A Man in Love is Like a Mortally Wounded Stray Dog.

Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, in its glorious days was considered a sprawling metropolis. Up to a few years ago, it boasted the distinction of having more than 1.5 million inhabitants, a robust industrial base, solid academic centers, and a vibrant cultural life. Even though some of those attributes remained, the years of mismanagement, racial conflicts, and Nafta, among other ailments, have brought it to a point where it is now notoriously dangerous, anarchical, challenging to manage, and plagued with the perennial problems of once great, large American cities. Urban decay, like periodontal disease, has corroded her inner fabric and its social harmony. Amid the turbulence, as in other large cities, thousands of its dwellers left across the bridges spanning the Delaware River, which were made of south jersey and the pine barren, their residence. New subdivisions sprawled faster than Jersey corn in the summer harvest. And that’s how South Jersey ended up vastly populated, particularly the geographic area south of New Jersey’s stated capital, Trenton, bordered by the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean. From farming communities, it turned into bedroom communities.

A large group of dwellers in the new subdivisions were second and third-generation Italians, the descendants of Sicilian renegades, broke-ass mafiosos and wannabes, and other forgotten Mussolini subjects. In addition, the descendants of runaway slaves who once rode the Underground Railroad also called this land home. The most recent human group originated south of the Rio Grande. They were descendants of Aztecs, Mayans, and other Indigenous groups. These people became the sustain of the structure of the labor market, especially all those activities that require real physical effort, high personal risk, and low pay. These “Illegals” have become the lifeblood of many small towns in the country. These “illegals” crystallize the American dream in all its possibilities, tragedy, hope, and glory.

South Jersey, aka “The Pine Barren,” and its older inhabitants, the “Pinies,” had been put down by residents north of Trenton for a long time. It’s possible that the people from North Jersey, themselves mocked by New Yorkers and described as the “armpit of America,” saw fit to pass the favor to the inhabitants of the South. In any event, rather than a large bowl of industrial, chemical, and radioactive waste, like North New Jersey, the part of the state occupied by South Jersey has very fertile lands, apt for cultivating corn, blueberry, peaches, etc. It’s also forested and home to many shrubs, mums, and trees, including holly, oak trees, maple, sycamore, birch, etc. To these fertile grounds owes N.J. its state name, “The Garden State.” Its folk stories, such as the “Jersey Devil,” and its English vernacular, such as enunciating, for example,” Mondee, Tuesdee, Wednesdee, etc.,” when referring to the days of the week, renders it a unique microcosmos in the Northeast part of the county. Just 2 hours from New York City, in South Jersey, lies portions of the Mason-Dixon line. Its implications resonate and live and breathe to these days.

In this underrated paradise resided the Federico, a mixed-race family, which is uncommon in South Jersey. They were middle class; both parents held good positions in New Jersey state government and a private government contractor firm. They had three children. One of them, Gianna, is the one motivating this story. I did not witness the main events of this story, but I will tell you with as much fidelity as my memory and good knowledge of the subjects would allow me. So please, bear with me.  

Gianna was the Federico family’s middle child, the oldest being a boy and the youngest being another girl. Ever since childhood, she was charming, loved attention, and had a magnetic smile. Her gregarious nature and open, fun-loving, temperamental disposition almost assured her success in life. At least the way we measure success in this country. At the beginning of the events, she was 17 or 18 years old; she was about to leave high school. By all accounts, she was well-adjusted and fitted nicely in her high school. She was popular and well-liked. She excelled in non-stem courses and took honor classes in all other subjects. Her “full ride” at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia was already guaranteed.

For her, love remained unexplored until her senior year in High School. Despite her grown woman attributes and the voluptuosity that nature endowed her with, her High School years were rather dull, perhaps because of the restraining force of her mother’s Catholic ethos. Her father was somewhat emotionally absent. One day, by a call of nature, during her Senior year in H.S., her desires opened with the voracity of a bear in Springtime. She started displaying qualities that others did not previously recognize in her, perhaps not even herself. As she became aware of her unique beauty and its effects on the opposite sex, she became a Salome, a skillful practitioner in the art of manipulating the opposite sex while rendering them helpless at the altar of her adoration. She learned the instruments of her power, conning and seduction. Ironically, it did not require effort because guys gravitated toward her and showered her with attention like wild beasts attracted by pheromones. Even her male teachers had difficulty concealing their occasional glances at her. It was not the vulgar, indecent, rather low-quality display of flesh often seen in public schools in her age group. No. It was something more sublime. It was a combination of grace, elegance, finesse, the right smile, the delicate gesture, her natural aroma, the sparkle of her olive skin. All of it was well proportioned, a shrine complimenting her beauty. She was part a renaissance goddess, part the Miss Universe contestant of every man’s imagination.

Almost by the time H.S. was over, she first noticed who later became her fiancee. Let’s call him John because I need to remember his name. He was an athletic, ambitious, at times mean-spirited, but good-natured fellow. He loved football, volunteering, and spending weekends at the shooting range with his father. He was a rare, strange mix of a Jock and a well-behaved kid. He was an Iconic young man, an all-American boy, ready-made for an illustrious career in the military or whatever else would suit his fancies. Let’s call it “white privilege,” for lack of a better term. He had the right complexion and the other attributes a solid middle case provides to pave one’s way to success. It was said at the time that they were the perfect couple. In High School, toward its end and during a couple of years at St. Joseph’s, they were the admiration of most students and the envy of few others.

The privacy of their intimate moments, one can only guess. But the way he followed her, surrendered to her whims, without realizing it, would indicate to any experienced observer that he has been intoxicated to the point of madness by her love and sensuality and taken blindfolded, like by a siren to the deep sea, to the deep recess of her femininity. Oh, virile warrior, magnificent commander of significant battles, how helpless like innocent veal you rendered your soul at the naked arms of Cleopatra.

He was deeply trapped to the point of no return. He showed all the weakness, the faiblesse, that men can have when they succumb to women’s sensuality and poisonous magnetism. Men, the ever-eager Brutus on the arena, propelled by hardly contained aggression and filled with mortal zest, lunches at his conquest. In her ever-sinuous, slippery, warm, and mysterious forest of never-conquered depth, the woman, a mischievous nympha, accepts his challenge. With uncontrollable impulses, Brutus lunches full throttle, filled with passion and might to conquer the forest, and the forest-wide open patiently waits for his entrance and delights in his presence. Then, with whispers and a gentle touch, she tangles him up with her poisonous vines as she inebriates him with a mixture of nectar and unctuous massage and delirious contractions while dragging him ever gently to her deep recesses. He surrendered, mortally wounded. He’s defeated and promptly becomes her prisoner.

Love is a prison from which men are only freed by death. Thus, fools marry “Until death do us part.” Men don’t realize that the vow only applies to them. Free men never drink from the poisonous chalice of an indelible goddess. A Free man is ever eager to prey on the altar of his deity but would never let himself be inebriated by her poisonous chalice.   A man in love is inconsolable, aimlessly seeking comfort like a wounded stray dog. The philosopher once said: “An unattached, uncommitted man is a Freeman.” But I digressed.

She was not fully conscious of her powers, but at an instinctual level, she enjoyed John’s adoration. So dragged by long nights of rampant sex, with the fierce passion only inhabited in young souls, he got lost in her bosoms. They discovered love. But they both loved the same person. She found what was already latent in her: the enchanting powers that nature reserves for a few privileged priestesses. In John, she saw firsthand its intoxicating effects. It was not that she did not love him, or so she would say to herself, but inside her, she felt the reverberation of a hungry beast. The Goddess lurking in her insides demanded the adoration of not just one.

 Their adult life progressed as the seasons rolled unto each other, renewing the earth. Their third year at St. Joseph’s was approaching. She was on her late twenty-two birthday, soon to be twenty-three years old. He was almost twenty-four. St. Joseph’s University was a very well-suited academic choice. They were near Philadelphia and close to their families. They saw each other often at the Quad. They shared familiar friends despite not being in the same faculty.

If there’s a way to describe happiness on this earth, it is how he felt. Life was beautiful and filled with possibilities. Love had a very positive effect on him. He excelled in his academic endeavors and headed straight to a post at a prestigious firm in NYC. But destiny had other plans. The Greeks in ancient times said that the three Fates were the most powerful gods in the pantheon. Ever feared even by Zeus, with their weaving, the three fates control the threads of a man’s life.

At the beginning of the first semester, in their third year, she took some marketing classes taught by a new professor. He was a new faculty at St. Joseph’s. He was a tall, funny, jovial professor from a foreign land with a sweet accent. By our American standards, it is a very desirable specimen. At first sight, Gianna was love-stroked. Inside of her, the insatiable beast of desire demanded satisfaction. Like laborious spiders, her untapped passions for weeks weaved a web over her soul. She could not resist such an enormous pressure; the mere sight of the Professor was arousing to her. “He must be mine!”. She would daydream between long sighs and self-soothing touches. Not too long afterward, she reeled in the Professor. How could he resist her pull if even magnificent warriors have been rendered helpless, like naked infants, to the mandates of the Goddess of desires? Be it by animal instincts, pheromones, or emotional resonance, her echo resonated loudly in him.

Their affair was stormy and incandescent, with the exuberant passion his older age unleashed in her. He became the catalyst of her hidden passions. John, by then her fiancee, had only touched the surface. Even with John, her deeply contained sensual pressures were still latent, bubbling up, often simmering in erotic dreams, wetting the shores of her desires. From the first time with the Professors, her desires exploded, forcing their way out like a volcanic eruption from her inner hips, bathing her whole body. She became a Goddess; her metamorphosis was complete.

Around that time, John noticed something different in Gianna. In his presence, she grew quiet, distant. Even during sex, her body was undoubtedly there, but she was not. He started feeling a huge void in his chest. An indescribable desolation. He was sad and upset to the point of tears. He begged for an explanation. “Gianna, you don’t love me anymore… what’s wrong?” he would ask. Her answer was always the same, “don’t be silly… I’m just tired. You know how busy I am this semester”. He was compelled to believe her. He needed to believe her. But once doubt sets its roots in a person’s soul, it is like an itch. A compulsive urge demanding instant gratification: The more one ignores it, the stronger it gets. 

From his days at the shooting range with his father, in a very American tradition, he became proficient at handling rifles and handguns, learning to differentiate types, action modes, bullet caliber, and all related skills. He always favored hollow point .40 S&W caliber bullets. He thought the caliber .45 was too heavy, loud, and unsophisticated “bang.” The caliber .40 S&W had the same “stopping” power as the .45 bullets and less recoil. There, he mingled with the regulars, a few retired police officers, and ex-military guys recalling past fictitious glories, who often moonlighted as private detectives. He hired one to follow Gianna.

A few weeks went by. John and Gianna continued their habitual routine of hanging out at the St. Joseph’s Quad. Their meetings were usually brief, as they had classes to attend. She would enthusiastically rush to her marketing class taught by the foreign-accented Professor.

This day was different. They were again at the Quad, but she was in a rush to leave; their meeting was even briefer than had become the norm; she said that she needed to go back to N.J. to run some errands with her mother. They kissed. She said goodbye while blowing a kiss. Unbeknownst to her, she was already under surveillance. An hour later, John received a text from the Private eye that he hired: “I got them,” it read. At first, he did not believe it. He read it one more time. Now, he was no longer upset but blinded with rage. They said that hate is the flip side of love. With this news, all his ancestors, cavemen, hunters, and warriors, were summoned in his chest. The distance between his polished self and her distant primate cousins shortened in seconds. He could no longer hear or see as the news filtered through his soul. His temples were pounding, and his head was about to explode. He felt enormous pressure, like a band around his head. He tried to control himself, but he took very short breaths without realizing it. It was a struggle to breathe. The pressure on his chest was gigantic. He could barely hide his inner turmoil. He was demoniacally possessed by the rage and hatred that only the hurt pride of a lover can harbor. Humiliation is a fire that burns intensely in a betrayed man’s heart. Only destruction would put out that fire.

A few minutes later, a second text arrived, this one with a picture of her and the Professor passionately kissing. Then the P.I. texted their location: “The Aloft hotel in Cherry Hill.” He knew the location by heart. That’s where they celebrated their pre-nuptial engagement party.

It was late in the afternoon, before sunset. “Philadelphia weather, cloudy, cold, temperatures in the high forties,” a voice announced from his car radio. The traffic was horrifying. What was, at most, a 45-minute ride seemed to him an eternity. As he rushed through traffic, he barely had time to go by his place to grab his Glock 23 swiftly. Fleeting images, like tiny sparkles, danced between his temples; each minute passed, his tension grew more intense. He arrived on time. He almost missed them.

After making love, Gianna and the Professor shared drinks at the newly renovated hotel lounge. The atmosphere was lovely; the band played soft music, and the time seemed fixed. All was right, but it was time to go. They headed to the back of the hotel and the parking lot. It was hard getting in their cars. They just stood there holding hands. It was a structure made of steel, framed with columns, covered by solar panels, and surrounded by pine trees. By being at the rear of the hotel, the parking lot provided them with all the needed discretion for their escapades. The hotel kitchen staff would occasionally go to the nearby dumpster to drop large trash bags.  

Arriving at the location, John almost crashed his car. He swiftly drove through the parking lot. In a scene from the movie, he parked his car crookedly in the middle of it. He saw them. They were like a deer caught in a car’s lights. He grabbed his Glock 23, and without a word, with the silence that preceded a tragedy, he discharged the pressure that was squeezing his whole being. He shot the Professor five times. Not that it was necessary. His first shot had already pieced the Professor’s heart. As a caliber.40 S&W ammunition enters a body; its kinetic force expands and wreaks havoc in the victim’s organs. With the first shot, he was as good as dead. He was profusely bleeding. A crime of passion is messy because of the excessive adrenaline fueled by humiliation, rage, and hatred. He would have emptied the whole Glock’s clip on him, having not been for Gianna’s crazed scream:” John… Nooo, Nooo!!!”. As the gunshot stopped, she fell to her knees.  

While the tragedy unfolded across the parking lot at the nearby Motel 66, a guest rushed to the windows after she heard the gunshots. A stray dog was marauding through the trash bins when a stray bullet reached him. The dog ran desperately in search of shelter and lay mortally wounded at the nearby pine tree across from John.

The guest, from her vantage point, up on the 4th floor of her hotel, only reached to see a man holding a gun, John, and a stray brown dog covered in blood. She could not see The Professor, who lay on the ground bleeding, or Gianna, who was inconsolably crying on his chest. Both were on the ground, their sight covered by trees. “911, what’s your emergency?” answered the voice on the opposite side of the guest’s cell phone. “I am at Motel 66 in Cherry Hill and just saw a guy shooting a dog”, the guest replied in an alarmed voice, betraying both excitement and morbid curiosity. “Are you sure it is a dog?” an official-sounding, disinterested voice asked. “God damned! Of course. I’m sure…, what’s wrong with you people?” the guest blurted out, aggravated by the dispatcher’s question. “I see the guy; he’s just standing there; the poor dog is dying…”. Now, she sounded desperate, as if pleading for help. “Okay,” the dispatcher said, almost annoyed, “I will connect you with animal control.”

P.R. Thompson.