“Wouldn’t the chicken be happier back in his basket?” Mother Keller asks tightly.
Star Fan says no, Hmong chickens need space.
Mother Keller rolls her eyes. She asks again if she couldn’t call them a cab—which would take them anywhere they want to go—but Star Fan declines adamantly. They’re headed downtown too; catching a ride in the hearse will be much quicker. When Mother Keller tries to insist they take a cab, the fearsome Star Fan sits up and points a finger at her. “Are you insulting my people?” she asks out of the blue and quite indignantly.
Mother Keller looks startled. She says no, no, of course not. . .
Then Brad sits up and stares out the window with a weird look on his face. “No . . .” he says under his breath. “It . . . it can’t be!”
Mother Keller looks over at him. “What?”
“Look over there. Is that . . . Is that my car? Fuck! That’s my Lamborghini!”
“Where?”
“Right there!” He rolls down his window and starts shouting at the driver of the apple-green Lamborghini, which is idling on the other side of the street. “That’s my fucking car!” he shouts. “Hey, asshole! Jackass! I know you can hear me! That is my car!”
Mother Keller starts fanning herself. “Bradford, I cannot condone this swearing.”
“Hey, jackass!” Brad tries to flag the driver down, but the girl in the driver’s seat just waves at him and guns the engine, peeling out in the opposite direction. “No! Fuck! Follow that car! Dude . . . driver guy . . . follow that fucking green Lambo!”
“Bradford! Stop it this instant! We are not chasing down some car!”
“Dude!” Brad lunges toward the driver’s seat and pleads with Nick. “Dude! I’ll fucking give you five thousand dollars to catch that fucking car!”
“Righty-o!” Nick says cheerfully.
“No!” Mother Keller shouts.
“Go, go, go!” Brad shouts. He lunges right over the privacy divider, scrambling into the passenger seat next to Nick for a better view. The chicken breaks free, squawking and flapping wildly around the hearse, bouncing off the seats, the ceiling, and many of the board members. Bi’ch seems to be feeling much better and begins singing a shrill duet with Dizzy Bee, who bellows “Old Man River” in his deep baritone voice.
Mother Keller’s face is a portrait of fury. She demands they stop the car and Brad tells Nick to ignore her. He keeps upping the price he’s willing to pay until they hit fifteen thousand dollars. Mother Keller keeps on shouting at Brad and Brad tells her to shut up.
It’s his car, for Christ’s sake!
Ed shouts at Brad to stop speaking to his mother like that and all three of them manage to keep up the heated argument. Nick chases the Lamborghini onto 394 East, headed away from the city. Mother Keller starts frantically calling people on her cell phone.
It only takes the Cinnabon girl a half mile to lose the hearse . . . but it takes Mother Keller three more miles to convince Brad to let Nick turn the damn car around. After she checks her messages, she turns quite pale. “Hurry!” she says. “Something’s wrong down at the store.”
“What now?” Ed sighs. “What a Goddamned shitstorm of a day.”
Mother Keller makes a face. “I can’t hear very well . . . but I have a message that says Jennifer’s holding a press conference . . . by herself?”
“Well, I’d like to see that!” Ed chortles. “She can’t very well introduce a new president when he isn’t even there!”
Mother Keller tries to hear better and finally she roars, “Silence!” so loudly that the whole limo goes quiet. Brad stops shouting, Dizzy and Bi’ch stop singing, even the chicken stops squawking as Mother Keller’s face transmogrifies into a contorted knot of fear and confusion.
“What is it, Mom?”
“Jennifer’s not introducing the new president . . . She’s . . . throwing a gay wedding.”
“How? Where?”
“Drive!” Mother Keller suddenly shouts at Nick. “Drive, Goddamn it! Drive faster! Drive fucking faster!”
Meanwhile, Christopher and Jeremy make their way down the aisle slowly. They’ve waited a long time for this and they take their time, smiling at friends and waving as hundreds of cameras pop and flash at them. Christopher and Jeremy step on a gold aisle runner and loud club music starts pumping as another curtain swings open, revealing a DJ with a huge mixing board. They dance the rest of the way. They boogie down the aisle together, and they have clearly practiced their routine. The delighted crowd cheers even louder for them as cameras start popping and flashing even faster. When Christopher and Jeremy reach the altar, I step up, holding a bouquet of all-white roses.
I’m Christopher’s best man.
There’s a clap of thunder from above. We look up and a large glittering disco ball descends from a billowing cloud of smoke near the ceiling. Inside the disco ball is none other than Black Janet Reno the drag queen, Christopher’s all-time favorite. Black Janet Reno is lowered onto the altar and hops out wearing six-inch glittering stilettos. Picking up a microphone, she says, “Honey-children, can I get a hallelujah!”
The whole room shouts, “Hallelujah!”
“Is today the day our Lord has made?” she shouts. “If it is, say hallelujah!”
“Hallelujah!” we shout. Tears well up in my eyes. Maybe because I’m emotional or terrified, or because everyone is shouting so . . . loudly.
Black Janet Reno presides over the ceremony. She’s the entertainment and the wedding officiant. We rehearsed this and she knows to move quickly, but when will I learn, you can’t put a drag queen in front of camera crews and expect her to leave willingly. I’m not too nervous until Nick text-messages me: ALMOST THERE!
I try to keep calm and message him back: PHO READY!
Pho is definitely ready, but that doesn’t keep me from sweating bullets. How long is this freaking ceremony anyway? Can’t they hurry up? Black Janet Reno sings “You Are So Beautiful” and the boys read a poem they wrote together for the occasion. An ode about two yachts that pass in the night . . . the USS Farfel and the King Filippe Roheim III. I start tapping my foot while nervously watching the elevator doors right behind me. I stood here on purpose, so I’d know when the Kellers got here and could body-block if things got ugly.
Now it seems like a really stupid idea. I imagine gruesome scenarios in which the Kellers burst through the doors with the police in tow, right before Christopher and Jeremy say, “I do.” I can’t let that happen. Among all the other things that are happening, my best friend is getting married, and that’s more important than all the rest of it.
Back on the highway, the hearse careens and exits at the downtown ramp. Everyone inside the vehicle is hanging on to each other for dear life and the chicken has started pooping on people. Ten minutes later Keller’s security camera catches a hearse squealing into the underground parking lot and lurching to a stop in front of the open elevator doors. Brad bursts out of the limo and runs for them, his parents close behind him. Mother Keller shouts at her husband to hurry while Nick holds the doors for everyone and they all pack into the elevator together. Todd, Brad, Mr. and Mrs. Keller, and the whole board of directors jam in there, eager to find out what’s happening upstairs.
The chrome doors of the elevator close and Nick looks over at his partners in crime, Dizzy Bee, Bi’ch, Star Fan, and a chicken. They all refrained from getting on the elevator.
They just nod silently at each other and take the stairs.
Meanwhile, my little cyber-ninja, Pho, was able to hack into the elevator’s mainframe and access its operating system as well as the fish-eye security camera inside. In the video we see the beleaguered Keller crew, so close to their destination, all scrunched inside the elevator as Brad repeatedly punches the button marked LOBBY. Nothing happens. Then the elevator rockets one floor and a screeching sound is heard as the elevator jerks to a stop.
“What happened?” Ed shouts. “Why aren’t we moving?”
“We’re
stuck between floors,” Brad says, trying to pry open the chrome doors with his manicured fingertips.
His mother looks at her cell phone, furious. “We can’t let this happen on company property,” she says. “We can’t let her marry a couple of fucking . . . queers!”
Back in the lobby, my phone vibrates. It’s an emergency text message from Pho, who’s monitoring the elevator from a computer terminal upstairs. HURRY! BRAD FIGURED OUT HATCH!
Crap! The elevator was supposed to hold them hostage for another fifteen minutes!
I give Black Janet Reno the emergency signal. Why did we pick thumbs-up for an emergency signal? It looks like I’m saying everything’s okay! I have to flash thumbs-up at her two more times before she sees me. Her eyes go wide and she nods, and she quickly brings the ceremony to its legal conclusion. “Hopping quickly along like little bunnies!” She smiles, her glittery lipstick sparkling. “Do you, Jeremy, do you take this little snack cake of a cutie, Christopher, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do,” says Jeremy.
Suddenly a loud clanking noise comes from the elevator. Everyone looks. Mostly because besides the clanking, there is the very audible sound of Brad swearing his head off. Shit! It sounds like he’s prying open the doors with a freaking crowbar . . . “Hurry!” I hiss, but Black Janet Reno is unfazed. “And do you, Christopher, take this luscious hunk of man meat, Jeremy, to be your lawfully wedded husband, forever and ever and ever-ever?”
I gasp as Brad stumbles out of the elevator smeared with grease.
“What the fuck is going on?” Brad shouts.
“I do!” Christopher grins.
“All right, honey-children, then by the power vested in me—”
“Stop right there!” Brad shouts.
Black Janet Reno puts a fist on her glittered hip and says, “Who’s gonna stop me? You, white boy? We didn’t come this far to get knocked down by some greasy cracker. No, honey . . . by the power vested in me by God and these very fine Manolo Blahniks I am rocking, I now pronounce you honey-babies groom and groom!”
The newlyweds kiss and the crowd goes wild.
I look over as Mr. and Mrs. Keller crawl out of the partially open elevator doors. They too are smudgy and dirty. One arm of Mrs. Keller’s chiffon dress is ripped.
“What’ve you done?” she says. “What’s going on?”
Ed looks confused as reporters rush for him. They ask him if it’s true that the store sold cancer-causing teddy bears and that he now supports gay marriage. Ed just looks around, bewildered, and Todd steps in, snake-oil salesman that he is, and gives the cameras some bullshit statement about Keller’s continuing to be committed to the community.
“Look, Gramma! I’m a ballerina!” Mother Keller gasps as her grandson sails past wearing pink roller skates and a blond Barbie wig. He whirls around grinning and does a pirouette for her. Mother Keller spins and viciously grabs my arm, her claw digging into my skin.
“What have you done?” she hisses.
I look at her and blink innocently. “Nothing that you wouldn’t do, Mother Keller. I just went after what I wanted tooth and nail, without any concern for what I destroyed in the process. It’s a page from your playbook. I did exactly what I thought needed to be done.”
“I see. And you think you’re going to get away with this?”
“Oh, I hope not,” I tell her. “In fact, what I’m really hoping you’ll do is go right over there to those reporters and tell them that this whole thing was my idea, that the wedding wasn’t sanctioned by Keller’s, because then as a bonus the entire world will know that . . . by all definitions . . . I beat you.”
Her eyes narrow like she’s a snake ready to strike. “You’re a filthy little—”
“Of course you could take responsibility for the wedding yourself and tell everyone you were in charge. Say it was an experiment, an olive branch, a PR stunt. Whatever. That way no one would ever have to know that the great queen was undone . . . by a mere pawn.”
“Oh, you’re in a world of hurt now, honey,” she whispers.
“Actually that’s where I’ve been. In a world of hurt. Totally my own fault, for marrying your son and letting you and your family control my life, interfere with my happiness. Now I’m going to do a little interfering of my own.” I signal Ted, who’s standing over by the elevators with my guest of honor. He picked her up from the airport himself. He also brought Ace.
Love that Ted.
“Ace!” I whistle for him. “Here, boy!” Ted lets him off the leash and Ace bounds across the lobby toward me, wagging his tail all the way. Mother Keller scowls.
“So? You rescued your crippled fleabag. I can get him back again.”
“True, but I think you might be tied up trying to get something else back again.” I call over to Ed, who’s surrounded by reporters. They follow him as he makes his way over to me.
“Did you do all this?” he asks, face red.
I look over at Mother Keller and smile. “Speaking of true love, Ed, there’s someone here to see you.” I nod at the small woman advancing toward us. She’s petite, wearing a dark purple suit, and has dark short-cropped hair.
Mother Keller gasps. “No!” she whispers.
“Oh yes.” I nod. “Ada is here.”
Mrs. Keller hurries over to her husband’s side. Ed looks pale. They both watch the small woman walking toward them.
“Ed, you remember your cousin Ada?”
Ed just keeps staring.
I sigh. “I just thought somebody should tell you.”
“Tell me what?” he whispers at me hoarsely.
I smile. “Ada . . . she’s not your cousin.”
He looks over at me. “What?”
“Ada’s not your biological cousin. She was adopted.”
“She was not,” Mrs. Keller says.
“She was, actually! Got the paperwork. Ada’s not your blood relative, Ed. Right, Ada?”
Ada nods and smiles sweetly. Ed blinks at her and steps forward. Mrs. Keller just clutches her neckline and cries out, “Ed! What’re you doing!”
Ed’s blue eyes begin welling. “Ada? Is it you?”
She nods at me. “It’s me, Eddie Bear.”
The ever-vigilant news cameras catch Ed Keller rushing forward, ignoring his wife’s protests completely, and grabbing Ada, dipping her down, and kissing her deeply. “True love wins!” I shout, and every gay bee in the house starts cheering. Brad, however, is not cheering. He’s scowling in the corner and waits to pounce on me when the reporters aren’t looking. He’s so mad he’s almost speechless . . . but not entirely. He pulls me aside and demands to know why I’ve done this horrible thing. I ask him, “Which horrible thing, Brad? Warning the public about unsafe products or helping my best friend achieve one of his lifelong dreams?”
“You’re fucking insane!” he says. “I’ll make sure that you don’t ever—”
“Oh, whatever, Brad. You know, I’m sorry, I just can’t. You’re so . . . boring.”
“Boring?”
“Boring! I never realized till now! I just wanted to be in love with you so I filled in all your blank parts with fairy tales. But man, are you boring. If you were a plant, Brad, you’d be mold. If you were an animal . . . you’d still be mold. If you were a beverage, you’d be like leftover hot dog water or something. Maybe something was floating around in there once, but it ain’t there now, and—hey! That’s my song!”
“What?”
“Sorry! Gotta dance!” I bound off for the dance floor. Dizzy Bee is singing my theme song by the Isley Brothers. “It’s your thing! Do what you wanna do! I can’t tell ya who to sock it to . . . Ow!” The music kicks up louder. My entire family has shown up and they’re all dancing. Mom is smiling, Dad looks terrific, Lenny has ahold of Hailey with one arm and grips both the twins with the other, Christopher twirls Jeremy, and the whole Fang Gang has dropped into some sort of Hmong boogie, along with a hundred of their Hmong friends. Best of all, Nick taps me on the sho
ulder and we dance all night.
The reporters stay late too, eating caviar and swilling pink champagne before they go racing off to their newsrooms to deliver the incredible story of the first gay wedding in Minnesota, which was paid for by the Kellers and had nude bartenders, ball-gagged slave waiters, a nude trapeze artist swinging from the ceiling, and white horses pulling the newlywed grooms away in a pink carriage. Meanwhile the DJ—a hip newcomer named Iced-Tea—spins dance music till we nearly drop. I told him before he got there that he wasn’t allowed to do any singing.
20
Wayward and Wanton
There are repercussions for my actions.
Many.
The next morning more big news hits. The Minnesota senate passed the Family Equity Act just in time to make Christopher’s marriage legal.
“But wait!” Christopher says, panicking. “Do I really want to be married?”
“Ha-ha,” I say. “Welcome to being straight. It sucks.”
Experts speculate that the bill passed in large part because of Keller’s endorsement. The majorities in both houses at the legislature make clear they could not ignore such a large conservative organization backing the clearly controversial bill. The senators were in session as Jeremy and Christopher sashayed down the escalator. An anonymous source says hundreds of cell phones suddenly lit up across the senate floor and that the session “perked up” right after news of Keller’s “big gay wedding” got out.
The second indication of divine intervention is that Keller’s stock begins to soar. Suddenly the stodgy old humdrum department store, which catered only to Republicans and AARP members, becomes the go-to shopping destination for all sorts of new demographics. Gay bees make it a point to shop there, which means everybody else follows. Even the drag queens began to buy their wigs at Keller’s and have personal shoppers running around like mad in search of size 14 stilettos and industrial-strength undergarments that could conceal the Foshay Tower.
It’s a miracle.
Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married Page 27