The call to his lawyer probably went something like this: “Jack, I apologize for calling so late, God…so early in the morning. I need your help right away. Please file annulment papers Sunday, right away. This catastrophe is going to end, must end right now with the least damage to my daughter and Anne.” This conversation, I made up; the events that would have precipitated such a frantic call are not. `I had a “real ” day job but I also
tended bar for weddings at an upscale Baltimore hotel. Oh, this particular wedding, I recall how “hand-crafted” it seemed to me at the time. This reception was the manifestation of the bride’s mother. Mrs… Her hands, her touch, her love and generosity were all over this wedding. The bride, her daughter was young, maybe not even over 20. I wanted to make Mrs…happy that day. However, there was an anomaly that left me with a foreboding.
The groom wore his Marine dress blues, as did the rest of his wedding party. Those crisp uniforms usually add a formality and sharpness to any civilian proceeding. We all take notice! The tell tale warning to me-they all were one stripers, privates. These guys were barely of age, if they were even that. I expected a lot of hard drinking. There also seemed to be a class disparity between these close knit young men, and the bride’s family and guests from the local area. I won’t belabor–on cue, these guys, including the groom, especially the groom, got incredibly drunk. There was no huge scene at the reception; the aftermath, however, devolved into a horror scene.
My last late night remembrance of the groom–groveling outside the elevator, alone, screaming uncontrollably, and looking for a fight with the hotel security guard, he, keeping out of reach of an errant fist. The groom finished off his wedding day spectacle by vomiting in the elevator! By then, as he headed upstairs to the bridal suite, his new wife had already thrown him out of the wedding bed. This marriage…on shaky ground before he’d even had a chance to turn back the sheets. Mrs… her elegant and heartfelt gift to her daughter was in ruins. Thus, an imaginary phone call from a dad clearing away the wreckage “tout suite”.