The Road to Amazing

by Brent Hartinger

  I jotted down the numbers she gave me, already feeling much better. It was the island, after all. Like I said before, Vashon Island had a reputation for being artsy and eccentric. If you were a by-the-numbers, type-A personality, you weren't going to be very happy on an island where the roads often weren't marked and you were totally dependent on the coming and going of the ferry.

  When I disconnected, I said to Kevin, "We're going to be fine."

  Behind the wheel, he nodded stiffly.

  I called the places she'd given me — the grange, the art museum, and something called The Old Fruit Barreling Plant — but it turned out that both the grange and art museum were already booked, and no one ever picked up at the fruit barreling plant (and there was no voicemail).

  "Well?" Kevin said when I hung up the phone the third time. This might have been a little bitchy on his part, because he had to know from listening that I hadn't had any luck.

  "It's okay," I said, still determined not to add fuel to his freak-out fire. "We'll find a place, don't worry."

  * * *

  The town of Vashon was located at a crossroads right in the middle of the island. The town itself was sort of a crossroads too, split almost fifty-fifty between practical businesses for the islanders, like the hardware store, the grocery store, and the post office, and funkier places for the tourists and the artsy crowd, like the store with an olive oil tasting bar, and a gallery where the art was made from nothing but stuff that washed up on the beach (I suspect they cheated). I also spotted not one but two marijuana stores.

  Basically, Vashon was an overalls-and-dreadlocks kind of town.

  Kevin parked the car and we all climbed out to look around. It was late in the year, well past the tourist season, but the streets were pretty crowded.

  "Now what?" Kevin said.

  It was actually a good question. I'd been acting as if by driving into town the answer would become obvious, like a bush would start burning and announce the perfect alternative wedding venue. But even if the Vashon Groove was a real thing, I couldn't imagine any of the restaurants in town letting us use their backrooms for a wedding, not without paying them (a lot) for the privilege. So what to do?

  Saturday happened to be the day of the island farmers' market, which was taking place in a vacant lot along the main street.

  "Let's check that out," I said, pointing.

  We reached the market, which was mobbed, and started walking the aisles, past booths and tables with homemade cheeses and artisan breads, and assortments of local vegetables — mostly leafy green stuff like kale and spinach, and lots of pumpkins and squashes. The booth selling free-range eggs didn't just have chicken eggs, they also had duck, goose, quail, ostrich, emu, and "heirloom," which I was pretty sure was another kind of chicken.

  I passed a table selling marijuana in all its glorious forms — buds, joints, pills, brownies, chocolate, topical oils, and, of course, gummy bears. (I wanted to say, "What, no marijuana Swedish fish?" but I didn't have the nerve.)

  "Island grown!" called the man behind the booth — plump and ruddy-faced.

  "I've read about this," Min said to me. "Since marijuana was legalized here in Washington, Vashon Island farmers are trying to become sort of the Napa Valley of pot."

  "There's just one problem," said the man behind the table. "The only way off the island is by air or by sea — both of which are regulated by the federal government, which still considers marijuana illegal."

  "Oh, that's interesting!" I said. "So what do you do?"

  "Make damn sure we don't get a Republican president!"

  Min immediately perked up. "Exactly! I don't know why more people can't see how it's all connected — how the issues matter. But no, we have to make our elections all about personality."

  "Russel?" Kevin said, growing impatient.

  "Right!" I said. We really did have a tight time-limit.

  I forged onward, but now I noticed that people were glancing our way.

  People are staring at Otto, I thought. It happened every time I was out in public with him, and it pissed me off how obvious people could be, how oppressive it felt. At least it wasn't very often that people actually said insulting things — called him a freak or anything like that.

  Someone stepped right in front of him.

  "You're Otto Digmore," the woman said.

  "Yeah," Otto said.

  "I love you on Hammered."

  All around us, eyes brightened and smiles blossomed. People were staring at Otto, but not for the reason I'd thought. They recognized him from his television show.

  "Can I get your autograph?" someone else said.

  "Sure," Otto said, as smooth and graceful as all the celebrities I'd seen living in Los Angeles. He even carried his own pen.

  He started signing things — papers and pamphlets, a rolling paper someone had just bought at the marijuana booth. And of course everyone wanted a selfie with him. Best of all, no one said anything stupid or patronizing like, "I can't believe how brave you are!"

  I was sort of in awe of how Otto managed all this, how non-flustered he was. Before I knew it, his crowd was even bigger than the one around the old-fashioned cider press up ahead, where people were juicing their own apples. In spite of my stress about the wedding, I couldn't help but take a moment and appreciate how incredibly cool it was that my friend was an actual celebrity, especially since he was a person who had spent almost all of his life drawing stares for exactly the opposite reason.

  As quickly as it started, Otto tried to wrap things up.

  "Okay, thanks a lot," he said, quietly, but firmly. "I've got to go now."

  As most of the people drifted away, I leaned in close to him. "I'm so impressed!" I said. "Look, that guy is filming us with his phone. Wave! One trip to the farmers' market and you're going to be all over social media."

  He groaned.

  I looked at him. "What's wrong with that?"

  "Nothing, it doesn't matter."

  "No, seriously."

  "Russel, it's nothing. Let's just find you a place for your wedding."

  "Wedding?" someone said. It wasn't the guy who was filming us, or anyone Otto had signed an autograph for, but someone who'd been passing by. He was loaded down with cloth sacks full of stuff from the market.

  I stared, trying to decide if I wanted to tell him what we were talking about. I was pretty sure he wasn't one of Otto's stalkers.

  And, well, he wasn't unattractive either. He was older, in his thirties, tall and reasonably brawny. His face was unshaven, and his hair grew long, but not unkempt. His shirt and jeans were old and faded, only a cut or two above "homeless," but that wasn't that unusual here on the island.

  "My boyfriend and I are getting married tomorrow," I said, nodding toward Kevin. "But we can't do it where we thought, so now we have to find somewhere else on the island to hold a wedding for sixty-seven guests."

  "I have a place," he said.

  I sensed my friends all looking at each other, curious. Meanwhile, I glanced at Kevin. He seemed as intrigued-but-skeptical as I felt.

  "And we don't have any money," I said to the man.

  He laughed. "That doesn't matter. We'd be glad to have you. It's our barn. We're an intentional community."

  Most people might have been taken aback by the words "intentional community," like he was talking about a commune or something. But even if he was, I didn't care. Two years earlier, Min had briefly considered herself polyamorous. And back in high school, I'd sort of dated a guy in a commune. True, some of his friends turned out to be eco-terrorists, and people had almost died because of them, but that's a whole other story.

  The point is, it took a lot to shock me.

  "A barn, huh?" I said. That was the real sticking point here, not the commune. Who wanted to hold their wedding in a barn?

  "It's not like it sounds," he said. "We have a couple of animals, but we can move them out for the wedding. And it's clean. It doesn't smell. We've held weddings there befor
e."

  Given that the only alternative venue right now included six tons of rotten sushi, I liked the sound of that a lot.

  "You're really serious about this?" Kevin asked him.

  "Sure, why not?" the man said. "Hey, it's the Vashon Groove."

  So this was a real thing.

  I exchanged another look with Kevin. The skepticism in his eyes was mostly gone now, swept away like cobwebs in an attic.

  I looked from Min to Otto to Ruby, all questioning them with my eyes to see if they agreed this was a good idea. (I didn't look at Nate, because I didn't care what he thought.)

  Everyone seemed to agree that we should at least check it out.

  "I'm Russel," I said to the man. "And this is Kevin." I introduced the rest of our little group too. Everyone grinned stupidly, even Min.

  "I'm Duane," the man said, and somehow he even made that name sound sexy. "Do you guys wanna come out and take a look right now?"

  "Sure," I said. "Where are you parked?"

  * * *

  In our car, Kevin followed Duane across some back roads, then down a twisty gravel road through some woods. It was a little like the road to the Amazing Inn, except we were in the interior of the island, not anywhere near the beach.

  The trees fell away, and we found ourselves in the middle of a couple of acres of grassy hills. Ducks and geese floated lazily on a little pond, and I spotted a pretty impressive vegetable garden, though it looked pretty picked over. At the end of the road, a large green farmhouse loomed, alongside, yes, a big barn that had clearly been restored.

  I don't want to overstate things: the house was a little dumpy, and I saw rusted cars here and there. But all in all, it was pretty seriously charming.

  "What is this place?" Min said.

  "It's perfect," Kevin said. "That's what it is!"

  I was agreeing with him, even as I was also thinking: This seems too perfect. What's the catch? Angry ghosts like that farmhouse in The Conjuring? A band of violent local rapists like in Straw Dogs? It really did seem too good to be true.

  We parked the car and all climbed out. The air smelled like cut grass and drying leaves, and over on the pond, a goose honked.

  The barn greeted us like a giant Buddha: big, fat, and welcoming. The outside was done in cedar, still so new that it had barely begun to fade. The big doors were open, and the inside beckoned, bright and clean. It was easily big enough for sixty-seven people!

  In the barn, a goat bleated, but it sounded rustic and adorable, not annoying.

  Duane walked back toward us from his car, a grin etched onto his bristly face. "Whadaya think?"

  I looked at Kevin, who was beaming like I needed to wear sunglasses.

  "I don't know what to say," I said. "It looks perfect."

  "Fantastic," Duane said.

  Two people stepped out onto the wrap-around front porch of the farm house, a man and a woman — older than Duane, probably in their forties or fifties, both a bit chubby.

  The man was wearing tighty-whities and the woman was completely naked.

  They waved — very friendly, even if it made the woman's breasts and the man's fat wiggle.

  Tentatively, we all waved back.

  Then we looked at Duane.

  "Oh, right," he said. "We're a clothing-optional community." He didn't say this like he'd been hiding it from us and now wanted to get some kind of prurient thrill by shocking us. It was more like he'd forgotten. "I hope that's okay."

  * * *

  As we were driving away from the farm, it was impossible not to laugh.

  "I would've loved to see your mom there!" Min said to me. "Can you imagine?"

  "I know!" I said, even as I also thought, It meant I would've gotten to see Duane naked.

  But alas, having our wedding in Duane's barn really was out of the question. If it had only been Kevin's and my close friends, that would have been one thing, but we had a lot of our relatives coming. We knew most of them had never been to a same-sex wedding before, and the last thing we wanted was to make people feel even more uncomfortable. Yes, yes, our wedding was all about us, it was our day, about whatever we wanted. But come on.

  I noticed that Kevin wasn't laughing with the rest of us.

  "You okay?" I asked him, looking across the car with Min between us.

  He clenched the steering wheel.

  Finally he turned to me. "What about a church?"

  "What about it?" I said.

  "For the wedding. Maybe we could find an actual church."

  No one said anything for a second, and I thought it was funny that it wasn't until now that anyone had even considered holding our wedding in an actual church, despite the fact that this was where weddings were usually held.

  On the other hand, it's not like we were crazy. Given what complete babies most churches had been on the subject of same-sex marriage over the last few years, who could blame us? Why in the world would we want to go somewhere we weren't welcome — or, in some churches, where we're now maybe sometimes grudgingly tolerated.

  Thanks, but no thanks.

  (Plus, there was the fact that neither Kevin nor I was religious. I was raised Catholic, but it never really took. It was partly the anti-gay thing, but that was only part of it. By the time I was fourteen, religion mostly seemed silly, like believing that the characters in The Lord of the Rings are real. But I tried hard not to stereotype, because I knew reasonable people who thought otherwise.)

  Min looked up all the Vashon Island churches on her phone. "Well, the Catholics are out, obviously. And the evangelicals, and anything with the word 'gospel' or 'bible' in it. Forget the Methodists and the Mormons. The Presbyterians could go either way, and so could the Lutherans, and I'm not sure we want to deal with that." She looked up. "Can I just say how incredibly depressing this is?" She looked back at her phone. "Wait! The Episcopalians! They're a bunch of raging liberals, right?"

  "I think so," Otto said.

  Min did some research on her phone. "Individual pastors have discretion," she said. "They can refuse to marry gay couples if they want. Which is, of course, such a principled position for the church to take, like how when society decided it was wrong that restaurants were allowed to refuse service to black people, we all then agreed to let individual restaurants continue to discriminate. Or, wait, no, we didn't! Because everyone realized that would be incredibly bigoted."

  I laughed and realized that even though Min could be a little sanctimonious, I almost always agreed with her politics.

  "They won't refuse us," I said. "Come on, it's Vashon Island! The way this island seems so far, they probably all take a toke on sacramental bong."

  * * *

  We found the Episcopal church in a wooded area right along one of the main roads.

  "Oh, cool," Otto said, pointing to a sign. "They have a labyrinth."

  "A what?" Nate said.

  "It's a kind of circular maze," Min explained.

  We parked in the church lot (empty except for two other cars). The church itself was modern-ish, made of dark wood — a big rectangle of a building with a grill-like front over stained-glass windows. A narrow steeple, another rectangle, rose up on one side.

  Nate and Ruby immediately made a beeline for the labyrinth, which was located in the grass in front of the building. Naturally, I'd been expecting some sort of massive hedge maze, like in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Instead, it was just a circular pathway made of gravel cut into the patchy lawn. It started at the edge of the circle, and you could follow the pathway around and around until you reached a flower-like thingy in the very middle. The whole labyrinth wasn't more than twenty-five feet across.

  "I confess to feeling more than a little disappointed," I said.

  "It's supposed to be contemplative," Min said. "You walk the labyrinth and ponder the nature of existence."

  "And, see, I was expecting more in the way of minotaurs and burning goblets."

  "Race you?" Nate said to Ruby.

  "Oh
, you're on, Kangaroo Jack," Ruby said, and they both sprinted for the start of this little gravel pathway that was only about eight inches wide. Which meant, of course, that they immediately ran into each other, and the whole "race" was the two of them trying to drag each other off the path.

  "What the hell?" Nate said, laughing. "Have you gone troppo?"

  I knew he and Ruby were completely missing the point of the labyrinth, and Min and I even sort of shook our heads at each other, but the truth is, I was jealous that the two of them were so easily able to cut loose and have fun.

  "Help you folks?" came a voice behind us.

  Kevin, Min, Otto, and I all turned.

  It was a middle-aged woman with a weathered but friendly face. Everything about her was sensible — her short hair, the shoes, the no-nonsense jersey.

  "Oh!" I said. "You're with the church? You're just who we wanted to see."

  "You dog!" shrieked Ruby, mid-labyrinth. "You cheating dog!"

  "Bloody hell!" Nate said.

  The woman eyed Nate and Ruby, who were basically destroying the church's contemplative labyrinth with their frenzied battle royale to the end. I could only hope the woman wouldn't hold it against us.

  She looked at us very drolly.

  Come on! I wanted to say. It's a dumb gravel pathway in some dead grass.

  "We're getting married," I said, "but there was a problem with the location. We need a new venue, but we don't have much money." I stepped closer to Kevin and took his hand, to make sure there wasn't any confusion about the fact that we were a gay couple. I didn't want her to be shocked and appalled — at her own discretion, of course! — when she realized I wasn't actually marrying Min.

  Seeing us together, her face brightened like a Christmas tree. She'd completely forgotten about Nate and Ruby.

  "Oh, that's terrible!" she said. "Of course! We'd love to help you. Anything at all, we'll make it work."

  I looked at Min and grinned. I'd been right about the Vashon Episcopalians being crazy-eyed liberals. And I could actually see Kevin relaxing, the tension leaving his body like he was unwinding a scarf. I kind of wanted to kiss him right there, but I didn't want to push the woman past her point of tolerance.