To tell you the honest truth, I had never really considered marriage until that night in the taco shop.
She had a veggie special burrito and I was working on a chicken supremo. It was day four of my favorite kind of road trip, the kind where you find out where you're going when you get there, and we had a tablecloth made of road maps.
"I've always wanted to go to Death Valley," I confessed to her. The van was running like it had a crush on the horizon and we both liked the dusty taste of back roads.
"Sure, Death Valley sounds sexy, but I want to go to Vegas first."
"Vegas?" I raised an eyebrow. She didn't seem like the bright lights, big city type to me. We had slept in cemeteries and junkyards all the way down from Vancouver, she drank green tea and cracked organic black peppercorns onto my sandwiches with her teeth. She advocated the use of natural menstrual sponges. The two of us in Las Vegas? I couldn't see it.
"Yeah, Vegas. I want to get married." Sour cream dripped off of her little finger and landed on the Oregon coast.
"Who you gonna marry?" I passed her a napkin. "You, you bonehead. Will you marry me?" She licked her fingers.
Perhaps I should have thought a bit at this juncture, considered concerns like commitment and vows and responsible behavior, but thinking is contrary to the whole spirit of eloping, so I didn't. Think, that is.
"You want to think about it?" Time had elapsed. I was still sitting open-mouthed, and had not answered.
"No I mean yes, I mean sure, let's go to Las Vegas."
What did I know of love and marriage? I knew that I loved her hands, the way they moved, faster somehow than the rest of her, and a little too big, and calloused, but everything else about her soft and brown, even in early spring like this. I could marry her just for her hands, how they looked in the dark by the dashlight and holding a Zippo as she lit two smokes and gave me one. Watching her do that made me feel peaceful and restless at the same time and isn't that love for you right there?
High noon the next afternoon the desert was dry-brushed sage and dust. The only things painted vivid were tiny flowers on the cactus, flecks of that purple that teenagers paint their toenails.
We were fifty miles outside of Las Vegas and I was searching for a sign. She was up in the hills behind me, taking photos, and I was praying for some guidance. I wanted some kind of sign, from God, or whoever it is who's responsible for those kinds of things: Should we get married?
Heat waves were bending off of bone-colored sand, and everything was quiet. Nothing but the distant hum of the interstate.
Then I saw an emerald-green lizard skitter across the gravel and disappear.
Okay, God, I thought. Bright green lizards are really cool and all, but this is a monumental question here, I'm gonna need a big sign. Big as the desert, the kind of big I can't ignore. Hit me, Great Creator: To marry or not to marry?
I heard the grind of a tanker truck gearing down, and there it was. A sixteen-wheeler painted painful white humped down the off-ramp and drove real slow, right past me. Stenciled on the side in block red letters was one word: LUCKY. And right behind that truck was another one, identical to the first. And then one more.
Three times lucky? Three times lucky! That settles it. Today was to be our wedding day.
My photographer fiancée came down from the hills smiling. "Take a picture," I told her, laughing. "Take three pictures. It's a sign." My boots crunched gravel in a prenuptial dance. I dropped to my knees, grabbed a handful of wedding day dirt and tipped it into my pocket, for luck. "Let's go get married."
"Okay," she smiled again. "But it's my turn to drive."
The Strip in Las Vegas is a whole lot of stimulation all at once for a small town lad who doesn't play videogames. I was glad she was driving. The first strip mall we found in town had a big sign that advertised free maps, coloring books and "wedding information." They're like that in Las Vegas.
The woman behind the counter had a face that looked like she smoked too much and wintered in Florida. I announced my marital intentions and she immediately sprang into a flurry of action. "How completely and utterly romantic. We have a number of lovely little chapels to pick from, here, take these brochures, and where is your lovely bride-to-be? She's out in the van? Well, go get her, son, let's have a look, isn't she beautiful? You two are going to make the most darling babies, here I'll just draw for you on the map the way to the courthouse, and the Candlelight Chapel is it? An excellent choice, very quaint, they're all lovely people down there, they'll do something special for you, just tell them Karen sent you. Okay, let's call and book it for 7:45, shall we? Give you time to freshen up. Of course I need a seventy-five dollar downpayment, to book the chapel, you see, where did that receipt book disappear to?"
I was dazzled, and paid her in cash. She reached across the counter and stroked my cheek with the back of her hand. "You are a lucky bride," she said solemnly to my somewhat confused fiancée. "My Arnold had a baby face, too, that means he'll still be handsome in thirty years. God rest his soul. I miss him like he just went yesterday. Oh, to be like the two of you again. Best of luck to you. Make sure you send me a picture."
but everything else about her soft and brown, even in early spring like this. I could marry her just for her hands, how they looked in the dark by the dashlight and holding a Zippo as she lit two smokes and gave me one. Watching her do that made me feel peaceful and restless at the same time and isn't that love for you right there?
