Perry Bradford-Wilson's THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL Part Nine

A Novel in several parts By Perry Bradford-Wilson

Part Nine: The Bachelor Party
In which many erroneous assumptions are made
©1998 by Perry Bradford-Wilson

The bachelor party being thrown for Bubba Fitzgerald Puhzz was pretty successful at first. It isn’t hard to throw a good bachelor party, after all. Only three things are required; guys, entertainment (girls), and alcohol. This party definitely had all three. The attendees showed up at the Elks’ Hall around nine and started drinking, and the strippers waited in back for a signal from Larry that the guests were ready for the show to begin.

Out in the main hall Big Kenny was seated next to Bubba, slapping him on the back and keeping him well-watered. Guys who barely knew Bubba but who’d come for the showgirls and beer were congratulating him and telling ribald jokes. There was a boom box hanging from the center light fixture that was pounding out AC/DC so loud that a 747 could have snuck through the hall at full throttle and no one would have heard.

Huck sat alone in the corner. Oh, he was still happy about his long-distance love-letter love affair, but that was in a shoe box at home and Bubba’s big deal was right here, live, with about forty friends and acquaintances and enough cheap booze to keep a battleship group afloat for a week. Besides, he hadn’t gotten a second letter yet from Ms. Felecia Vandermark, and he was beginning to think that the Best Supporting Actress Nominee of 1986 had already forgotten about him. He was trying to feel good about all of this for his brother’s sake, but he found that it wasn’t easy to set aside his natural sibling rivalry considering the circumstances.

“Guess Hunsey didn’t get none of them cards?” Hampton said, coming over to break Huck’s solitude out of pity.

“Nope,” Huck said. Huck hadn’t expected the turncoat to show up even if he did.

“Probably for the best, considering,” Hampton pointed out and then, noticing his glass was dry, he headed back to the bar. Word had spread throughout town, thanks to Alverna Kettle - the gossipmonger of McKinleyville - that Bubba’s bride-to-be, Cheryl Wingate, was no less than the infamous Cherry Rodriguez, the nefarious moll of that criminal mastermind, Huck’s former best pal, Hunsey. Cheryl modestly claimed her ways were mended and Bubba had accepted that, but the town was less forgiving.

Sammy and Little Larry were sitting a few feet away from Huck, trying to see how many empty beer bottles they could fit on a single table. Of course, they had to make them empty by drinking the beer first.

“All this sudden getting married stuff,” Little Larry said, just after slamming a cold one, “I don’t buy it. You don’t just marry whoever comes along. You won’t find me settling that way. For me it’s going to have to be absolute true love.”

Sammy shook his head. “That’s what you always believe at your age, boy. No such thing as true love. Only truly love.”

“You’ll never find true love, only truly love. True love is a myth... what you’ll actually do is marry some girl you sorta like and then, at some point after you’ve been together about ten or twenty years, you learn to truly love her.”

Joe Bosanfari stood over at the drinks table pouring something amber-colored into the fruit punch. He might have saved his whiskey if he’d known the punch was already two-thirds alcohol. But Joe had been the official class “punch spiker” throughout High School and it was tough breaking those old habits. Not far away, Chet Fisher handed out lollipops shaped like women’s breasts and other unmentionables, which he considered a bachelor party staple.

The music was suddenly shut off and then the floor was brought to order by Cranly Davin. Cranly was a professional local celebrity. He was especially good at unrehearsed and spontaneous nonsense, talking at length about how wonderful it was to “be” someplace or how nice the weather was today. Every time there was a parade you could find Cranly on the judges’ stand, microphone in hand, identifying the various floats for the crowds and dazzling the public with his in-jokes about the community leaders who went by slowly in ribbon-festooned convertibles. Every time there was a telethon for Jerry’s Kids or the Cancer Society he would be there hosting on the TV screen, introducing in his lounge-singer cadences the High School rock band acts and the aging torch singers who had gotten most of their experience at the Karoke bar. Many people thought that Cranly went on and on just because he liked the sound of his own words, but others suspected he was attracted by the influence his notoriety gave him. At big McKinleyville Rotary functions you could find him telling all the best jokes and schmoozing with Mayor Victoria Fletcher and the Sanders brothers at the power table. He had achieved a fairly high-profile position, by association and by grandstanding, in the Humboldt community. But, to tell the truth, no one was quite sure what it was that Cranly Davin did for a living.

“A toast! A toast to the groom!” Cranly called out, and then surprised Huck by turning toward him and saying, “How about you make it, Huck?”

There was a moment of almost-silence (amazing, considering how much liquor had already been imbibed.) Huck really wasn’t in the mood to salute his brother. He looked up from his drink.

“Be extemporaneous,” Cranly advised. Huck didn’t know what ‘extemporaneous’ meant, but he could see that he was still expected to make the toast.

“All right, for God’s sake.” He stood, wobbling a bit. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, “I guess... good luck, happy life, have lots of kids and all that crap.” Then he knocked back his drink in a single gulp. The room paused. The posse looked toward Bubba for instruction.

“HA!” Cranly suddenly exploded. “‘All that crap!’” he guffawed, “You’re such a card, Huck!” and then he raised his glass and drank. The room broke into a moment of laughter (which quickly subsided to make room for alcohol intake) and then the noise resumed. You see, there was a reason Cranly Davin got all those master-of-ceremonies gigs. He could handle a crowd like butter.

Bubba remained in particularly good spirits. Cheryl’s assurances that she’d left her life as Cherry Rodriguez back in L.A. along with her modeling career had satisfied him. After all, if she was still a law-breaking tramp she certainly wouldn’t have agreed to marry a fine upstanding citizen like him. Big Kenny, who was by now very drunk, was draped over Bubba’s left shoulder crooning loudly, “I love you, man! You’re the absolute best, man!”

Fritz Gibson came up to Bubba and told him, “My boy, not only are you now in retail management, but you’re going to be a married man too! You’ve become a responsible member of the community! I suppose it’s time you joined the Rotary... can you come to our meeting next Wednesday?”

It was only going to get worse. In just a few minutes would come the strippers, and everyone would stick twenty dollar bills in their skivvies and tell them to go sit on Bubba’s lap (but no one, of course, would send one over to sit in poor Huck’s lap.) The only way Huck was going to get out of this evening without shooting himself (figuratively speaking, of course - do not try this at home) was if a miracle occurred.

“Stripper do her thing yet?” the nosy woman asked, peeking in and sniffing at the air.

“Get out of here, Alverna, this is for men only,” Larry said, barring the door. Alverna smiled wickedly.

“That’s what they said over at the bridal shower, down at the Chinese Baptist Church. ‘Women only,’ they said. But wouldn’t you know it, there’s a man there anyway.” She smiled again and started to turn away, but she’d got a line out in front of Larry and he took the bait.

Larry told Bubba a few seconds later. Huck didn’t find out until Alverna Kettle, who had snuck in after the initial shock of the announcement cleared the front door, made her way over to him and gave him the news herself.

“That Hunsey Bourcarte is at the bridal shower tryin’ to steal away your brother’s fiancée. I don’t suppose he bothered to tell you he was coming? You, his old best friend?”

The story spread around the room quickly, whispered from one partygoer to the next and growing with each telling. “Cheryl’s old boyfriend, Hunsey Bourcarte, is at the Bridal Shower,” said the first guy to the second, who passed on, “Hunsey Bourcarte is with Cheryl at the Bridal Shower” to the third, who said “Hunsey and Cherry are dancing together at the Bridal Shower” to the fourth, who told a small group next to him “Hunsey is having sex with Cherry on the dance floor at the Bridal Shower.”

The normally laid-back Bubba didn’t react at first. His face warmed a bit, his jaw set a fraction. Then he stood, his arms trembling slightly at his sides. Then his breath came out in a slow hiss.

“What about the strippers?” Joe Bosanfari asked as the last man vanished out the door.

To Be Continued...

Next: Our Conclusion, "Dear John" In which secrets are revealed and new possibilities arise