Shckr—shckr—shckroop.

“Very good, very good.” The minister’s face and smile were at the pulpit, but his voice came from the four upper corners of the nave. “And now,” he said, “we will all turn to our neighbor, and we will greet our neighbor with a handshake and a hug.”

Embarrassed laughter and throat-clearing filled the church, but everyone (except the mean-looking old guy) obeyed. The sharp-nosed fellow very enthusiastically embraced the friend of the bride next to him, while the pessimist and the dumpling hugged each other in a much more gingerly fashion.

“Very good, very good,” the minister’s voice boomed down at them from the four corners of the nave. “Resume your seats, resume your seats.”

Schlff—schlff—fflrp.

“Very good.” The minister’s eyeglasses reflected the interior of the church, creating gothic wonders where none in fact existed. Beaming around at the congregation, giving them back this much more interesting reflection of themselves, he said, “We have come here this evening, in the sight of God and man, mindful of the laws of God and the laws of the State of New York, to join in holy wedlock Tiffany and Bob.”

He paused. He beamed his sweet smile into the farthest corner of his domain. He said, “You know, the blessed state of matrimony…….”

His voice went on, for some extended time, but the words did not enter one brain in that church. A great glazed comatosity o’ercame the congregation, a state of slow enchantment like that in the forest in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Like the residents of Brigadoon, the people in the church drifted in a long and dreamless sleep, freed of struggle and expectation.

“……. with Bob. Bob?”

A slow sigh escaped the slumbering assembly, a faint and lingering breath. Shoulders moved, hands twitched in laps, bottoms shifted on the wooden pews. Eyes began to focus, and there was Bob, as if by magic, a bowed beanpole inaptly in a black tux at the head of the central aisle, standing with his look-alike best man—slightly heavier, grinning in nervous relief, left hand clutching jacket pocket (no doubt to feel the ring still safe within)—the two of them in profile to the crowd, Bob blinking like the terrorists’ kidnap victim he was, the beaming minister descending the pulpit and striding toward the lectern set up just within the chancel rail. The speakers in the corners, said, “Tick… tick… tick…” and a slow, heavy-beated, orchestral version of “Here Comes the Bride” battered the people below.

Now it all began to move. Tiffany, on her father’s arm, and her attendants made their uncertain way down the aisle, trying but failing to keep pace with the music, stumbling and tripping prettily along, concentrating so totally on their feet that they forgot to be self-conscious. Bob watched them as though they were an approaching truck.

Bride and groom met in front of the lectern and turned to face the minister, who beamed over their heads at the people and announced, “Bob and Tiffany have written their own wedding service,” and everybody went back to sleep.

When they awoke, the deed was done. “You may kiss the bride,” the minister said, and some smart-aleck pal of the groom said, “That’s about the only thing he hasn’t done to her,” perhaps a little more loudly than he’d intended.

Bride and groom made their hasty grinning way up the aisle as the congregation stood and stretched and talked and cheered them on, and from the speakers high above came the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The mean-looking old guy turned to the sharp-nosed fellow and said, “If I had a gun, I’d shoot somebody.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” the sharp-nosed fellow answered in agreement.

“How about with these two?” the mean-looking old guy said as the happy couple hurried past.

Across the aisle, the round troll dabbed his moist eyes and said, “Gee, that was nice. Better even than Princess Labia’s wedding.” The pessimist sighed.

Most weddings take place in daylight, but there’d been a certain urgency in the planning of this one, and all the potential daytime slots here at Elizabeth Grace Dudson Memorial Reformed Congregational Unitarian Church of Putkin Township had already been taken. The mother of the bride had been determined that her daughter would have a church wedding, and women who successfully name their infant daughters Tiffany do tend to get their own way, so an evening wedding it was. Exterior lights had been turned on at the end of the ceremony, so that when the wedding party emerged, laughing and shouting and throwing superfluous rice (it was unnecessary to wish fecundity upon Tiffany and Bob), the scene looked more like a movie than real life. Many of the revelers, becoming aware of this, started to perform wedding guests rather than be wedding guests, which merely increased the general air of unreality.

Inside, the church was nearly empty. The minister chatted up front with a small group of ladies, a few other relatives and friends drifted slowly doorward, and the four latecomers sat stolid in their pews, as though waiting for the second show. A departing aunt said to them, “Aren’t you coming to the party?”

“Sure,” said the pessimist.

She continued on. “Come along, now,” said another exiting in-law.

“Be there in a minute,” the sharp-nosed fellow assured her.

“It’s over, you know,” kidded a grandmother with a grandmotherly twinkle.

Twinkling right back, the butterball said, “We’re looking at the pretty windows.”

The minister, passing with the last of the ladies, smiled upon the quartet and said, “We’ll be closing up now.”

The mean-looking old guy nodded. “We wanna pray a little more,” he said.

The minister seemed taken aback at that idea, but rallied. “We must all pray,” he agreed, “for long life and joy for Tiffany and Bob.”

“You bet,” said the mean-looking old guy.

The pessimist slowly turned his head—his neck made faint cracking sounds—to watch the minister and the final few of his flock amble on to the door and out. “Jeez,” he said. Which was a prayer.

TWENTY-THREE

“Jeez,” said Dortmunder.

Across the aisle, Kelp said, “Okay, Tom? Okay? Can we get it now?”

Sullen, Tom said, “It wasn’t my idea to come to a wedding.”

“It was your idea,” Kelp reminded him, “to stash your stash in a church.”

“Where’s a better place?” Tom wanted to know.

Dortmunder rose, all of his joints creaking and cracking and aching. “Are you two,” he wanted to know, “just gonna sit there and converse?”

So everybody else stood up at last, their knees and hips and elbows making sounds like gunshots, and Tom said, “Won’t take but two minutes now that the goddamn crowd is gone.”

He stepped out to the aisle, turned toward the front of the church, and a voice back at the door said, “Gentlemen, I really must ask you to leave now. Silent prayer in one’s home or automobile is just as efficacious—”

It was the minister again, coming down the aisle at them. Tom gave him a disgusted look and said, “Enough is enough. Hold that turkey.”

“Right,” said Kelp.

As Tom walked down the aisle and Wally gaped at everything in fascinated interest—the true spectator—Dortmunder and Kelp approached the minister, who became too belatedly alarmed, backing away, his voice rising toward treble as he said, “What are—? You can’t— This is a place of worship!”

“Sssshhh,” Kelp advised, soothingly, putting his hand on the minister’s arm. When the minister tried to pull away, Kelp’s hand tightened its grip, and Dortmunder took hold of the sky pilot’s other arm, saying, “Take it easy, pal.”

“Little man,” Kelp said, “you’ve had a busy day. Just gentle down, now.”

The minister stared through his round spectacles at the front of his church, saying, “What’s that man doing?”