AFTER DAZZLING THE JUDGES with their magnificence, they stood on the contest platform in front of the Steeplechase Pavilion, crowns on their heads, scepters in their hands, and shoulder-anchored royal-purple prize sashes wrapped around their glorious torsos.
“Ladies and gentlemen! I give you the most Beautiful Beach Couple of 1937! The King and Queen of Coney Island! Francis Anthony Mozzarelli and Belladonna Marie!”
Francis with his dazzling mane of hair glowing around his head like a holy halo, his Strongman muscles gleaming.
Bella with her full figure lusciously pinched into her Jezebel-red bathing costume, matching open-toed heels on her feet (she wore those heels on the beach!), victory rolls waving under the crown sparkling on her head, dancing, smile beaming, lips singing,
All of Me!
“Smile and say cheese! for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle!”
Flashbulbs popped like Hollywood Klieg lights and the crowd went wild. They hooted and hollered. They whistled and cat-called and squealed as the twin trophies sauntered around the Pavilion’s sparkling wading pool in form-fitting bathing costumes.
Side by side.
The King and Queen.
Gloriously reunited.
Bella never felt so beautiful.
She never felt so free!
The royal couple celebrated by charging into the Half Moon Hotel’s Moorish lobby in their capes and crowns, Francis brandishing his scepter and demanding the best room in the house.
The Coney Island King lifted his Queen and carried her all the way up to the presidential suite. (Thirteen flights! Fuck bad luck!) He kicked the door open, threw her on the bed, and took a Heroic dive.
Bella squealed with delight.
Francis started with her lips. Then he kissed every inch of her until he came upon the scar across her belly. “What’s this?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Did somebody hurt you?”
“It happened when I had our baby.”
Francis gently gathered Bella in his strong arms. “Tell me the whole story,” he said quietly. “Tell me everything.”
After she took a deep breath, Bella told him about how scared she was when her body started changing. She told him about trying to hide what was happening. She told him about the nice young priest who helped her. She told him about the birth. She told him about trying to find him and tell him. She told him about his mamma threatening to shoot her. She told him about how the nuns promised to care for their baby. She told him about how her papa gave their baby away. But she didn’t tell him what her papa had the doctors do to her. She was about to, but she felt her mamma’s knife blade close in.
When she finished her story, Francis bawled like a baby.
“When we fucked the first time, it was like a dream. I was so goddamned happy,” he sobbed. “We had four glorious weeks together. Then you ran away from me. When you said you never wanted to see me again, I didn’t understand. My heart broke into a million pieces. Then my house burned down, and my mamma moved us to the beach. When I saw you here in Coney Island, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was afraid to tell you who I was. I thought you would run away again.”
Bella cradled him in her arms.
Coney Island Pietà.
The two of them sobbing together.
“I’m going to find our son!” Francis swore. “I promise you! I’ll find William Francis Anthony Mozzarelli, if it’s the last thing I do! The three of us will be together forever! And we’ll have more kids. We’ll have a great big fucking family!”
A fear the size of Coney Island grabbed Bella by her scarred stomach and wouldn’t let go.
Francis got down on one knee. “Belladonna Marie Donato,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
Bella’s chest tightened and her throat constricted. She wanted to tell Francis she could never have any more children, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, “Yes! Yes, Francis Anthony Mozzarelli, I will marry you!”
Francis clubbed his chest and howled. Then he licked and kissed and tickled and nibbled Bella’s whole body. He went in deep. With his tongue. With his soul. With everything.
They blew the roof off the Half Moon Hotel.
They sent it soaring into space.
Then they hit the amusement parks, running like two kids in a grammar school race.
They jumped into the Tunnel of Love and sailed down the slippery slides.
They took in breathtaking circus acts of all kinds.
Horses that dove from the bottom of the sky.
Seals that flipped through rings of fire.
Rockets that shot them higher and higher.
Fireworks exploded over their heads as they ran into the sea.
“I love you, Belladonna Marie Donato!”
“I love you, Francis Anthony Mozzarelli!”
“Don’t let go of me!”
“Never let go of me!”
When they finally stumbled back into the house on Neptune Avenue, Bella showed Francis the photograph of their baby.
“This is our son. This is William Francis Anthony Mozzarelli.”
Francis stared at the picture for a long time.
“Are you alright?”
“He has your smile.”
“He has your eyes.”
With tears staining his beautiful cheeks, Francis begged Bella to make him a big pot of meatballs and tomato gravy. “I would crawl back from the dead for one of your meatballs! No one makes meatballs like you! Nobody!”
When the food was ready, he wolfed it down and licked his plate clean. Then, armed with the picture of his son, he tore out of the house. He lifted his old jalopy off its cement blocks and carried it out of the garage. He oiled it and gassed it and cranked it into the street. Then he lifted Oui Oui and popped his little Tonto into the passenger seat.
“Where are you going?!” Bella screamed.
“To find my son! To find William Francis Anthony Mozzarelli!” he hollered as he and Oui Oui tore out of Coney Island.
The two of them raced all the way to the Saint Francis of Assisi Home for Wayward Orphans and raided the place. They sniffed down every lead. They ripped through the records in Clifton City Hall. They even went to the police.
“I’m so close to finding Billy I can feel it,” he said when they arrived back in Coney Island without his son. “I can smell him. I can taste him. I can hear his little heart beating.”
What would Bella do if Francis found their baby?
Who would she be?
Would she still be a whore?
Would she still be a Queen?
And what if Francis didn’t find their son?
Would he still be her King?
How could Bella tell him if he married her, he would never have a great big fucking family?
“I told my old lady we’re gettin’ married!” Francis exclaimed.
“Is she gonna shoot me?”
He didn’t tell Bella that Mary had spit on the ground at his feet and put an Italian curse on their wedding. Instead, he presented her with a ring he had stolen from his mamma’s jewelry box.
“Oh, Francis! It’s beautiful!” Bella said as he slipped it onto her pinky.
In the dancing sparkles of the tiny diamond, Bella saw the constellation of their lives together.
Birth. Pain. Love. Death.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Francis grabbed her and spun her in the air. “I can’t wait for us to be married!”
The wedding of the King and Queen of Coney Island was going to be the most magnificent celebration the eastern seaboard had ever seen. Bigger than any San Simeon Hollywood hullabaloo thrown by Marion Davies.
The morning of the big day, Francis jumping-jacked out of bed. “I have a feeling I’m gonna find our baby today!”
Bella’s scalp shrank; her heart was thumping through her chest. “You can’t! Not today! There’s so much to do! You have to help me!”
“I have to follow up on a solid lead! I’ll only be a couple of hours! This time I’m gonna find him! I can feel it in my cannoli!”