Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

Killdozer! catches a raindrop. And then two. The ink starts to run. Adam looks up, figures it has to be condensation from one of the fans, but lifeguards blow their whistles and yell as ominous clouds gather, begin to roll in. Of course they’re CGI, projected on a screen, but it’s amazingly convincing. Everyone out! Now! Some people are confused, but most play along, gather their kids, slap five. A chain-link fence is rolled in front of the water, which begins to seethe and churn. In the distance lightning crackles, lances down from ceiling to breaker. Waves crash against the shore, spend themselves in purple foam, scalded bubbles rising from fake clams.

Children laugh and clap, delighted.

A rubber whale breaches. More applause. Dolphins frolic, their oddly human laughter echoing through the sound system. What’s probably the Titanic heads toward what’s probably an iceberg.

Fuck it.

Adam lopes past the guards, in one motion scales the links, tosses himself over.

“Hey! Hey, you!”

He ankles through the chop. The water is cold. Or maybe that’s another effect. There are a volley of whistles, a flickering alarm. Adam is tossed around, abraded by foam rocks, comes up spuming for breath. People angle their phones, shoot video. A set of waves pounds by like freezers tumbling from a truck on the highway.

He has no choice but to dive beneath or take the full brunt.

The first twenty seconds are the worst, panicwise. And then things slow down. Adam watches schools of tiny fish linger and dart in unison. They must be real. Or maybe holograms? Tiny chips shoved into rubber fins? There’s a manta ray far below, and possibly a tiger shark circling above, which fits nicely with the cheap high from oxygen depletion.

Adam gets seriously Zen, figures the ocean will decide what the ocean will decide.

Even if it’s run by a shelf of Pentium IIIs.

“GET UP,” EVE SAYS for the third time, presses her thumb into Adam’s forehead. “We need to get fitted.”

He’s waterlogged and groggy. The elevator dings. There’s the gentle lilt of Spanish from maids in the hall. Across his shoulders are bruises shaped like squid, or possibly the grip of unamused lifeguards.

“Wait, why again?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Eve says, her voice knitting together the spine of their first real fight. “Because you can’t go to the wedding in a towel?”

IT’S RAINING HARD. Almost no one else is out on the road. The Taurus slides instead of rolls, shudders deeply at each red light.

“Sorry,” Eve says.

“About what?”

“Talking to that guy.”

“What guy?”

“At the beach.”

“What beach?”

She puts her hand over his, locks fingers.

They pass a Welcome Thieves billboard featuring a kid in tight white briefs. A centurion offers him a grape from the tip of his spear, while a woman behind them lashes two blind stallions with a garden hose.

The store is cramped, windows fogged. Big-haired girls paw through racks of prom dresses while their mothers wait. Eve comes out of the changing room in a hideous flesh-colored gown, holding her breath.

“How do I look?”

Adam stands on a wooden box while a tiny man with a gray Afro and a mouthful of pins adjusts his cuffs. The prom girls stop nattering and stare. The cashier stares. The stock boys rub their hairless cheeks and do a credible job of pretending not to stare.

“Well?”

Eve is flushed, hair swept back, delicate arms and shoulders lending architecture to the dress. She’s in heels, lips red, nails pink. A woman. A queen. The reason Pericles sacked Delphi, that all of Thrace burned.

“Gorgeous,” Adam says.

“Really?”

She curtsies, spins the hem, absolutely owns that rag.

“I can’t believe you’re my date. Shit, I can’t believe I’m yours.”

Eve bites her lip, slides behind a curtain. One of the prom girls bursts into tears. The rest take turns comforting her, peek at Adam through the racks.

“Boy, I sure figured you wrong,” the tailor says, looking up over his glasses.

“Huh?”

“Had you down for a wise-ass comment. Woulda bet the house you messed that up. And then bam , my man comes through. Tell you the truth, that’s the first time I been surprised since O.J.”

THEY’RE LATE. EVE gives him a kiss, hustles away while he finds a parking spot. Adam sits alone in the back row. The church feels more like a casino. He keeps expecting triple cherries to hit, someone’s uncle about to shake twelve grand loose from a pew. The priest drones on for a while. Mostly about how it’s better if you’re good to each other. How it really is preferable if you don’t have sex with your wife’s best friend, or spend the house fund on meth. Then it’s Latin, Latin, Latin.

Eve stands on the podium, chin up, flanked by lesser women drowning in frills and lace.

It’s impossible not to be proud.

Also, continuously buzzed.

BParse69: Yr mother’s name is Janet, right? Lives on Peach Tree Lane?

BParse69: Whoze this cute chick in all the pics? Can u txt me her #?

BParse69: Bunch of hard pipe-hitters I know jus cleaned out yr place.

After the ceremony, Eve boards a van with the wedding party. Adam follows with some rowdy Welcome Thieves employees. There’s talk about the bride (saddled), Uncle Benny (asshole), gowns (dreadful), stock options (plummeting), and attendance (mandatory). They cross town, the reception in a parking lot next to a WT distribution center. A huge pinstriped awning sits in the middle of the tarmac, AstroTurf laid out in squares. On the far stage the band struggles through a Billy Joel cover, power cutting in and out. Every thirty seconds the rain produces a series of electronic squalls that warn of undue voltage and massive equipment death.

“Unbelievable,” the man next to Adam says, dabbing at his suit. “Winters is such a cheap fuck.”

There’s a grumbling assent. Guests hold papers over their heads, newsprint running under cuffs. Wives and dates stumble in heels while a priest tries to protect the elderly with a broken umbrella. They finally make it under the awning but it’s only dry in the center. Guests push together like encounter therapy, bartenders and caterers stuck on the fringe, miserable, wiping droplets of water from each other’s chins.

Adam finds himself in the receiving line. The groom has mirrored Oakleys and sideburns, flecks of powder dusting his left nostril. He shakes Adam’s hand, says it’s awesome to see him again.

“That’s cool. Except we’ve never met.”

“Who you here with again?”

“Eve.”

The groom shakes his head.

“Oh, dude. Oh, man.”

“Yeah.”

“You fucker.”

“Yeah.”

He’s passed off to Eve’s sister. It’s pretty clear why they don’t get along. She’s got the bones of a big girl, impossibly thin, looks like a car fire, flushed, pink, ravenous. Like she could never get drunk enough, but you wouldn’t know, because you’d already be blacked out behind the fridge. She pulls Adam into a hug, which gives him a view of the tattoo between her shoulder blades, Bettie Page firing a machine gun made from a decomposed leg.

An artist. He’d put money on performances that involve food.

“Come find me later,” she whispers. “Let’s dance.”

“Definitely,” Adam says, hits the bar, orders a G&T that’s 70 percent rainwater.

“Listen, thanks for coming,” Benny Winters says, grabs his shoulder exactly where the lifeguard did. Uncle Benny has silver eyebrows and Gatsby hair, smells like cologne made from orphans’ tears.

“Glad to be here.”

“Who are you again?”

“Only the guy who’s gonna marry your other niece.”