My life ricochets from marriage to marriage. In each of these, I’ll age a little more and understand life’s condition a little better. For one shining moment I’ll take center stage; but mostly I observe other people’s celebrations.
I am six – awkwardly, out of place – my oldest brother has just gotten married. I’m a live wire, physically incapable of standing still each time his photographer yells at me for ruining another shot. I try again – one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand – I twitch as he seems to purposely snap another picture. Once again, he yells. I sneak a glass of champagne, and then another. I soon have a blinding headache. My mother allows me to go to the airport with my aunt and uncle. My uncle is flying to Italy that night to visit his family. He is flying Alitalia: an airline I imagine that serves wine and has better food than most. We hurry. We breeze through the airport, to the gate where my uncle will disappear. No one is concerned with safety back then. My aunt and I remain near the cool glass looking out as the lights on the jet’s wings twinkle and we notice the plane laboriously pulling away from the terminal.
I’m a high school junior when my second oldest brother gets married. At the rehearsal party, I get drunk on cherry Vodka. My older cousin agrees to drive me home. My best friend and I hang out at my brother’s wedding. Amongst friends and family, it is a safe environment. We order drinks, though I’m still under age. My friend is more concerned with to my sister-in-law’s sister. She is cute in her bridesmaid’s gown and I’m jealous. She is younger than he is and doesn’t take life as seriously as he does. They have a good two month run – where, after his car breaks down, he’ll even walk miles through the snow to see her – until she breaks his heart. We’ll never talk about her or that day again.
It is hot and humid where I live. Swarms of mosquitos and moths flutter around my outside light on warm summer evenings. Many people focus on the insects closer to the light. They don’t notice the ones that operate on the periphery– left in dark trying to maneuver their way in closer to the light.
My older brother – tall and blond – gets married on an Albuquerque mountain. Initially, he asks me to be his best man. He and his future wife plan to fly me and the maid of honor, who I’ll never meet, out for the wedding. It doesn’t happen. My brother claims that the maid of honor started to act weird over the arrangement and he and his future wife decide to elope instead. A short bald Jewish guy in his sixties, who just happens to be visiting the mountain on the day of their wedding, replaces me as the best man. Years later: I travel out west with my girlfriend, and future wife. I will suffer from altitude sickness shortly after seeing another couple get married on that same mountain.
A few years later, my older brother acts as my best man. We have beer before my wedding. It’s a late wedding and we spend a few moments talking. It feels like any other day, until I say “It’s getting late, might as well go get married.” My wedding is informal. I wear a suit and a tie. My wife brags about how much she saved by buying a dress off the rack. We’re older. We cut out several unnecessary expenditures. Pretty soon we answer we do before adjourning to a gaudy oversized hall with plenty of food. I observe. People appear to enjoy themselves but I’m exhausted. It’s hard to imagine that by tomorrow night I’ll be on a cruise ship miles away from my life.
I’ve been looking at my outside light lately. There is a loose connection and sometimes the light works better than others. I watch the way that the outlying moths and mosquitos try to muscle their way into the light. There they’ll take center stage for an hour or two, before they burn out and disappear into the darkness again. I wonder, what is the life expectancy of one of these insects?
How do they mark the milestones in their lives? What have they learned from these events? How have they overcome their disappointments and at what moment do they change into something they weren’t.
originally published Blue Lotus Review Winter (12/14/15) 2015
http://bluelotusreview.com/2015/12/14/fiction-10/
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