A Wedding in West Virginia

I had met one of Susan's two sisters, the baby of the family and her mother but had not been introduced to anyone else. I had heard enough family lore though that I felt I knew everybody. Susan had told me tales of her maternal grandmother living all over the world while her "surrogate" grandfather had assisted one of the major tobacco companies establish global production. Her actual grandfather had been killed by police chasing someone else who fired indiscriminately into a crowded Ohio River ferry, missing the suspect but mortally wounding grandad who subsequently fell into a watery grave. I had heard of an aunt who worked for President Johnson and had married a wealthy Richmond, Virginia businessman. I heard of an uncle who had the Bingham connection who had left the Episcopalian ministry to become a hospital administrator in Naples, Florida. All these people and events seemed real enough but Susan also had a game of one-upsmanship going on with me. I mentioned in passing my father had been a pilot, so suddenly, Susan's father was a pilot as well. Whatever highly placed family-connection I had, Susan felt the need to do one better. She could eclipse all my meager family ties and was also a sudden expert in Jewish geography. Any conversation my parents were having, some I was involved in, some I wasn't, some people discussed I knew, some I didn't, Susan felt the need to chime in as if she had intimate knowledge of all parties involved when in most cases, she knew none of the participants. On matters political though, Susan, on the surface, seemed in perfect accord with me. I am an ardent Zionist and sensibly to the right. I thought it odd that Susan never offered a word of discord or tried to debate me about any of my worldviews. I was glad that she seemed as convicted of her conservative beliefs as I am of mine. I became skeptical that we were actually as simpatico politically as Susan pretended when I found her on the mailing list for a feminist, leftist coven, the Margaret Cunningham Women's Center of Vanderbilt University or bringing their proto-lesbian bilge back to her condo. What they were propagating was diametrically opposed to what I believe. I did not push the matter with Susan at that time because we were preparing for a big event, her baby sister's impending nuptials which I thought would be my chance to meet her super-accomplished kinfolk. I accepted the invitation, and took the opportunity with some worry whether I would measure up for her family. This trepidation was acquitted but not for any of my own inadequacies when we arrived in West Virginia. Susan borrowed my car to make a wedding preparation run and left me with her father and the man who was about to become her brother-in-law. I found myself being interrogated about Israel's conduct and asked, not in so many words, about the dual loyalty of Jews. I responded that so far as I knew anyone in my family who was ever in service wore only the American uniform and that my uncle died fighting for this country. There questions displayed the kind of insidious anti-semitism that I had been exposed to a few times prior in my life. I left my sarcasm back in Nashville, and did not try the "go ask the Israeli ambassador routine." It was a real eyeopener but maybe it should not have been as I had heard all my life of my father's formative experiences of being hated for being a Jew as he grew up on the Virginia-West Virginia border seventy plus years before. Susan's father is physically imposing to say the least; he was really a state championship football lineman in his high school days, but I am not sure if he played college ball at Georgia Tech as Susan claimed or if that was more bluster. I asked him about his "pilot" status and he said Susan must have been confused, that he had only been in the Air Force as the soon to be groom had been. Susan and I stayed at a nearby motel and I offered to pay but was told I was their "guest". I felt like the ultimate outsider at the little country church on the hill wedding to which Susan arrived just a tad plastered, having imbibed much of the day, starting in the car in the early morning. The bridal party had me hold the wedding gift money while photos and video were being snapped and shot. I thought at the time that this was a vote of confidence as a sign of trust, but I realize now, I probably literally would have been killed if any of my conduct seemed askew. One of the groomsmen was a cousin of the groom who looked just like Sam Elliot who I learned later had the same genetic disease as the groom and who subsequently committed suicide. Another guest named Terry who tried to make me feel more a part of the family I learned was also felled by a heart attack shortly thereafter at too young an age. The man Susan regarded as her grandfather who held a doctorate and was well-traveled seemed to hold me in slight regard, but I may have been unduly unctuous toward him since I thought he was the caliber person whose opinion held great stock with the rest of the assemblage. I helped decorate a school gymnasium which was serving as the hall for the reception. I only met one of Susan's three brothers, a musician whose education and accomplishments Susan puffed but who I was a tad afraid might pound me for fucking his sister. The other two brothers I was told did not "do" weddings. Of everyone I met, only this brother and Terry seemed to bear me no malice. I made a hearty attempt to catch the garter only to be outfought by a wild eyed redneck. That was an omen.