like a doll. Her unruly hair was tied in a ballet bun, and her facial makeup made her look flushed. She was still giggling with her dad as she breezed down the hall toward me, as if it were a rehearsal. And there I was, serious as if I'd had a heart attack and a stroke. Then she looked up at me, puffed her pink lips, and blew me a kiss. Then it dawned on me: she was trying to tell me that all of this -- the little girl with the train, my morning dress, even the ring in my pocket -- was just theater, that what really mattered was the sparkle in her eyes and the blood rushing through our veins. I smiled at the thought.

Back at sea in Bali: She is leafing through a 1970s jet magazine, her hair long since unkempt and wearing nothing but glitter. "Let's have a baby."

She began to laugh. "Are you going to beg me like that?" "I'm serious."

"Not yet, father." "Don't worry," she said. "Soon."

On our first anniversary, I wrote on a piece of paper, "Is that all right now?"

She turned the paper over and said, "Yesterday will do. I went to the doctor and he said my body was absolutely ready."

However, our plans were disrupted by the appearance of another piece of paper -- my own business card. On the night of our first anniversary, we had dinner at the Beautiful Restaurant, a cafeteria on Falls Street. It's not a fancy restaurant, but it's where I proposed a year ago, and her response was, "Yes, but put that ring away before we get robbed!" On our first anniversary, we were here again, eating veal steak, MAC and cheese and corn pudding. Then we went home to have dessert. For dessert were two wedding cakes, frozen in the fridge for 365 days, just to see if we could last a year. Then I did something to gild the lily -- I opened my wallet and showed her the picture of her that I had been keeping in it. As I pulled the photo out of the mezzanine, my business card floated out and landed lightly beside the almond cake. On the back of the card, in purple ink handwriting, was a woman's name and phone number. To make matters worse, Selestil also found a three-digit number that she thought was the hotel room number.

"Let me explain." The truth is simple: I like women, I like the occasional flirtation, I like the fleeting thrill. Sometimes I collect phone numbers like I did in college, but 99.997 percent of the time I stop there. I just wanted to prove I still had it in me. There's no harm in that, right?

"Then explain." She said. "She slipped it into my pocket."

"How did she slip your card into your pocket?" Celestere's anger made me anxious, like a spark before a gas stove burns.

"She asked me for my card, and I didn't think she had any ideas."

Celestil stood up, gathered up the plate and threw it in the trash with the cake. The plate is broken. She went back to the table, took her pink champagne, drank it down as if it were a shot of tequila, then grabbed the tall glass from my hand, drank it, and tossed it into the trash. The cup broke with a jingle.

"You're full of shit." She said. "But where do you see me now? I said, "I'm here with you. I'm in our house. I sleep next to you every night."

"On our wedding anniversary of all days." She said. Her anger gave way to sadness. She sat down in the breakfast chair. "Why marry if you want to have an affair?"

No marriage, no affair? But instead of pointing that out, I told her the truth. "I didn't even dial the number." I sat down next to her. "I love you." I uttered the magic words, "Happy one year anniversary."

I kissed her, and she acquiesced. Good sign. She smelled of pink champagne on her lips. After we got naked, she bit me hard on the ear. "You're a liar." With that, she reached toward the nightstand and pulled out a shiny foil bag. "Put it on, Sir."

I know some people will say that our marriage is on the edge, that people tend to worry about what other people are doing behind closed doors at night under the covers. As a participant in and witness to this relationship, I am convinced that the opposite is true. It just goes to show that I can drive her crazy with a piece of paper, and she can drive me crazy with a tube of rubber wrap.

Yes, we are a married couple, but we are also young. A year later, our love is still alive.

It's not easy for two people to get along. In theory, we're like Dwyane and Wheatley in a Different World: Where Are They Now? But the truth is, there's something about me and Celestere that Hollywood never imagined. She was the genius, and I was the genius's agent and inspiration -- not that I lay naked and let her paint me, I just went about my day and she watched. After we got engaged, she won a contest with a glass sculpture. From a distance, the sculpture looks like a glass marble. If you get closer and look at the right Angle, you can see my outline in the pattern of the marble. She was offered $5,000 for it, but she couldn't sell it. This is not like a broken marriage.

She did it for me, and I did it for her. In old times, husbands worked hard outside the home so that their wives could stay at home. This was called "making their wives idle." It was Big Roy's wish all those years to have Olive out of work, but it never happened. For his glory, or my own, I worked diligently so that Celestere could stay home and make dolls -- her main artistic vehicle. I love the collection-quality marbles and the delicate drawings inside, but for the average person, dolls are more acceptable. My vision is to sell dolls in bulk. Buyers can put them on shelves or just hold them for fun. We certainly won't give up on high-end, custom-made art, which can easily sell for five figures. But it was the dolls that would really make her famous, as I told her, and later events confirmed.

Although these are the past, like water under the bridge, say more or less will not change anything, and it is not such a sweet thing. But to be fair, I'm going to go through the whole process. We were married for over a year, and it was a happy year, even she had to admit.

On Labor Day, a "meteor" crashed into our lives. We drove to Ayrault to visit my parents. I drive because I love road trips and I only fly when I'm on a business trip. At the time, I was a salesman for a textbook company, specializing in math books, although I had stopped doing math after learning the 12-digit multiplication formula. I was successful because I knew how to sell. A week ago, I negotiated a great deal with my Alma mater, and now I'm in talks with a school in Georgia. I can't become rich from this job, but there's at least a chance of getting a bonus that will make me think about buying a new house. There is nothing wrong with the house we have now, a solid bungalow on a quiet street. It's just that this house was a wedding gift from her parents, and it's the house she's lived in since she was a child. Her parents passed the house on to their only daughter, and she was the only one, like a white person, to help the kids, no problem American style. Still, I'd rather have a house of my own.

That's what I was absent-minded about as we pulled off Interstate 10. After our little fight on the anniversary, we made up and got back to our old rhythm. I was driving a Honda Accord family sedan with two empty seats in the back, and old-school hip-hop tunes blared from the stereo.

Six hours later, I put on my turn signal at Exit 163 and turned onto a two-lane highway. At this moment I noticed something strange about Selestil. She hunched her shoulders and bit the ends of her hair.

"What's the matter? I asked, turning down the volume on the world's greatest hip-hop album. "A little nervous."

"Nervous about what?"

"Do you ever get that feeling you left the gas on?"

I turned up the volume on the stereo again, but it was lower than at first. "Then call your friend Andre."

Selestil fumbled for her seat belt, as if it rubbed against her neck. "Every time I see your parents, I feel like this."

"My parents? Olive and Big Roy are two of the most down-to-earth people in human history. On the contrary, Celestere's parents were cruel. Her father was a short, waspy man with a Frederick Douglass haircut and, on top of that, a genius inventor. Her mother was an educator, not a teacher, not a principal, but the deputy superintendent of the entire school. Oh, and her dad, ten or twelve years ago, made a fortune by inventing a compound that prevents orange juice from separating quickly. He sold it to Minute Maid, and from that day on, the family was swimming in gold coins. Her parents are tough, but Olive and Big Roy are soft cakes by comparison. "My parents like you." I said.

"They like you."

"I like you, so they like you, how simple."

Therestill looked out of the window, where the thin pine trees swished past. "I have a bad feeling about this, Roy. We'd better go home."

My wife has a tendency to exaggerate, but in her voice I can still detect a hint of something that only "fear" can describe.

"What's the matter? "I don't know," she said. "Let's go back."

"What am I supposed to tell my mother? She must be busy preparing dinner." "Tell her it's my fault," said Celestere, "and tell her it's my fault."

It's like watching a horror movie when you think about it now, and you wonder how the main character always ignores bad omens. When a ghost says, "Get out of here," that's what you do. But in real life, how do you know you're in a horror movie? You just think your wife is too emotional, and you just hope that she's pregnant, so that the joy of having a baby can wash the panic down the drain.

When we arrived, Olive was waiting for us on the porch. My mom likes to wear wigs, and this time she wore curls the color of sugar peach. I pulled into the yard, came to a stop against the bumper of my dad's Chrysler, turned off the engine, opened the door, jumped up the stairs two at a time, and hugged my mom in the middle. She was only a little big, so I bent down and picked her up off the porch, and she was laughing like a xylophone.

"Little Roy," she said, "Welcome home."

I put her down and looked back. There was dead silence. So I doubled back, jumped down the stairs two steps at a time, and opened the door. Celestere opened his arms and, with my help, got out of the Honda. At this point, I swear I could hear my mom rolling her eyes.

"It's a triangle." Big Roy explained. He and I were enjoying brandy in the corner of the drawing room, Olive was working in the kitchen, and Celestere had gone to freshen up. "I was lucky." He said, "When your mother and I met, there was nothing to tie us together. My parents are dead. Her parents are in Oklahoma. They pretend they don't have her."

"They'll accept each other." I said to Big Roy. "Celestil needs time with people."

"And your mother's not as nice as Doris Day." "He agreed. We raised our glasses to these two difficult lovers.

"I guess we'll be fine when we have kids." I said. "Yes, grandchildren soothe a beast."

"Who do you call a beast?" My mother emerged from the kitchen and sat on Big Roy's lap like a big girl.

Celestere came in through the other door, fresh and handsome, smelling of tangerine. The recliner was occupied by me, and the sofa became my parents' love nest. She had nowhere to sit for a while. I patted her knee, and she sat on my lap with dignity. The whole scene resembles an embarrassing 1950s double date.

My mother drew herself up. "Celestele, I hear you're famous."

'What? "She said, trying to get up from my lap, but I caught her.

"It was in the magazine." "She said." You've caused such a stir, why didn't you tell us?"

Selestil became shy. "It's just an alumni bulletin board."

"It's a magazine." "Said my mother, pulling out a shiny magazine from under the coffee table and turning to a folded page showing a picture of Celestere holding a Rag Doll in the image of Josephine Baker. The words "Artist Style" were written in bold letters on the side.

"I sent it." 'I admitted.' How can I say that? I'm proud."

"Is it true that someone would pay five thousand dollars for your doll?" Olive pursed her lips and briefly looked at Celestere before moving away. "Not usually." "Said Celestere.

But my voice said over her: "Yes, I am her manager, how can I take advantage of others?"

"Five thousand dollars for a Rag Doll? Olive fanned the magazine, and her fake peach hair floated up and down. "That's why God made white people."

Big Roy giggled, and Thelestiel writhed on my leg like an overturned beetle. "You can't see it in the picture." "She sounded like a little girl." The beading on the headdress is all handmade, and then --"

"Five thousand will buy you a whole bunch of beads." My mom said.

Celestere looked at me. I tried to mediate: "Mom, don't blame the players, blame the game rules." Say the wrong thing in front of your wife, and you'll notice right away. She has a magic that rearranges ions in the air so that you can't breathe.

"It's not a game. It's art." "I make real art," Mr. Selestil said, his eyes resting on the Afro-inspired prints on his living room wall.

Big Roy, ever diplomatic, said, "I wish I could see it." "There's one in the car," I said. "I'll get it."

The doll was wrapped in a soft cloth blanket and looked like a real baby. It's one of her quirks. She was a rich, maternal woman who was fiercely protective of the dolls she made. I told her that attitude would have to change after we opened the store. Those pups cost a fraction of the price of art (like the one I'm holding), and they have to be stitched so quickly that once they become popular, they have to go into mass production, and they can't be made in wool blankets anymore. Except for the doll, which was purchased by the mayor of Atlanta as a gift to his chief of staff, whose baby is due around Thanksgiving.

I pulled back the blanket so my mother could see the doll's face. She drew in a big breath. I winked at Celestere, and she relented, and the ions in the air were restored, and I could breathe again.

"There you are." Olive took the doll out of my hand, cradling its head carefully.

"I did it against his picture." "Roy was an inspiration to me," Celestere said triumphantly.

"That's why she agreed to marry me." "I joked. "But not the only reason." She said.

My mother seems so happy when she doesn't open her mouth. She stared at the doll in her arms, and my dad leaned in to look over her shoulder.

"The headdress is made of Austrian crystal." Selestil went on, more agitated than ever. "Look into the light."

My mother did. The black beaded headdress reflected the light and made the doll's head sparkle. "Angel halo." My mom said, "When you have a baby, you will find that it is true. The baby is your angel."

My mother went to the sofa and put the doll on the cushion. It was a dream experience, because the doll did look like me, at least like a picture of me as a child. Looking at it is like looking into a magic mirror. Olive felt sixteen again now, so young to be a mother, but still tender as spring. "Can I buy it?"

"No, Ma." I said, with a surge of pride in my heart. "It's custom-made, time-limited, and $10,000. It's your precious son's business!"

"Yes." As she spoke, she covered the doll with a blanket as if it were a shroud. "What do I want with a Rag Doll? They are old."

"You can keep it." "Said Celestere.

I gave her what she called a "Gary Coleman look." The contract clearly states that the deadline is the end of this month. It is signed in black ink and notarized in triplicate. It cannot be changed at all.

Without looking at me, Celestere said, "I can make another one."

Olive said, "No, I don't want to miss you, but the doll looks too much like Little Roy."

I reached out and tried to take the doll, but my mom didn't let go. Ms. Selestil has no intention of coming back, and she becomes especially real whenever someone appreciates her work. I guess I'll have to help her kick the habit before I can really start selling dolls.

"You can keep it." As if she hadn't spent three months designing the doll, "I made another one for the mayor," Ms. Selestil said.

"Ah, the mayor. Well, I'm sorry." She handed it back to me. "Put it back in the car before I get it dirty. I don't want to owe you ten thousand dollars."

"That's not what I meant." Celestil looked at me apologetically. "Mom." I said.

"Olive," he said. "Big Roy said.

"Mrs. Hamilton." "Said Celestere.

"It's time for dinner." "I hope you still like sugar yams and mustard greens."

After clearing the table, Big Roy said, "You can bring your bags in." "Dad." 'I said quietly.' We've booked a room at the Pinewood Hotel. '

"You'd rather stay in that lousy hotel than stay in your own house?" "Olive said. "I want to take Celestere back to where it started."

"There's no need to spend the night there, then?"

It is necessary. To look back, you have to get away from my parents' revisionist tendencies. We've been married for a year. It's time she got to know me inside and out.

"Was it your idea?" My mother asked Selestil. "No, ma 'am, I'd like to live here."

"It was my idea." I said. Actually, Celestere prefers us to stay in a hotel. She says she doesn't feel comfortable living in either parent's house, even though we're legally married. She usually sleeps naked, but the last time we stayed here, she made a point of pulling on two layers of a long robe.

"But my room is all sorted." "Said Olive, suddenly pulling Selestill back. The two women looked at each other in a way that had never been seen before between men. For a moment it seemed as if they were alone in the house.

"Roy," he said. Celestil turned to me with a look of fear on his face. "What do you think?"

"We'll be back in the morning, Mom." I said, kissing her. "I want honey and cookies."