The night of the wine-tasting party finally arrived. He had not told anyone about the name or flavor of the wine, as he wanted to reveal everything to everyone all at once. Everyone was dressed to the nines. Bunny wore a red wrap dress that highlighted her curves perfectly. Red had always been Bunny’s best color, as it made her skin tone glow. John wore his best suit and loafers, remaining faithful to his Rude Boy roots. John’s and Bunny’s friends attended. Some of her old coworkers from the Playboy Club were also there. John invited all the new business associates he had brought in as partners for the New Chimera Group. These new allies consisted of Wall Street investment bankers, lawyers, risk arbitragers, and those who were involved in corporate raiding. John had officially exited the Mafia game for now.
He held the get-together at his old stomping grounds at P. J. Clarke’s. The bar was still as he remembered it. Had it not been for this place and his poor drunken unawareness, he would never have met Bunny. His corporate partners had powerful connections, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who would bring John Jr. and Caroline for lunch on Saturdays. She also attended the get-together. Attendants dressed all in white were serving the guests, and hired orchestra players entertained in the background.
Everyone eagerly awaited the reveal. When they pulled the curtain, two giant six-by-four-foot cardboard posters with the silhouette logo stood beside a beautiful display table full of dark wine bottles, elegant table napkins, and ornate large wine glasses. A backdrop that displayed the full logo, “BunnyWine, An Intoxicating Concoction by Chimera,” stood behind it all. The bottles were black with a sparkly fourteen-karat-gold wrapping at the top. The label was also black, but Bunny’s silhouette was outlined in fourteen-karat gold, as was the writing on the label.
Everyone commented on how beautiful the entire setup was. Bunny was surprised and happy. She’d had no idea that John had been working on this for all of this time. John turned to her and said, “I wanted to get this right. You inspired all of it,” he said.
“Is that me?” Bunny asked as she looked over at the poster.
“Yes, it is,” he answered.
“I’m all flustered. Thank you.” Bunny smiled and kissed him.
The guests began drinking the wine, and it was an instant hit. They had never tasted anything like it before. It was fruity and spicy at the same time. John reveled in the positive feedback from the crowd. Many of them inquired about buying crates and barrels of this from him. Bunny took a sip and asked John how he came up with it. She thought it was great and familiar, but she could not put her finger on it. John began to blush a little. He did not want to tell her then. He told her that he would explain it when they returned home. She pressed on about it in a playful way. He finally told her, “Now I understand your obsession with consuming fruit, and I enjoy drinking you.”
It took her a few seconds to derive a conclusion. Bunny’s mouth fell open, and she turned red, almost the same color as her dress. She was tasting herself, and so was everyone in the room. She did a once-over glance around the room and saw everyone drinking glass after glass. She looked at her flute and thought, I am drinking my own orgasm. He leaned down and kissed her. He walked away and went about chatting with the other guests. She stood there, took a deep breath, and thought to herself, Damn, I’m fantastic. I had no idea. She shrugged and continued to drink up.
When Bunny and John made it home after the successful evening, John wanted to lie down and talk with her. They sat in the bedroom together and relaxed. He had some things to say to her. He told her that this was one of the best days of his life and that none of it would have happened without her being there and saving his life in the beginning. The only thing that would make him happier right now was if she would accept his ring. John pulled from his pocket a box that he had been carrying around with him for the entire time since he bought it. He had thought to propose to her many times before, but he wanted everything to be right and for both of them to be in a good mood when he did it. Bunny wanted to cry. This brought her back to when they first started dating, and she dreamed of his proposal. She said yes. Both of them called their parents.
Getting everything ready for the move and setting up the plans for the winery took almost a year. During that time, John and Bunny remained in Yonkers. Bunny was not familiar with Yonkers, but she had some knowledge about the public housing there. She knew they had all the black residents segregated in a small section of Runyon Heights. Their house stood at the edge of the Homefield neighborhood. Bernie had owned this home but rarely used it. He’d bought it as a safe house just in case he needed to leave the city or had business in Westchester. When he died, he left it to John. John never told the neighbors that he now owned the property; he just said he was housesitting for the time being. The Homefield Neighborhood Association did not care for black residents in their part of town. They maintained a four-foot strip of land as a barrier between the streets of the two sections. They used this to make clear to the minorities in the area that they should not cross into the neighborhood. Celia could not wait to get out of there.
John organized several meetings with his partners in the New Chimera Group in Midtown to discuss business development plans in Jamaica and Los Angeles, and those were successful. Once he completed those meetings, he decided to forego the cab or car service and walk around for lunch, since the day was beautiful. It had been a while since John was able to walk up and down the streets without fearing for his life. He revisited the café he and the guys used to frequent, which brought back memories. For a brief moment, he became nostalgic and thought about how things would be now if Bernie had not passed away. Would everything be the same? John ordered lunch to bring back home for him and Bunny.
While he was waiting, a woman walked up to John. “Remember me?” she asked with a big smile. “I waited for you to call, but you didn’t.” She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. John looked at her in utter confusion. Was she a client? Was she a plant? How did she know him? He could not place her. “You look different with the shorter hair, but you are still handsome,” she told him. “I had a great time. Maybe we can go out again.” She grabbed John’s hand.
John was uneasy; he did not want to be seen holding another woman’s hand. In his mind, you never knew who was looking. Bunny had taught him this. He felt guilty about not remembering who she is. He had to get more information from this woman. His photographic memory was failing him for the first time. He started fishing for information. He did not want to seem like a jerk and outright tell her that he did not know her. He remained polite. “Refresh my memory. I am having an off day,” he said to her.
“The bar, your place, we had a good time,” she said while smiling. “I’m Jeanie.” John stood there and just nodded.
They’d had contact before. She and John met during one of his trips to the many bars in New York City. They had sex the same night they met. He showed her a good time and promised to keep in contact with her, but he never did. He had forgotten about the encounter by the next morning. “It’s good that I saw you here. I’ve been working down the street at the department store for a while. I’m on lunch break,” she told him.
John finally decided to answer her. “That’s great. Your name is Jeanie.”
With more excitement, Jeanie told him, “I have the same number, but if you lost it, here it is. Call me tonight. I will be home.” She took a pen and a piece of paper from her pocketbook and wrote her number on it. She handed it to him and kissed him again on the cheek. “I have to go,” she said, and she walked off, leaving John standing there.
He looked at the paper. He balled it up and tossed it in the wastebasket near the street. He took off his blazer, rolled one of the sleeves inside out, and wiped his face with it to make sure she had not left any lipstick on his face. He looked at it afterward and tossed the blazer in the wastebasket too. He walked off. When it came to business, John was sharp. When it came to women, they were a blur. How many more blurs were out there? It was only a
matter of time before this happened again. How would he explain a random woman’s approach to Bunny if they were out? Too much of his past was still there, lingering and trying to catch up with him.
In the meantime, he and Bunny made several trips to and from Jamaica to get their affairs in order. She introduced him to her extended family, and John fell in love with the area. She decided once she settled there she would continue her education in music, and she had donated money to one of the schools. She hoped to become a music teacher and start a family once she finished her studies. John planned to open a winery there and become the business contact for the changing economy in Jamaica. The members of the New Chimera Group were spread in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Jamaica. He wanted to woo businesses back into Jamaica so that the country could build wealth again. John and Bunny celebrated their first Thanksgiving and Christmas as a real couple, as well as their birthdays and all events in between. Everything remained quiet, but by the end of August 1974, New York and the rest of the country were changing for the worse, and both of them felt it was time to leave.
John contracted the Jet Mafia to remain as security for him and Bunny until they officially left for Jamaica. John passed them all of his contacts from his dealings in Chimera’s old days. This enabled them to grow in areas such as the Bronx, Harlem, and Brooklyn. Many of the Jet Mafia were affiliated with the Black Panthers, and their growing influence in these areas helped them build wealth due to the booming drug trade. The Jet Mafia was able to succeed because law enforcement had a tough time finding people who would testify against them or report their illegal activities.
This was John’s thank-you for their service. The Jet Mafia’s influence in Atlantic City and Philadelphia had dwindled somewhat because of the increased pressure from the FBI, due to their hits on rivals and their involvement in the drug trade. They were also misusing government grants that were meant to rebuild their communities. Some of them had already branched out in New York City and parts of Delaware thanks to John, and they began dealing with other crime families. They had virtually moved into the Mafia ranks in New York City.
John and Celia were ready to head out of New York City for the last time. They had a late-night flight to Miami for the connecting flight to Jamaica in the morning. They decided to sell the house in Yonkers. The day was warm and beautiful, but the atmosphere in the city and the country was tense. Celia was packing her things and going through the clothes that she wanted to keep. She had retrieved the remainder of her items from Rose’s apartment. While packing, she located her suits from the Playboy Club. She had not worn them since she left, and her curiosity got to her. The launch of BunnyWine inspired her, and she decided to see if she could still fit in them. She took out the black suit and put it on. She added the ears, tail, collar, bow tie, and heels. She located the ribbon with her name on it and pinned it on. She looked in the mirror and said to herself, I still got it. Celia did not know that John was standing in the doorway watching her check herself out. She had a smile on her face. Seeing Bunny in her suit for the first time in years, outside of photographs, made him happy. John made a slight noise, and Bunny looked over to him. She smiled back.
“Bunny…” he said. She walked over to him and asked if he wanted her to bring him a drink. She went and poured both of them drinks in a couple of glasses they had not packed yet. She brought over the drinks and stood next to him. “Are you allowed to do this? I mean, I don’t want you to get in trouble,” he asked her with a grin.
Bunny laughed. “No one’s looking,” she said. He put his hand on her butt, right under her tail. This time, she did not move it away. He leaned over to kiss her. They kissed each other with the wine glasses in their hands. He unzipped the back of the costume.
Later on, by the time they made it to the airport to catch their flight, the rumors were flying from earlier in the day that Richard Nixon had decided to resign his position as president of the United States. They sat in Kennedy Airport following the news like everyone else. An air of uncertainty lingered in the atmosphere as many people around them had conversations about what was going to happen to the country. John and Bunny felt good about their decision to leave and start a new life. For a moment, she was sad that she was leaving home for good. She was going to take everything she had learned from growing up as a native New Yorker and apply it to the rest of her life in Jamaica.
Celia had her hair pinned up with a white flower in the back. She wore an airy white slip dress, as the weather outside that evening was warm but breezy. There was not a cloud in the sky. John had on a white shirt and tan pants with sandals. Celia’s mother was dressed in her church whites. John’s mother and brother, along with his brother’s wife and kids, were there. They had never had the opportunity to travel outside the Gulf area before. Mariana and the baby also joined them. Both John and Bunny wanted her to be there. Rose came in from New York, as Bunny’s maid of honor.
Rose was happy that Celia was happy, but on the inside she felt that her friend was making a mistake. Rose didn’t think that John was marriage material. She felt that he was poison to Celia, a bad influence. Rose would never tell Celia this, but she vowed to continue to support her friend in case she was needed.
Bunny’s father and her half siblings also joined her. John and Bunny’s father, Arthur Jones, appeared to be getting along just fine. Arthur walked her down the aisle. John’s associates came down from New York and Los Angeles. John paid everyone’s expenses to fly out and join them for the wedding. Bunny’s local Jamaican relatives attended.
That day was special. They were back at the Playboy Hotel in Ocho Rios. They rented the entire eight-hundred-foot beachfront for themselves and had the family celebration fully catered. This was their wedding day, and no one from either family wanted to miss it. Bunny found Karlus when she returned, and he agreed to officiate their ceremony. They wanted the traditional vows because their parents were in attendance. They had not known how the relatives would react to each other since this was the first time the entire family was getting together.
Agnes looked at John while the couple stood there in front of Karlus. She had not had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him. Agnes only knew what Celia had told her and what she had read about him in the papers or heard in the general gossip on the street. Some of the talks were not favorable; it mentioned his promiscuity. John reminded her of her ex-husband. Both were broad, handsome, fiery, arrogant, and full of swagger. Agnes thought to herself, My God, she is marrying her father.
Karlus read a Bible verse. He then blessed the rings, and the couple exchanged them. They said their traditional vows, and then Karlus read another prayer and they lit a unity candle. Once they finished, the officiant announced them, man and wife. He permitted John to kiss the bride. For the first time in his life, John felt sure of everything and knew that everything would be okay. He had lifted her veil before he kissed her. Everyone cheered and celebrated for the rest of the evening, and they all enjoyed the sunset.
John and Bunny broke away from the festivities. They had one more important part of the night to complete. They had another ceremony, just him, her, and a witness. The witness was his business partner from Chicago. John and Bunny pricked each other’s finger with a pin and held a picture at both ends with their pricked fingers. Blood from both of them spotted the edges of the photo. The snap was one of the pictures of the both of them taken with his old camera when she worked at the Playboy Club. The witness lit the picture with one of the candles on the side, and both of them held it as it burned.
John and Bunny spoke together. “If I betray you, may I burn as I do in the photo. If we betray each other, we will both perish.” They grasped the picture until they could not hold it anymore. The picture dropped to the ground between them, and they watched it burn in a small fire until it curled and then turned into ash.
John said to Bunny, “At ease, rude girl.” He kissed her as the smoke from the paper seeped up between them.
&
nbsp; AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Writer Victoria Bolton lives in New York. A graduate of the College of Westchester, she works as a computer technician in schools and as a part-time actress. Bolton previously released the book Looking for Mr. Potential under the pen name La’Ketta T. Bolton in 2000.
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