A Little Prince Is Born

Birth stories often begin with strange events. Tristram Shandy's mom asks his dad, as he about to squirt and make Tristram, if he remembered to wind the clock, and the juxtaposition of the two mundane acts somehow accounts for his rambling narrative of a life. I've no such excuse as I have no idea what my parents were doing when I was conceived other than fucking, and they loved to fuck. My beautiful mother was in labor with her first child--destined to be named Valentine--be child male or female--at the same time Queen Elizabeth was giving birth to Prince Charles. When the nurse presented Rosie with her first born son, she said, "Here's your beautiful little prince."

"His name is Valentine," my mother said, so the nurse added: "Then here's your Prince Valiant."

Even the nurse had not heard of a boy named Valentine. Years later, my father told me the story about the battle over my name. I asked how come he picked that name for me. "I wanted to call you Frank, after my father, but Mama Nina was sick and she so wanted a Valentino. We made it American, Valentine. But the nurse called you Prince Valiant, like the comic strip, and that's what I called you for a few years."


Right, Dad, I thought. Just before you stopped calling me anything at all. So the seeds of disappointing my dad and pleasing my mom were planted at my birth with my name. Ironically, he loved to read the Sunday comics to me. And Prince Val, though not my favorite, was always beautifully illustrated.

The Irish priest from St. Mark's, Father O'Reilly, sealed the deal on my name when he visited. "A fine Italian saint," he proclaimed. At least my dad told me the story of Valentine. (In those days, he told me lots of stories). Later, I researched Valentine myself and wrote "The Legend of St. Valentine" for my eight-grade religious education class. Legends don't have to be real, so I embellished. I wrote that Valentine was a Catholic priest in a rural Italian city where pagan beliefs battled the ways of the newly formed Catholic church. One of the traditions was an annual rape day---lusty boys got to grab a girl and have their way with her as a way of forcing a marriage. Valentine tried to teach the young and lusty that love was a better way of winning a girl, and he developed quite a following among young people married many of them. An emperor in Rome needed soldiers for the many wars emperors loved to fight, and he banned marriages. Valentine continued to marry the young lovers, and for this, he was thrown into jail. Here's where my legend introduces a true flight of fancy. Valentine basically disappeared from the town, so no one knew where their beloved priest had gone. Many thought he had just forgotten them. But, imprisoned in his cell, Valentine managed to write little notes in blood on the petals of pansies that he found. He wrote: "Remember your Valentine." And: "Forget me not. " (Sappy, yes, but it helps explain all those candy heart sayings.) Birds took the petals and dropped them over the village. The townspeople knew that Valentine lived and loved them, and vowed he would not be forgotten. The day they received their pansy petals became Valentine's Day

Ironically, I'm no Valentine. From my two-story, artificial-stucco, unsellable highly mortgaged prison, were I to distribute petals via birds, they would not be pansy petals. They are too stereotypically "gay" ; they would not say "Remember your Valentine." When I am released from this prison, I want all who once knew me to remember not your Valentine. He was a pervert who ultimately betrayed all who loved him. But my story will be told: he abandoned his family so he could get fucked in the ass.