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Wiving it Wealthily in Great NeckOct 09 '03 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The dead, the living, the lawyer, the beauty, the forlorn, the sacred, the profane. Pay attention: there will be a quiz at the end.
Ben Cavaham studied a photo in the Sunday Times wedding announcements with dizzying horror, hot flashes dancing on his hairy neck. “Jesus! Cassie?” He and Cassie Herzog had only broken up seven and a half months ago. Sure, it was ugly, it was wrenching, but how could she have found someone else? How could she be getting married to… Spencer Lovett tomorrow? Ben didn’t sleep all night. “I have to get a hold of Cassie. My God, on the night before her wedding. Wouldn’t she reconsider if she knew how much I loved her still?” He told his new girlfriend he had a potentially contagious stomach flu and that he needed to be able to vomit with dignity, alone. “I can stay and help you,” she offered, hoping he would refuse. “Thanks, but I’ll be OK. Please don’t get too close.” Alone now, pacing the meager span of his studio, Ben Cavaham suddenly shed tears of sweet remembrance and of bitter loss. He tugged at his hair, rubbed his own shoulders, stared into the mirror with abject self-loathing and pity. He let his face assume its most sullen and ugly expression and then contemplated that face for the better part of the wee hours. He could not let college sweetheart Cassie Herzog marry Spencer Lovett the lawyer tomorrow. Not without a fight, or at the very least, an embarrassing scene. Still without an ounce of sleep, come 9 A.M., Ben was on a train to Long Island. * * * Cassie was surrounded by her bridesmaids and two sisters. In the center of the pre-ceremony hurricane, she was calm, serene, perhaps mildly drugged. As the women fussed with her hair, make up and dress, she exuded a magisterial elegance and poise. Rivulets of worry momentarily disturbed her mind: Will the caterers be as good as promised? Will the priest remember to mention her deceased father in the ceremony? What if she tripped walking down the aisle? Quickly enough, they vanished into the ether and Cassie was in her element. The ladies were awed. “You are so beautiful!” they took turns saying. It got to her head. “I am beautiful,” she thought, privately and happily. * * * A hush overcame the chapel: the bride was approaching the entrance. A string quartet began playing Mendelsshohn and people softly gasped at the spectacle of Cassie’s regal presence and radiance. With no father at her side to hold her arm, she strode slowly down the center, all eyes on hers. Already, there were spontaneous tears, swooning family members and friends— this was an über-Cassie, a perfected Cassie out of a fantasy she or they collectively had conjured. Then a familiar voice pierced the music, exploded the dream in a high-pitched, nasal whine: “Nooooooo!” “Jeremy, is that you?” she said from behind her veil. “It’s Ben. Who’s Jeremy?” Ben stood up in the back pew. Murmuring voices rung out through the church. The musicians put their instruments on their laps, looking at each other for cues. Cassie’s face turned red, then white as her gown. “Ben, get out of here. You’re ruining everything.” “No, you ruined everything when you left me. Cassie, I love you!” “You’re the one who said you needed space to see other people! You left me.” Ben’s speech was slurred, his eyes sunk deep into caverns of black grief, and everyone assumed he was drunk. “Yeah, OK, so I made a mistake! I didn’t really want to see people, I was just worried about commitment. I don’t know, the whole thing was just so fucked up. Please, Baby, don’t do this. We can work it out.” The priest, an elderly and rotund man, took grave offense at the profanity and chimed in: “Young man, this is a house of worship and I will not have it defiled with that kind of language!” Simultaneously, the fiancé, Spencer Lovett, was making his way up to Ben, his body swimming in adrenaline. In as much gentility as he could muster in front of his guests and family, he said, “Sir, I will ask you once kindly to leave the premises. If you won’t, I will throw you out myself.” Cassie was somewhat shocked by her sudden outburst: “Spencer, don’t! Leave him alone!” Her defense of Ben Cavaham ushered a wave of stifled disapproval from the congregation. “Christ, Cassie, this is our wedding. Do you want this bastard to foul everything up?” The priest jumped in again: “And you, young man, I said this was a house of worship and I will not have it defiled with oaths and calumny! And do not lay a hand in violence against this poor soul. He seems to be making a breakthrough.” “Yes, Cassie, he’s right!” Ben suddenly sounded sober and responsible, and with hint of a British accent, he continued: “All along I’ve mistaken the one for the many and the many for the one. I chased hopeless variety when you were all the variety I ever needed. I courted the new when I had everlasting novelty in you. I mistook lust for love. I drank deeply from lascivious steins when you were my pure mountain spring.” Forgetting his next line, he fumbled in his pockets and eventually produced a crumpled loose leaf, and continued, now reading: “Uh… steins when you were my mountain spring… Come with me, away from the madding crowds, away from the flotsam and jetsam of broken dreams. I am ready to bear child upon you, and to give you my name and seed, in exchange for everlasting love, respect, and care. Do not answer now, Cassie, but forestall these hastened proceedings and consider my proposal. I will love you with the love of ten thousand Spencers, I will walk with you into the decades come fair or foul, plenitude or privation! If your father, rest his soul, could appear before us in this very chapel, I would kneel down and beg him for your hand, promising him to remain faithful and good to you for the rest of my days.” A gasp spilled through the aisles, and now everyone but Spencer, some of the children, and the second violinist were moved to tears. Cassie’s mother stood up from the front row and addressed everyone: “Lords, Whigs, Parliamentary Brethren. Since the garden of Eden, no swain has ever wooed his truelove in as rousing and heartfelt a manner. Though we have come for one nuptial, I say with good cheer that we call it a day, substitute the groom for this formerly errant knight, and carry on with the ceremony, though I think Ben is Jewish and may wish for the presence of a rabbi to co-conduct or commandeer the blessings. How say you?” The room shook with the unanimous vote of “Aye!” Now it was up to Cassie. She walked up to Ben, who met her halfway down the center aisle. Removing her veil and train, she said, “Where thou goest, I shall go. You are my master, and I your servant. But as master is never complete in a household without servant, so Hegel teaches us, so shall you also be servant and I your master. And together, we shall master our servants and service our masters. Holy, holy, holy is the path of the righteous man, and thrice-blessed is the man who was once blind and now has found his way. Take my breasts and primary parts: they are yours. But I will possess from henceforth your primary parts and your beard. Once, I identified as a gay man trapped inside a woman’s body, while you felt like a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. We loved each other then as two other people seeking an impossible romance with yet two other people. Now, we are identical with ourselves, and united in our desire for one another, both spiritually and from the standpoint of carnal necessities. Ben Cavaham, I lay myself and my soul willingly in your hands.” The musicians resumed their music-making, and Cassie’s father, who took the form of a monarch butterfly, flitted quietly overhead. The proud lovers took hands, facing the priest. Spencer cried out, “A curse upon this union!” but in a selfless gesture, he lent Ben his tuxedo, departing the church in his boxers and long socks. Ben’s belly could hardly fit inside the cummerbund and his white socks were visible below the trousers, but no one seemed to notice. Cassie’s father alighted on his daughter’s left shoulder and the priest read the vows. A rabbi appeared out of nowhere and recited the Kaddish, beckoning the couple to kiss. The quartet burst into a spontaneous rendition of klezmer standards and the joyous couple led the congregation out of doors with spring in their step. Questions for Further Study and Discussion For primary school students: 1) What is Ben’s last name? 2) Why is Ben upset? 3) What is Spencer Lovett’s job? 4) In what space is the wedding held? 5) How does Cassie’s dead father appear? 6) What do the musicians play in the end? For high school students: 1) Write a 5-8 sentence synopsis of the story 2) “This was an über-Cassie, a perfected Cassie out of a fantasy she or they collectively had conjured.” Explain the significance of this sentence. 3) Why is the priest disturbed? Why does he take pity on Ben? 4) Why does Cassie’s mother address the guests as “Lords, Whigs, Parliamentary Brethren”? 5) What might the butterfly represent? 6) Where did klezmer music originate? For college and university students: 1) What is the significance of Cassie’s name? (Hint: French casser = ‘to break’ German Herzen = ‘heart’) 2) In what sense could this story be considered realistic? Which elements defy realism? 3) Why does Ben’s accent change during his major address to Cassie? 4) Who was Hegel and why does Cassie allude to him? 5) What is the Kaddish? Why does the rabbi recite it during this joyous occasion? For graduate level students: 1) Could this story be considered post-Modern or post-post-Modern? How so? 2) What place does the absurd have in romance fiction, historically and in this case? 3) Does Cassie’s speech about sexual orientation and gender identification subvert or embrace contemporary feminist ideology (e.g. Cixous, Irigaray, Wittig)? 4) What are the Oedipal implications, if any, of Cassie’s father landing on her shoulder as a butterfly? 5) What are the intertextual references of this story? For Oprah’s Book of the Month Club: 1) Who is the hero (or who are the heroes) of this story? 2) Where can we all find good catering in our lives? 3) Who does Cassie’s make up and hair? Does this represent an empowering of women? 4) When Ben cannot fit inside Spencer’s tuxedo, no one seems to notice. Has the society in this story achieved weight-blindness? 5) What does the story tell us about interfaith marriages? Can both families be satisfied with the ceremony? 6) How can we all locate the love Ben and Cassie share in our own lives?  |
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