Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court[1] and waited for vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her[2].
The judge rolled up the sleeves of his black robe.
“You acted like the worst kind of degenerates,” the judge said harshly. The two young men bowed their heads.
The judge went on. “You acted like wild beasts in a jungle and you are fortunate you did not sexually molest[3] that poor girl or I’d put you behind bars[4] for twenty years.” He spoke again.
“But because of your youth, your clean records[5], because of your fine families, I sentence you to three years’ confinement to the penitentiary. Sentence to be suspended[6].”
Only forty years of professional mourning kept the frustration and hatred from showing on Amerigo Bonasera’s face. His beautiful young daughter was still in the hospital with her broken jaw wired together; and now these two animales[7] went free? It had all been a farce. He watched the happy parents around their darling sons. Oh, they were all happy now, they were smiling now.
Out of control, Bonasera shouted, “You will weep as I have wept – I will make you weep as your children make me weep”. A huge bailiff moved quickly to where Bonasera stood. But it was not necessary.
He turned to his wife and told her, “They have made fools of us.” He paused and then made his decision. “For justice we must go on our knees to Don Corleone.”
In a richly decorated Los Angeles hotel suite, Johnny Fontane was as jealously drunk as any ordinary husband. It was four in the morning and he was having drunken fantasies of murdering his wife when she got home. If she ever did come home. It was too late to call his first wife and ask about the kids and he felt funny about calling any of his friends now that his career was going down. He heard finally his wife’s key in the door, but he kept drinking until she walked into the room and stood before him. She was to him so very beautiful, the angelic face, violet eyes, the delicately fragile but perfectly formed body. A hundred million men all over the world were in love with the face of Margot Ashton. And paid to see it on the screen.
“Where the hell were you?” Johnny Fontane asked.
“Out fucking[8],” she said.
He jumped over the cocktail table and grabbed her by the throat. But close up to that magical face, the lovely violet eyes, he lost his anger and became helpless again. She screamed, “Johnny, not in the face, I’m making a picture.”
She was laughing. He punched her in the stomach and she fell to the floor. He fell on top of her. He beat her but he was not hitting her hard enough. He couldn’t. And she was giggling at him. Spread on the floor, she taunted him between giggles. “Come on, stick it in. Stick it in, Johnny, that’s what you really want.”
Johnny Fontane got up. He hated the woman on the floor but her beauty protected her. Margot rolled away, and got to her feet facing him. “Poor Johnny. Goodbye, Johnny.” She walked into the bedroom and he heard her turn the key in the lock.
Johnny sat on the floor with his face in his hands. The humiliating despair overwhelmed him.[9] But as he had learned to survive the jungle of Hollywood, he picked up the phone and called for a car to take him to the airport. There was one person who could save him. He would go back to New York to the one man with the power, the wisdom, he needed and a love he still trusted. His Godfather Corleone.
The baker, Nazorine, still dusty with flour, scowled at his wife, his daughter, Katherine, and his baker’s helper, Enzo. Enzo was one of the many thousands of Italian Army prisoners allowed daily to work in the American economy but he lived in constant fear that he would be sent back to Italy. Nazorine asked fiercely, “Have you dishonored my family? Have you given my daughter a little package to remember you by now that the war is over and you know America will kick your ass back to your village full of shit in Sicily[10]?”
Enzo, a very short, strongly built boy, put his hand over his heart and said almost in tears, “Padrone[11], I swear by the Holy Virgin I have never taken advantage of your kindness[12]. I love your daughter with all respect and I ask for her hand. But if they send me back to Italy I can never come back to America. I will never be able to marry Katherine.”
Katherine was weeping. “I’ll go and live in Italy,” she screamed at her father. “I’ll run away if you don’t keep Enzo here.”
Nazorine glanced at her. She was a “hot number[13]” this daughter of his. He had seen her brush her buttocks against Enzo’s front. The young man’s hot loaf would soon be in her oven, Nazorine thought. Enzo must be kept in America and be made an American citizen. And there was only one man who could arrange such an afaf ir. The Godfather. Don Corleone.
All of these people and many others received invitations to the wedding of Miss Constanzia Corleone, to be celebrated in August 1945. The father of the bride, Don Vito Corleone, never forgot his old friends and neighbors though he himself now lived in a huge house on Long Island. The reception would be held in that house and the festivities would go on all day. There was no doubt it would be a great occasion. The war with the Japanese had just ended so there would not be any fear for their sons fighting in the Army. A wedding was just what people needed to show their joy.
