Barry Hannah - Geronimo Rex

The wedding brought a planeload of relatives from Louisiana, Texas, Atlanta, Ohio, and Virginia. These people treated me wonderfully, and I had the feeling of deep roots set down into the country. Hugging me, winking at me, smoothing me, the uncles and aunts and three cousins I hadn’t seen since I started to college. We all met at the Edgewater Beach hotel. My sister was chic and stunning, with her husband the handsomest expert at gynecology in the South. My brother was rich and friendly, had traveled hundreds of miles to see my wedding. Good old Robert smoked his pipe and kept his arm across my shoulders, like a warm happy branch with leaves of goodwill. He knew I needed support. I’ll never recover from the family loyalty they showed me the day before the wedding. Robert’s wife patting me on the back. Go get her, your bride. My mother wore a purple coat which evoked a royal aura around her I had never before seen. The old man himself was sharp as a dandy, liking his family all around him.

At the church, Lombardo brings Prissy down the aisle. Everybody in the church wears a dark suit. Yet Lombardo’s suit is light tan, of a summer weave, and he wears a screwy blue tie with a Kiwanis Club clasp across it His shoes are white; his coat is open, and his initial is on the belt buckle. Looking about, he buttons his coat while he comes down the aisle with Prissy.

Prissy looked like a pubescent Arab in her gown. The church grew quiet. My nieces were studying her and whispering to one another in the pews.

We got married. The man of the cloth, I believe, cut the service a little. It seems to me we were man and wife with blinding speed. Fleece stood Best Man. The girl who served as Prissy’s bridesmaid was named Cedar Polio, or something near that, a bucktoothed daughter of Sicily who sucked in and out with joy. In the reception line, she would grab Fleece and shriek when someone she knew came by. Several boys came by who shook hands with Prissy familiarly, looking me over all the while. They gathered under the limb of a huge oak tree draped with Spanish moss and looked me over again. They wore suits but still looked like punks.

We were on the lawn behind Mr. Lombardo’s supervisor’s house. The Lombardos furnished for the reception very well. On the table there was everything from the usual flaky wedding morsels to a case of Jack Daniels Black. Lombardo tended the bar himself. Every now and then he would come out from behind the table and hug someone he knew, and they would bark together. It was hard to believe this happiness had anything to do with me. I walked over to the bar table when I saw Mr. Neicase working toward it with his plate in his hand. The party wasn’t mixing. My father was talking to some of my relatives, out near the big oak and withdrawn from the others. He was looking iron-haired and significant in his black suit. I wanted to see Mr. Neicase. Lombardo put his arm over Mr. Neicase’s shoulders. Lombardo was tight. He hung jovially onto Mr. Neicase, seeing me come up to greet him.

“What was you daddy’s name?” Lombardo asked me.

“Ode Elann.”

“Both two?” he said, releasing Mr. Neicase and raising his hand, like people who are drunk do for balance. I nodded. He began shouting at my father and hooking his arm, inviting him over. My father was with his sister, many yards away.

“Hey Old Elaine! Old Elaine! Commere!”

“Daddy?” I called. He had heard Lombardo already. He looked at me distrustfully before meandering our way. The relatives were peering at us.

“Old Elaine, you know what this is?” said Lombardo, holding out his hand, as if the wrong answer would be: your hand. “It’s my damn hand . Give me five.” He took the old man’s hand and put his other arm around my shoulder. “This is your last son but let me tell you, that is my first and last daughter. I didn’t have a bunch like you to spare but you lookit her, that, see that, here she comes if that ain’t my darling.” Prissy walked to us, lifting her gown. “Want tell you somethin’ else. This is my friend.” He pointed to Mr. Neicase. “He is your son’s friend and I didn’t know if you met. He brought these two fine young people together. This is my friend Lance Neicase. He needs friends because he is divorced.”

The old man looked negatively at Mr. Neicase, who blinked and turned completely around toward the bar, avoiding scrutiny. The old man said, “The bride is lovely.” I knew he would have to take account of that. He smiled at her devotedly a couple of seconds. She looked a little older than his grand children. He didn’t know how to look at her. I didn’t either. The old man gave Lombardo a negligent scan, as if he would never be troubled to learn his first name. I wasn’t sure of it myself until we got the checks from him in Fayetteville. He had a hard and vigorous signature: Ted Lombardo .

We were through Biloxi and on the way to New Orleans for the honeymoon, my wallet was packed with wedding gift money; we were pulling a U-Haul-It trailer full of presents, and Prissy and I were rump to rump on the seat. She had an ungainly large corsage pinned on her and a tweedy nuptial-eve outfit. Her head fell over on me. She was sobbing. I pulled off in a curbed outlet of the highway and asked her what was wrong. She wouldn’t tell me. I got out and looked at the car. Some of her friends had written on the sides and the trunk in white shoe polish. “She Got Him Today He’ll Get Her Tonight” and “Hot Springs Tonight!” and “Watch Mississippi Grow.” And in a small neat script: “Hunch Without Fear.” I suspected Fleece of that one, but no telling. I took out my handkerchief and wiped off and smeared what I could, except for the neat scriptive I thought Fleece had put on. That was all right with me; I wouldn’t be ashamed to ride into New Orleans with that on my car.

“Wha’s the matter?”

“Y’all hated my daddy,” she said.

“No.”

“You did.”

“I think he’s a hell of a guy.”

“He was drunk and you were hateful toward him. I want you to turn this car around. He was scared of your daddy. I want to see you shake hands with him.” She broke down again. I backed up with the trailer again. This was tedious, trying to back up a trailer.

We got to the Lombardo house just when they were getting out of the old boxy Plymouth in the driveway. The reception must’ve just broken up. I got out of our car and advanced toward them. Mrs. Lombardo saw me and ran in the house like a shot. Mr. Lombardo was far gone. I don’t think he recognized me for a minute. He challenged me, in fact, and fell down on the back of his car.

“Who datch?”

“It’s Harry. I want to thank you for this lovely bride. I want to shake your hand.” He knew me then, and looked out at Prissy in the car and waved to her.

“Pretty good?” he said.

“We’re fine,” I said, not catching on.

“Pretty good pussy?” Then he started to weep. I let go of his hand and went back to the car.

We were at the Jung Hotel in New Orleans. The tick was on my heart and I had said nothing for hours. I knew something big and wrong would move against me shortly. I told her not to stand in view of the clerk when I registered for us. I almost jumped on the bellhop who was stealing glances at her. We got in the room, at last alone, around suppertime. I wanted to have love before we went out to eat.

“I don’t believe I want children this early,” she told me. She sat on the bed with her tweed dress and corsage in a pile around her waist. Her breasts hung out dead white like small balls with red points on them. So we went to Moran’s and I had my cigarette it by a Cajun waiter who seemed to be lamenting over how gauche the entire world was.

When we got back, she said, “I don’t think I’m going to like this.” She had come out of the bathroom. While she was in there, almost an hour, I was in that deaf and dumb gaze watching these circus horses on the television. But when I saw her I took to my feet. She was naked. She had her hands at her hips. What my eyes went to was the rich brown hair around her violently overmatured and split grape.