Maybe it was because I was wearing sunglasses indoors, or maybe she’s a real stickler for punctuality, but rather than give her the benefit of the doubt, I instead hissed and bared my fangs, which is International Black Code for “I would never light your path to the underground railroad.”
I let her stare a hole into the side of my face as I shifted my attention to the bridesmaids, who looked absolutely perfect. Combed and sprayed and cinched and plucked, and no unlucky fat friend ruining the uniformity of the bridesmaid roster. Man, I have been that bitch before and I hate it and it sucks. Can’t I just sit in the last pew and undo the top button on my expensive outside pants and make eyes at all the bride’s single uncles? Why you gotta shove me into this tight and shiny shit? You knew I wasn’t going to lose fifty pounds, you asshole, especially because your incessant calling and e-mailing me all hours of the day about the florist and the caterer and the dressmaker caused me to stress eat like you would not fucking believe. Would it have killed you to pick a nice jersey or cotton-poly blend? My eyelashes are sweating in this cheap-ass dress, and my tits are exploding out of the top like biscuit dough from a can. I was in a wedding once in which every other bridesmaid was five-foot-two and approximately thirty-two pounds, and they all looked gorgeous and toned and please keep in mind that I do not shave my armpits. I only went because the bride had a cousin I was interested in, but I ended up looking like some sort of mythical creature, all giant and hunched over and tucking my T. rex arms into my sides so I wouldn’t mess up the pictures with my mossy pits. It was a fail, believe me. After the humiliating amateur photo shoot (“On the count of three, everybody jump!”), I threw my Spanx in a trash can at the hotel, put on a hoodie, and took off my pinching shoes before they had even served the salad course.
The service was lovely and brief, praises be to the most high God, and the only blemish on the whole thing was that the minister spaced on the words to the Lord’s Prayer as she was reciting it. Holy crap! I’m the biggest sodomite this side of Gomorrah, and even I know all the words to the Apostles’ Creed, the Twenty-third Psalm, and the Lord’s Prayer. Don’t they teach you that on the first day of Ministry 101?! Lesson one: skimming the collection plate. Lesson two: Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Blah blah daily bread, blah blah trespasses, AMEN. I was saying it along in my head with her, feeling pure and clean and washed in the blood of the lamb, and when she flubbed the line my first thought was, “Well, Sam, it’s obvious you’re the devil and that Jesus really was watching when you let that kid finger you in the laundry room of his apartment building freshman year. Give it up, dummy.” But then I realized that she was the wrong one, and now I’ve found the loophole through which I’m going to slip into heaven come Judgment Day. Like God is Judge Mathis.
The wedding was at four and the reception at six thirty, and the minute we walked outside to stand broiling under the summer sun and wave ribbons at the happy couple as they descended the steps of the church, I turned to Amy and was like, “Dude, we have two hours to kill in the [redacted] suburbs.” Now, if Janessa hadn’t been turning her nose up at me in the church I would’ve asked her and Marquise if they wanted to team up and find someplace to day drink, but by the time I took my ass off my shoulders and thought about inviting them along on whatever adventure we were about to get into, they were already getting into his grandmother’s Buick Regal. So I did the next best thing: I unbuttoned my pants and decided to take a driving tour of the western suburbs. And that, my little pumpkins, is how a dude in a dress and a runaway slave happened upon Civil War Days.
When we initially drove past the field full of tents and campfires in the middle of downtown, my first thought was “White people will go camping anywhere.” Then, spying the hoop skirts and Confederate flags peppering the crowd, I told Amy to turn the truck around. Right. Now. As we drove past the second time, two young soldiers in homemade Union uniforms were walking down the sidewalk, rifles slung low across their backs. We obviously needed to park the truck. I started humming “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as I got a couple of bottles of water out of her trunk and Amy readied her camera for our long journey back to 1862.