“I take thee, dear Maria …” They were uttering these promises themselves just as Ian said they would. Hank said, “I do,” and Maria said, “You do.” Then vice versa. At least Maria had taken off her sunglasses. Young people, I tried not to say out loud with a sigh. Time went slowly, then stood still, then became undetectable, so who knew how long all this was taking?
A loud noise like mechanized thunder was coming from the highway. Strangely, it was not a storm. A group of motorcyclists boomed up the road and, instead of roaring by us, slowed, then turned right in at the driveway, a dozen of them — all on Harleys. I didn’t really know motorcycles, but I knew that every biker from Platteville to Manitowoc owned a Harley. That was just a regional fact. They switched off their engines. None of the riders wore a helmet — they wore bandannas — except for the leader, who wore a football helmet with some plush puppy ears which had been snipped from some child’s stuffed animal then glued on either side. He took out a handgun and fired it three times into the air.
Several guests screamed. I could make no sound at all.
The biker with the gun and the puppy ears began to shout. “I have a firearms license and those were blanks and this is self-defense because our group here has an easement that extends just this far into this driveway. Also? We were abused as children and as adults and moreover we have been eating a hell of a lot of Twinkies. Also? We are actually very peaceful people. We just know that life can get quite startling in its switches of channels. That there is a river and sea figure of speech as well as a TV one. Which is why as life moves rudely past, you have to give it room. We understand that. An occasion like this means No More Forks in the Road. All mistakes are behind you, and that means it’s no longer really possible to make one. Not a big one. You already done that. I need to speak first here to the bride.” He looked around, but no one moved. He cleared his throat a bit. “The errors a person already made can step forward and announce themselves and then freeze themselves into a charming little sculpture garden that can no longer hurt you. Like a cemetery. And like a cemetery it is the kind of freedom that is the opposite of free.” He looked in a puzzled way across the property toward Maria. “It’s the flickering quantum zone of gun and none, got and not.” He shifted uncomfortably, as if the phrase “flickering quantum zone” had taken a lot out of him. “As I said, now I need to speak to the bride. Would that be you?”
Maria shouted at him in Portuguese. Her bridesmaids joined in.
“What are they saying?” I murmured to Nickie.
“I forgot all my Portuguese,” she said. “My whole childhood I only remember Maria saying ‘good job’ to everything I did, so I now think of that as Portuguese.”
“Yes,” I murmured. “So do I.”
“Good job!” Nickie shouted belligerently at the biker. “Good job being an asshole and interrupting a wedding!”
“Nickie, leave this to the grown-ups,” I whispered.
But the guests just stood there, paralyzed, except Ian, who, seemingly very far off on the horizon, slowly stood, placing his guitar on the ground. He then took his white collapsible chair in both hands and raised it over his head.
“Are you Caitlin?” The puppy-eared biker continued to address Maria, and she continued to curse, waving her sprigs of mint and spirea at him. “Và embora, babaca!” She gave him the finger, and when Hank tried to calm her, she gave Hank the finger. “Fodase!”
The cyclist looked around with an expression that suggested he believed he might have the wrong country wedding. He took out his cell phone, took off his helmet, pressed someone on speed dial, then turned to speak into it. “Yo! Joe. I don’t think you gave me the right address … yeah … no, you don’t get it. This ain’t Caitlin’s place.… What? No, listen! What I’m saying is: wrong addressee! This ain’t it. No speaky zee English here—” He slammed his phone shut. He put his helmet back on. But Ian was trotting slowly toward him with the chair over his head, crying the yelping cry of anyone who was trying to be a hero at his ex-wife’s wedding.
“Sorry, people,” the biker said. He gave the approaching Ian only a quick unfazed double-take. He flicked one of his puppy ears at him and hurried to straddle his bike. “Wrong address, everybody!” Then his whole too-stoned-to be-menacing gang started up their engines and rode away in a roar, kicking up dust from the driveway gravel. It was a relief to see them go. Ian continued to run down the road after them, howling, chair overhead, though the motorcycles were quickly out of sight.
“Should we follow Ian?” asked Nickie. Someone near us was phoning the police.
“Let Ian get it out of his system,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said and now made a beeline for Maria.
“Good job!” I could hear Nickie say to Maria. “Good job getting married!” And then Nickie threw her arms around her former caretaker and began, hunched and heaving, to weep on her shoulder. I couldn’t bear to watch. There was a big black zigzag across my heart. I could hear Maria say, “Tank you for combing, Nickie. You and your muzzer are my hairos.”
Ian had not returned and no one had gone looking for him. He would be back in time for the rain. There was a rent-a-disc-jockey who started to put on some music, which blared from the speakers. Michael Jackson again. Every day there was something new to mourn and something old to celebrate: civilization had learned this long ago and continued to remind us. Was that what the biker had meant? I moved toward the buffet table.
“You know, when you’re hungry, there’s nothing better than food,” I said to a perfect stranger. I cut a small chunk of ham. I place a deviled egg in my mouth and resisted the temptation to position it in front of my teeth and smile scarily, the way we had as children. I chewed and swallowed and grabbed another one. Soon no doubt I would resemble a large vertical snake who had swallowed a rat. That rat Ben. Snakes would eat a sirloin steak only if it was disguised behind the head of a small rodent. There was a lesson somewhere in there and just a little more wine would reveal it.
“Oh, look at those sad chickens!” I said ambiguously and with my mouth full. There were rumors that the wedding cake was still being frosted and that it would take a while. A few people were starting to dance, before the dark clouds burst open and ruined everything. Next to the food table was a smaller one displaying a variety of insect repellents, aerosols and creams, as if it were the vanity corner of a posh ladies’ room, except with discrete constellations of gnats. Guests were spraying themselves a little too close to the food, and the smells of citronella and imminent rain combined in the air.
The biker was right: you had to unfreeze your feet, take blind steps backward, risk a loss of balance, risk an endless fall, in order to give life room. Was that what he had said? Who knew? People were shaking their bodies to Michael Jackson’s “Shake Your Body.” I wanted this song played at my funeral. Also the Doobie Brothers’ “Takin’ It to the Streets.” Also “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”—just to fuck with people.
I put down my paper plate and plastic wineglass. I looked over at Ian’s dad, who was once again brooding off by himself. “Come dance with someone your own age!” I called to him, and because he did not say, “That is so not going to happen,” I approached him from across the lawn. As I got closer I could see that since the days he would sometimes come to our house to pick up Maria and drive her home himself in the silver sports car of the recently single, he had had some eye work done: a lift to remove the puff and bloat; he would rather look startled and insane than look fifty-six. I grabbed both his hands and reeled him around. “Whoa,” he said with something like a smile, and he let go with one hand to raise it over his head and flutter it in a jokey jazz razzamatazz. In sign language it was the sign for applause. I needed my breath for dancing, so I tried not to laugh. Instead I fixed my face into a grin, and, ah, for a second the sun came out to light up the side of the red and spinning barn.