Demonology by Rick Moody

I’d parked myself and climbed
     over the exasperated families seated next to me, jostling their knees. As I went, I became aware of Brice McCann’s soft, insinuating
     voice ricocheting, in Dolby Surround Sound, from one wall of the Rip Van Winkle Room to the next. The room was appropriately
     named, it seemed to me then. We were all sleepers who dreamed a reverie of marriage, not one of us had waked to see the bondage,
     the violence, the excess of its cabalistic prayers and rituals. Marriage was oneiric. Not one of us was willing to pronounce
     the truth of its dream language of slavery and submission and transmission of property, and Brice’s vow,
to have and to hold Sarah Wilton,
till death did them part, forsaking all others,
seemed to me like the pitch of a used-car dealer or insurance salesman, and these words rang out in the room, likewise Sarah’s
     uncertain and breathy reply, and I rushed at the center aisle, pushing away cretinous guests and cherubic newborns toward
     my parents, to embrace them as these words fell, these words with their intimations of mortality,
to tell my parents I should never have let you drive that night, Sis. How could I have let you drive? How could I have been
     so stupid? My tires were bald —I couldn’t afford better. My car was a death trap; and I was its proper driver, bent on my
     long, complicated program of failure, my program of futures abandoned, of half-baked ideas, of big plans that came to nought,
     of cheap talk and lies, of drinking binges, petty theft; my car was made for my own death, Sis, the inevitable and welcome
     end to the kind of shame and regret I had brought upon everyone close to me, you especially, who must have wept inwardly,
     in your bosom, when you felt compelled to ask me to read a poem on your special day, before you totaled my car, on that curve,
     running up over the berm, shrieking, flipping the vehicle, skidding thirty feet on the roof, hitting the granite outcropping
     there, plunging out of the seat (why no seat belt?), snapping your neck, ejecting through the windshield, catching part of
     yourself there, tumbling over the hood, breaking both legs, puncturing your lung, losing an eye, shattering your wrist, bleeding,
     coming to rest at last in a pile of moldering leaves, where rain fell upon you, until, unconscious, you died.
    Yet, as I called out to Mom and Dad, the McCann-Wilton wedding party suddenly scattered, the vows were through, the music
     was overwhelming, the bride and groom were married; there were Celtic pipes, and voices all in harmony —itwas a dirge, it was a jig, it was a chant of religious ecstasy —and I couldn’t tell what was wedding and what was funeral,
     whether there was an end to one and a beginning to the other, and there were shouts of joy and confetti in the air, and beating
     of breasts and the procession of pink-cheeked teenagers, two by two, all living the dream of American marriages with cars
     and children and small businesses and pension plans and social-security checks and grandchildren, and I couldn’t get close
     to my parents in the throng; in fact, I couldn’t be sure if it had been them standing there at all, in that fantastic crowd,
     that crowd of dreams, and I realized I was alone at Brice McCann’s wedding, alone among people who would have been just as
     happy not to have me there, as I had often been alone, even in fondest company, even among those who cared for me. I should
     have stayed home and watched television.
    This didn’t stop me, though. I made my way to the reception. I shoveled down the chicken satay and shrimp with green curry,
     along with the proud families of Sarah Wilton and Brice McCann. Linda Pietrzsyk appeared by my side, as when we had kissed
     in the Ticonderoga Suite. She asked if I was feeling all right.
    —Sure, I said.
    —Don’t you think I should drive you home?
    —There’s someone I want to talk to, I said. —Then I’d be happy to go.
    And Linda