As always, pick up the hard copy or at least go check out the other parts of the paper at www.knoxvoice.com There's a review of the county corruption case, a cute new feature called "Ask a Bartender," and of course,a s always, the inimitable Don Williams. And I'm there too. So:
Wedding Bell Bums, Part II
What fate joins together, let no bums put asunder
by Scott McNutt
What has gone before: A former employer of mine recently got divorced. Once upon a time, he dumped me from a job. Because of various financial and psychological strains, including a money-sucking house an ex-girlfriend convinced me to buy, this development really, really bummed me out. At that time I also reacquainted with Dana, whom I’d met 20 very odd years earlier. She revealed to me that the first time she saw me, she knew she was going to marry me. Coming on the heels of the other shocks to my system, this revelation, which was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me, prompted me to say, "You’re crazy."
But Dana wasn’t dissuaded and eventually she moved into the money pit with me. And we talked about marriage. Or, as I remember it, I talked around marriage, mostly. "If we get married, I can’t promise I’ll ever be making money," I said. "What kind of life would that be, stuck in this dump with no prospect of betterment?"
"‘For better or for worse’ will hold, even if the worse never gets better," Dana said. "But things will get better. I know they will."
"How do you know that?" I demanded.
"Because I’ll be married to you," she said serenely.
So one night I asked her. I said, "If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes?"
She said she would. Then I got enormously drunk. She instant messaged me from work the next day to see if I remembered what I’d asked. I did. So it was agreed. We would marry. But I probably never would have done it if that house purchase and that job loss hadn’t made my life such a sorry shambles that I thought no one could want to be part of it…yet Dana did. That made me see that her love was unconditional. That’s about as "true" as it gets.
Poor as we were, we planned to be married without ceremony by a justice of the peace. But our wonderful friends insisted that our wedding be an occasion. They arranged to hold it on Market Square, with a party afterward at the Downtown Grill and Brewery. Then bride and groom would stay overnight at the Hotel St. Oliver for a brief, but paid-for, honeymoon.
Brisk winds were fetching up mounting banks of gloomy clouds, and what had been a surprisingly warm April Fool’s Day, 2004, was turning into an uncomfortably chill one. To a lilting old-timey tune played by a group of musically inclined friends, the bride, in her lovely lavender gown was being processionaled down Knoxville’s newly concretized Market Square by our Bride Giveaway Guy, Joe.
Why April Fool’s Day? I wanted it, and Dana indulges my off-kilter sense of propriety. I know marriages, just like life, go through seasons of change. Marriages must endure through mild and rough weather alike. As a reminder, I wanted our anniversary to be in the time of year when any sort of weather is possible: sultry, balmy, snowy, stormy.
Plus, having remained single into middle age, I doubted my friends believed I really was getting married. I wanted a date that said, "Gotcha!"
Anyway, Dana, in a gown that plainly did not sport pockets (the importance of this detail will become clear momentarily), crossed the midway point of the square, one arm bearing a big, beautiful bouquet, the other arm locked in Bride Giveaway Guy’s arm. That’s when the hobo lurched into the proceedings.
"Gotta cigarette I k’n barra?" says the shabby fellow to the blushing, really, truly, blushing bride.
"This is my wedding," peeps my poor, dumbstruck darling.
From the square’s stage, I helplessly watched this tableaux unfold with licensed religious practitioner Steve and best man, Ian, and maid of honor, Bethann. I’d like to report that the street person, sensing the inappropriateness of his intrusion, congratulated Dana on her most special of days and went on his way. But Dana says he just turned away, disappointed. Perhaps he muttered a benediction under his breath as he left.
We completed the ceremony without other incident and stepped down from the platform as wife and love slave. But Dana was worried. "I hope that homeless person wasn’t an omen," she whispered as we made our way to the brewery against the now-stinging wind.
Dana believes in luck and worries over portents. I believe in chance and worry about probabilities. But fate does inflict irony, even on those who don’t believe in it.
At the party paid for by our generous friends, the guests had a lively time – including the uninvited, now-married and pregnant ex-girlfriend who had badgered me to buy the money-trap house. She briefly made herself the center of attention by – and this really happened – trying to bum cigarettes from other guests.
The ex’s crashing worried Dana. "It’s got to be a sign," she whispered.
"Yes. It’s a sign of how tacky she is and how brainless I was," I replied.
Dana smiled.
Later, we retired to the hotel. The next morning, we went across the street to Pete’s Coffee Shop for breakfast. My ex-employer was dining there. He came up to our table and asked if it had been our wedding on Market Square the evening before. We said it had. "Well, congratulations," he said and walked away.
"I know that has to be an omen," Dana whispered. But it wasn’t. It was just a twist of fate being tied up.
Now, if he’d ask to bum a cigarette, that would have been an omen. But he didn’t. So thanks, former employer.
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