A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

Uninvited to Buddy’s Wedding? We Tailgated and Wedding Crashed

Fireball-shooting groomsmen, deep conversations, and Nurse Ratched

That’s me in the middle wearing the Buffalo Bills jersey, to my left, swigging Fireball is Keith. Don’t forget Vicky. You’re probably wondering what juxtapositions are doing at a wedding?

It’s the night we tailgated at Matthew Abernathy and Kristen Von Buskirk’s wedding at the Greek Orthodox Church parking lot.

The red pickup truck pulled into the parking lot. The gray-haired man parked and started to walk to the church.

“Yo, Mr. Abernathy,” I hollered to the groom’s father. “Care to join me for a beer?”

We chugged two Michelobs. I added a healthy burp. Why start being polite now?

Started as a joke

It started as a joke at our lounge table of four sailor-swearing men.

I’d just transferred to the middle school and engaged Matt wasn’t ready to be promoted to our table— until he answered sports trivia.

He didn’t know us well enough to invite us to his wedding.

So we had no choice, but to invite ourselves.

“We’re tailgating at your wedding,” Keith proudly proclaimed.

“Cool,” laughed Matt.

Getting the party started

“The Boys are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy was playing when Keith pulled up, minutes after I finished chugging a beer.

Seven minutes later, Vicky arrives, your classic PE teacher. Loud, and not taking any shit.

“Glad you assholes waited for me,” Vicky said.

Fireballing groomsmen

Word must have spread like wild Fireball as the groom and his four groomsmen came out to take a shot. Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” more than set the mood.

Despite an errant spiraled football barely missing the groom’s head, he graciously invited us to join the wedding.

“Nah, I don’t think we’d fit in,” Vicky chuckled.

“I mean, drinking in a church parking lot is awkward,” I said. “Going into a wedding dressed like this — super awkward.”

After a few football flings, Queen tunes, and bush-peeing trips, the wedding photographer and groomsmen returned to take photos with the dandy dialects. Our reaction? We took another Fireball shot.

Entertaining Spectacle

By now it was inching closer to game time, er, wedding time, as elegantly dressed ladies, and gentlemen in their Sunday best were starting to pull in (that’s what she said) to the parking lot. (Damn! Less room for football pass routes).

With “Welcome to the Jungle” blasting, we received a variety of looks. There was the “are-they-homeless?-will-they-ask-for-food?” look; the snobby, disproving head shake; the rubberneck, shocked stare like a train wreck they can’t avoid; and my favorite, the chuckle, amazed anybody would have the gonads (and their female equivalent) to do something so insane.

Keith, of course, had his own solution to all passerby’s

He’d offer them a Fireball shot.

Most ignored. A few politely declined. One surfer dude in a Hawaiian shirt and sandals, replied “Awesome. Hell yeah, bro!” and partook.

Our Kumbaya moment

“Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac came on the Sirius/XM radio next, and Keith turned to me and asked, “So tell me about your first marriage and what happened?”

It was a bonding and peeling the onion moment, as I told them how we meet in a Sociology class in college, relived the great times, then fought constantly over money, and how she ran up enormous bills causing me to work two jobs. And how I suspected she was sleeping with a good friend. We were only married for two years.

“Your turn, dude?” I said to Keith.

He went into vivid details about his ex-wife’s issues with drinking and her Fatal Attraction habits. She wanted to spend every waking moment with him, stalking him wherever he went. She got mad when he golfed or went to watch football.

“It was a huge mistake. It only lasted two months.”

What’s your deal?

Keith took a sip of his 805 beer, and turned to Vicky, “What’s your deal, Vicky? You’re still single. You never found your Mr. Perfect?”

“Nope. Never found the person I wanted to spend my life with. I’m picky.”

Keith pried.

“You mean there was no one? No serious boyfriends? Come on, Vicky. We both just poured our souls out to you.”

“Well,” she started. “There was this one guy. He was African American. Nice guy. We really hit it off. He wanted to settle down and was moving too fast. We dated, oh, I don’t know, something like five or six months. He got tired of me not committing”

“Did you ever wish you had committed and stayed with him?” I asked.

She got a momentary softness in her eyes, thought it over, and then…

Police sirens could be heard blaring off in the distance, but appeared to be drawing closer.

“Hold that thought,” Keith announced. “I have to take a piss.”

“Yeah, nature is calling,” I tried to say less discreetly. “I have to find an enormous tree.”

“You boys,” Vicky chuckled.

Unwanted visitor

After cracking another beer, we heard the rhythmic clumping of high heels picking up speed in the darkness.

“What are you guys doing?” an annoyed, brash, tall brunette asked us.

“Tailgaiting, ma’am,” Keith answered in his best Doc Holiday from Tombstone voice.

“I’m the wedding coordinator, and nobody, does this,” she said in a Nurse Ratched voice, looking at us like we belonged in an insane asylum.

“We do,” Keith said.

“Well, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. The neighbors have complained, and if you don’t leave, I’ll have no choice but to call the police,” she said, shaking her head and returning to the wedding.

‘You might as well…’

Immediately, Van Halen’s “Jump” came on the radio.

Keith and I eyed each other, clumsily climbed onto my truck bed, and ala David Lee Roth, went flying into the air, landing, then both falling on our sides.

“You guys are idiots,” Vicky said.

It was planned to be a night of debauchery, laughs, and enjoying a friend’s wedding uniquely. Instead, it was an amazing night of bonding, talking about things we’d never talked about and might never again.

Thanks for reading! Thank you, Gaurav Jain, for an awesome prompt, A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words.

Tagging/recruiting my next crew of wedding tailgaters: Kristen Stark, Kristine Laco, MarkfromBoston 🐾🍻, Scot Butwell, Lu Skerdoo, Sreese, David Perlmutter, Deborah Camp, Lisa's Desk Chat, Amanda Payne, Adelina Vasile, Bridie D, Andrey Pilipets, Janet Meisel, @pamwinter, Alison Levine.

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