apartments again. If you always wondered how those people ended up like that, now you know. Once you’ve been exposed to that kind of fright, the world is forever a changed place, full of nothing but danger and brides.
The last wedding venue we looked at that day seemed to be perfect as long as we could turn off the noisy waterfall that tumbled at one end of the garden; it was a great location, with plenty of parking, we could bring our own booze, and we had the option of outdoor and indoor spaces.
“Oh, you’re going to need that,” my mother said. “It’s going to rain that day, I’ll tell you right now.”
Because we wanted to have the wedding outside, she was convinced that not only was it going to rain that day, it was going to hail, and a typhoon, perhaps even a tsunami, would jump inland four hundred miles and the whole thing would be ruined. Just washed out. People would be swept away in violent waves and then drowned horribly. Almost everyone would die. The cake would be soggy. It would be a bad party.
So, in several days, when the date of our wedding was exactly a year away, I watched the sky, I felt the wind. It was a beautiful day, with a big yellow sun, the bluest sky available with the same white, puffed-up clouds you see only on toilet paper commercials. Perfect weather. And, when I was confident enough that afternoon, I called my mother.
“See?” I said, slightly proud of myself but far more pleased to have proved her wrong. “There’s no storm today. There won’t be a storm next year. Everything will be fine.”
“The day isn’t over yet,” she said, taking a drag off her cigarette.
She was right, it wasn’t. By the time the sun was starting to set, blue and black stormed the sky like bruises, the wind began to blow so hard that it hurt, and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in the same number of minutes.
I pushed the wedding back a week.
“You can’t hide from the weather. It will hunt you down and find you,” my mother responded. “There’s no weather inside of a Catholic church, you know!”
Honestly, it wasn’t the rain that scared me, but the fact that if I had seen an insurance commercial featuring an ill child or a house full of family memories burning right down to the ground at any point that day, I probably would have cried.
Naked with a Stranger
I already knew that no matter what transpired during that afternoon, it was going to end up in a fight.
A big fight, too, not a little fight where people just quit talking to each other, but a big fight that lands one or both participants either in the Madison Street jail or on an afternoon talk show.
I wondered if I still had a strong right hook; it had been years since I had needed to use it. It used to be good enough to leave a hell of a mark. This time, however, I had the feeling that it was gonna have to be pungent enough to knock out a couple of teeth.
My opponent had approximately twenty-two years more experience in man-to-man, hand-to-hand combat than I did, putting me at a definite disadvantage. She was an expert in pinching, open-hand slapping, hair-pulling, and Indian burns, and had also won the National Mark of Excellence Award by transforming a hairbrush into a lethal weapon. I knew all about that award. She received it after she beat the crap out of me on my eleventh birthday because I spit on my sister and then hit her in the leg with a dried-up dog turd.
The only advantage I could possibly have would be to try and stay calm. That was it, that was the only thing I could do. I knew damn well that my competitor could whip herself up into a whirling dervish in a matter of seconds, and if I kept my ability to reason, the advantage would be mine.
Then she called me on the phone.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes to pick you up,” she said.
“Okay,” I agreed, “I’ll be ready.”
“What condition are your armpits in?” she queried.
“Oh no,” I protested. “I refuse. I am not
The last wedding venue we looked at that day seemed to be perfect as long as we could turn off the noisy waterfall that tumbled at one end of the garden; it was a great location, with plenty of parking, we could bring our own booze, and we had the option of outdoor and indoor spaces.
“Oh, you’re going to need that,” my mother said. “It’s going to rain that day, I’ll tell you right now.”
Because we wanted to have the wedding outside, she was convinced that not only was it going to rain that day, it was going to hail, and a typhoon, perhaps even a tsunami, would jump inland four hundred miles and the whole thing would be ruined. Just washed out. People would be swept away in violent waves and then drowned horribly. Almost everyone would die. The cake would be soggy. It would be a bad party.
So, in several days, when the date of our wedding was exactly a year away, I watched the sky, I felt the wind. It was a beautiful day, with a big yellow sun, the bluest sky available with the same white, puffed-up clouds you see only on toilet paper commercials. Perfect weather. And, when I was confident enough that afternoon, I called my mother.
“See?” I said, slightly proud of myself but far more pleased to have proved her wrong. “There’s no storm today. There won’t be a storm next year. Everything will be fine.”
“The day isn’t over yet,” she said, taking a drag off her cigarette.
She was right, it wasn’t. By the time the sun was starting to set, blue and black stormed the sky like bruises, the wind began to blow so hard that it hurt, and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in the same number of minutes.
I pushed the wedding back a week.
“You can’t hide from the weather. It will hunt you down and find you,” my mother responded. “There’s no weather inside of a Catholic church, you know!”
Honestly, it wasn’t the rain that scared me, but the fact that if I had seen an insurance commercial featuring an ill child or a house full of family memories burning right down to the ground at any point that day, I probably would have cried.
Naked with a Stranger
I already knew that no matter what transpired during that afternoon, it was going to end up in a fight.
A big fight, too, not a little fight where people just quit talking to each other, but a big fight that lands one or both participants either in the Madison Street jail or on an afternoon talk show.
I wondered if I still had a strong right hook; it had been years since I had needed to use it. It used to be good enough to leave a hell of a mark. This time, however, I had the feeling that it was gonna have to be pungent enough to knock out a couple of teeth.
My opponent had approximately twenty-two years more experience in man-to-man, hand-to-hand combat than I did, putting me at a definite disadvantage. She was an expert in pinching, open-hand slapping, hair-pulling, and Indian burns, and had also won the National Mark of Excellence Award by transforming a hairbrush into a lethal weapon. I knew all about that award. She received it after she beat the crap out of me on my eleventh birthday because I spit on my sister and then hit her in the leg with a dried-up dog turd.
The only advantage I could possibly have would be to try and stay calm. That was it, that was the only thing I could do. I knew damn well that my competitor could whip herself up into a whirling dervish in a matter of seconds, and if I kept my ability to reason, the advantage would be mine.
Then she called me on the phone.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes to pick you up,” she said.
“Okay,” I agreed, “I’ll be ready.”
“What condition are your armpits in?” she queried.
“Oh no,” I protested. “I refuse. I am not
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