Good actions are reduced, and equally

Their opposites. Direct the way

Purgatorio 18.13-15, La Commedia

In Dante Alighieri’s autobiographical 14,000 word love poem, La Commedia, aka., The Divine Comedy, Dante walks us through Hell then Purgatory then finds Love in Heaven. But first, he has to figure out what Love is. Nothing has changed since 1306.

Before knowing Love, we must first climb the seven terraces of Purgatory: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony and Lust; ascending through each terrace of Love gone wrong, purging the sins we’ve committed along the way. It can be exhausting, especially if you’re wearing Italian thongs. No, not the dental-floss thongs you find on girls from Ipanema beach or guys who are too sexy for Milan, too sexy for New York, or too sexy for Japan. We’re talking sandals here. And though all foot thongs are sandals, not all sandals split your toes or your butt cheeks.

1, 2, 3,

Oh that’s how elementary,

It’s gonna be,

Come on, let’s fall in love,

It’s easy, (it’s so easy)

Center Stage. Elementary School PS 76. The Boogie Down Bronx, 1972. And I’m the King. Or Emperor. That’s what they call Kings in China.

“Bring me the Nightingale!” I declare from my throne. Really just a wooden chair covered in the same paper we use to do finger painting. But it’s okay. We’re only in 3rd-grade. And it’s just the rehearsal. Hans Christian Andersen’s play, ‘The Nightingale.’

“Keep going,” says Mrs. Thomas, the director. She used to be my first grade teacher and sort of my second grade teacher too. She’s the one who skipped me. From first grade AND second grade to third grade. She says I have a good memory for things. My Mom says that too. My Mom is sitting with the other moms in the brown folding chairs in the back of the auditorium. They’re the volunteers for the Spring Show.

“Neither power nor wealth will move the heart of a creature who sings only for love.” I admit, I like when people look at me when I speak. People stare at me more when I play the Emperor. I like it most when Angela stares at me. She’s pretty.

“Then stand,” Mrs. Thomas directs me, “...and walk to the back of the stage.”

Klunk!!!

Now everyone is staring at me! I don’t want them too! My face is on the floor. My feet got tangled in the white bedsheet I’m wrapped in that’s supposed to be a robe. It looks nothing like a robe! It looks stupid! And now all the kids are laughing at me. Even Angela!

“Oh no, are you okay?,” Mrs. Thomas asks. I look up. I see my mother. She’s sitting next to Angela’s mother. They’re not laughing.

“Yeah.” I try to stand up but, I’m still tangled in my stupid bedsheet. Someone helps to untangle me. Lifts part of the bedsheet. It’s Angela Umberto. The best girl in third grade.

A, B, C,

Falling in love with you was,

Easy for me,

And you can do it too,

It’s easy, (it’s so easy)

“How do you memorize all those words?” Angela asks, sitting next to me in the backseat of her mother’s car.

“What words?”

“In the play.”

“I don’t know.” Angela’s car -- not really Angela’s car but, her family’s car -- is much nicer than my family’s car. “I just can.”

“That’s cool.”

“I guess.”

Wow! Angela thinks that I’m ‘cool.’ Does she like me? I’m not even a real king. But just because I’m not a real king and the New York City Public School system won’t spend money on getting me a real Emperor’s robe, that doesn’t stop my mother from figuring something out.

“J&G on the Post Road,” I hear her say from the front seat of the car. “They have cheap material there. I’ll find something silk-like for the kids to wear,” says the Empress, or Mommy to me.

“I’ll go with you.” Mrs. Umberto, Angela’s mother, offers while driving the car.

“You don’t have to do that. I can walk up there later.” My family has a car, but it’s more like my dad’s car. He doesn’t let my mother drive it much even though she knows how to drive. He needs the car to get to his work.

“You sure?” Mom wonders to Janet. That’s Angela’s mother’s real name. But I would not call her that. My Mom can. They’re best friends.

“We’ll drop off Angela and Anthony at the house and head over there. Your husband‘s home, right?”

“He goes in at 4:30.” My Dad works the nightshift. I see him sometimes. But mostly he just sleeps on the couch in the living room.

“We’ll be back before that,” says Janet, I mean, Mrs. Umberto, coming up with a plan to buy cheap material to make costumes for me and Angela. She’s a Palace Servant. Not the Nightingale. I wish she was the Nightingale. I could talk with her more. “He can watch the kids until we get back.”

Mom turns to us in the backseat, “Is that okay with you two? You can play a game or something until we get back.”

“Sure.”

“You can play Scrabble. Angela, do you like Scrabble?”

“Sure.”

We like the same things. I can probably beat her. I’m good at spelling. And double-word scores. If I’m winning, I could help her. I can put a word near the red triple-word score. It doesn’t make sense to do that, but I would really do that.

Baby, there’s nothing hard about love,

Basically, it’s as easy as pie,

The hard part is living without love,

Without your love, baby I would die

We’re sitting on the floor of my green-walled bedroom. Green is my favorite color. Not lime green. Orange is my Mom’s favorite color. We have bright orange and lime green striped curtains. She made the curtains. My Mom is good at making things from material that she gets at J&G on the Post Road. My older sister who I share the bedroom with, hates the curtains. “They’re so ugly!” my sister says. She is a teenager, but she’s not here right now. She thinks everything is ugly. “It makes me want to throw up!”

“They’re psychedelic,” my Mom tells my older sister. Psychedelic is a fancy word the hippies use. Most older people don’t like that word. They think it also means you take drugs. But my mother doesn’t take drugs and she is not a hippie. She just likes the colors. They match the bedspread. She also made the bedspread covers. Hopefully the psychedelic and wide-striped orange and lime green curtains and orange and lime green bedspread don’t make Angela throw up. They don’t make me want to throw up. But I’m not a girl like my sister and Angela.

“You can go first,” I say to my guest, Angela. It’s my house. I’m the host. Letting the guest go first, as my Mom taught me, ‘is the polite thing to do.’

Angela places a ‘B’ tile, and an ‘A’ tile, and a ‘T’ tile on the pink star in the middle of the board. She gets double the amount of points from the tiles because the pink boxes on the Scrabble board always gives the person double the amount of points when you add up their tiles and one of their tiles is placed in a pink box. I’m good at rules. I’m also good at math. I keep score. “That’s 10 points.”

“That’s pretty good,” Angela says. I think she’s very proud of her word. But it was only three tiles. I could have put a much longer word on the board and got way more points. But it’s just a game. And she’s happy. So I don’t tell her that.

“Really good,” is what I tell her, even though I know it’s not okay to lie. But it’s not a big lie. It’s ‘kinda’ good, but not ‘really’ good. And Angela’s happy. And not throwing up.

My turn. I place an ‘A’ tile, a ‘L’ tile and another ‘L’ tile under the ‘B’ tile. B-A-L-L. Sure, I could have put ‘R’,‘I’,‘C’,’K’ under the ‘B’ tile and spelled ‘BRICK,’ but I want to keep the score close with Angela. I want to Angela to stay happy. “Your turn.”

Dad is in the living room sleeping on the couch. I know he is still there. I can hear him snore. I’m not sure if Angela hears him snore. She is concentrating on finding the right letters to use for her next word. As Angela reaches inside the upside-down box cover for some more wooden tiles to use for her words, she asks me, “How about we play... (giggle)... but only use (giggle, giggle, giggle)... use dirty words?”

Did she just say ‘dirty words’?!? I know a ton of them! Yesterday in the schoolyard, me and Kevin Jones came up with about 17 of them. Three that start with ‘A,’ four that start with ‘B, two with ‘C.’ That’s nine already! I can do this! And I really, really, really don’t care if I win. That is NOT a lie.

“Sure, if you want to.” I’m not exactly sure why I need to hide my excitement. Maybe because Angela is a real 3rd-grader. Already a nine-year-old. Not like me, a 3rd-grader who is just a 7-year-old because I skipped 2nd grade. But my birthday is in a month, so that kinda makes me an 8-year-old already. She’s still older than me. I’m smart on some things, but she seems smarter on other things.

Her pretty fingers place an ‘S’,‘H’,’I’ over the ‘T’ in her word, BAT. She looks at me. She giggles. I giggle. We giggle together. I don’t even bother adding up the score.

My turn. I could use the ‘S’ for ‘SIT,’ or I could use the ‘H’ for ‘HIT’ where I can even get a Double-Letter score with the ‘I’, but I go X-rated. ‘T’ then ‘I,’ on the other ‘T.’ Only three points, but I feel like I’m in a different world right now. I’m being led by a girl who has more experience than me. And she’s pretty! She’s the prettiest girl in our entire school. And she’s with me! In my room that I share with my sister, who is not here. Yesterday I was rolling my Hot Wheel cars across an imaginary war field I made on my floor, today I’m on the moon. I wonder if Neil Armstrong felt the same way.

“‘O’ ‘U’ ‘C’ ‘H,’ Angela placing her tiles on the board, “Touch.”

Does she think I don’t know how to read?!? I do know how to read! ‘T-O-U-C-H’! And her ‘H’ landed on a pink Double-word box. But my brain can’t seem to add anymore.

“Do you want to keep playing?” Angela asks.

One and one are two,

I know you love me,

And oh, how I love you,

Don’t try to fight it

“If you want to.” God, please don’t make this stop. I’ll make a promise with you about anything!

“Well... what do you want to do?”

Me? Be an astronaut. Forget the moon, I want to be the first man on Mars! I want to hit a Nolan Ryan fastball 1,000 feet. Onto the train that runs behind the parking lot at Shea Stadium, home of the 1969 World Series Champion New York Mets. My favorite baseball team. Now. Forever.

“Whatever you want to do.”

“Do you want to kiss?”

Of course I do! I think? I’ve never done it before. But I want to. On the lips? You mean on the lips? I’ve kissed my mother on the cheek before. I even kissed my sister on the cheek at Christmas. So, are we kissing on the cheeks or the lips? Anthony and Angela? This is how it all starts. K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes... then comes... oh no! I should have thought about this sooner. A baby name! My future kissing partner and I have a lot to think about. I know you get a baby at the hospital, but who do you ask for? I don’t know but I do know I need to do this kiss like I’ve done it before otherwise she’ll know I’ve never done this before. Has she ever kissed a boy on the lips before? She must have! I need to do it like on TV or in a movie. Am I dreaming now? I’m not even sure if I ever dreamed about kissing before. This is happening so fast. And her face is moving closer to mine. I’m scared. I close my eyes. Please, God, please, God, please, God,...

...and two lips. On mine. Not by accident. And with the prettiest girl in the universe. And I’m not dreaming. I’m doing it!

’Cause it’s easy, (it’s so easy,)

Like taking candy, (like taking candy,)

From a baby, yeah

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

Hmmmm. My turn. I need to say something. “Do you want to finish scrabble?”

“Not really.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s kiss and rub tummies.”

Kiss and rub tummies? Is that even possible? “Okay.”

Angela moves to my bed. She sits underneath my poster of The New York Mets. One day I will play for the New York Mets and hit home runs. 1,000 of them! I sit next to her -- and see my Hot Wheel cars on my desk?!? I hope Angela doesn’t see them. I hope she doesn’t think I talk to my Hot Wheel cars and play war games on the floor with my Hot Wheel cars and crash them up into big explosions and think that crashing up my Hot Wheel cars in war games is more fun that what we are doing now.

“Come closer,” she tells me.

I bring my tummy next to her tummy. She lifts the bottom part of her shirt. I lift the bottom part of my shirt. Our tummies touch. She’s not even worried our Moms could come in. Angela lays down on top of the lime green and orange-stripped bedspread and she’s not throwing up. I might. My heart feels like it’s going to pop out of my chest. Angela is laying on her side, I lift my foot off the Earth and going to Mars.

“Closer.” I do as I am told. My other foot leaves the Earth. Angela slides to the middle of my bed. There is no where else to go. No where else I want to go. I find myself on top of her. Rubbing tummies. She lifts her shirt again. I lift my shirt again. And rub tummies! It works!

I look into her eyes. I wait for more instruction. Nothing. Nothing? I’m going to kiss her. I know how to do this now. And this time I’m keeping my eyes open. I don’t want to miss anything. Not when the greatest thing that’s ever happened in my life is happening. This is better than going to Mars. This is better than the Mets winning the World Series. This is probably better than anything ever!

1, 2, 3,

Oh, that’s how elementary,

It’s gonna be,

Come on let’s fall in love

It’s easy.

Sitting in a dentist chair waiting for an implant to be screwed into my head, I’m reminded of what it’s like to be in love.

“Owwwwwww!”

“Sorry,” consoles Sherri, the perky dental hygienist with glossy lips, big hoop earrings and a 14k gold cross dangling from her neck. “Let me try again.” Having just pulled out a 5-inch needle from my lower-left gum a second time, now she wants to give me another shot. I open wide. Not that I enjoy getting needles plunged into my mouth but, just like love -- you gotta go through some torture before you can enjoy chewing there again.

“Ahhhhhhh.”

“Are you okay?”

“Um-hm.” Praying that she finally found the nerve between tooth 17 and 19.

“Dope. Just keep your mouth shut. Let the Novocaine kick in.”

Dope. Unless, of course, you’re not sure what number comes between 17 and 19 and you missed the bullseye. But I keep my mouth shut.

“Dr. Young will be here in a few minutes.”

She leaves, I stay. As I wait for the third shot of Novocaine to fill the cracks in my jaw, I reach into my pocket for my iPhone. I created a special Dental Implant Remix on Spotify just for this occasion. Dr. Young typically plays good music throughout the office, but if I am going to survive this roadtrip through dental Hell, I need the perfect playlist and all the help I can get.

How does that compare? Going to the dentist with risking a broken heart in the pursuit of love? Based on transcendental idealism, the unmarried philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, suggested that the atheistic metaphysical solution of disguising desire as love is nature’s strategy to help bring into this world a healthy offspring.

I had two of those -- offsprings -- now I only have one.

Sitting in a dentist chair waiting for an implant to be screwed into my head, I’m reminded of what it’s like to be in love.

“Owwwwwww!”