Pick-up trucks lined the newly snow plowed church parking lot, and it seemed like only the howling dogs were missing. Near the church entrance I spied my roommate Jason, pacing, while placing a firm finger on one nostril and blowing with force -- freeing him from any unsightly scenes.
"Dude. You made it," said Jason, running his hands over his collarless white dress shirt beneath his tux jacket. A big fancy looking button took the place of a bow tie. The shirt sleeves looked big enough to house a flock of white doves. All he was missing was the stovepipe hat.
"You gonna pull a rabbit out?" I asked.
"No. A Houdini," Jason said, flashing me the same crooked grin as he had three weeks ago, when he announced that he was getting married. It was then that Jason had sat sprawled out on the well-worn brown arm chair in our apartment, shirtless, his little dot nipple protruding. The off key flickering of a ball game had danced on the surface of the coffee table Jason had uncovered amongst a curbside refuse. His dark socked feet had rested on it. Jason's pants were next to the chair in a heap, an empty beer bottle had lain on top. It was then -- three weeks ago that he had informed me of the news, hoping that he could bask in the glow of my approval, together we could dance -- in exhilaration-at what lie ahead for him.
"I'm getting married," Jason had said.
"It might not be yours," I said, my forehead kneading up.
"Dude. That's what they said at work. She's not," he said.
"Well, then...," I said, as I looked for words while noticing a small scale cartoon battle was being waged on Jason's boxers. Troops were being dispatched from the right outspread leg to duke it out with forces from the left leg. The patch of land in the middle where the skirmish would commence, a gaping, button-less, flap poorly camouflaged a very small, private hand canon.
My eyes darted to the ceiling.
"Er, um, where, where, ah -- when is this going to happen?" I croaked.
Reaching for what I assumed was the remote, Jason's hand changed course and disappeared in the space between the troops, to what I hoped was merely a peacekeeping mission. He scratched with a fury all the time considering my question.
"The Saturday before Christmas," Jason had then declared, giving his head a final rub. That was three weeks away. Three weeks.
That day was now today.
I now stood outside the church foyer, cringing as a brisk gust of snow whipped at my cheek. Jason tucked his hand into the waist band of his tux pants fidgeting, exhaling in gasps as if he were readjusting an adhesive bandage that smothered his torso. I swear: I once saw Jason wade through a foot deep snow drift to our ground level patio, pry open the sliding glass door and immediately take down his pants. Like an over eager child with all thumbs, he grunted, and tugged on the pant legs, shaking them like he was ridding himself of a python, until they emerged over his work boots. This was Jason's custom after finishing a day's work delivering Coca-Cola. Regardless of weather conditions or the stamina of other's corneas, Jason could not relax while bearing the burden of pants. Intervention rarely made a difference, but it seemed that today with the wedding ceremony about to begin he would have to wait. I patted Jason on the shoulder, wished him luck, and entered the church.
It seems with every couple under the age of twenty-five that I know that has been recently married, there seems to be a decisive moment -- a moment of clarity -- clouds part, a light goes on, something screams out to them this is the one. Having lived with people who were going to get married I had heard the rapid mattress thumping as this thought pattern grew louder. Bright beams of light emerged from behind clouds as thoughts of burnt toast, nuns in heat, were racing through Jason's mind as he tried to keep control over his member. Having accidentally walked in on what I presume to be the preliminary discussion of this union between Jason and Julia -- which took place in loud, hasty sentences grunted on my sofa bed -- I noticed there was a lot of sweating over this life changing decision. Later, when I asked Jason really why he was going to marry her, he replied: "Why wait? We're going to do it anyway." Their reasoning had a lot to do with the fact that Julia's parents had without warning decided to move from Wisconsin to California. This meant that if Julia stayed, she'd need a place bigger than a dorm room for her things. And naturally, marriage was a more practical option than renting a storage garage near the highway.
Inside, I took a seat just in time. Music started to play and as people marched down the aisle. Julia, glowing in her sleeveless white gown and veil looked every bit the part of the bride. She looked incredible. As she got nearer, I noticed the tattoo on her right shoulder, a heart with an arrow through it. I had seen it plenty of times before; only as she passed I had the chance to see the large word inscribed. It read: Jessie, not Jason. Across the aisle I recognized Jessie; his hair was now a great deal shorter than in the pictures I had seen in Julia's photo album. Jessie sat there sobbing. He was one of the three ex-boyfriends that Julia had wanted to invite to the wedding. One, however, was the number that was allotted begrudgingly by Jason; I was called upon to pick which one. Up until he got the invitation Jessie still thought he had a chance to get back with her. After receiving the invite he cried for three days. This was just one example of how I had become part of the wedding coordination. At the same time I was also producing a short film and the lines between both regularly blurred. Weddings are by nature a cinematic undertaking. Whether making a student film or engaging in that walk down the aisle it is hard to find an audience beyond your six closest family members to truly support what you are trying to create. I'm like most people -- at weddings I'm there for the food and the chance to snicker, hoping if I can't take home a drunken bridesmaid, maybe I'll at least have witnessed the beginning of a great fiasco.
One of the things that I enjoyed most about the potential of a wedding was that by living amongst the newlyweds I would also benefit from their presents. Our place wasn't equipped with a smoke detector so I got them the Ultimate Smoke Alarm -- the allegedly most technologically advanced. It had exclusive remote control capacities, temporary "Snooze" feature, and a microprocessor that minimizes the hassle of non emergency alarms. It was a present that seemed disaster proof. I mean, this smoke detector offered ultimate convenience, maximum protection, and nuisance resistance. Two weeks after it was out of the package, it shorted out and started itself on fire. Just like before any other freak occurrence there are omens. Three became a big number early in the relationship of Jason and Julia. Consider: They had met three days after she had turned eighteen. While there had been other girls that night subjected to Jason's spastic pelvic thrusts and crazed high pitched whoops, it had taken only three tries for him to get Julia's number. And, three days later, after she had broken up with her then boyfriend, Julia called Jason. Now, a mere five months later, a pastor began to recount that very night in the club. It was amidst the poorly realized techno beats of a mixed country song, that a beer buzzed Jason gleamed upon Julia's heavy painted eyes and asked: "Are you gonna smoke that?"
Looking at him in amusement, Julia's penciled on eyebrows raised as she examined the cigarette dangling between two of her precisely manicured nails.
"Yeah?" Julia said. Jason then gave her a gruesome account of the lasting effects that this vile habit had in handicapping his step-father.
"One day...just, it was just fucking gone... Just like that. He couldn' even smell his own shit."
Not long after their initial conversation, Julia spotted Jason grinding on April, Julia's best friend. In the minister's far more inventive retelling, April (the maid of honor) will be held solely responsible for directing these two preordained misfits to each other. One might be left to ask the question of how April managed to supersede and redirect fate, she answered much later that night in her toast as she fought the losing battle of keeping her right breast tucked into her dress. "I saw Julia and she was just like: Ohmagawd, this Jason guy, he's so... So... I just wanted to get me somma' that too, you know, a taste. To, you know, make sure it was good enough for my girl Julia," April said, without a bit of remorse. Throughout the reception, I tried to examine the minute details that were really at the heart of any arguments about the wedding. As though it mattered to anybody other than Jason and Julia, everyone seemed to express what they wanted this event to be, but few had been willing to contribute any money. They felt no matter how much money was spread all over this ceremony, nothing beautiful would come from it. The lack of funds forced the reception to be held in the basement of the church. Its low ceiling forced most people to stand hunched, encouraging them to examine their shoelaces instead of mingle. No matter how many family members shook their heads, it was felt that the ideals behind this merger of two lives were never going to grow bigger than itself. It wasn't a collaboration of families, but perhaps an awkward drop off -- each side hoping the other wouldn't see the way their tail dragged between their legs. Once, when Jason's grandma called to offer music selections she quizzed me, "So. There haven't been any cravings...? Any early morning runs to the facilities? You know, any...?" "No, ma'am. I have noticed the toilet seat is down more. I think Jason's started sitting to pee," I said.
"You know life isn't short, it's long -- especially if you make the wrong decision," she said.
"I'll let him know," I said, nodding as I wrote it down, underlining, annotating, and paraphrasing as I went along. That's how it works. Whenever someone young is about to make a change in their life, whether big or small, unsolicited advice appears in multitude. The pragmatic is preached to sooth the passion.
A few weeks prior to the wedding, Jason's father, Dale, called and spoke to Jason quickly, to insist that they serve beef tips and not chicken. Dale stated that he ain't--under any circumstances--coming back to Wisconsin to eat none a' that poultry. He was a beefeater damnit. Whenever Dale and Jason spoke on the phone, Jason cleansed his palate with a beer immediately after. What promised to be Dale's first arrival back in Wisconsin was a momentous occasion for a number of reasons. First of all, after he divorced Jason's mom, Dale left the state in lieu of child support payments. There were a number of Jason's mother's relatives who were hoping to pay him back in contusions. Also, Jason hadn't seen Dale since he left, and that had been nearly eight years ago. After this particular phone conversation with Dale, Jason seemed more bothered than usual.
"You know what he said?" Jason asked.
"Hmm, you have another brother and sister somewhere in Atlanta," I said, thinking that I was quite the wit. A cheap shot, because about a month earlier Jason had gotten a phone call from two skittish boys who asked if Dale was his father. They said that they were Jason's half brothers and lived in Alabama. We split a case after that phone call.
"He told me, this, this thing I think was suppose to be some kind a joke or something. He goes: 'This salesman's car gets stuck out in the country, near this farm. The salesman, he goes and asks the farmer if he can, like, stay or something, cause it's late. And the farmer says, "Sure. I've got this barn." So he takes him out back and shows him the barn and he tells him, "Whatever you do just don't stick your dick in these three holes in the side of the barn." The salesman, he looks at him funny and says, well, sure. The farmer leaves and he goes to sleep in the hay. The salesman has a hard time, sleeping. You know, he kept having dreams. Weird shit, you know? He wakes up and he looks at the holes and for some reason he just has to -- so he sticks his dick in the first one. It feels really good. Then he goes over to the second one and it feels even better. The salesman, you know, he's, he's all excited because with everyone it keeps getting better and better, so he goes over to the third one and shoves his dick in it and he starts screaming in pain. The next morning the farmer sees him stuck in the last hole. The farmer says to him, "I told you, I told you, not to do that. Behind the first hole, that was my wife, behind the second one was my young daughter, and that hole you got your dick in-that's the milker it'll keep tugging and pulling 'til you're dry."
All I could do was look at Jason.
"Why couldn't he just say he was happy for me?" Jason said.
The highlight of the reception might have been when the D.J. with the mustache and mullet had finally given up chasing Grant, Julia's older brother, as he slurred his toast into the mike. Most of us had finished choking down our fried chicken and steak fries so we were forced to listen without the pleasure of a distraction. Grant spoke fondly of the times as children when he and Julia use to bath together, smoked their first joint together and referred to, I think, the times he, Julia and Jason will share together in the future, or something. I can't recall. I was too busy trying to reassemble my plastic champagne glass, which had come undone from its base when I had joined the crowd in hitting it with my plastic Spork. The solemn crowd eased itself into celebration, dancing as if more preoccupied with the room's structural limitations than letting go. One couple in the middle stood out, moving with an almost inept unison. It was a cousin of Jason's who had Down syndrome as did the girl he was dancing with. In a cautious, measured slowness they leaned forward and began to kiss, oblivious to the low hanging ceiling tiles. Maybe it was the length of time, the lack of apparent breathing taking place, the certain placement of hands clutching and clawing at flesh, or because in a few minutes the floor was needed so Jason could take off Julia's garter with his teeth that amplified the mutters of disapproval. "Should -- do you think we should make them stop?" I overheard Jason's grandma saying to her husband as she clucked her teeth with infinite disapproval and scowled. Jason and Julia's inept decision to marry had only caused eyebrows to rise and rumors to fly. And today they had just performed an act that would determine their future. Somehow, this was less offensive to the family than two mentally challenged cousins getting nasty on the dance floor. Everyone has their own ideas concerning romance and it is rare that reinterpretations are welcome.
Growing up my earliest notions about romance came from movies. Given the right ambiance, the right moment with the right person, I could, as anyone might, prove to be worthy of someone's affections. Back then, in my mind, every real life relationship followed a three-act structure and after getting the girl everything else just faded with my imaginary soundtrack. We all have our image of what love is and isn't. In our own mental movies we are our own stars, we are beautiful, cleaver, and above all desirable to someone. It is the naïvely passionate pursuit of happiness that leads couples down the aisle. One of the things that I've heard a lot of married couple say was that they never imagined everything that came next. The boring, the breathtaking, the heartbreaking, and everything in between that wouldn't keep our attention if we paid to watch. The hard part about going to weddings is being able to tell if what we're seeing is just the beginning of something beautiful or if we're somewhere near the end.
