A More Perfect Union

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A More Perfect Union Page 14

by J. Scott Coatsworth


  “Hello. Can I help you?” an obviously bored clerk asked.

  “We’d like to get married.”

  She slid a clipboard toward them and said, “Fill this out and come back when you have it completed. Bring a photo ID with you to verify your identities and ages.”

  The form was relatively easy to complete except for a box that asked them who would be performing the ceremony.

  “Ma’am,” Jeordi said, handing the form back to her. “We don’t know what to put down in that box there.”

  “Where are you getting married?” she asked.

  “We were hoping to do that here,” Jeordi said.

  “All right,” she said, tapping keys on her computer. “The next available opening is two weeks from Tuesday at ten fifteen in the morning.”

  Both men fell into the chairs before her desk. “Two weeks?” Jeordi said, suddenly feeling completely deflated. “We don’t have two weeks. We have to get this done today. We’re flying out tonight.”

  “You can use any minister or judge of any court to officiate.”

  “How do we go about finding someone?” Tom asked.

  “You just start calling around, I guess,” she said.

  “There’s really no one here who can do it for two weeks?”

  “Sorry,” she said with a smile that almost made them believe her.

  “And you can’t issue the license if we don’t have the name of someone who will marry us?”

  “That’s the way it works,” she explained, “at least as long as I’ve been here.”

  Tom and Jeordi stood from her desk and walked a few steps away. “Shit,” Jeordi said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can’t believe I fucked up so bad. I should have found this all out before we ever left home.”

  “It’s not your fault, babe. Who knew they’d need so much advance notice?”

  “I should never have tried to do something this crazy.”

  Tom could see tears in his boyfriend’s eyes, and he leaned over to quickly wipe them away.

  “You did a beautiful thing today, Jeordi. Don’t you dare to talk that down. You planned this super spectacular surprise that I will never forget. You got us onto an airplane. We had our first flight. We’re just two country boys from nowhere, Kentucky, and you got us to Washington, DC—by airplane. I call that pretty fucking spectacular,” Tom argued.

  “You can try to sugarcoat it,” Jeordi said, “but I blew every penny we had, and we’re still not gonna be able to get married. This is two strikes against us now.”

  Tom wrapped his arms around Jeordi and held him, stroking his hand over his boyfriend’s head, trying to comfort him and tell him it wasn’t the end of the world.

  “Excuse me,” they heard a male voice say from nearby.

  Looking up, they spotted one of the two older men they had noticed in the room when first entering. He was no longer sitting with the other man but was now standing close to them.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. I’m sorry for eavesdropping. Please, come over and sit with me and my husband and talk for a minute? Would you do that?”

  Tom and Jeordi glanced at each other, wordlessly confirming that they didn’t see a problem with the request. Once seated and facing the two men, the one who had spoken said, “You’re here to get married?”

  “Yes,” Jeordi said.

  “We flew in to do this, but we’re only here for the day,” Tom explained. “We wanted to get married here, but they just told us there’s a two-week wait, so I guess we flew here for nothing.”

  “Will you return?” one of the two men asked them.

  Jeordi’s gaze dropped to the floor. “No. I don’t see how that’s possible. We spent every penny we had to get here.”

  “Why did you want to get married here? Marriage is now legal nationwide.”

  “Yeah, well, someone needs to tell that to the clerk in our county at home. She refused to issue us a marriage license and had us removed from the courthouse yesterday.”

  “Oh my,” the stranger said, an unhappy expression on his face. “I’d heard rumors about people like that trying to pull those stunts. It’s terrible to see the lives those people are hurting with their bigotry.” He shook his head. Suddenly, though, his look of sadness vanished and was replaced with a huge smile. “Okay, I may have an idea. Would you mind if I made a phone call and tried to find someone who could marry you today? I can’t guarantee anything, but if you’d agree, I’d like to make a couple of calls. Would that be all right?”

  “You… why would you do that? We’re complete strangers,” Jeordi said.

  “No we’re not. We’re brothers. We’re part of the brotherhood of gay men. We take care of one another. That’s just what we do. We’re family. Sometimes our other families don’t understand us, the real us, but your gay brothers understand exactly. We take care of one another when and where we can. And by the way, I’m Hank and this is my husband, Bill.”

  “I’m Tom, this is Jeordi. Nice to meet you.”

  Hank got up, pulled out his cell phone, and made a quick phone call. That call was followed by another and then a third. Finally, after ten minutes of conversations, he turned back to them with a smile on his face.

  “Okay. Good news, boys. Want to get married in about a half hour?”

  “Yes,” Tom and Jeordi both practically shouted at nearly the same second.

  “Then let’s get that license for you.”

  He accompanied them back to the counter, and when the clerk asked for the name of the officiant, he wrote something on a pad of paper and handed the paper to her. She then dutifully transferred it to her computer. Their fees paid, ten minutes later they held in their hands a license to get married. Once again there were some tears, but this time for a very good reason.

  “Let me get a picture,” Hank said, posing them as he wanted them, side by side, each holding on to the license. Another set of photos was required outside in front of the courthouse, each time carefully posed, right down to who was looking where in each one.

  “Come on,” he ordered, leading them to a car his husband had pulled up in front of the courthouse. “Do you know our fair city?” he asked.

  “No. We’ve never been here before today,” Tom said.

  “We’ve never been anywhere before today,” Jeordi said.

  “It’s a big day for us,” Tom said. “First time out of Kentucky, first time on an airplane, first time in Washington, DC.”

  As they sped over busy city streets, Bill expertly handled the traffic while Hank gave a running commentary on what was what. Wherever they were going, they had apparently arrived, because they parked and Hank led them to a huge, ornate building that looked old. Whatever it was, it must be important. It sat directly across the street from an even bigger building.

  “What’s that?” Jeordi asked their host.

  Bill answered, “That’s the Capitol building, where Congress sits… and does largely nothing.” Pointing, he explained, “That side is the House of Representatives, and that side,” he said, pointing to the other side, “is the United States Senate.”

  Jeordi and Tom’s mouths hung open in surprise.

  “Holy… fuck,” Tom whispered to Jeordi.

  “Amen.”

  “Come along,” Hank directed.

  Everything was happening so fast.

  Entry into this building involved security, just as so many other things had that day. Jeordi couldn’t remember ever having to be frisked as many times as he had been that day. Once they were all approved, Hank led them to another guard, who stood beside a closed door.

  “Hey, Hank,” the guard said with a smile. “What are you doing here? I thought you retired, man.”

  “I did. Got an appointment with the chief, though.”

  “Good deal, man.”

  The guard turned around and keyed a code into the door. The clicking sound it made upon being unlocked was loud enough to be heard by all of them.

  Holding the door
open, the guard said, “Good to see you again, Hank. Retired. You lucky dog.”

  “Yeah, and loving it too,” Hank said.

  Hank was moving forward down a hallway that he had clearly been in many, many times before, because he walked like he owned the place. For a short guy, he carried himself like a man supremely confident about everything. Jeordi envied him that ability.

  Since he couldn’t walk as fast, Jeordi was in the back of their little pack, walking beside the other half of the couple that was rapidly becoming their new best friends.

  “It sounds like Hank used to work here?”

  “He did indeed. He worked here for thirty-five years. He just retired last month, and between you and me, he’s been bored to tears in retirement. He’s needed something to do, someone to help, so I’ve got to tell you that your arrival today, you needing help, the timing was absolutely perfect. You cannot imagine how much good this is already doing him.”

  “Really?” Jeordi asked. “How—”

  “How can I tell? Easy. He’s smiling, laughing, animated, active, everything he used to be. He’d been getting depressed, kind of listless, not getting any enjoyment out of anything. When he retired he kind of lost his reason for being, although he’s too damned stubborn to admit that. But look at him up there with your man. He’s absolutely alive and happy as can be, so thank you and your partner for being there today. He really needed this.”

  “Okay,” Jeordi said, not entirely believing Bill.

  They walked in silence for a few seconds before Bill asked, “Are you okay? You seem to be favoring one side a bit.”

  “Yes, sorry. I had a little accident a couple of days ago. A car hit my bike as I was riding to work. I sort of body surfed across the pavement. I couldn’t prove it to you, but I guess they put ninety-eight stitches into me.”

  “Holy hell, man. Should you be walking at all?”

  “I need to. I want to marry Tom so desperately. He’s the one, Bill. He’s my guy, and I want to protect him and show him off to the entire world and say, ‘He’s mine and I’m his.’”

  Jeordi stopped and looked at Bill. He didn’t know the man at all, but something made him talk to this stranger more than he would have to a friend back home.

  “Bill, when Tom got the call that I’d been injured in an accident, he came to the hospital—and they wouldn’t let him in. Between my family and the good Christian woman working the front desk in the ER, they kept him from even knowing if I was dead or alive. I needed him with me, and at the same time, he was being thrown out of the ER by hospital security. I swore that I would do everything in my power to make sure he never had to go through that again. He’s my man. I needed him then, I need him now, and I don’t want to ever give anyone the ability to keep us apart when we need one another.”

  “Good man, Jeordi,” Bill said with a smile and a hand on Jeordi’s arm.

  Even though Tom and Hank had disappeared by that point, Bill knew where they were going, guiding Jeordi to an office just in time to see Hank sweet-talking an older woman sitting behind a desk in a very attractive waiting area. Hank seemed good at what he was doing, because the woman behind the desk was chuckling and blushing as Hank talked with her.

  Bill and Jeordi stood beside Tom, and Bill observed, “That’s my man. Thirty-eight years together and he still loves toying with straight women—and they love it and completely understand what he’s doing.”

  “You doing okay, babe?” Tom asked Jeordi. “You need to sit down for a minute?”

  “No, I’m good. Just needed to walk slower. Bill walked with me and told me a bit about them. Thirty-eight years. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. Hell, that’s about how long the two of us put together have been alive.”

  “Enough of that,” Bill said. “You’re making me feel old, and I do not want to be yet. I’m not ready for that. If somebody could just tell my body that and make it work like it did when I was twenty, then I’d be all set.”

  Hank rejoined them, beaming with delight.

  “You trying to get a date, babe?” Bill asked. “You switching teams on me?”

  Hank snorted. “Oh, please. You know as well as I do that I couldn’t do it with a woman to save my life. You’re stuck with me.”

  “Good,” Bill said with a smile.

  A door beyond them opened, and a tall, slender, distinguished-looking African-American woman stood there, immediately smiling when she spotted Hank.

  “Hank! How good to see you,” she said, giving him a hug.

  “Chief! I’ve missed you.”

  “And we miss you too,” she said. “Are these your two friends in need of some assistance?” she asked, turning to Tom and Jeordi.

  “Yes, they are, and thank you so much for taking my call and being willing to help out an old friend. I know how busy you are, so thank you for seeing us on such short notice.”

  “Just working on my annual report to Congress. You know how much I hate doing that, so I am absolutely delighted to be able to help. Where would you like this to happen, Hank? My chambers? The courtroom?”

  “How about the courtroom? Do you think that would work?”

  “I don’t see why not. Give me just a minute to get myself together.” She stepped back into her office and returned perhaps thirty seconds later wearing a beautiful black judicial robe with a white collar. “Follow me, please,” she instructed, leading them a short distance to a courtroom unlike any Jeordi or Tom had ever seen before.

  “Where does the jury sit?” Jeordi whispered to Tom.

  Hank happened to overhear and immediately answered, “There is no jury in the Supreme Court. The nine justices that sit at the bar are the jury.”

  “Okay,” Jeordi said. “Did you say Supreme Court?”

  “Yes,” Hank answered.

  “Gentlemen,” the justice said to get their attention. “If you would stand here.” She indicated a spot in front of the big bench in the front of the room. “Hank, I assume you will be taking photos?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Hank said, beaming with joy.

  With everyone in place, the justice started. “Tom and Jeordi, you are about to enter into a union that is the most important one you will ever join because it will bind you together for life. You are entering into a relationship unlike any other, a relationship so close and intimate that it will profoundly influence you and your entire future.

  “Marriage is not something to be taken lightly or to be entered into casually. Its hopes and disappointments, its successes and its failures, its pleasures and its pains will be confronted and handled together from this day forward.

  “So I ask you, Jeordi, knowing these things, do you take Tom to be your lawful husband, to love, honor, and keep in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only for him? If so, please say, ‘I do.’”

  “I do,” Jeordi said.

  “And Tom—” She started to repeat the question.

  “I do. I absolutely do.”

  Everyone chuckled at his earnestness.

  “Are you exchanging rings?” the justice asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jeordi said, pulling another surprise out of his pocket.

  Tom gaped. “How—”

  “Jeordi, place the ring on Tom’s finger and repeat after me. With this ring I thee wed and pledge my faith.”

  “With this ring I thee wed and pledge my faith.”

  Tom did the same, still stunned that somehow Jeordi had managed to get them rings and that the one he’d placed on his own hand actually fit.

  “For as much as Thomas Goodwin and Jeordi Boone have consented to live together in wedlock, and having declared their intentions before these witnesses, I am pleased and honored to be able, by the power vested in me by the United States of America, to declare to all present that they are now legally married and are husband and husband. Jeordi and Tom, you may kiss your husband.”

  Bill applauded briefly while Hank was busy snapping pictur
es with his camera, which he’d been quietly doing throughout the ceremony. Even though Tom and Jeordi didn’t necessarily want anyone to see it, they both shed tears of joy at the unexpected turn of events and the two strangers who had swooped in and saved their day.

  They got some pictures with the justice standing between them and a few with her to the side and them holding hands. They even got someone to come in and take some photos of Tom and Jeordi, Hank and Bill, and the justice all together.

  “Let’s return to my chambers and sign the paperwork,” the justice instructed. Hank helped her remove the robe and hung it up, somehow knowing where she kept her judicial robe.

  Seated behind the most ornate and largest desk Jeordi had ever seen, the justice signed the document and asked Bill and Hank to sign as well as witnesses.

  “Return this to the courthouse and they will issue your official marriage certificate.”

  “That’s where we’re headed right now,” Hank told her, giving her a quick hug. “Thank you so much, Chief. This means so much to all of us.”

  “My pleasure, Hank. You know that if I’m here and can do so, I’ll always have time for you.”

  “Madam Chief Justice, you are awesome,” Hank said.

  Each in turn shook hands and thanked the justice, Tom and Jeordi both at a loss for the proper words, managing only a simple “Thank you.”

  Back in the car, Bill drove them across town to the original courthouse where they had started. By comparison, this building looked more like an industrial warehouse than anything else, especially compared to the building they had just left.

  Hank again took the lead, quickly navigating them back to the office where they’d started. The hallways were much less busy than they had been earlier, so there were fewer crowds through which they had to weave.

  When they handed the license to the clerk, a different one from earlier, her eyes went wide with surprise. “Is this real? You got married by the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court?”

 

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