Chapter 71 Dante
Two weeks later…
Benji planned his wedding down to the minute, and then threw the plan in the Gulf.
What’s on this deck tonight is the pieces he wants to keep. The ceremony still goes on at sunset, because Benji will surrender a great deal to comfort but never the light.
Everything else is simpler. Chairs off the Roadhouse floor, none of them matching.
The Christmas lights burning overhead the way they burn all year, with additional strands Stormy hung.
The buffet’s already laid out and covered.
Down the middle of every table, magnolias in mason jars, blooms the size of hubcaps.
And off the far end of the deck, the new ramp runs down to the sand.
Cedar, wide enough for two, wrapped in lights the whole way.
The one piece of the big wedding that was never decoration.
The men came the way Benji invited them to. Clean white shirts, jeans. Benji checked every shirt at the door an hour ago. The women are in flowing white sundresses.
I’m standing beside him at the front with two rings in my jacket pocket. Black tux, collar open, no tie. The open collar is the one comfort Benji allowed me. I’ve checked my pocket four times.
Benji’s in the white tux. Blue silk shirt, the silver chain Mickey requested he wear. Benji told everyone to come comfortable and then put himself in the most fitted thing on the deck. No one who knows him is surprised.
Sheila is in the front row with a folded dish towel in her lap.
The moment the ceremony is over, she’ll be working the food line.
The seat beside her is empty and held for Levi.
He’s down at the end of the deck with his guitar.
Stormy stands at the back of the deck, positioned and waiting for Mickey.
Then Levi starts to sing.
Just him and the guitar. No band. No quartet. The deck goes quiet around the sound of it. The doors open and Mickey comes through them with Stormy following close behind him.
That’s the picture everyone came braced for. Mickey rolling down the deck to get married. Benji already has a hand pressed to his mouth, trying not to cry.
Mickey stops the chair at the end of the deck. Stormy reaches around and comes up with a cane hidden behind the railing. He hands it to Mickey, takes the handles and holds the wheelchair steady.
Mickey puts his full weight on the cane and pushes himself up and out of the chair.
He’s standing.
Black tux, per Benji’s decree, and a pocket square in the exact blue of Benji’s shirt. Mickey never once argued about the tux, which should have told Benji something. A man doesn’t surrender a wardrobe fight for nothing. He was saving the win for this moment.
Benji makes a sound, and both hands go over his mouth, and he sobs through his fingers while the man who took a bullet for him walks to become his husband. I wrap my arm around Benji’s shoulder to steady him.
Mickey takes the first step. His shoulder dips on the left side.
His knuckles are white around the grip. His jaw is set the way it sets when he’s working a case, the cop face, holding the rest of him together.
It slips into a mischievous grin when he looks at Benji.
Stormy follows three feet behind with the empty chair, keeping the distance exact.
Everyone holds their breath. It takes Mickey a long time to walk the deck. We would have all stood until morning.
He makes it and Benji reaches for him. Mickey takes one hand and stays on his feet, unsteady, upright, grinning like he got away with a big secret.
I have no idea how he managed to hide from Benji that he can take a few steps now. Mickey said from the beginning he wanted to walk down the aisle to marry Benji and he did it.
I’m crying too, tears running down my face.
Levi’s song ends. He sets the guitar down and comes up the deck and takes the seat beside Sheila.
Tex steps up to marry them, and Tex is crying openly too. He’s in a clean white shirt. It was the only thing Benji asked of him. He made it all the way to the front without a drop on him.
Tex looks out at the crowd. Everyone is braced to laugh, because Tex is doing the ceremony and they’ve all met Tex.
He pulls two note cards from his shirt pocket and holds them up.
“Two cards,” he says. “This first one is the ceremony. Benji approved this card personally. There were four rounds of revisions and I lost every round. This second card is mine. Benji hasn’t seen it. We’ll get to it.” He tucks it back in the pocket, over his chest.
“Mickey has already informed me, and I’m quoting him directly, ‘If you talk for thirty minutes, I’m leaving my own ceremony.
’ So, we’re doing the short version.” He clears his throat.
“The short version is still long. It’s me.
And Benji, I’m sorry, I’m not doing your version. You should’ve known I wouldn’t.”
Then he puts the Benji-approved card in his pocket too, and his voice changes.
“The darkest night of my life happened thirty feet from where I’m standing. I’m not going to tell that story today. Most of you were there, or you came running after to help. I’ll just say I was ten feet away when it happened, and I’ve never in my life felt further away from anybody.”
The deck goes silent.
Mickey hasn’t moved. He’s gone deputy-still, the old posture, the one from the hospital. The only thing moving is Benji’s thumb across the back of his hand, keeping him steady.
“Mickey is my brother,” Tex continues. “Every way but blood. He’s been my brother since the day we met in seventh grade, and the deal has always been that we do whatever the other one needs. That’s the deal. And that night, the thing he needed was the one thing I couldn’t do.”
He stops. Nobody moves.
“I didn’t know how we were going to get Mickey through it.
I just knew this family was going to try.
Sheila. Stormy. Me. His parents. We had a plan and the plan was three simple words.
Don’t lose Mickey. That was it. That was the entire plan.
We’re bar people. We’re not planners.” His face stays wet.
“And then guess what happened? We were sent a planner.”
The deck breaks, laughing and crying in the same breath. Mickey laughs with his chest and it turns into something else halfway through. Benji is destroyed beside him, gripping Mickey’s hand and my arm at the same time.
“Benji was there that night. Mickey stepped in front of him, because that’s who Mickey is. Benji spent that night in the emergency room refusing to leave, because that’s who Benji is. I watched it happen and I didn’t understand yet what I was seeing.
“Then Mickey moved to the hospital in Tallahassee and Benji visited him every day. A hundred miles each way. Two hundred miles a day, day after day, for a stranger. You can fake flowers. Or get-well cards. You can’t fake two hundred miles a day.”
He points at Benji, and his hand isn’t steady, and he keeps it up there anyway.
“Somewhere around the second week I told Mickey, buddy, I don’t want to alarm you, but I believe you might have a stalker.
He’s got tremendous hair and he keeps bringing you contraband pizza and sweet tea, but the pattern is concerning.
And Mickey looked at me and said all defensive, ‘He’s not a stalker.
’” Tex drops the hand. “That’s when I knew Benji was the one for Mickey.
“I run a bar. I’ve had twenty years of watching every kind of love there is walk in that door and out of it. I’ve seen love that’s loud and love that only shows up on paydays. Believe me when I tell you I know the real thing when it’s standing in front of me holding a cane it kept a secret.”
Mickey huffs out a laugh and shakes his head.
“I used to hope for this. I’m not embarrassed to say it.
I asked whoever is in charge of these things to send my brother one person who would love him with everything they’ve got.
And I’m here to report the request was fulfilled beyond expectations, because I’ve watched Benji love Mickey with everything Mickey lost and everything he built back after, and there’s not been one single day of difference between the two. ”
Benji says, “Tex,” like a warning, sobbing, and it stops nothing.
“And here’s the thing no one warned us about,” Tex says. “Benji didn’t come here alone. No one tells you that about love. It shows up with luggage. Benji came into this family and he brought Dante with him, whether Dante had agreed to that or not.”
He points at me. All heads turn.
“And then Dante went and brought us Levi.” Tex looks at Levi, and Levi’s eyes go wet too.
Tex lets him off easy, one nod, and moves on.
“You see how this works? You see what’s happening here?
This Roadhouse family doesn’t stop getting bigger.
No one in it has the same blood. Not one drop between the crowd of us.
“My daddy built this bar for exactly this and he didn’t even know it. And we’re not done. There’s room on this deck. I counted the chairs. We can’t build into the Gulf or into the road but we can build up. There’s room for more here.”
Mickey’s left leg has started a fine tremble.
I see it. Stormy sees it and moves the wheelchair closer without a sound.
Mickey gives him one small shake of the head.
Not yet. Stormy stops where he is and keeps his hands on the chair, and Tex sees the exchange from the front.
I watch him drop a full page of his speech in his head.
He looks down at the sand below the railing, and when he comes back up his voice is thick with emotion.
“And one day, God willing, there’s going to be little feet playing in that sand right down there in front of this deck.
” The crowd makes a sound all at once. Sheila’s crying into Levi’s shoulder now, the dish towel becoming a tissue.
“I’ve said it out loud now, in front of witnesses, so it’s binding.
I’ve already priced swing sets. Don’t anybody act surprised.
” Tex winks at Stormy, who grins and ducks his head.
“None of us here have figured out the logistics yet. The only thing we’ve come up with is it won’t be the old-fashioned way, but we’ll figure it out. ”
Everyone on the deck looks out at the sand, imagining what Tex is describing. Mickey looks only at Benji.
Tex turns to Mickey. “Mickey. Brother. In my life I’ve told you two things that I need you to remember today.
The first one was the day I drove you home from the rehab place in Jacksonville, to the loft over this bar.
I swore to you, good times were coming again.
” He has to stop. He breathes once. “Mickey, look around you. Look at what’s standing beside you holding your hand.
The good times didn’t just come. They moved in upstairs. ”
Mickey’s face is ruined. He doesn’t wipe it either.
“The second thing you already know. I told you the day we watched Benji and Dante frolic on the beach. You can’t turn down the sun, my brother. You can only decide whether you want to stand in it.” Tex’s voice finally cracks, and he lets it. “Look at you now. You’re standing in it.”
Sheila has the dish towel draped over her face. Levi puts his arm around her and tucks her into his side. Tex straightens up to his full height and gets on with the vows.
“Benji. Do you take my brother, Mickey, for the rest of your beautiful life?”
“I do. God, I do.”
“Mickey. Do you take this man, Benji, who drove two hundred miles a day to bring you food?”
“I do.”
I pull out the rings.
Mickey looks down at the cane in his right hand and I watch him work the problem. He can’t hold it and a ring at the same time.
Tex doesn’t let it become a problem. He steps in, takes the cane, and slides his free arm around Mickey’s back, under his arm, and takes the weight.
All of it. He doesn’t miss a syllable. He just holds Mickey on his feet with one arm and keeps marrying him with the other, the cane tucked against his chest like it’s part of the ceremony now.
Mickey glances up at him.
“Hush,” Tex says, mid-ceremony, without looking away from the crowd. “Where were we? The rings.”
Mickey takes the ring from me and slides it onto Benji’s finger with a hand that’s finally free. Benji’s hands are shaking. Mickey steadies them until Benji is able to slide Mickey’s ring on him.
“Then by the power vested in me by the internet and the county of Bay,” Tex says, “you can both kiss your husband.”
Benji takes Mickey’s face in both hands and kisses him, and Mickey kisses him back held upright in his best friend’s arm, and the deck loses it.
Stormy is already moving. He rolls the chair in behind Mickey, sets the brake. Tex lowers Mickey into it. Benji folds himself into Mickey’s lap and buries his face in his neck, and Mickey wraps both arms around his new husband while they both cry.
Tex keeps the cane. He holds it in both hands in front of him and doesn’t wipe his face. Neither do I.
“May I now introduce you to Benji and Mickey Weaver,” he says, holding his arms wide. “Husband and husband.”