Chapter 18

We had shows the next three nights, but after the last one we headed on into Livonia, getting in late but relieved to know we were going to be in the same place for a few days; moving out every day starts to get a little tiring after a while. Since we didn't have the house rented anymore, Vivian had lined up a motel for us a ways away from the dealership. A little to our surprise, each one of us had single rooms, which was something that had never happened before. That was nice, since I didn't have to listen to Sonny trying to blow up the room with his farting all night. What was even better was that I didn't have to smell it. I hadn't had a night in a room to myself since we'd left the house back at the first of April. It felt good to be alone again for a few nights. Hoss's wedding was going to be the next day and we understood that things were expected to go pretty late, so we just headed to our rooms and tried to get some sleep.

As far as I know, the main reason we came back to Michigan around the first of June was that Vivian had worked out a series of race dates in the area for a price that Frank couldn't afford to turn down. He didn't mind, I'm sure; given a choice I think he'd rather have stayed a little closer to home most of the time, anyway, but with a show like that you can wear out your welcome if you stay in the same area too long. So far that year we had never been to a place where we'd been the previous year. There weren't a lot of places the rest of the year, and then most of them were fair dates.

Now, Vivian knew the schedule as well as anybody, better than Frank, even. I suspect now that having Frank gone for four months was longer than she wanted to put up with. Going back to Livonia along about that time at least broke it up into two-month segments. In any case, those race dates had been set long before Hoss and Helen decided to tie the knot. Our being around was a main reason why they set their wedding date for when they did, on a Sunday when the blue laws meant we were unlikely to find a place to race, anyway.

Clear back in the spring before we'd left on our early swing around the Midwest, Hoss had made it clear to us that Helen's mother had insisted that they were going to go the whole nine yards on this wedding. That meant that I had to break down and buy a suit. I had never owned one in my life, mostly because I had never needed one, but it was made pretty clear that those of us going to the wedding were expected to put on the dog for the event. I'd bought one at some store in Livonia before we left in the spring, but had left it with Vivian since there was no point in taking it on the road. She dropped the suit off the next morning, the day of the wedding, and I commenced getting cleaned up and dolled up better than I had done since the last time I'd stood an inspection in the Army. I hadn't tied a tie since right after I left the Army and took off the uniform for the last time in Bessie's house back in Chadron, but I discovered I hadn't forgotten how.

Not everyone on the crew wound up going to the wedding; the guys that had only run with us this year were left out, but Rocky, Dink, Chick, Hattie, Skimp, Pepper, Woody, Sonny, Frank, Vivian, Spud, and I went along, which made a pretty good representation from the MMSA. Vivian had even gotten her mother to look after Carol, so Hattie could join in the festivities and enjoy it more. I think that in general most of us cleaned up pretty well, and it was hard to recognize some of us. Vivian was especially good looking and classy, and Frank looked pretty darn good himself.

The wedding was interesting. I had only been to a handful in my life, including Chick and Helen's, which didn't really count. This one was full scale nice, in a big church with a big crowd. I thought Helen looked great in her white gown, and Hoss just looked uncomfortable in his tux, which was a long way from the jeans and T-shirt that he usually wore. Helen was from a Greek family, so the church was Greek Orthodox, which meant that things seemed a little on the strange side to me, not that I was very familiar with being inside a church anyway. I didn't understand a whole lot of what went on because a lot of it was in Greek, but figured when they went down the aisle after the ceremonies they were married so I guess that had to count.

Greek weddings – actually, Greek wedding receptions – have a reputation for being a pretty good party, and this one sure lived up to the reputation. It was held in a rental hall not far from the church. There was enough food to feed a small army, and enough booze to get a small town lit up. There was a great big band there, and they were pretty good. What was more I think every single Greek girl within a thirty mile radius was there; all of them wanted to dance, and there were several that wanted more – in fact, quite a bit more.

It was nice that Vivian had booked us into single rooms in a motel only a couple blocks away from the reception. I thought it was a case of just being nice, but it turned out that Vivian had us pretty well pegged and had a better idea than we did of what was going to happen. A bunch of single guys at a wedding like that were pretty likely to get some action, and that's just what we got. There was a steady stream of us running between the reception and the motel most of the night. Over the course of the evening – which ran until after dawn – I went over to the motel room with three different girls and there may have been more than that since things got a little bleary after a while.

Along in the middle of the night, I got to dancing with this one girl by the name of Ariel. She sure enjoyed the dancing, and before long it was pretty clear that she was interested in something a bit more, like beating the bride to the sheets. We snuck out of the building, walked up the street to my room at the motel, and the next thing I knew she was slipping out of her good-looking dress to reveal a first rate body. I didn't get much of a chance to look at it in all of its bare glory, because I was playing with it awful quick. I found out that she was a first rate screamer. That was just fine, since there was a screamer in the next room at the same time and it just inspired us onward.

After an hour or so we were both pretty well wrapped out and figured we needed to get back to the party before we got missed. Ariel said that her mother kept a pretty good eye on her and really didn't want to get caught. I have to say it took her longer to get back into that dress than it had taken her to get out of it, but before long we were heading back, walking with our arms around each other, all lovey-dovey.

We turned a corner and came face to face with Skimp Winkelman, who was walking with his arm around a woman about his age, but a real looker. She had her arm around him and it was pretty clear about where they were headed. We got real close, and then the woman said, quite calmly, "Hello, Ariel."

I have to give the girl credit; she didn't miss a beat when she replied, "Hello, mother."

Not a word more was said and none of us slowed down a step. Ariel didn't say another word about it all the way back to the party, and shortly after that we were each dancing with someone else, getting set to start the cycle all over again. I never got more than a brief glimpse of her the rest of the evening, but I still think it would have been interesting to have been a bug on the wall around their house after everyone sobered up. I didn't think about it too much at the time, since before long I was headed back to the motel with another girl on my arm. I don't remember a whole lot about her, but by then all the booze was starting to catch up with me a little so I guess I have reason not to remember.

I'll tell you how good a party it was: Dink got plastered and got laid. Those of us at the party had run with Dink most of last season and all of this one, and we'd learned that Dink was about as straight as straight could be. None of us had ever seen him drink so much as a beer, and he was the guy that we depended on to drive us back to the motel or tourist court if we really got to knocking it back after a race. Sometimes he would have to make two trips to get everybody home. While not a religious nut, he usually took advantage of our blue law days off to go to the nearest church, whatever brand it was. At that, he was crazy as a fox since he often got invited home for a good home-cooked meal, so although he wasn't much of a talker he made a lot of friends.