But what really tickled me? I split from the group when Jean-René started playin’ mazurkas at Nasty’s, see. I’m walkin’ like I do everywhere and who do I come upon but Lili and her gang in pursuit of some rather corporal night phantoms, a.k.a. hardened con men. Here’s Rose Lynne with her leg demurely wrapped around some would-be Kid Chocolate leanin’ gainst a empty storefront. Next, Bernadette sittin’ on a curb, with her head under some niggah’s armpit. And you know who I’m lookin’ for. But Lollie is busy with Roxie’s spirit, wonderin’ is she up to all this marriage mess? I keep lookin’. I don’t give up easy, you know that, too. At last I can take it easy. Lili and Hyacinthe are singin’ doo-wop songs with Sawyer under a streetlight. Que típica!

Now, the wedding. How about the March on Washington all dressed up and squeezed into a church moved intact from Turin? Awright. Awright. I’m kiddin’, yet there was somethin’ more than spectacular about Lollie’s wedding. I felt as if, and I am not really a part of all this, but I felt as if all the years of yearning and struggling that Lili and Lollie’s people had known were streaming from Lollie’s pores. Lollie, of all people, the tart, the a-intellectual, the sentient, was more beautiful than anyone I’d ever know. At that moment, Lollie was even more lovely than my Liliane. And Granville, who’s not my favorite brother, became before my very eyes the determination of every Moroon, Garveyite, Panther, Zapatista with the grace of Puente, Moré, and Sparrow. Maybe it’s the solemnity of it all. The decision to continue la raza on purpose, for ourselves, not for profit. Tu m’entiendes? Lollie, with her dress of a thousand mantillas and pearls. Granville with his own imported Anglican priest. Quien sabe? The Lord, and S/he is uno de nosotros, moves in maneras increíble, sí? Mi Mami, she always told me that we never know who the spirits hold sacred. Motto: Every negrito soul you ever meet is precious. Claro, que si. Oh I’m gettin’ misty-eyed and I haven’t finished yet. I took a shot of Lollie and Granville lighting a holy candle that forced the mist out of my eyes and down my face like anyone’s tears in the presence of the divine.

I was shaken up after the service, so I wasn’t focusing, but I couldn’t miss Liliane comin’ toward me; her mother, Bliss, runnin’ behind her, a blur, a rush of wanton energy. Liliane a vision of calm and power; éblouissante, as Jean-René would say, of the confusion whirling about Bliss and the new husband, barely in the frame. N’importa.