A True Story of Love and Loss or My 6 Degrees to Jerry Springer

10 years ago today, a really cute boy asked me out on a date. I've written about it before (a year ago to be precise) and thought today I'd revisit the scene of the crime (also as I said I would last year). I can imagine, no one on earth has an "anniversary story" quite like ours.

I moved to Illinois in August of '96 and began going to church with Busha and Bucka. Farm Boy's family made up 85% of the church population. Including his uncle JC...please do not confuse him with the Divine JC...he's not even close. JC is slow. I'd put money on mildly retarded (or mentally challenged, which ever you prefer). I always felt a little bad for him as he had no social skills, seemed very shy, and honestly looks just like Humpty-Dumpty. He's only a few years older (maybe 31 at the time) than Farm Boy and Big BIL.

Much to my surprise, I was informed that JC was getting married Easter weekend ('97). I was shocked especially when I met his fiancee. To say she had crawled out from under a rock would not be an exaggeration. She was a piece of work...for the purposes of this story, we'll call her TP (as in Trailer Park). TP bought a size 6 wedding dress at a garage sale and was having it altered to fit her no smaller than size 14 frame. I'm not sure I ever saw her with clean hair and you didn't want to stand too close as personal hygiene was not big on her list of things to do on a daily basis. In all, they may have been the perfect couple.

To my further surprise, JC asked me to sing at his wedding. I don't know that he'd ever heard me sing as the only place I did was in church and only with the congregation (I'd like to point out that while not AI material, I can carry a tune in a bucket). He handed me a stack of sheet music from 1979 the approximate size of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. He said I could pick any song I wanted and sing as many as I liked. This seemed a little odd to me, so when his nieces asked me if I was singing with them, I thought, sure, that could save me a great deal of embarrassment. The 5 of us began practicing our Tribute to the Carpenters the next week.

The night of the rehearsal rolled around & just happened to be on Good Friday. I showed up to find Farm Boy there. His job was to ring the church bell at the beginning of the wedding (he only showed up to rehearsal to ask me out). We ate dinner & then began rehearsal (isn't that backwards from most rehearsals?). The nieces and I sang our 3 or 4 songs, then JC asked me if I was singing a few on my own. I said no (I thought subjecting the guests to 4 songs sung by tone deaf teens was plenty, I didn't want to keep them there any longer than necessary). The rehearsal moved on. No one from the bride's side was there except the 2 people that brought her & I'm pretty sure they were both living with her in the apartment JC was paying for (incidentally she only allowed him to visit the apartment on Saturdays...and one of the roomies was of the male variety). Not the flower girl and ring bearer, not the brother who was to walk her down the aisle, none of the 3 bridesmaids, none of her 3 kids.

The bride, who was no younger than 45, bounced around and squealed like BabyGirl when we tell her we're going to Chuck E. Cheese. She shook and squealed down the aisle. She giggled and squealed standing at the alter. She repeatedly told JC, "Quit looking at me. You're freaking me out. Just stop it! I can't believe this is really happening. I said QUIT LOOKING AT ME!!!" Bucka was the minister and he ran them through a brief version of the ceremony & we all thought it was over. Boy were we wrong.

Pretty soon TP took the two people she was there with and went outside. When she came back in she informed JC that she couldn't possibly marry him the next day because her daughter was in Juvie for kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach. The daughter's parole officer had said she couldn't come to the wedding unattended and due to a fight she'd been in in juvie, her privileges were revoked. That meant she couldn't even come with her parole officer. This wasn't unknown prior to rehearsal. This was not new news...not by a long shot.

For the next 2 hours, I sat in a solid wooden pew with Farm Boy and a group of his cousin and watched the drama unfold. TP refused to marry without the daughter present. JC had sunk quite a bit of his past 6 months paychecks into the wedding. The nieces were taking bets to see if TP would wash her hair before the ceremony in the morning. Bucka was trying to counsel the distraught couple. It was suggested that they go to the jail in the morning and preform the actual ceremony for the daughter's benefit then return to the church for the big wedding. TP was adamant that they postpone, then she was OK with having the wedding as planned, then she wanted to have it at the jail, then she'd change her mind again, finally she just left. JC didn't leave for another hour or so to go looking for her. I was later told, he found her at the local bar & by the time he left, she'd agreed to the wedding as planned.

The next day we all sat at the church and waited. And waited. And waited. Rumors circulated. Whispers floated about. She wasn't coming. She called and was on her way. She skipped her hair appointment. She was running late. She'd be there just in time to walk down the aisle, so she'd come in her dress all ready to go. Still, none of her family showed up. Husband's cousins and Aunts prepared to stand in as flower girl, ring bearer, and bridesmaids.

Then we were told she was there, time to sing. The nieces and I hopped up and stumbled through our selections & sat down to wait for the wedding march. It played. Bucka and JC walked down the aisle & turned to greet the congregation. We kept glancing over our shoulders to get a glimpse of the bride in her rebuilt dress, but were disappointed each time. That's when I noticed JC was standing with tears in his eyes, arms straight down at his side & every finger he had crossed while he mumbled something under his breath. It was left to Bucka to explain that there would be no wedding, but JC would like everyone to join him at the reception hall for cake and punch. They headed back down the aisle and a stunned (sort of) congregation walked down to greet the jilted groom.

After mulling about in the parking lot for a bit we loaded up in our cars to drive the 2 blocks to the reception hall. As I pulled out into traffic, I heard a car horn honk...and again...and again. When I reached the side street where the car was parked, I realized it was the car JC was riding in. He wanted the horns honked all the way to the hall. He had also wanted the guests to throw rice at him as he ran to the "get away car," but his sisters confiscated the rice bundles before he handed them out himself.

When we got to the reception hall we were greeted by a sheet cake that read, "Congratulations JC & -----." His sisters had scraped her name off the cake. He announced at the reception that he wanted everyone to go to Effin'bill to go dancing with him that evening (as part of the progressive reception he had planned). Not to a hall he'd rented, but to a popular night club he wanted to spontaneously take over with his friends and relatives. Instead it was settled that he could go to the movies with his nieces and nephews instead (they had already made the plans when JC was thrust upon them by their parents). He wanted them all to go to the hotel and share his honeymoon suite with him that night (thank the Lord the parents knew when to say no...for once).

About 4 months later one of the sisters ran into TP at the county fair. TP informed her that he and JC were still going to be married once the daughter was released from juvie. She hadn't spoken to JC since the night of the rehearsal. The last time I saw TP, she was on Jerry Springer with her new 23 year old fiancee who was there to tell her he was also sleeping with her cousin (a frightening man in a lame shirt, platform heels, and a purple feather boa who looked as if he was about 15 minutes from needing his next meth fix). Oh, and the daughter was out of jail by then because I think she tried to throw a chair at the poor 23 year old who sat stunned on stage as though he didn't realize TP or her family would have a problem with his infidelity. I kid you not.