That's Amore Author Nino Ricci contemplates a future with fellow Italian Madonna Ciccone By Nino Ricci You will have heard by now that Madonna is pregnant. I must admit I was a bit upset to learn this, since like millions of others I'd begun to get my hopes up after her Prime Time Live interview. But one look at the father, a certain Carlos Leon - variously described as her personal trainer and “a sport cyclist,” a charming enough man, no doubt, but with a face out of Carlito's Way - and I figure that baby or no, he'll probably soon be going the same route as Warren and Sean. I'd therefore like to get my dibs in right away for Baby Number Two, on the assumption that, like any nice Italian girl, Madonna will want to have a whole clutch of them. I don't know what arrangement Ms. Ciccone has made with Carlos, but I can assure her from the outset that I'm willing to be very flexible. Childless myself, I'm of an age where thoughts inevitably turn to the matter of immortality, and if it takes a bit of compromise to share a gene pool with Madonna, well, I'm willing to go that distance. And so, for her to peruse at her leisure during her lying-in with Number One (and with no disrespect to Mr. Leon; though as I say, Carlos, I think your days are numbered), I present the following options. Federal Express Yourself. The no-frills plan, with exchange of only the essential bodily fluid. Overnight delivery, and Carlos need never be the wiser. (Though for that matter, I think Mr. Leon may want to do a blood test on Baby Number One, a test that Evita co-star Antonio Banderas might also be interested in.) Total cost for the plan: $24.95 per shipment, which I'm willing to split 50-50. ___________________________ Childless myself, I'm of an age where thoughts inevitably turn to the matter of immortality ___________________________ Open Your Heart. Under this plan - Carlos is out of the picture - we date. We discover that we have a great deal in the common: that we grew up not fifty miles from one another; that we both had the 3-D portrait of Christ in our living rooms; that the first woman she slept with, Moira McPharlin, is related to my friend Victoria. After a few dates, one thing leads to another and we wind up in bed. Here we discover the sad truth that we're not actually sexually compatible; but from our one friendly roll in the hay, a child is conceived, to whom I will eventually be known as Uncle Nino. Cost: A couple of thousand. Terms negotiable. Crazy For You. We date. Our first night of lovemaking exceeds our wildest dreams. This is it, we think, the big L-O-V-E. I pull up stakes and move down to New York; we do the club scene, Little Carlos in tow; we're the toast of the town. She begins to really open up to me: the death of her mother, her love/hate relationship with her father, the whole Italian family thing. I nod; I console her; we make love. Then, just as it seems we've reached the pinnacle of passion, things begin to unravel. First it's the calls from Warren and Sean seeking reconciliation. No, she tells them, I'm the one for her; but the seed of doubt has been plated. I begin to wonder if I'm man enough for her. When my new novel, about a poor Italian-American girl who rises to superstardom, is universally panned, things go from bad to worse. She's very supportive, and buys me a house in Mustique to cheer me up, but I realize now that while we're together I will always have to live in her shadow. We fight, reconcile, make passionate love, then tearfully agree to a total severance. It's the only way. Only afterwards do I learn of her pregnancy, in the papers. The child, a boy, is named after me; but I will never know him. Cost: Incalculable. Keep it Together. We date; we fall in love; we marry. Camille Paglia comes to the wedding, also Warren and Sean. Carlos, sadly, has recently been killed in a mysterious biking accident; but Little Carlos is there, holding my hand and calling me daddy. In the background, my father and Madonna's have joined arms and are singing “Santa Lucia” in tenore robusto. We buy a house in Little Italy and grow tomatoes in the back yard, and maybe some greens; we have many children. She gives up her singing to look after the kids; I start a little construction firm. We live happily ever after. Cost: Mortgage payments run $1250 a month over 25 years, but we're good with our money and pay the whole thing off in just under 7. ___________________________ We buy a house in Little Italy and grow tomatoes in the back yard ___________________________ Papa Don't Preach. We marry. Our fist child comes along and I suggest that she take some time off work to look after the baby and Little Carlos; she agrees. The next months are blissful: I write in the skylit loft of our brownstone on the Upper West Side; she plays with the children downstairs. She asks if she can put the kids in daycare a few days a week so she can try out a few new ideas at the studio; I grudgingly concede. Her days at the studio grow longer and longer. More than once, she doesn't have supper on the table until well after seven. I point this out and we argue; for the sake of the children, who are asleep upstairs, she gives in. I go on to wonder aloud why she needs to work at all. Again, she holds her tongue, but the next day she is back in the studio. Then one night, she's out with the band until two in the morning. I lose it. No woman of mine is going traipsing like a whore, I say. In a flash, she realizes she has married her father, and is already packing her bags and out the door, taking the kids. In the morning, I get a call from her lawyer. Cost: To avoid a lengthy legal battle, I take the high road and agree to split everything right down the middle. Rescue Me. We don't quite date; we don't quite fall in love; we don't quite marry. She, however, has her people check me out; I'm found suitable and am set up in a small but elegant condo in Chelsea. Twice a week, I'm brought up to her rooms by security; everything that happens there is captured on video. Sometimes Carlos is there as well, glowering in a corner. But once, in anger, he makes a small sound of disgust while she and I make love; afterwards, he disappears from the face of the earth. With Carlos out of the way, she begins to take a genuine liking to me. I have spunk, she says; I make her laugh. She tells me these things even knowing that I am completely in her thrall; I lap them up. When she becomes pregnant again, she has me moved into the servants' quarters of her apartment so that I'll be around to fetch her things and look after Little Carlos. Our own baby, when it's born, a girl, is her spit and image, showing no trace of me. She names it Madonna. She goes out on tour; I look after the kids. She has hit after hit; I write a few slim, difficult books that receive critical acclaim but sell in the low thousands. In an off moment, she starts to read one of these books, but gets bored halfway through. Desperate for her praise, I write a blockbuster about a poor Italian-American girl who rises to superstardom. The book is an instant runaway success; suddenly I'm doing Leno, Letterman, even Larry Sanders. She begins to take more notice of me. We do the club scene, baby Madonna and Little Carlos in tow; we're the toast of the town. But in my heart I know I've sold out. ___________________________ I write a blockbuster about a poor Italian-American girl who rises to superstardom. ___________________________ I start to drink. Drunk, I get garrulous, and embarrassing details begin to appear in the tabloids. She reprimands me and I get drunker and more garrulous; eventually she turns me over to her people, who take measures. First I'm judged an unfit father and am forbidden access to the children; then my Gold Card is revoked. In the end, I'm found naked and dead in a motel bathtub, under suspicious circumstances. Arthur Miller, understanding all, attends the funeral. Cost: Lawsuits from bereaved relatives run into the millions. Take a Bow. I write an article for an obscure ethnic quarterly offering Ms. Ciccone my services. She takes no notice. She and Mr. Leon stay together or split up, their baby has a happy life or a miserable on; but whatever happens, every last detail of it is covered in full in the international media. I, meanwhile, continue to write slim, difficult books that receive critical acclaim but sell in the low thousands. Then centuries from now, while preparing a definitive edition of my work as part of the worldwide commemoration of the 500th anniversary of my death, scholars come across a reference in one of my articles to a certain Madonna Ciccone. No one has ever heard of her. Cost: This one's on me. This article first appeared in the magazine Eye-talian. Nino Ricci was born in Leamington, Ontario, to parents from the Molise region of Italy, and completed university studies in Toronto, Montreal, and Florence, Italy. He now lives in Toronto, where he writes full time. He is a past president of the Canadian Centre of International PEN, a writers' human rights organization that works for freedom of expression. His website is www.ninoricci.com. Go to Urban Mozaik Magazine This website: Copyright © 2008 Dream World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved. 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