The Wedding

Lonny and Gigi planned their wedding for the weekend before Thanksgiving, when everyone was sure to be done for the season and back in Gulfy. Gigi even managed to get word to Little Freddy living in Upstate New York, and to Chuck, who had worked the Charlie/Charlene act before I joined up with Midstate.

“I’m telling you this is some guest list,” Gigi said as she jiggled Emmy on her lap. She had a green spiral notebook open in front of her at the kitchen table, next to her coffee cup from breakfast. I turned off the sewing machine to hear Gigi better.

She leaned closer to read me what was written on the paper. “So, that’s Little Freddy and Chuck, and Freddy’s got a woman he lives with, and it’s hard to say who or what Chuck will bring. And there’s Daisy and Ora Ann, who will probably come with her mama, and Ike, and then you got Lonny’s parents and my dad—”

“What?” I spit a pair of straight pins from my mouth. “Your father?” As far as I knew, Gigi hadn’t spoken to him since the day she’d left home at fifteen. “How did you even know how to find him?”

“Huh? Oh, that part was easy. He’s still living right there in that same house, exact same phone number, so alls I had to do was call. I thought about having Jim give me away, and I felt bad, you know? I mean, me and my father never had much to say to each other, but I still never meant to go so many years without talking to him. It’s just, you know, whenever I would think to call him for his birthday or Christmas, I didn’t know what to tell him about what I was doing or how I was getting by. And by then, so much time had passed that it seemed too strange. So, I call him, and he answers, and he says, ‘Well, hello, Jenny. How are you?’ like he only just talked to me yesterday. ‘Dad,’ I told him, ‘everybody calls me Gigi now.’ Then he says, ‘Is that so? I’ll stick with Jenny, thanks.’ Anyway, I told him I was living in Florida and that I was going to get married. He’s going to drive here for the wedding to give me away.”

“From Kansas?” I smoothed the hem of the white fabric on the sewing table. Gigi told me that she had dreamed of being married in a flowing gown with a beautiful lace veil that touched the floor—so I was making exactly that for her.

“Just like that?” Maybe long-standing, thorny issues like that got resolved with understated ease all the time.

“Yup. I told him plain that I traveled a good long while with the carnival. After all that horseshit with Doug, I’m through lying and acting like I done something wrong by earning a living and making my own way. I didn’t want him to be shocked or nothing or waste his time driving, so I said, too, that there’d be a tattooed man and a fat lady and some cootch dancers, and then he interrupts to say he’s going to buy himself a new jacket if that’s the case.”

We both laughed at that. Gigi snarfed the side of Emmy’s neck to make her giggle too. “Do you think that’s funny, little girl?” Gigi asked.

The two of them came over to look at what I was doing. “Your mama’s making me a pretty dress.” Gigi shifted Emmy to the other hip and leaned closer to touch the slippery satin material. “You know, Lo, I been thinking. You ought to do up your maid-of-honor dress in this same fabric but purple instead.”

Gigi jiggled Emmy with the rapid-fire bounces she loved. “Your mama’s a grape,” she sang over and over again, dancing around the room with Emmy.

“Oh, come on, Lo. If I said yellow, you’d complain about looking like a giant lemon. If said red, you’d complain about looking like a giant apple. If I—”

“All right, all right, I get the picture.” Of course, I ended up doing just what she wanted and even made an identical little dress for Emmy.

As it turned out, the tricky part was finding someone to marry Lonny and Gigi. She didn’t want a justice of the peace because she thought that didn’t have the “right feel to it,” but she refused to have the ceremony performed in a church, partly because she claimed to hate all those goddamn hypocrites who had no right to look down on her and who reminded her of Doug besides, but mostly because she wouldn’t entertain the thought of getting married any place other than the Showstop. Few clergymen were willing to perform a wedding ceremony in a bar, especially one with such a rough reputation.

In the end, Lonny was able to scrounge up a preacher in Tampa, a Pastor Kindheart, who had been ordained by the New Life Church and didn’t give two shits about performing the ceremony in a bar. He smelled like reefer and had a beard and long, wavy hair with streaks of gray in it, bound into a ponytail at the base of his neck. He seemed like a bit of an odd choice to me, more like someone who would get beat up at the Showstop, but Gigi was plenty pleased with him.

“He changed his name to Kindheart because he says he wants his identity to send a good vibration out into the universe.” Gigi shook her head at that. “He’s an old hippie, and you don’t see too much of that around here, but he’s willing to do it for pretty cheap. Also, you know, he sort of looks like Jesus, in a way.”

Jim came home a full two weeks before the ceremony. On the day of the wedding, I watched him standing in front of the full-length mirror on the back of our bedroom door. He wore a powder-blue tuxedo and bow tie with a paler blue ruffled shirt underneath because he couldn’t find a purple one to match my dress. The blue was better anyway because it made the color of his eyes shimmer, brought a magnetic light to him that drew my attention again and again.

“What do you think, Lolly?” he asked, half turning from his reflection to face me where I sat on the bed. He looked clean and shiny, with the overhead light bouncing off his bald head.

I could smell the Aqua Velva aftershave from across the room and held my breath at the sudden sensation of soft wings beating inside my chest. “I think I forgot that you could look so good.”

Jim came to stand in front of me and leaned down to kiss me. The feel of his lips on mine lit up my nerve endings, an effervescent yet intense tingling, the feeling of being amazed at his presence, which I hadn’t experienced in a good long while and had almost forgotten.

Jim laughed. “A nice big juicy one,” he said, pressing me back onto the mattress. He deposited tiny kisses along my chest above the neckline of my dress. Then he stood and helped raise me to sitting. He knelt on the floor, holding my hands in his. “You know, seeing all this wedding stuff has really got me thinking. I mean, you and me can’t be married for real because I don’t think I could ever get a divorce, but I was wondering if maybe you could use my last name anyway. You know, use it for real, like legally change your name. I’d like that, and it might be nice for Emmy too.”

Leaving Emmy with Jim, I went to help Gigi finish getting ready before the ceremony. The inside of the Showstop sparkled with a cleanliness I had never seen or even imagined possible. There were linens cloths on the tables, and sheets of pressboard had been placed across the pool table and then covered with a long tablecloth and empty chafing dishes for serving food later. The back door was propped open with a big stone. A large canopy had been set up outside with rows of folding chairs underneath it. At the end of the center aisle was a raised dais under a bulging white balloon arch that Jim and I had helped build.

I stared out the back door, marveling that Lonny had somehow managed to make the grass look impeccable and respectable when I had only ever seen it matted and strewn with old trash, vomit, and used prophylactics. Passing out back there after a night of drinking was one of the more unpleasant experiences a person could have.

“Looks nice, doesn’t it?” came a voice behind me, startling me so much that I screamed and grabbed my chest. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

A man stood up from one of the shadowed back tables near the window. “I’m Jenny’s father, Isaac,” he said, holding out his hand to shake. “I’d say you must be Lola. Jenny’s told me all about you.”

Isaac was slight, only a few inches taller than me, and thin in the hard-worn, bony way of a man who has done manual labor for most of his life. The skin on his hand was as rough as sandpaper. He had a red, scrubbed aspect about him, dressed in what looked like a new brown polyester suit and a bolo tie with a large turquoise stone that I wouldn’t have expected him to wear.

His words, innocuous though he probably meant them to be, caused a prickling sensation in my eyes. “Well, here you are now,” I said. “That’s the important thing. I know that Gigi—I mean Jenny—is happy to have you.”

Isaac nodded in his pleasant way. His tie looked too tight, causing uncomfortable-looking pleats in the loose skin of his neck. “Jenny’s upstairs. I reckon you’re here to help her get ready.”

Gigi met me at the upstairs door. “Dad, you sure you don’t want to come up to watch TV or something?” she called down.

“Okay.” Gigi rolled her eyes. “So, did you talk to my dad?” She closed the door behind me. “Yeah,” she continued without waiting for an answer, “he’s a nice old guy. A little funny maybe but nice.”

Gigi was wearing her ratty housecoat over her stockings and slip. “I figured I’d wait to put on the dress,” she explained as she sat down next to me at the kitchen table, where I was trying to catch my breath from walking up the stairs. “Will you do my rollers for me?”

Helping Gigi set and curl her hair reminded me of how we used to help each other get ready before a show. After I combed her out, I made a small topknot and fastened the veil on it, leaving rows of long curls to hang loose down her back and around the sides of her face. “There you go,” I said, staring at our reflection in the bedroom mirror. “Shit, you look really beautiful.”

Gigi waved her hand at me, both of us a little surprised, I thought, at how stunning she truly was. “You know,” she said in a quiet voice, “when I was a little girl, I used to dream about this day, like how you do. I always sort of thought my mother would find out somehow that I was getting married and that she’d be sitting out there in one of the pews, right at the end, so I could see her when I walked down the aisle. I can’t stop thinking about it even now.” Gigi stared up at the ceiling to keep her tears from dropping and ruining the lovely precision of her eyeliner and mascara. “But that’s not going to happen, right? I mean, I know that’s not going to happen. I’m never going to figure out why she left or where she went.”

“No, I don’t think that part’s going to work out. You’ll still be happy, though.” I reached behind Gigi to pull the veil over her face.

“Yeah, you’re right. You know, I tried to tell my dad I was sorry for never calling or writing him a letter, and he told me not to worry about it.”

I picked up Gigi’s bouquet of white and pink daisies from the dresser. The flowers were cut to size and stuck in a damp block of florist’s foam inside a round plastic holder. Strands of lace dangled from the ends. “We should probably get down there.”

Lonny had spaced out the two sections of chairs wide enough for me and Jim to walk side by side down the aisle. Jessup, the retired knife thrower who also played the violin by ear and never went anywhere without what he referred to as his “fiddle,” played his instrument softly, the bow skimming the strings, hardly touching them, it seemed. Lonny and Reverend Kindheart, who had chosen to wear his hair loose for the occasion, actually looking quite a bit like an aging Jesus in his white robe and Birkenstock sandals, were already on the dais. Jim and I smiled as we made our way to the front, walking slowly and nodding here and there at the people we knew, which, with the exception of a few of Lonny’s relatives and some of Gigi’s former church friends, was everyone. Jim stood next to Lonny, while I sat on the bench that Gigi had insisted be placed next to where she would stand.

Everyone rose to their feet when Gigi and her father walked down the aisle. Jessup struck up the wedding march, and his wife, Rose, who had successfully dodged knives for some twenty-odd years, accompanied him on the trombone. A collective gasp and sigh made its way through the crowd.

Reverend Kindheart raised his hands above his head. Gigi and her father stopped before the dais. Gigi’s father lifted her veil and kissed the side of her face. People patted their hearts, smiling at the sweetness of the gesture. Ora Ann, who was holding Emmy with one arm, dabbed her eyes with her free hand, crying already.

Gigi walked up to join Lonny, and Reverend Kindheart lowered his hands. It occurred to me that I had never attended a wedding, but I had seen them on television, so many of them that I could have probably recited parts of the ceremony script from memory.

“Hey, everybody, all you people, we’re here to see this man and this chick get married today. Can I get a ‘right on’?” Reverend Kindheart raised his fist into the air. “Right on!” he yelled.

Jim and I glanced at each other while some people shifted in their seats, confused. Gigi drew in her lips, tipping her head to the side like maybe she was going to say something. I had told her that we should do a run-through of the ceremony beforehand, but as someone who had performed cold and usually half out of her mind with booze, Gigi hadn’t seen the need.

“Come on. Can you dig it, people? Can I get a ‘right on’?” Reverend Kindheart raised his fist again.

Suddenly, Isaac, Gigi’s father, stood up from his chair in the front row. “Right on,” he said in a loud, clear voice, waving his fist in the air.

“That’s what I’m talking about here today, people. We are all here to witness a great and beautiful thing. And that’s love. That’s two souls telling each other, ‘Hey, I could groove with you for the rest of my life.’ I look around this room, and I see people who’ve maybe had some hard times, some bad times when life or other people didn’t treat them so kindly. Or maybe someone told them, ‘Hey, you don’t belong’ or ‘You don’t matter,’ like you might as well be invisible.”

I looked out at the assembled congregation of people, some of them freaks like Lobster Boy and Stumpy, who had no lower half. Others had unusual bodies, like Ike, Freddy, and me. Still others might have looked normal but nonetheless were unable or unwilling to make a go of it in regular society. It was indeed a hard life—being a spectacle on the one hand but being shunned and disdained on the other, with people willing to interact only under certain circumstances. A lot of the guests were nodding in agreement.

“Life can be rough, my friends. I’ll tell you what, though. Maybe nobody does get a big, happy ending, but when you have love, like I see here between Lonny and Gigi and between the other lovers, friends, and family gathered here, then no matter how it all turns out, you’ve got a good thing going.”

More nodding heads. Little Freddy whispered what looked like the word yes, and Jessup leaned over and kissed Rose’s forehead. I glanced at Jim. He winked at me and smiled.

“So, Lonny, my man, I want to ask you straight up. Do you want to marry Gigi and be her husband? Will you give her all your love and share your whole life with her through good times and bad, when there’s plenty of dough and when you’re flat busted? In sickness and in health? For the rest of your lives?”

I felt my own eyes fill up and noticed a bunch of the other guests raise tissues and handkerchiefs to their faces.

Jim reached into the inside pocket of his tuxedo to hand them to Reverend Kindheart.

“Thanks, man,” he said. He held Gigi’s tiny gold band between the thumb and forefinger of one hand and Lonny’s much larger one the same way with his other hand. “These rings are circles, with no beginning and no end. A symbol of love and timelessness. Lonny, give this ring to Gigi and say... You know what? Just say whatever’s in your heart, man.”

Lonny looked panicked at the thought of expressing his feelings in front of a crowd. “Um, well...”

Lonny slid the ring onto Gigi’s finger. “I’m not... I’m not sure what to say here, but I’ve loved you for a long time, Gigi, and I love you just the way you are.”

“Oh.” Gigi sighed, tears running down her cheeks. For once, she didn’t appear to care how they washed away her makeup. She put Lonny’s ring on his finger. “Lonny, I...” she began and then choked back a sob. “I’m sorry, I don’t know...”

Gigi nodded. “I love you, too, Lonny,” she blurted in a single breath. “And... and... and...”

Gigi’s chest heaved with the deep breath she took. “This is the best damn day of my life.”

“Right on, sister,” Reverend Kindheart said, and with no prompting at all, we all put our fists in the air and yelled, “Right on!”

Reverend Kindheart raised his arms. “By the power vested in me by the State of Florida, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” It was the only part of the traditional wedding script that I recognized, making me wonder if some law or rule compelled him to utter those exact words to make the marriage legal and binding.

The kiss lasted longer and went deeper than was usual at a wedding. We laughed and cheered at the sight of Lonny’s restless hand sliding down Gigi’s back to press her pelvis against him.

Then the two of them slowly, reluctantly separated to face the congregation. We were waiting, it seemed, for some sort of dismissal from Reverend Kindheart, a punctuation to the end of the ceremony. Gigi and Lonny exchanged glances when none was forthcoming.

“We want to thank you for coming,” Gigi said. She smiled at her father. “I know it was a long trip for some of you, and we’re glad to have you here.”

“Well,” Lonny said. “Let’s get this party started. Drinks are on the house.” That announcement broke the spell of uncertainty as we all filed into the Showstop. Lonny vaulted over the bar to start serving guests. Then Jim and Luis joined in to help out. Jessup stood up on a chair and struck up “Cotton-Eyed Joe” on his violin.

The party lasted until the small hours of the morning and then continued on past full daybreak, although by that point, only Lonny, Gigi, Isaac, Jim, Ora Ann, Little Freddy, and I were still drinking at the bar. Isaac seemed to have taken a particular shine to Ora Ann.

We danced all night while Jessup sawed on his violin. At one point, Ike played “Staying Alive” on the jukebox and danced the hustle with Daisy. We all gathered around them in a horseshoe shape and clapped. Ike, wearing a brilliant white suit and black shirt unbuttoned to his waist, dropped and did an enthralling Cossack dance, crouching impossibly close to the ground and flinging his legs to unlikely heights, while Daisy twirled around him, doing high kicks.

Little Freddy and I did a slow number. At the end of the song, I hoisted him up, and he leaned his head back so I could swing him in a graceful circle. His old lady, Norma, who had traveled with him to the wedding and was nearly three feet taller than he was, didn’t care for that too much, but at some point in the evening, to my relief and probably Little Freddy’s, too, she disappeared or left, and Little Freddy stayed behind.

Isaac found an old big band song on the jukebox and grabbed Gigi’s hand. His bemused red-faced shyness dropped away as he propelled Gigi through one swing dance step and spin after another. At that moment, I finally saw a resemblance between the two of them in their light-footed grace and precision. Seeing them together made me miss my own father and all that he would never know about me or my life or his beautiful granddaughter, who, impossible though it seemed, managed to sleep, safe and snug, in the kitchen storeroom despite all the noise.

Isaac asked Ora Ann to dance after that. They were a less graceful pair, but they kept at it anyway until they moved together like two people who knew each other well, the type who would spend a long time together.

Jim was his most charming self the night of the wedding. He stayed close by my side the entire time, holding my hand. Jim had a certain something, a stage presence that never deserted him, a subdued liveliness that drew people’s attention. He looked so handsome and decent and respectable in his wedding clothes that I felt like a quadruple-size Cinderella, and I laughed at the idea.

“Come dance with me, Lola.” Jim held out his hand, and time froze for a moment on that image of him, dashing and exuberant, reaching out for me—generating the sudden sensation of being caught in a dream. I knew that I was seeing Jim at his best.

James Stanton #459621

Louisiana State Penitentiary

17544 Tunica Trace

Angola, LA 70712

June 4, 1981

It’s hard to explain how it all happened. One day I’m running with Sammy, and the next I’m being put in the slammer. We were in Centerville, outside of Baton Rouge. This mark, a young guy in his twenties, got in a beef with Randy, who runs the duck-pin joint, saying it was rigged and nobody could win it. Things got out of hand fast. I threw that kid off the lot. Turns out it was the sheriff’s nephew. Too bad we didn’t know that then, or else we would have left it alone.

Anyway, when we were shutting down at around two a.m., the kid shows back up with a friend of his, both of them shit drunk. The two of them jump over Randy’s counter to start pounding on him. I yelled for them to stop what they were doing. They ran. One of them got away, but the other guy, the one who started all the trouble, was pretty slow and pudgy. I had no trouble catching up with him to beat him down into the ground. He was a real mess. Then Randy ran over and took a few swipes at him too.

We put him in the truck to drive him back into town. He was doing all right, I guess, still awake enough that we could hear him mumbling something. Randy kept taking these cheap shots until I told him to knock it off.

It was a warm night, so we left him on the lawn of the Baptist church, figuring he’d either sober up and make his own way home, or since the next day was Sunday, one of the good church folks would find him and help him out in the morning.

He died, though. I don’t know why or how. We got raided the next morning. The fat kid’s friend fingered me and Randy. Then Randy turned on me to save his own punk ass. Because it was the sheriff’s nephew, the arrest, the trial, and Randy’s bullshit confession—the whole thing was over in about two weeks. With my record, they gave me twenty years. That prick, Randy, only got five. If that snitch motherfucker ever shows up around Gulfy or crosses your path, you do me a favor and make him pay for what he did to me and to you and Emmy too.

I should have listened to you, Lolly, and not gone back out on the road. I’m fifty-two. Chances are that I’ll die in prison just like my father.

No matter what happens, promise me you’ll never bring Emmy here to visit. No kid should ever have to see their father in a place like this. If you want, you can forget about me too. I wouldn’t blame you for it or think you’re a bad person.

The only thing that keeps me going from day to day is to think of you and Emmy in that pretty little house, living the sweet life with good food on the table. I’m just sorry I won’t be there to see it.

Stay safe, and take good care of Emmy and of yourself too. I love you more than you know.