He’s standing there, calm and collected-the way he’s always stood. “Are you ready?!”, I yell. “Why are you here so early?”, he asks. I’m standing outside his doorway, excited to seem him and for the rest of the day. “Because you’re getting married!!!” I yell. I bust through the door like I own the mother fucking place with Fetty Wap playing from my Jam Box AS LOUD AS THAT FUCKER CAN GO. I do a little dance and he says “No, leave.” He hands me the keys to his red Camero. “Go find my wallet, it’s probably in the CVS parking lot.”.
I see his father before leaving and we reintroduce ourselves to each other before catching up on things. We speak for about a minute. Then he ends the conversation with “May your spiritual soul be blessed, and may peace follow you even more so than ever.”. I’ll see you in ten minutes, I think to myself, a simple I’ll see you soon would have sufficed.
I make a few stops. Starbs for some much needed coffee, a cappuccino extra dry extra hot, and some pressed kale juice for his cute cousin. She’s from California. Its what California gurlz eat for breakfast, and I’m sure she’s also vegetarian for all the morally correct reasons. No luck at cvs. By the time I’ve navigated to McDonald’s, Starbucks, CVS, and then back to his house, an hour has passed-just enough time for me to suit up. I see him with his wallet. It dawns on me that he just wanted me out of his house because he just couldn’t deal with my ADD that early in the morning. It’s kind of like playing hide and seek with a child whom you have no intention of actually finding.
All the groomsmen are at his house dressed and looking sharp in their custom fitted 3-piece Vara Wang tux. I get dressed and they all turn around to give me some privacy except for Mazen-he’s secretly gay. It wouldn’t be weird but that smile on his face makes it so.
“Were suppose to be there no later then 1245!″, Jacob yells. He’s the only Indian I know who’s punctual. Jacob isn’t big and scary, but you listen to him as if it’s your father yelling at you. It’s 1250.
I ride with the groom who now only seems to be a little stressed. So we keep the conversation to bull shit. Hows your job, hows my job, hows your family, hows my family. We know each other too well to keep up this facade. He’s getting married. Lets get real.
“You’re getting married.” I say. “I know” he replies. “We could drive to the airport. Go somewhere warm. Go to a place where cocaine and hookers are an everyday thing. You don’t have to go through with this.”, said by yours truly. Sorry Jess. He looks at his phone and makes a call. “Wait I was just kid-” But I was rudely interrupted. “Jacob do you have the two envelopes I gave you?” he asks.
I realize he’s not nervous about marrying his beautiful bride, the love of his life, the peanut butter to his jelly, the paper to his pen, the turkey to his thanksgiving, the yes in consent. Instead the stress and nerves are for the wedding. Payment for the organist, the donation to the church, the bus details, the photographers, the videographers. Do I have the rings, are all the groomsmen here? We eventually have that conversation about is he ready, is she the right one for him, is this the real deal? His answers are real and genuine, and the more we talk about it the more I realize I’m asking for myself. Am I ready to let him go?
lavaliering: A greek tradition born out of various dating ritual going back to a pre-Penn State era. An actual lavaliere is a necklace with the fraternity’s letters on it. (Dawn M. Kopecki apr 16, 1992). It means you’ve just put your girlfriend equal to or above your fraternity. So we get to tie you to a flag pole, beat you up a little, and throw rotten food at you. I need this moment with him. I hate him and love him.
We get out of the car. He’s standing there, calm and collected-the way he’s always stood. He looks across the top of his car to me. The parking lot is empty, the church is a blur behind him, the air is cold and visible with each breath, and the snow is dancing slowly to the ground. “Are you ready?” he asks. With a smile on my face, a tear in my eye, and a cigarette between my fingers…”No”.
We step into the church. It’s beautiful. I haven’t been to church in years. Theres a lady pinning boutonnieres on the groomsmen’s tux. Once you’ve been pricked by one of these pinnings you’re always nervous of getting pricked again. “I’m nervous.”, I let her know. "You missed dress rehearsal.", she lets me know. I’ve missed the dress rehearsal the night before, and I only suspect she’s the coordinator. She’s short with short, grey, curly hair, and she speaks like a dictator. She refers to me as “Jason, the one who missed the dress rehearsal” when she needs my attention or when she’s introducing me to the players behind the scenes of this wedding. She redirects her attention to the rest of the groomsmen and reminds them about the correct way in which to usher the guest to their prospective seats. I decide not to listen and I go to find the groom.
He’s sitting in what I guess is the VIP section of the church. Theres bottled water (Holy of course), a private restroom, and chairs fit for royalty. He’s sitting in one and honestly he looks like a prime minister. He’s surrounded by photographers, videographers, and some guy who is dressed like the Pope. He really looks like a prime minister. All of these guys care about him in the sense that he’s paid them all to be here. He’s being bombarded by them with questions about ‘nothing important’ or being reminded of ‘nothing important’ stuff that needs to get done. All the while he’s being asking to look this way and put his hand that way. I guess it’ll look good in pictures, videos, and make things run smoothly. I feel like he needs a familiar face, so I stand by him. I stand there next to him like a body guard and try to take care of the little details that are of ‘nothing important’.
He goes to the restroom a couple times. Now he seems nervous, and it doesn’t help that the bride is late. Late like the bell announcing the end of school for the day. He’s nervous he’s going to forget the vows that he’s had to memorize, or that theres something else he’s forgotten. I get this feeling every time I leave home and get on the plane. Or at least I think it’s the same feeling. Again, he’s not nervous about making Jess his wife, or that she might not show up. Although, Im sure it’s crossed his mind. He hands me a sheet of paper.
He tells me, “We weren’t allowed to write our own vows but I’ve written one to her anyways.” The hand writing is that of a doctor, or in his case an NP. It’s the rough draft that he gave to her which makes the writing beautiful. It’s also written in pen so when you read the words you can see what he was thinking. You see the line through words and think that was pretty good. Then you read the words he actually used and think damn, she’s lucky. You can see where he stopped to think and in doing so retraced words evidently making it a bold font. I always thought of love as something shown through actions, not by the words we say or by the letters we write on pages. I was wrong. You can feel it-I felt it.
“Yup” I say and nod my head, because yes would have been too gay. I’m ready for him to get married. “I know”, he says “I’m going to cry” he says almost like he’s asking a question. “It’s ok Jacob will too.”, I reassured him. “Oh I forgot to give it to her.” he says. “What?!” I say a little too loud. “Yeah, so I sent it to her in a picture text. But, I forgot she doesn’t read my texts. So I sent it to my sister and told her to make sure she reads it”, he says calmly. The Pope interrupts.
The Pope in the room attempts to provides some comedic relief. He tells jokes about marriage, however no one is laughing with him. He’s gay, i’m sure, which is odd. The best man shows up, at exactly the right time. I couldn’t listen to another one of the Pope’s jokes.
It’s his younger brother Drew. Like a true older brother the groom puts Drew in a bear hug and Drew gives it right back. The groom takes a step back and takes a looks at him. He looks at him as if he’s raised him, as if they’re not brothers but as if he’s his son. His hands move to straighten out his bow tie and he reminds his younger brother about the proper edict with buttoning a tux. It’s a private moment.
So I turn around and stand by the door and look at the well dressed guess being ushered by the delinquent groomsmen. I call those idiots my friends, I think. I see the old lady with short, curly, gray hair and I watch her hands move in the air as she’s scolding the guys about the proper way to do this and to do that.
We get word that Jess is here. Finally, I think to myself, lets get this show on the road. “She’s not dressed.”, says the videographer. Great, I think, so we’ll wait another half hour. I wish Jacob was at the hotel with them, he would have made sure they were dressed and ready to roll.
I’m in the back of the church with the groomsmen and bridal party. “Thank you Jess”, I accidentally say out loud. But, no one hears me. You would too if you saw the cleavage beautiful dresses Jess has chosen for them.
The old lady with short, grey, curly hair wont stop talking at us. Someone make her stop, I think. We’re all lined up and ready to go. The organ starts. I’m paired with the groom’s sister. We smile as we walk down the isle but we speak to each other about how beautiful she looks, how handsome I look, and how she’s almost done with nursing school. Yet, our conversation ends early because I evidently walked too fast down the isle and now I need to stand with the rest of the groomsmen.
I’m standing next to Jacob and Kurt. “I’ll bet you guys 50 dollars he’s going to cry up there.”, I state having the insider scoop. “A hundred”, they both say. Jacob looks at me and with all seriousness in his father like voice says “Whatever you do don’t stand up when the girls do towards the end of the wedding.”. “Why” I ask. “Because the Nazi lady will literally kill you, literally”. “Haha, no she wont. watch me stand up.” I replay. “Yes she will. She’s told us ‘I will kill you if you stand up when the girls do’.”, he says with fear in his voice like that of a Jew during the Nazi time or is it the Gustpo, Hitler whatever. Then I remember The Holocaust class that the groom and I took together back in our college days. Or should I say skipped together to get drunk at the bar, and by skipped I mean our classmates thought we dropped the class. I still laugh to myself a little to this day when I remember how he wrote my final for me and how I ended up with the better grade than him. He has yet to let go of that.
The bride is walking down the isle, the groom has tears in his eyes. Cash money, I think. It’s not appropriate for me to ask for my money so I watch the father of the bride give his daughter away. Jess’s mother comes up to also give her away. They hug and kiss. Her parents are in tears. Jess is smiling. Jess is ‘The man’ in the relationship, not there are gender roles in marriage anymore but you still understand what I mean. She bullies him. Not in a true abusive sense, but she could if she wanted to even though she’s a third his size. Which, is kind of ironic because she is completely anti-bullying being a teacher and all.
Her brunette hair is pinned up and they’ve given her bangs that fall across the corner of her left eye. It finally lands in a curl by her jawline that bounce with every step she takes. Her eyes are big and brown yet smokey, her lips full and red, her smile is perfect. She’s owning this white strapless dress that hugs her body until it gets down to her thighs then flairs out. It seems as if she’s been taken out of the pages of a bridal magazine. She’s way out of his league. The groom couldn’t do any better even if he tried paying for it.
We all sit down. The Pope starts his sermon in a voice that just screams I’m gay. “You two look so beautiful, can we take a selfie?” he giggles and then skips behind them and literally takes a selfie. The audience starts laughing. “I knew it” I say under my breath. The wedding goes as planned, nothing is missed, the readings were beautiful, the vows were spoken from the heart. No actor could replicate the sincerity in their voice or in the kiss they gave each other that day.
The girls stand up and I attempt to stand up with them but i’m forcibly held down by Jacob. They eventually make their way to us and we all give the two hugs and kisses. The ceremony is over.
We take pictures. We leave the church. We drink. We dance. We take pictures. We repeat the last three for 3 hours or so.
We stop in front of the Detroit Train Station. It’s a popular spot for urban exploring and wedding pictures. Its an old historical building that was designed by the same architects as the Grand Central Station in New York City. It still stands as big and tall as it did in the 90s but on the inside its an empty shell stripped of everything valuable. It brings back memories.
I’m suddenly back in college to where Mazen and I are being arrested for trespassing at this very spot. I then start having flash backs to all the good times I’ve had with the groom and grooms men. The fights, the nights, the drinking, the road trips, the girls we’ve been with, to eventually the first time we’ve meet (ask me about the first time we’ve meet I was convinced they were all gay.)
“Here” someone says, and I snap back to reality. It’s a bottle of fireball. I sit back, I look at each one of the groomsmen, then to the groom, give each a little nod, lift the bottle and say “To the the bride and groom” and throw back the bottle. Everyone yells “cheers” and does the same. I look across from me and we lock eyes for a split second and think, who is she? I look back at the groom he can read my mind so he smiles and winks back at me.
I guess this is the closing of one chapter, and the beginning of the next. I like to think of this part like the ending of The Breakfast Club. In the sense that we will never forget this moment in our lives that we’ve had together, but that we must still go our separate ways. (let the theme song play in your head as you read). So I’ll close my laptop, put in my earphones, and try to get some sleep. I have work 3 hours after landing. Jacob is doing the walk of shame (he’s walking shoeless after returning his tux, ask me for that video). Mazen is driving home with that cheese smile on his face (he has dinner plans with one of the bridesmaid, and he’s found his phone. Also ask me for that make out video). Kurt has 99 problems (don’t ask). The groom has his bride (we got that on video too). This plane has wifi, and I have 96.9 WBTI in my ears…
