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Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. A moment of silence at the Opera by J. G. Fabiano
I've always loved the voice of Andrea Boccelli. The reason, I'd guess, is either my Italian heritage or my love of Italian food. The other day, some friends of my wife told her they had great tickets for a Boccelli concert at The Fleet Center in Boston. Without this opportunity I knew I could never see him live because the average price of a ticket would have required me to re-mortgage my home. There was only one condition: I had to drive five women, including my wife, to Boston and basically be their gofer. What could possibly have been easier? I thought. I decided to wear all black for my night at the opera, only because I felt that, as a mature urban male, it was required of me. The funny part was that my wife also decided to wear all black. I joked that if we missed the concert we could gatecrash any Italian funeral in Boston. I picked up the other three women in Framingham, Massachusetts. They all decided to wear black too. These women were also short so that when I walked them out to the car I felt like I was leading a swarm of bats. I thought it would be a good idea if I stayed quiet that evening. Actually I had no choice. I can't remember an instance when any of the four women took the time to inhale during the trip to Boston. There was a constant din all the way to Boston. It felt like I was at a roundtable discussion attempting to break Ripley's "Believe It Or Not," record of the world's longest continuous conversation. I still have no idea what they were talking about. Before the concert my female companions decided to eat at an Italian Restaurant to get in the mood for the feast of Italian opera that was ahead of us. When we arrived everybody in the room stopped eating and stared at us; one man with five women, all of us in black. The women never noticed, they talked all the way, thru the door, across the room, to the table and while we were sitting down. I think they must have been breathing through their ears! All that talking must have worked up an appetite because the conversation switched from whatever it was that was wrong with this friend of a friend to what was on the menu. Then suddenly, it stopped. They were reading. I used the silence to order a beer then sat back and enjoyed the lull in the eye of the storm. The first thing I did when the waitress arrived was bless her, only to have my wife kick me under the table. As soon as everyone had ordered they put their napkins on their laps then jumped into the breadbasket. Believe me 'jumped' is the only word I can use to describe what they did because I held back, afraid I might lose an arm. The salad and main course came soon afterwards and it was delicious and I actually managed to say a few words. Of course, nobody listened but I said a few words all the same to remind myself that I was there. Then it was time to go and everyone removed their napkins and went into instant shock. It seemed that the white cloth napkins were not cut from the finest cloth in the world and had left little white pieces of lint all over our black clothes. Everybody at the table, including me, looked like they had a terminal case of dandruff! My dinner companions reacted in the only way they knew how. They all started to scream. The whole restaurant fell silent again and the waitress came running to see who had been poisoned. When she saw what was wrong she immediately volunteered to get a lint brush out of her car. Unfortunately it wasn't enough. so, she called the manager, who happened to be a very Italian man named Tony. Then I understood the reason for the cheap white napkins. Tony got a large roll of duct tape, wrapped it around his fingers with the sticky side up then began running his hand expertly all over the women's bodies, top to bottom. Amazingly, not one of them objected because they were more concerned about having the lint removed from their little black dresses than having a strange man feel them up in public. When Tony had finished he turned to me and I gave him a look that told him not to push his luck. The women could be fondled by whoever they wanted but I wasn't about to have any guy remove lint from my pants while I was still in them. At last we were back on the road again and on our way to the concert. The women picked up where they left off with a free-flowing conversation that was totally devoid of punctuation, commas or pauses of any kind. I parked at the Fleet Center and told the women to follow me up the stairs. At which point one of my wife's friends told me that she couldn't walk anymore. Now, how a woman could go to a concert at the Fleet Center knowing she would not be able to walk up the stairs was beyond my comprehension. I wondered if all that talking had somehow left her paralyzed below the waist. Then I realized the part of her brain that wasn't used for talking had just atrophied and she had omitted to tell me she couldn't walk far because she had a bad back. I told her it was physically impossible for me to carry her in and out of the Fleet Center but I'd be happy to help any other way I could. She immediately latched onto my arm with the grip of a python and we started off in search of our seats. A mile and a half later, when we finally entered the concert, I had lost all feeling in my arm and my hand was turning blue. When I finally pried her loose I was wondering if I could pay somebody to take her back, maybe in one of those forklifts they use backstage! It was then that we looked at our tickets and discovered that there were only four seats together with the other one six rows in front. As gracefully as I could I volunteered to sit by myself. As I settled into my seat I rolled my eyes heavenward and uttered a heartfelt: "Thank you." Behind me, muffled by six rows of opera lovers, I could hear four women talking about some friend who had just had something terrible happen to her and how it was all the fault of some man. Then the arena darkened, Andrea Boccelli came into view and began to sing. It was a truly magical experience, an unforgettable concert. His voice was as clear and as beautiful as I'd heard on any of his CD's. When the concert ended I sat on for a moment, caught in absolute rapture. Then I heard the women in black behind me scream. "Andrea," they called in unison. "Look up here." Now this threw me because I knew that they all knew that Andrea Boccelli was blind. Not that it seemed to matter though, because the great man raised his hand and waved. My five companions went completely silent. I liked Andrea Boccelli a lot more at that moment! The End
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