In a bow to Levon’s literary leanings, I quoted Dostoevsky. “‘For the humble soul…worn out by grief and toil, and still more by the everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world’s, it was the greatest need and comfort to find someone or something holy to fall down before and worship.
“Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet, somewhere on earth there is someone holy and exalted. He has the truth, he knows the truth, so it is not dead upon the earth. So it will come one day to us, too, and rule over all the earth according to the promise.’
“This is my promise to you, Levon Rockwell. While we grow old together, I promise to love, honor and respect you, to hold you dear in my heart, but not shackle you to my will. I will stand by your side and sleep in your arms. I will work as your partner and live as your family.”
I remember that because I wrote it down. I still have the sweat-stained, crumbled-up piece of paper. Oh boy, was I nervous when Levon slipped the band onto my finger. He wore a nice linen shirt and Italian silk tie under his leather cut, a sort of a combination of the best of both worlds. He wore new black jeans instead of the usual worn 501s, and I’d never seen those black cowboy boots before. Lazarus sat placidly at his side, tongue out. For once he didn’t need to be held on a leash. He wasn’t going anywhere. Everyone he loved was here.
Levon said, “‘Do not forget. Some give little, and it is much for them. Others give all, and it costs them no effort. Who then has given most?’”
I remember that because I’ve got the video. It was a Knut Hamsun quote, he told me later. He echoed back to the arguments we’d had about how little he supposedly cared about life, how his unfeeling suit of armor protected him from life’s barbs.
“Oaklyn. You are my motive for everything. You are the one thing I believe in regards to my relationship to this unknowable universe around me. My destiny will always wind up with you no matter which road I travel, and my end goal determines everything. This makes you my religion, the end all and be all of my world.”
He kissed me somewhere in there. I really think I swooned, like they do in old gothic romances. Because the next thing I knew, I was in his arms upside-down, looking up at him, the sky, our friends, the face of a giant furry beast.
LEVON
“I know you want to cut the ribbon at the farmer’s market grand opening,” said Slushy to Maximus, “but I’d like that honor. I worked hard on making it a reality, coordinating with all the appropriate agencies, greasing the right palms.” I had just met Slushy a couple of months ago. He was the club’s lawyer, normally living on the other side of the Grand Canyon in the bosom of The Bare Bones’ backyard. He advised us on all manner of things, from the downtown farmer’s market to business licenses, to how innocent to act when anyone brought up Ladell Pratt, the mayor found mysteriously strangled to death while committing some perverted act involving handcuffs. In an elementary school, no less.
“Oh, absolutely!” declared Maximus, hands up in surrender. “That’s your baby, Slushy.”
“We know you like that kind of stuff,” said Yosemite Sam, pointing at the lawyer with his can of Bud. “I saw that Christopher Guest movie rental in the back seat of your Prius.”
Everyone laughed. Sledgehammer added, “Alongside the empty bottle of Kombucha and Ray-Ban Wayfarers.”
I said, “He just asked me where he could skinny-dip around here.”
Everyone loved the lawyer who didn’t fit in with the rest of us. His fuchsia pink shirt set him off loudly from the crowd, and he was passionate about things like hummus, heirloom tomatoes, and cutting ribbons. He’d seen the Avalanche farmer’s market come to fruition, babying it through all the stages of production. I hadn’t needed him for my Chop Shop business license, though. That had been promptly hand-delivered by Hyrum Shumway himself a couple days after the mayor went missing. Signed, sealed, delivered.
Maximus said, “We had to push the grand opening back a week to accommodate Levon’s honeymoon. So the grand opening will coincide with the Fourth of July.”
Slushy gestured at me with his craft beer. “Where you going, hot stuff?” I wasn’t the only “hot stuff.” I’d heard him call Sledgehammer and Gideon that moniker, too.
“Carmel,” I said. It was actually too soon in both of our new jobs to take much time off. We really wanted to go to St. Petersburg in Russia, but that would have to wait. Carmel-by-the-Sea in California didn’t take as long, and was almost as gorgeous.
“Listen,” said Gideon, “let’s move this party down to the Elks Lodge. It’s getting dark and I don’t want to stumble with your Nana on the path.”
“Thanks for taking her,” I said, clapping Gideon on the back.