I’VE been shot at for Chrissake, Brock thought. He’d seen it all—bloated, decomposing bodies, women beaten black and blue by drunkard husbands, a cat-infested apartment covered in feces from the bathtub to the coffee pot on the kitchen counter. Nothing should faze me.
Sheila buzzed around Brock’s living room, dialing everyone in her cell phone’s address book. “Guess what?” she repeated. “I’m engaged! Yes, the cop. Who else?”
It had only been an hour, but Brock was already beginning to feel—not regret, per se. Maybe something more like buyer’s remorse. He stared at the TV, fixated on images of boats firing water onto the offshore oil rig blaze in the Gulf. Thick black smoke billowed into the air. The same images had been playing on every news channel, all week, on repeat.
“He took me to the Olive Garden,” Sheila said. “So romantic. Salad and breadsticks—OMG. Then afterwards we walked down the Navy Pier boardwalk and just talked for like two hours. So we’re sitting on a bench overlooking Lake Michigan, lost in each other’s eyes, and he says, ‘You wanna get married?’ We raced to Jewelers Row and literally picked out the ring fifteen minutes later.”
Brock had always been impulsive, a consequence of his untreated ADD. It didn’t help that he and Sheila had killed a bottle of Pinot over dinner. His school report cards from kindergarten on were peppered with comments like “needs to learn turn-taking” and “listening skills can improve.” Would things have turned out differently if he’d taken Ritalin like his doc recommended? His mom didn’t want her baby popping pills and turning into a junkie like his dead-beat dad, so whose fault was it?
Sheila tossed her thick, curly hair as she yapped to her maid-of-honor. “I don’t really care what we do for the bachelorette as long as I have a stretch limo, a glitzy tiara, and penis-shaped cupcakes. That’s all I ask.”
The tossing, the yapping, they never bothered Brock before. In fact, the tossing in particular he’d initially found endearing. But could he stand the hair-toss for the rest of his life? For a lifetime, the hair-toss?
“My mom wants to talk to you,” Sheila said.
Brock grabbed the phone. “Mrs. McGee, hey.”
“Oh, don’t ‘Mrs. McGee’ me. I want you to call me ‘Mom’ from now on. Son, do you have any idea how long this girl has been dreaming about her wedding day? Any idea? Since junior high.”
It was all documented in Sheila’s wedding planner, Mom said. She would wear a Vera Wang white taffeta gown, strapless, with a beaded sweetheart neckline to accentuate the busty figure she’d inherited from her grandma; her ten bridesmaids would wear mint-green dresses, the groomsmen would don matching vests; the first dance would be to Celine Dion’s Power of Love.
“I had no idea,” Brock said. How could he after, what, five months of dating? He pawed the top of his crew cut, tattooed flames crawling up his sinewy arm from wrist to bicep.
“It’s funny because every guy she’s ever dated has been ‘The One,’” Sheila’s mom said. “We joke about it all the time. Do you know when she first told me you were ‘The One?’ On your first date, between dinner and dessert.”
Before Brock, she explained, there was Sheila’s pimply-faced high school sweetheart, Josh Epstein, who captained the Mathletes and ate a large chocolate chip cookie every day for lunch; he was “The One” from January to May 2000. In college, there was Dan “Danimal” Weber, the lead singer of a ska band and an aspiring lawyer—“The One” for two dates and a make-out session in his hatchback that Mrs. McGee caught through her bedroom blinds. There was the seven-foot mechanical engineering graduate student, Ross Murphy, who gave her a Claddagh ring and then broke up with her a month later because his mom didn’t approve. He was “The One,” too.
“Wow, quite a history,” Brock said.
Sheila was on the home phone now talking to bridesmaid number six. “We want a summer wedding and there’s no way we’re waiting until next summer. I’m almost twenty-seven and I want three kids before I’m over thirty.”
Brock did the math. He eyed the neon Budweiser sign and Tony Esposito jersey hanging on his wall. Surely, they would have to go. In their place, family portraits? Potpourri? He gazed at the image on TV of an oil-soaked pelican that looked like it’d been dipped in chocolate. A reporter in flip-flops and cargo shorts walked along the Louisiana beach. “It’s a disaster here,” he said. “But, hey, this is America. Drill, baby, drill, right?”
• • •
By mid-June, the wedding was a month away. Brock lumbered into Sheila’s bedroom. The same bedroom she’d spent the first twenty-seven years of her life in. He glimpsed at the old seventh grade picture of her on the dresser—braces, tinted eyeglasses—the year she told him she’d transferred to Our Lady of Perpetual Help and got picked on mercilessly with only episodic help, poor thing. The year she vowed to one day show all those snobby bitches up.
Brock and Sheila booked Old St. Pats thanks to a fortuitous cancellation. It was the most beautiful church in Chicago. Neither of them had ever attended mass there, but Sheila had Googled reviews and, yes, it was perfect. Pre-marital counseling was beginning that week.
Sheila sat Indian-style on her bed, poring through stacks of Modern Bride like the CIA over terror documents. “That’s it!” she said, pointing at an open page. “That’s how I want my hair done. I knew it was in one of these.”
The nightly news was on. By now, millions of gallons of oil had spewed into the Gulf. Tar balls were washing ashore everywhere. BP was being investigated for cutting corners and ignoring warnings.
“That’s great, sweetie,” Brock said.
Truth was, he and Sheila had been fighting constantly. Sheila wanted to go to the Maldives for their honeymoon. When Brock mentioned Florida she said it was just because there were discounts now that the beaches were covered in tar. Sheila even wanted Brock to quit the Chicago force and become a suburban cop. “There’s no way I’m gonna spend the rest of my life busting high school keg parties,” he’d told her. Their moms had nearly come to blows over what desserts they’d serve at the shower.
“Sheila, honey, we should talk.”
The magazine fell to the bed.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. I’m wondering if we’re, I don’t know, rushing into this a bit.”
“Rushing into this?” Sheila’s bottom lip began to quiver. Tears welled in her eyes. “Where is this coming from? Wait, let me guess. This is all your crazy mother’s doing, isn’t it?”
“Let’s not bring my mom into this.”
“She’s been planting little seeds in your head, hasn’t she? I could tell when we were at the bridal shop trying on the dress. I was, like, balling my eyes out and she had the audacity to say it looked too tight on me. Like she was trying to insinuate I’m fat or something.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t insinuating you were fat.”
“I should have known. She’ll never believe anyone’s good enough for you. You’re thirty and your mom is totally in love with you. It’s twisted, you know that?”
Brock’s old man had abandoned them before Brock could even walk. His mom had raised him and the three girls all on her own. So, yeah, maybe she was protective of him. So what? “Let’s be rational here, okay? This has nothing to do with my mom. I just think this is a big decision, ya know. I mean, why do we need to get married this summer? Why can’t we wait until next summer? You can move into my apartment—”
“I’m not moving into your apartment where you used to bring all your little hoochies. Besides, there’s one bathroom, Brock. One bathroom! How are we both supposed to get ready in the morning?”
Mrs. McGee hollered for Sheila to help her set the dinner table.
“In a minute!” Sheila yelled back. “This is bullshit, Brock. It’s like you’re looking for excuses to break up. If we don’t get married this summer, then you know what? Then it’s over, that’s what. Then we’re done.”
Sheila sobbed. Brock had no choice but to wrap his arms around her. He could feel her warm tears through his t-shirt. Don’t be soft, Brock thought. You’ve been shot at for Chrissake.
“Don’t you even love me?” Sheila whispered.
“Yes. Yes, I love you. Sure I love you. Of course I love you.”
“Why are you sabotaging this then, huh? You deserve to be happy, you know. All the shit you’ve seen. Your upbringing.”
Brock had always been a hopeless romantic. He’d watched Sleepless in Seattle with his older sisters two dozen times. He wanted the Happily Ever After. He wanted to be the husband, the father, his old man never was.
“Don’t cry, honey, okay,” he said. That’s what came out. “Every-thing’s fine. You’re right, I was just freakin’ out. You’re right.”
By the time they’d made up, balls of crumpled Kleenex and Bridezilla DVDs littered the bedroom floor like the Pacific Trash Vortex. Sheila blew her nose. Her eyes were red and swollen.
“I’m going to work on the wedding slideshow tonight,” she said. “I’m going to have pictures of me growing up and Brown-Eyed Girl playing in the background. I think you’ll really like it.”
Brock kissed Sheila on the forehead and wiped tears from her cheeks. He walked out the front door, head bent, with a meek wave goodbye to Mrs. McGee. To Mom. Not the kind of wave you’d expect from a Chicago cop with flame tattoos and he knew it. The front door squeaked shut behind him.
• • •
The wedding was a success. Brock and Sheila danced all night. Sheila shoved cake into his mouth while guests whistled and clanked spoons against glasses.
It was two a.m. and Brock sat slouched on the recliner in the hotel suite, his shirt unbuttoned, his bow tie unfastened and dangling from his collar. Sheila laid face-down on the king bed, arms spread, snoring, her wedding dress sprawled across the comforter. Lit tealight candles and rose petals floated in the soap suds of the jacuzzi.
Brock stared at the TV, its flashes illuminating the room. The oil well finally got capped, bringing the three-month disaster to an end. The news warned that there would still be clean-up efforts, though, dead birds drifting on ocean currents and turtle carcasses washing ashore. There would be lawsuits. Toxins and carcinogens would lurk under the cover of the sea, their consequences hidden from the light of the world, only to be unveiled years down the road. Brock looked over at Sheila, his wife, the one who almost got away, her snoring now growing louder. He glanced at the suitcases packed for the Maldives, then quietly crawled into the bed beside her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve Karas lives in Chicago with his wife and two kids. His work has appeared in several online and print publications, including the short-fiction anthologies Bully (KY Story, 2015) and Friend.Follow.Text. #storiesFromLivingOnline (Enfield & Wizenty, 2013). His story, “Catching Fire,” was a finalist for The Best Small Fictions of 2015. His debut story collection, Kinda Sorta American Dream, was a finalist for Alternating Current’s 2015 Electric Book Award and is due out from Tailwinds Press, December 2015.
LF #019 © Steve Karas. Published by Little Fiction | Big Truths, July 2012.
