As far as I know, the only time I’ve ever been captured on film, or tape anyway, was in my friend Jim Capano’s professionally-produced wedding video, titled Testament of Love, which I saw one evening at Jim and Janet’s, the three of us sitting on their brand new couch, me in the middle. It was grueling, almost two hours, but Jim kept replacing my beer and I kept finding appropriate things to say:
—What a great shot of the two of you, huh?
—Now that is one cute little flower girl.
—Boy, Janet, your dad is really tall.
—Look … at that … cake.
—Hey, that guy can dance!
It was finally almost over. The reception-hall band had quit, and at a table full of empty glasses, Janet’s burly brother was speaking earnestly to the camera, an arm around his little wife, wishing Jim and Janet “all the happiness in the whole damn world and boy I really mean that.”
Then, suddenly, there I was. As her brother talked on, you could see me in the background at the far end of the room, walking across the empty dance floor in my cheap suit, one hand in my pants pocket, the other holding a bottle of beer.
“Oh, my God,” I said quietly, deeply moved.
“What’s the matter?” Jim asked.
“Nothing. Janet’s brother. He’s really muscular.”
“Yeah, he works out a lot,” she said.
I was gone. I had crossed the floor and was gone.
Janet’s brother went on some more about what a wonderful couple Jim and Janet were, even their first names beginning with the same letter, while I waited for me to walk across the other way. But I didn’t come back. I wondered what I was doing. Probably standing somewhere off by myself, out of the way, just me and my beer.
This was turning out to be one of the saddest movies I had ever seen.
At last the tired happy couple stood waving goodbye, everyone cheering, wishing them all the happiness in the whole damn world. Then fade-out, and across the screen in slender letters: Not The End But The Beginning.
Nodding, nodding, I got up from the couch with tears in my eyes: “‘Not the end but the beginning,’ that’s really … I like that.”
Jim and Janet were touched by how touched I was. We hugged and said things, and I got the hell out of there.