Their vows were beautiful, but then the rain started. The priest blessed everybody and then drove off in an old little thing I wasn’t sure would even get up the hill. But there he went, Father Whatever, and the caterers under their tent uncovered the chafing dishes, and the deejay went to lug his stuff from his van.
         It was romantic. A little mist, a drizzle, maybe a little too loud on the tent tops, but the two of them were beautiful, so much in love, and their families you could see were so proud. The little kids were laughing and chasing each other around through the mud. Their parents yelled and objected but not very loudly, it’s a wedding, whatever, I guess.
         A little weed, discreetly back among the trees—we got damp and had to keep relighting, but that was just part of the giggle of it, as my little cousin put it, who I hadn’t seen since she was eight years old, and now we’re getting stoned together! The circle of life.
         The storm clouds darkened. The weather apps said it would clear up in twenty minutes. Some dads made dad remarks about bad omens. We drank champagne and the happy couple danced to The Magnetic Fields: The Book of Love. Then the first wedding party dance: Willie Nelson’s Sad Songs and Waltzes, kind of downbeat, I thought, but whatever, it’s Willie. Then it got started: The Electric Slide, Footloose, YMCA, Dancing Queen, Under Pressure, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Hey Ya! The deejay had to keep turning up the volume to drown out the rain, but after a half an hour or so it had tailed off and there was a hell of a rainbow over the lake. We all took a minute to look at it, and the deejay just played some slow whatever stuff while we took our time.
         The sun was going down. Everything was slippery, and we had to push a couple of cars up the hill. We got pretty muddy, hilarious in our tuxes. Around that time it started to rain again, but the caterers and the deejay and the tents were all gone, and though we were dog-tired there wasn’t too much left to do except party, so we went back to the AirBnB. The rest of the wedding party, minus the bride and groom and a few boring bozos, were already doing shots around the pool.
         Fuck, it was coming down. I could barely toss back my tequila before the raindrops battered it out of my glass. We were all soaked to the skin, so okay, we got butt-naked, whatever. Everybody gonna strip, and jump in the pool, and doowutchyalike! There was definitely some inappropriate behavior, I admit, but most everybody was right there, seeing what their partners were doing, so although I’m not saying there aren’t going to be regrets, I don’t think there’s much we have to confess to exactly, officer.
         After a while it did seem crazy. The rain made the pool overflow, so that the patio seemed like just a shallow part of the lake, and there were beer cans and stuff bobbing around on it. Down the slopes a whole lot of dirty water came running, and uprooted plants too, and eventually we all had to get out of the pool because it was too gross. So it was about then, when we’d all about decided to go to bed, that we saw him, the groom I mean, walking out toward us butt-naked, dripping red, with his big stiff purple cock, and a brandy bottle in one hand and a big-ass knife in the other. He was in the mood to party, he said!
         Look, you said I could have a cup of coffee. Don’t be an asshole. This has been a long, a long couple of days.
💀