The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [67]
“We’re going to find them.”
a christmas carol, 1977
artists: caleb and camille fang
The Fangs were to be married, the union of two souls, till death do you part, I do, I do, the whole ridiculous charade.
Caleb slipped the ring on Camille’s finger and repeated the minister’s unenthusiastic recitation of the vows. To the left of the altar, the minister’s wife, her fee for playing Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” on the chapel’s organ too expensive, filmed the proceedings on Caleb’s Super 8 camera, which whirred and clicked throughout the ceremony. Caleb feared the woman was missing the subtlety of the event, ruining the shot with static, uninteresting angles. He reminded himself that next time he would figure out a way to film the marriage while also taking part in it, to maintain artistic control at all costs.
Camille, her stomach a tight, round ball of expectancy, could not remember if she was supposed to be happy or sad. She decided to act nervous, which could work for either emotion. Throughout the ceremony, she rubbed her obscenely pregnant belly, took deep, weighted breaths, and grimaced suddenly from time to time as if to suggest labor was imminent, as in right this second, as in right here in the chapel, as in, does this place do baptisms as well? Each time she brushed her fingers over the convex curve of her stomach, she noticed that the minister’s wife, the upper part of her face a whirring glass eye, would purse her lips with disgust. Camille began to rub her stomach more and more often, smiling as the minister’s wife expressed her sour displeasure with the proceedings like a Pavlovian response. Camille was amazed, once again, at the ease with which she could elicit outrage, when she realized that Caleb and the minister were staring at her. “I do,” she said quickly, though they’d already gone through the vows.
“He wants to kiss you now,” the minister said to her as he gestured dismissively toward Caleb. “Do you want to kiss him?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said. “Why not?” and leaned toward her husband, her belly pressing against his cheap tuxedo.
The minister’s wife threw a handful of confetti with such force it seemed she was trying to blind them, and Caleb and Camille turned and walked silently out of the chapel. As soon as they reached the doors, they turned around and walked back to the altar. Caleb retrieved the camera from the minister’s wife, tipped the minister, and then posed with Camille for the wedding portrait, ten dollars, a single Polaroid.
“You want I should make this official?” the minister said, counting the ten one-dollar bills and then folding the money in half before handing it to his wife.
Camille bent over the pew and fished the marriage license, official and sealed, out of her purse. She signed the paper and then handed the pen to her husband. He signed it and then handed the pen to the minister’s wife, who waved it off and produced her own pen. She scratched her name on the license, a witness to the events, and then handed the pen to the minister, who signed his name, shook the document as if it was wet and needed drying, and then handed the official record to Caleb.
“You’re married,” the minister said.
“Yes, we are,” Camille said.
“Be good to each other,” the minister said.
“And that baby,” the minister’s wife added.
“But mostly to each other,” the minister said, looking sternly at his wife, who had already turned to clean the chapel for the next scheduled wedding.
Back in the car, Caleb and Camille stared at the marriage license. Mr. George De Vries and Ms. Josephine Boss. Camille awkwardly hiked up the skirt of her cut-rate wedding dress and slipped off the fake belly, which fell to the floorboard of the car like a sack of gunpowder, ready to explode. They removed their wedding bands and the cheap, fake-diamond engagement ring and placed them in the ashtray of the car, clinking like change.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Camille said,