#11: Kaleidoscopes and Moonbeams
"You make me feel that life is not so far away.”
Speech came after speech. The father of the bride. Barney’s brother (his best man). Jess’s sister (her maid of honor). Jess’s mother. A tune came on I thought I recognized. The melody bobbed through my mind, and I remembered it in flashes, though with different lyrics.
Cut that cake and let them free
Cut that cake and let them go
Forty blackbirds away can fly
If you just cut the cake
“Donna!” the quartet cried out. Then I remembered, it was supposed to be “Cut that pie.”
“Wait a minute,” Pat said, his words dipped in disbelief, “you guys are Donna Taylor fans?”
“Of course,” Kristy said.
Ralph muttered, “How unfortunate.” He nursed a special enmity for Donna Taylor, lamenting her as “among the crunchy-granola horde that ended the golden age of American popular music.” That is, the days when the likes of Mickey Kent had reigned atop the pop charts.
“What? You’re not a fan?”
“I’m not a fan of decadence in any of its forms,” Ralph said.
Pat started to cough into his beer.
Not wanting her disdain to be dimmed in any way, Kristy looked over the edge of her glasses at Ralph. “What, you can’t take anything other than Wonder Bread pop?”
“I’ll take all kinds of music, but it has to have a melody.”
“That’s just what all the critics said back in the 70s. They just could not handle a woman’s perspective.”
Ralph sneered. “They just could not handle musical junk.”
“They’re about to cut the cake,” Bonnie said, her voice slicing through the contentions.
The Donna Taylor song played as an instrumental backdrop as bride and groom cut into the narrowing tower of layers, adorned with green vines and blue roses. As Jess and Barney began to feed each other, the ritual of cake-eating became a food fight. Jess started it, etching a blue-and-white streak across Barney’s cheek. Soon, frosting scarred both their faces. But those wounds were wiped away by a wet napkin.
As people stood in line for cake, Pat pulled me off to the side. “So, having a good time?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Of course.” He swallowed. “She wants you, you know.” Those words gushed forth in suds of beer.
“Okay, Pat.”
He leaned closer. “I can see it in the eyes.”
“Okay.”
“The eyes always tell.”
“Thanks, Pat, thanks.”
A thin line of raspberry ran through the center of the white wedding cake. With the edge of my fork, I cut off a sliver. First, the solidity of the cake, with an edge of buttercream and sugar—then, the rush of raspberry, red and barbed in its sweetness.
On the dance floor, the festival of youth returned. No longer manacles of pain and stiffness and frustration, our bodies became wonderful, responsive instruments of expression. The notes exploded like fireworks along my spine.
We danced in improvisational allusions to order. With a twist, the Running Man transformed into an imitation of tap dancing (Step ball change, step ball change, as Kristy hoarsely called over the music).
It’s all a wonder and a wild desire.
Being with you lifts me so much higher...
We pantomimed reconciliation and loss and midnight yearning.
Swing your partner round and round...
I had last square danced in middle school gym class. Then, it felt forced and hokey. Now, my nerves vibrated like iron strings. My arms slipped through those of mothers and sons and brothers and sisters and grandfathers and aunts and friends. Pat elbowed me, Ralph almost tripped me in going left when he should have gone right, and Lana teased me with a furrowed brow. Hand slipped after hand. But always—always through the multitude—I came back to Bonnie.
The air’s alive
And I can breathe again with you.
My heart will strive
’Cause I can breathe again with you.
The air thickened as the night rose around us. As Bonnie bounced to the beats of those songs, her steps seemed incredibly light, like they would not make the tiniest divot in a trampoline. It was like the music had woven into her flesh and it carried her along.
So forgive me if my heart is quakin’
So forgive me`f I trip o’er my feet,
And forgive me if my hand is shakin’
`Cause I’ve got jumpin’ beans all in my veins—
I danced until my chest strained with the fury of my coursing blood. The weight of my arms and legs seemed to dissolve into the coursing music. There was only the pounding and the harmony and the gulping air.
In a gasping moment, I said to Bonnie, “It’s like I’m a kid again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, growing up, I sometimes had trouble breathing. When I’d run and play, I sometimes felt like I was running on the edge of suddenly collapsing, like my lungs couldn’t take it all. And I remember running and thinking that, maybe, if I ran hard enough, I’d break through and then I’d breathe so easily. So I’d run, and, sometimes, just as my lungs were about to burst into flame, I’d feel like maybe, maybe, I was almost getting there.”
“Getting where?”
“To my breath.” I laughed again and added—because I couldn’t resist, because the flow of words pulled me onwards, “It’s like I’m a bassoon, and I’m straining for all the high notes.”
“Yes!” Bonnie cried, punctuating each affirmation with another punch in the air. “Yes yes yes yes yes!”
Spontaneously assembling link by link, a Conga line formed out of the foaming chaos. Bonnie grabbed the waist of Sarah, and I grabbed Bonnie’s. The fabric of her dress suddenly seemed such a thin border between her bare flesh and mine.
As it finished a circuit around the tent, the Conga line scattered and left Bonnie and me near the kegs and large tubs of ice water. A haze of sweat rose from my open collar, slipping through the loosened knot of my tie. “Water?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, happy maybe that my thoughts and my thirst were hers.
I grabbed a paper cup with one hand and with the other pulled the spigot. Icy water splashed over my hands as the cup ran over. “Here,” I said, handing it to her.
As I went to get a second cup, she said, “You’re all sweaty.” She reached forward and wiped my forehead with her bandana. The music disappeared for an instant as there were only her fingers against my forehead. Then they were on my cheeks. “Well, here,” she said and placed the handkerchief in the front pocket of my shirt. Her hand slipped like a lodestone across my chest, and my heart stirred.
“Thanks,” I said. “This is good water.” It shocked my throat to a new life, and I could feel it working outward through my pores. It was like the air was really on my face for the first time in a long time, as though some mask of dried tears had been washed away.
I poured more ice-water into my cup, and, through the swirl, the bride was at our side—almost knocking into the table. “Hey y’all! Bonnie!” she hugged her. “So you having a good time?” Her syllables had a tremor in their knees.
“Of course,” I said. “This is a wonderful wedding.”
Jess looked at me, like she was seeing me in a new light. “Bonnie, I do declare, is this him?”
Bonnie’s face suddenly flushed. “What do you mean, Jess?”
“Is this Jasper the cutie you’ve been talking about? Look those shoulders.” Jess began to rub those shoulders. Her hand darted down to my bicep. “Oh, he’s a real studmuffin. Such a man.” She swung her head to look right at my eyes. “You should have heard all the giggles that went around about you last night. Bons was like a schoolgirl talking about you making it all the way here. Now, you treat her right, you hear?”
“Jess…” Bonnie stretched out the name through a rictus smile as she pulled me away.
“Oh, Bons, you’re so silly sometimes,” Jess said before drowning in some more giggles herself.
“Real studmuffin, huh?” I said to her.
Bonnie shrugged. “Her words. But we figured we should let Jess know.” She pressed her lips together. “And it should be pretty obvious by now that I’m glad you’re here.”
I hope you find another heart
I hope you find another heart
I hope you find another—find another
Find another heart...
Young men ran sweating through the tent in their t-shirts and unbuttoned dress shirts, holding aloft a sloshing amber diamond.
“Oh, they’ve dug up the bourbon,” said a middle-aged woman.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s a tradition. If you want good weather on your wedding day, you’re supposed to bury a bottle of bourbon. Barney—I’m sure it was Barney—must have told them where it was.”
“Isn’t it bad luck, then, to dig it up?”
The woman smiled at Bonnie’s question. “Oh, child, we’ve made it this long. Nothing to worry about.”
The flashing bottle went around. “Charlie!” Pat cried through the maelstrom. “Charlie!” His tie was wrapped like a commando’s sweatband around his head. “You gotta have some!”
I held the bottle to my lips, and the bourbon poured pale and honey-golden. It bit the back of my throat with smoky fangs. It was as though my mouth were virgin again—like I had never tasted alcohol before. The fumes swirled through my mouth. A burning pillar streaked through the center of my chest.
Bonnie took a tiny sip. “That’s strong.”
“The night is strong,” I said.
Other hands came to take the bottle, and a riot of laughter filled the air.
I could see the moon outside the edge of the tent—swollen with the sun’s light and floating like some silver buoy of yearning. Clouds like curtains hung in the air, swaying with the wind. Lighting bugs had settled in the field like dancing stars. A gust of wind blew through the tent.
A sudden flood rose—foam like flashing diamonds—and gushed over the tangle of briars and thorns. I said, “You make me feel that life is not so far away.”
“I didn’t know there was such a distance.”
“Before, there was.”
“But that was before.” She reached out and took my hand. “I never knew the night could be so alive—so alive with music—with you and me and everything. Can’t you feel it? It’s like a silvery symphony.”
“Okay everyone,” one of the band members called. “I’ve got an old-school request here.” A single voice began.
So they say I’ve been gone for too long.
And they say I don’t know my way around.
A few wandering notes on the keyboard as the voice continued.
Things have changed—people, too.
What now is gray used to be blue.
And it’s long and it’s gone and right is now wrong,
And where I used to live now I don’t belong,
And it’s gone and it’s gone and a song can’t be found
To untie the knots that have everything bound.
And it’s gone and it’s gone and it’s gone.
And they say I don’t know my way around.
Then, the music began to swell.
But now the dreamer’s back and he’s on his way
The dreamer’s back and he’s here to say—
“Wait—I know this!” Lana cried.
At her recognition of one of Mickey Kent’s biggest mid-career hits, Pat smiled.
“This is from a ShoePlanet commercial, right?”
That smile dropped into an open-mouthed gape of utter disappointment.
So sun light up the world,
And wind tousle and swirl…
She and I danced. This was different—slower, hand in hand, faces inches from each other. Perhaps the violin had nurtured that touch, so her slightly leathered fingertips could rest listening on my veins.
“I can still taste the bourbon,” I said.
“So can I.” She put her head on my shoulder. “Just hold me.”
And so I did. Her heartbeat echoed against my ribcage as we turned slow circles. I could feel the heat rising from her cheeks. I closed my eyes so I could just focus on her arm around my back. We were alive.
In that final drawn-out note of the song, I heard an echo of Mickey Kent—of the recording I was familiar with, from his 1977 61st Street Sessions performance, when the sun of youth had long ago set but a weathered yearning endured in his voice.
Kristy and Ralph wavered up to us. They both looked a little high; maybe Ralph had rolled up some of his Mello Mello for the wedding. Kristy gave us both hugs. “You guys are such a cute couple,” she said. Yeah, she definitely had smoked up.
“To-ta-lly,” Ralph said.
“Come on, Bonnie, let’s check out those cupcakes. I’m hungry.” Bonnie followed after her with a wink.
“So you’re having fun,” I said to Ralph.
“This is so much fun,” Ralph threw his arm around me. “Best—best wedding I’ve ever been to. It’s like kaleidoscopes and moonbeams.”
“Sure, Ralph.”
“I mean it. It’s transfixing. It’s transfiguring. And we almost didn’t go—can you believe it? I’m so glad we never showed you the letter.”
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