There was an atmosphere of fiesta sweeping through the team hotel that morning. Acosta arrived down in the canteen for breakfast, his flaxen blonde hair conditioned and flowing like the Grandé Rio itself. His entrance was greeted by whoops and cheers from his team mates. Today was the day that would see the arrival of his fiancé from Spain, the acclaimed flamenco guitaristo Xavier Barratopolipio. He was coming to help finalise things for the grandé wedding this Saturday. By this time on Sunday, Acosta and Xavier would be joined in holy matrimony.
The entire team had spent the whole of the last week preparing for this grandé fiesta. Suarez had been slavishly working on the cake day and night, realising in icing the designs of every team member, the result was the most magnifico fifteen tiered cakio anyone had ever seen. Gilberto the square chested Brazilian centre back had been at the Plac Solny flower market for the last two days meticulously selecting the flowers for the stupendo arrangements that were to take pride of place on the wedding tables. The club capitano Aromga had taken Acosta yesterday to the famed tailor of Turin, Albarinio della stylistico who had just opened a new flagship store in the big shopping centro called “Renoma”. Where they picked up the most beautiful deep blue woollen suit ever to have been spun, by an Italian craftsmen. All training had been suspended until after the wedding, to allow everyone time to make the necessary preparations.
Myself and Veron (the elder statesmen of the team) were charged with organizing the food for the fiesta, 3 whole suckling pigleto’s and the Grandé est Risotto per Rio ever made. After the Aromga incident on the Tumski bridge, I had decided to take the responsibility of locating the risotto rice myself. So accompanied by 4 Rio Grande secreto sevisio agents and an armoured bicycle I set out to purchase 263 kilos of Del d’oro carnaroli rice. The armoured bicycle seemed to be enough to keep the ape like pierogi agents at bay and I returned home with all 263 kilos intact. Meanwhile Veron had returned from the Halla Targova with 145 kilos of Ceps and girolles, 121 red shallots, 24 heads of garlico and 33 bunches of parsley, not to mention a 32 kilo block of parmigiano reggiano mega marmo cheese.We wasted no time on getting to work on this produce in the hotel kitchen, where even the local chefs had joined in the fiesta spirit and offered their help for free. Everything was going swimmingly until something happened that like a rain cloud, dampened the wedding fever.
Suddenly Acosta burst into the hotel lobby, his eyes flowing with tears, like the Rio Grandé during the rainy season. A few seconds after followed Xavier with a face like a mountain thunder cloud, he picked up the first thing that was to hand, which unfortunately was his 19th century hand crafted Spanish guitar from the hills of Grenada. He hurled it onto the marble floor of the lobby the centuries old wood splintering into thousands of tiny pieces, then without a word stormed up the stairs. It took several minutes of consoling Acosta, until me and the rest of the now worried looking team ( who had crowded around) to find out what had caused this great upset.
He told me that he and Xavier had decided to take a walk around the city as it had been such a beautiful day. They had walked through the parks, alongside the Odra river underneath avenues of Hanging green trees, watching the sun glinting off the river in wonder. As they walked Acosta told us that the air had felt heavy with the love Xavier and he felt for each other. After a few hours they had found an enchanted spot underneath a weeping willow, on one of the city’s many islands and it was here where Xavier had serenaded him with a song by the famoso singer Charvella Vargas. It was as Acosta himself put it, the most beautiful day he had ever known. The story of this love affair had already bought tears to the eyes of Gonzalo the huge Argentinian defender. Acosta continued the story. As they were walking back over the Mlynskie bridge hand in hand and drunk with love an ugly incident had occurred. A group of young men had started to laugh and jeer at the sight of these two beautiful human beings walking hand in hand. They had then proceeded to chase Xavier and Acosta all the time hurling the vilest abuse at the young lovers, so vile I dare not even repeat the words on these pages. On hearing this outrage, Gonzalo clenched his fists then cracked his huge hands together, we could all see the anger starting to swell in his chest, he was fond of young Acosta, well we all were but Gonzalo had been the young man’s mentor ever since the blonde, blue eyed footballing ingénue had arrived at the club. “I weeel kill them” he roared and marched off. Acosta wnet upstairs to check on his grande amore Xavier and as the rest of the team and I were left standing in the lobby, a sad silence engulfed us all.
Later that evening, when everyone’s mood had cheered a little we all set off to watch the Grandissimo fireworks display that had been arranged in their honour by the European Union. The fireworks lit up the river and sparkled in the sky, we all danced and whooped, the joyful fiesta spirit had returned. Afterwards in a tiny bar on Sweska street Xavier gave a wonderful impromptu flamenco performance, ably accompanied by a band of Gypsy musicians, the people in the bar danced and cheered with every note that Xavier masterfully strummed. Acosta stood on a table in the centre of the packed room and as loud as he could manage, so he would be heard above the music, announced to the locals that on Saturday he and Acosta would be wed and he would like it very much if they could all attend. Everyone cheered, clapped and whooped and said it would be an honour. The gypsy band even promised to play at the wedding. “Viva Acosta” “Viva Xavier” Viva Rio Grandé” “Viva Amore” the shouts echoed out of the bar and across the square. It must have been very late by the time we finally stumbled out of the bar, a number of the players, Gonzalo in particular were rather drunk. Acosta and Xavier skipped on ahead of us hand in hand down the now empty Sweska Street.
We crossed the road at the bridge then headed towards the tram stop, but as we turned the corner we were confronted by a group of tattooed, shaved headed and angry looking men. They had noticed Xavier and Acosta standing there hand and hand and within a second they were menacingly moving toward the young lovers. Xavier and Acosta were frozen with fear but just as the men approached, the huge frame of Gonzalo was suddenly stood in the way. He grabbed the biggest thug by the collar and started to drag him towards the rusty tram tracks, the other tattooed apes tried to release their friend from Gonzalo’s grip, but he just flicked them aside as if they were no more than tiny mosquitos. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the rumbling of an approaching tram and seeing the anger that was flashed across Gonzalo’s eyes now, I have to say I feared the worst. As the trams lights came closer, Gonzalo flung the thug onto the track, he couldn’t moved he just lay there moaning as Gonzalo stood over him and the tram drew nearer. “Gonzalito please he is not worth it” screamed Acosta but Gonzalo could not hear him over the now deafening noise of the rapidly advancing tram. We all just stood there looking on in horror as the blinding headlights seemed to be upon them now, then at the last second with one massive tug, Gonzalo pulled the prostrate thug away from the tracks. Long abandoned by his gang the thug finally got to his feet, whimpering and looking down at his soiled blue jeans, he began to cry before stumbling off into the night. Gonzalo just stood there in the middle of the road, looking up at the stars in the sky before like some strange creature he howled at the top of his voice “Viva Acosta” “Viva Rio Grandé”.
No one spoke a word on the journey back to the hotel, but part of us all felt a sense of pride, a sense of pride in Gonzalo and the spirit and values of Rio Grande that were embodied in that giant frame of his.
The following morning, I could hear a frantic knocking on my bedroom door, when I opened it I was greeted by Acosta, his eyes were all red and puffy and he was clutching some sort of letter in his hand. I took it out of his quivering hand; the postal seal was from the church that we had booked for the wedding, I could tell from Acosta’s face that inside this letter contained no news that could be deemed as good. I read it out.
Dear Sirs,
We regrettably have to inform you, that it has been drawn to our attention that the booking made for the wedding this coming Saturday, was to be for a same sex marriage. I am afraid this is something we cannot sanction as it would contravene the laws of the church and therefore indirectly God.
Kind regards
Father B Zealoto
All I could do to calm Acosta down was to tell him not to fret and this was a small problem that I was sure could easily be resolved and that I would take care of the matter. I was however to be totally honest, unsure how I should proceed in rectifying this matter, so I sought the counsel of Gargagno, the Rio Grandé player with the most knowledge on matters of a spiritual nature. Now it would be worth noting here, that in Rio Grandé for many years now the church has recognised the sanctity of love regardless of Colour, creed or sex, so I really had very little experience of dealing with problems of a ecclesiastical nature. I found Gargagno looking at butterflies in the hotel courtyard and explained to him the situation. He pondered the matter for a few moments, before telling me that he would have to seek advice from someone else first and that tomorrow morning we would go to the church together and meet this Father B Zealoto.
So the following morning Gargagno and I set out for the cathedral, armed with a letter that gargagno had procured form the highest echelons of the Church of Rio Grande. On arriving at the cathedral we were met by a pleasant young priest, who told us that although he sympathised with the young couple’s situation, his superior at this church was of a rather evangelical bent and that he was sure we would have little success in getting father Zealoto to have a sudden change of heart. Gargagno seemed undeterred by this and asked the young man if we could see father Zealoto anyway? The young man agreed and we were led further into the cathedral, where the young man introduced us to a rather gruff and bad tempered looking man “May I present Father Zealoto” before swiftly excusing himself, leaving just the three of us standing there at the vestry. I carefully explained the situation as delicately as possible. Father Zealoto seemed unimpressed and just said “that there are, much to his own displeasure, places where people like them could have some sort of barbaric ceremony, but never in his church” Now I felt a rage swelling in me “people like them?” how dare he, I was about to challenge him, when I felt Gargagno gently touch my arm. He stepped forward and spoke in a very low voice to the priest. He explained that he had not had a chance since leaving Rio Grandé to take confession until now and that it would be an honour for him if the father would take his confession. Off they went to the confession box, leaving me all alone in the empty cathedral. I looked up at the stained glassed windows and asked God, how was I going to bear to break Acosta’s heart by telling him the wedding was off?
After a few minutes I started to here yelps and moans coming from the far end of the cathedral, the yelps seemed to get louder and louder, then suddenly everything was silent. Ten minutes later Gargagno and Father Zealoto returned, the priest seemed to be rubbing his arm and wincing with pain. He walked up to me smiling wanly and said “it would be my honour to hold the ceremony on Saturday to join these two fine young men in holy matrimony” and with those parting words he turned away and walked back towards the other end of the cathedral. I shouted after him thanking him for his kindness but got no reply. As we walked back to the hotel to give Acosta and Xavier the good news, I turned to Gargagno “How an earth did you manage to make him change his mind” Gargagno smiled and just said “ I had to twist his arm”
The wedding was back on Olé
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