My Name Is Valentine

My Name Is Valentine. Who would make up a name like that?


I'm a 60-year-old divorced bi guy living in the deep south. My life is miserable, and I've made a mess of it, so why am I writing at all? First, I intend at some point to end this misery. One way or another, I have to find relief and release from the prison I now occupy. My prison is my divorce house, 3500 square feet of unsellable, two-story, artificial stucco, estate-sized lot sitting in the middle of hell, I mean the suburbs. Let me start with my name, because maybe my misery begins there. Who would name their son Valentine?

My parents were Rosa and Luigi, the daughter and son of Italian immigrants. My father wanted to name me Frank, and my life would have taken a whole different course had he prevailed. But my mother wanted to name me Valentine, to honor her dying mother, Antonina. Antonina came to the U.S. from a small Sicilian village where there were few options for girls to dream, and her dream came from the movie star Valentino. She married my grandfather Gaspare (Jasper), who was no Valentino, in her teens, and she managed to produce a child every other year of their marriage. My mother was the 8th and the second daughter. And she was beautiful and full of life. She would tell her daughter Rosa about Valentino and the movies she had seen in her poor village. And her Rosa grew up beautiful and full of life. My mother defied her father's strict Italian rules. She told me once about the time when she was 16 and a soldier boy wanted to take her to the St. Mark's feast, her father said no. Her six older brother's said no. Her older sister Ida said she needed Rosa to work in the kitchen with her. But my mother held her ground: "I'm gonna walk around that feast with my solider boy and you can't stop me." That was my mom in her youth: beautiful, filled with spirit, independent, brave. Later I would wonder where that woman disappeared to.

My father was a soldier boy, although not the soldier boy my mom walked defiantly with at the St. Joseph's feast. In the hierarchy of Italian families in our city, my father was in the elite merchant class. My mom was in the poor peddler class. But they were gorgeous jitterbuggers. When I was small I would ask them how they met. They'd each tell the same story. He was standing in line for confession at St. Mark's, the Italian-built Catholic church all the Italianos attended. He was wearing his uniform. She was sitting next to her girlfriend Frances, who was dating a Lebanese merchant. And by merchant I mean grocery store owner in a black neighborhood. Italians in the deep south city where I grew up and live today were allowed to open stores in black neighborhoods. In fact, we lived behind our store. But I digress, a habit I have. Back to the story--Rosa, now known to her friends and siblings as Rosie, took one look at the move-star handsome soldier and told her friend, "I'm going to marry that boy.  He looks like Rudolf Valentino." Luigi, now known as Lou to his siblings and friends, saw her looking and turned to his friend Rocco and said, "Who is that gorgeous girl. I've got to meet her."

So I was blessed with beautiful parents who looked like the Italian movie stars of the 50's. I have no doubt there was great love there and great lust, and I was privileged to be born to them.

But that name, Valentine, doomed me. Yes, I had a great love too, Maria, and another great love, cock. And my love of one cost me the other, my family, my self-respect, and earned me my place in this prison.