Dad's standing at the podium he made for the wedding. It's in front of the living room window where the TV used to be. He looks kind of silly, standing there, politician-dumb, like he is thinking how to talk about a big issue in little-people language for the masses.
But I love him. One of his visions about me, and he usually has them after eating late at night, is that I am going to be famous somehow. He sees me getting an award on a show.
"Now," he says, making sure the hair he combs over his bald spot is still in place, "So I'm just gonna treat these two like man and wife?"
"That's what we want," I say.
The phone rings again, and we let the machine get it. It's Archie's voice. He's singing this Boys II Men song I used to really like, "The End of the Road." It kills me, and I get embarrassed, Dad standing there, smiling.
"What a singer," Dad says.
Archie stops then, and the answering machine has that hang-up dial tone sound for a sec. I get closer to the podium, pretending like I'm one of the Toms so I can see what it looks like. Dad's eyes go serious. He says, "So this is the wedding of Tom A. to Tom B." He's reading it off an index card. Practicing. What a perfectionist.
"Ladies and gentleman, I now pronounce them Tom and Tom."
The plan was secretly hatched in the basement, by the time clock. Raquel was taking a drink from her Super America mug, filled with vodka and red pop. One time she offered me a sip and I took it and, boy, was it vodka and red pop.
Anyway, it was the evening right after the staff meeting where Kate told us Tom A. was gonna have to move. We were both kind of bummed, and Raquel said, "You know, all Tom B. has ever talked about was getting married to him. I think that is so sweet." She took a big drink.
The dryer was going. Big industrial one for all the piss-soaked bedsheets and other assorted piss-soaked items. I knew that already, about them wanting to get married. Not only because Tom A. had a stack of old-time bridal magazines, worn out from looking at them, stacked in his room, but Tom B. and I had gotten into many discussions about marriage too. By this time, we were pretty good friends. Tom A. was more aloof, since he couldn't talk, but Tom B. let you know he was proud of what he and Tom A. had accomplished: twenty-four years of staying together, and when Orient shut down and they were going to be moved out, he knew Tom and him would be in the same group home because, "It went alphabetic. So I knew. It was luck. It was God too. Tink about it, Anita. Tom A. and Tom B."
It made sense, didn't it? His face, as I was trying to do my paperwork, was sincere and stupid and scary and beautiful. You can't say no to that. Well maybe other people can, but people like me can't.
By the way, Tom B. and me never did talk about me seeing them that first night I worked there, them doing the nasty, but I'm sure he would have just laughed it off like nothing. Raquel said they used to line people up at Orient in the shower room, forty at a time, and tell them to hold their noses, and spray them down with a gigantic fire hose, and then say, "Now soap up,"and forty men would soap up real quick, and then get sprayed again and some people, the people who worked there, would laugh as they sprayed them.
So Raquel said that night with the dryer going, "Let's let them get married."
She looked at me like we were both out of our minds. Even though she was a lifer, she was also pretty much timid and obedient, scared of Kate Anderson-Malloy and not just because she had two last names, but because Kate had sense to everything she said. Obviously it made a lot of sense to move them away from each other. Because they were getting worse. They weren't going to workshop some mornings, clinging to each other nude in one bedroom or the other. Other times too, like they were losing their fear, like they were getting brave. Helping them to get married would only make them braver, wouldn't it? And it definitely would not stop them from having to move away from each other.
But Raquel took a big gulp from her vodka and red pop and swallowed and said, "Maybe if they get married it won't be so bad that they can't live together. Like Dolly Parton and her husband."
I smiled. That didn't make any sense, but it seemed right.
famous somehow. He sees me getting an award on a show.
