family history, part ten
Or if you prefer, the wedding, part one. . .
The wedding of Roosevelt Barrington, my father, The Bastard, and Catherine Adler, my mother was scheduled to begin at 5:00 on Tuesday, November 9, 1965. It was a rather early start for an evening wedding, but at the time Granny Adler, my grandmother and the mother of the bride had a nasty case of pleurisy and was generally exhausted and in bed by 7:00.
Grandma Milly, God rest her soul, was still furious with Old Grandad at his refusal to allow the wedding party access to the rest of The Club on account of they were not members and many were women, but she put on her happy face and had done an excellent job overseeing the decoration of the lobby for the ceremony. The lobby looked resplendent with red poinsettias and some little white fancy European imported flowers everywhere. A sort of non-denominational alter by where the bride and groom were to stand for the ceremony was fashioned from a podium pilfered from a conference room on one of the lower floors. A cascading shower of red and white roses gracefully flowed to the floor and was the head of an aisle outlined in white roses and covered in the petals of red ones.
At 5:00 pm sharp, Roosevelt Barrington stood before that alter, his glance going nervously between his watch and the elevator doors at the other end of the room from where his bride was to appear and make her grand entrance. A college buddy whose name I can't remember stood at his side as his Best Man. The two men stood with the District Court Judge who was officiating as a consequence of a losing poker hand to Old Grandad.
Grandma Milly, God rest her soul, Old Grandad, and Aunt Olphelia were seated a few feet away along with a handful of other family members. Many did not come because the short notice of the rescheduling or they shared Grandma Milly's, God rest her soul, anger at Old Grandad for staging a wedding in an elevator lobby.
On the bride's side of the makeshift aisle in the lobby there was only one gold-digging cousin who was hoping to drunkenly score a rich husband at the reception and a couple of college girlfriends who were secretly hoping Catherine would change her mind and choose to return to her college lifestyle. No one else on my mother's side showed because they were angry at Old Grandad for his perceived anti-semitism and morally outraged that so fine a Jewish princess would be allowed by her father to marry into such a family.
The Retired Colonel milled around the side of the room, sipping bourbon from the bottle and watching cigar smoke gently drift through an open window.
Uncle Randolph, in his fabulous gown, stood a the back of the room near the elevator doors along with the Granny Adler. Her pleurisy was really bothering her and she was breathing fast and shallow as a rabbit, trying not to faint from anxiety or exhaustion.
All were staring at the elevator, waiting for the doors to open and for Catherine to appear with her father. They were to make the traditional bridal entrance and follow Granny Adler and Uncle Randolph down the makeshift aisle.
The secretarial pool break room on the third floor had become the bride's dressing room. It was empty of secretaries, as was the remainder of the building of other employees. Old Grandad gave them the afternoon off. All thought it was an act of generosity caused by Old Grandad's joy over the wedding, but in reality he just wanted the building empty so that there would be fewer people to see his son in a dress.
Catherine was down there with a handful of wedding professionals, stylists, designers, make-up artists, etc. preparing for the wedding. Her father, Old Man Adler was waiting patiently in the hallway for his daughter to emerge so that he could escort her in the elevator up to the ceremony.
At 5:07, the elevator doors had yet to open.
5:18, still no Catherine. Roosevelt was nervously sweating and Old Grandad was becoming visibly annoyed at the delay. Catherine's college girlfriends were slightly smirking with delight because they were starting to think that their last minute efforts to dissuade Catherine from marriage and run off with them to the more liberal lands of Europe were successful.
What none knew at the time was that eight floors below, Catherine had leaned over to pick up a dropped comb and had popped a seam in her corset. It was hastily being resown by hand while she was wearing it.
At 5:25 Old Grandad was beginning to get up to go into The Club to slam a scotch and to angrily call down to the third floor to inquire as to the reason for the delay. Suddenly above the dull din of the rush hour traffic drifting up from the streets below, the rumbling sound of a slow old elevator motor was heard. Here comes the bride, here comes the bride.
At 5:27 all the lights went out.
For a moment there was calm. The Retired Colonel looked through the window and could see that it was not just their current location that suddenly went dark. All the lights within his view had gone out: the building across the street, the street and traffic lights below, everything everywhere went black. It looked to him as though the power had just failed in the entire city.
The Retired Colonel had recently read an article informing him that such an event would likely be caused by the electromagnetic pulse generated by a nuclear attack. He was the first to panic. He began screaming about everyone's doom and those cocksucking commie Russian bastards. He lurched about the darkened room in an arching semi-circular pattern caused by his mostly forgetting to compensate for his shortened wooden leg. He hit a folding chair and crashed to the ground. His bourbon bottle flew from his hand and in a brief moment the room filled with the sound of breaking glass and the smell of whiskey.
Then everyone else began to panic. For the small eternity of several minutes there were screams and the banging sounds of people falling and banging into furniture in the darkness.
Old Grandad continued to just sit there, stoic and motionless like a pot on low heat on the stove. He was now truly irritated and very annoyed. He was not concerned about the threat of global thermonuclear annihilation. He knew that the Russians were just as much into turning a profit as he was. He had been dealing with them for several years through a series of third parties and shell businesses in a handful of small Eastern block nations like Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.They shared the common belief that total mutually assured world destruction would be very very bad for business.
When he reached the boiling point he stood up and raised his voice while he raised a gold-plated Zippo from his pocket. He barked commands, "Quiet! Calm down you damn idiots! We are not doomed!"
He kicked at The Retired Colonel who lie sprawled in the flickering shadows at his feet. "Get up you crazy bastard, and go find us some flashlights or some candles from one of the supply closets in The Club. Anybody else have a lighter? I'm going to go try to figure out what the hell is going on."
With that the room quickly calmed, several people pulled lighters or matches from their pockets. In moments the room was lit with a dozen or so tiny fire lights. People slowly began to recompose themselves and survey their surroundings. All of the chairs and most of the tables had been overturned. The gold-digging cousin and the best man were found in one corner of the room in a rather compromising position. The college girlfriends of Catherine were found in another corner in a similar position. Both couples simultaneously and separately reasoned that if they were going to be vaporized by an impending nuclear holocaust they wanted to get it one one last time before they went.
And Granny Adler, why she was found on top of the wedding cake. In the darkness she tripped into the cake table, causing both her and the cake to fall to the floor. There was frosting in her hair. In her hands she held the shattered pieces of the porcelain bride and groom cake topper. In retrospect, that should have been heeded as an omen.
Old Grandad and The Retired Colonel jingled and juggled keys from their pocket as they approached a door a few feet behind the makeshift podium. Together they walked slowly into The Club, their way illuminated by Old Grandad's golden lighter. You could hear the door locking behind them, the untrusting old bastards.
The wedding of Roosevelt Barrington, my father, The Bastard, and Catherine Adler, my mother was scheduled to begin at 5:00 on Tuesday, November 9, 1965. It was a rather early start for an evening wedding, but at the time Granny Adler, my grandmother and the mother of the bride had a nasty case of pleurisy and was generally exhausted and in bed by 7:00.
Grandma Milly, God rest her soul, was still furious with Old Grandad at his refusal to allow the wedding party access to the rest of The Club on account of they were not members and many were women, but she put on her happy face and had done an excellent job overseeing the decoration of the lobby for the ceremony. The lobby looked resplendent with red poinsettias and some little white fancy European imported flowers everywhere. A sort of non-denominational alter by where the bride and groom were to stand for the ceremony was fashioned from a podium pilfered from a conference room on one of the lower floors. A cascading shower of red and white roses gracefully flowed to the floor and was the head of an aisle outlined in white roses and covered in the petals of red ones.
At 5:00 pm sharp, Roosevelt Barrington stood before that alter, his glance going nervously between his watch and the elevator doors at the other end of the room from where his bride was to appear and make her grand entrance. A college buddy whose name I can't remember stood at his side as his Best Man. The two men stood with the District Court Judge who was officiating as a consequence of a losing poker hand to Old Grandad.
Grandma Milly, God rest her soul, Old Grandad, and Aunt Olphelia were seated a few feet away along with a handful of other family members. Many did not come because the short notice of the rescheduling or they shared Grandma Milly's, God rest her soul, anger at Old Grandad for staging a wedding in an elevator lobby.
On the bride's side of the makeshift aisle in the lobby there was only one gold-digging cousin who was hoping to drunkenly score a rich husband at the reception and a couple of college girlfriends who were secretly hoping Catherine would change her mind and choose to return to her college lifestyle. No one else on my mother's side showed because they were angry at Old Grandad for his perceived anti-semitism and morally outraged that so fine a Jewish princess would be allowed by her father to marry into such a family.
The Retired Colonel milled around the side of the room, sipping bourbon from the bottle and watching cigar smoke gently drift through an open window.
Uncle Randolph, in his fabulous gown, stood a the back of the room near the elevator doors along with the Granny Adler. Her pleurisy was really bothering her and she was breathing fast and shallow as a rabbit, trying not to faint from anxiety or exhaustion.
All were staring at the elevator, waiting for the doors to open and for Catherine to appear with her father. They were to make the traditional bridal entrance and follow Granny Adler and Uncle Randolph down the makeshift aisle.
The secretarial pool break room on the third floor had become the bride's dressing room. It was empty of secretaries, as was the remainder of the building of other employees. Old Grandad gave them the afternoon off. All thought it was an act of generosity caused by Old Grandad's joy over the wedding, but in reality he just wanted the building empty so that there would be fewer people to see his son in a dress.
Catherine was down there with a handful of wedding professionals, stylists, designers, make-up artists, etc. preparing for the wedding. Her father, Old Man Adler was waiting patiently in the hallway for his daughter to emerge so that he could escort her in the elevator up to the ceremony.
At 5:07, the elevator doors had yet to open.
5:18, still no Catherine. Roosevelt was nervously sweating and Old Grandad was becoming visibly annoyed at the delay. Catherine's college girlfriends were slightly smirking with delight because they were starting to think that their last minute efforts to dissuade Catherine from marriage and run off with them to the more liberal lands of Europe were successful.
What none knew at the time was that eight floors below, Catherine had leaned over to pick up a dropped comb and had popped a seam in her corset. It was hastily being resown by hand while she was wearing it.
At 5:25 Old Grandad was beginning to get up to go into The Club to slam a scotch and to angrily call down to the third floor to inquire as to the reason for the delay. Suddenly above the dull din of the rush hour traffic drifting up from the streets below, the rumbling sound of a slow old elevator motor was heard. Here comes the bride, here comes the bride.
At 5:27 all the lights went out.
For a moment there was calm. The Retired Colonel looked through the window and could see that it was not just their current location that suddenly went dark. All the lights within his view had gone out: the building across the street, the street and traffic lights below, everything everywhere went black. It looked to him as though the power had just failed in the entire city.
The Retired Colonel had recently read an article informing him that such an event would likely be caused by the electromagnetic pulse generated by a nuclear attack. He was the first to panic. He began screaming about everyone's doom and those cocksucking commie Russian bastards. He lurched about the darkened room in an arching semi-circular pattern caused by his mostly forgetting to compensate for his shortened wooden leg. He hit a folding chair and crashed to the ground. His bourbon bottle flew from his hand and in a brief moment the room filled with the sound of breaking glass and the smell of whiskey.
Then everyone else began to panic. For the small eternity of several minutes there were screams and the banging sounds of people falling and banging into furniture in the darkness.
Old Grandad continued to just sit there, stoic and motionless like a pot on low heat on the stove. He was now truly irritated and very annoyed. He was not concerned about the threat of global thermonuclear annihilation. He knew that the Russians were just as much into turning a profit as he was. He had been dealing with them for several years through a series of third parties and shell businesses in a handful of small Eastern block nations like Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.They shared the common belief that total mutually assured world destruction would be very very bad for business.
When he reached the boiling point he stood up and raised his voice while he raised a gold-plated Zippo from his pocket. He barked commands, "Quiet! Calm down you damn idiots! We are not doomed!"
He kicked at The Retired Colonel who lie sprawled in the flickering shadows at his feet. "Get up you crazy bastard, and go find us some flashlights or some candles from one of the supply closets in The Club. Anybody else have a lighter? I'm going to go try to figure out what the hell is going on."
With that the room quickly calmed, several people pulled lighters or matches from their pockets. In moments the room was lit with a dozen or so tiny fire lights. People slowly began to recompose themselves and survey their surroundings. All of the chairs and most of the tables had been overturned. The gold-digging cousin and the best man were found in one corner of the room in a rather compromising position. The college girlfriends of Catherine were found in another corner in a similar position. Both couples simultaneously and separately reasoned that if they were going to be vaporized by an impending nuclear holocaust they wanted to get it one one last time before they went.
And Granny Adler, why she was found on top of the wedding cake. In the darkness she tripped into the cake table, causing both her and the cake to fall to the floor. There was frosting in her hair. In her hands she held the shattered pieces of the porcelain bride and groom cake topper. In retrospect, that should have been heeded as an omen.
Old Grandad and The Retired Colonel jingled and juggled keys from their pocket as they approached a door a few feet behind the makeshift podium. Together they walked slowly into The Club, their way illuminated by Old Grandad's golden lighter. You could hear the door locking behind them, the untrusting old bastards.
posted by dr noyz @ 9:37 AM
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