By: Alan Berger

A wedding?

What are you nuts?

Let me straiten you out.

So what if I wasn’t born into it?

I was born, and I grabbed it.

We didn’t start off in bad shape.

Who does? Not us.

AFTER ME MONEY

I made a deal with the commander, and he made a deal with a so on and so forth, before I even

told him what it was.

That’s how sure I was.

I asked for one percent of the cost of production as long as they used my idea plus one million

right away.

He laughed, but I had his attention.

He had a sense of me by then and I knew I was not a waste of time. Far from it.

They already made a movie about it, I was the guy who gave The Pentagon the bright idea of

micro-tracking chips installed in all military material so when the idiot army of the country we

are bailing out at the time run away from battle and leave all the guns and Hummers, and they

become the enemies, well, laser-air-strike-anyone?

I still have ideas a few more they have not used yet so we won’t talk about those.

They made us wealthy.

We didn’t re-enlist.

We did go our different ways.

I had a few dollars and after a few years I got married and after a few years I got me a divorce.

No kids. No problems.

Goodbye.

I went out with a string of loopy beauties who I knew would not have anything to do with me if

it wasn’t for me money, for I am no beauty myself, nor do I have what you would call charm. So

without the pretty dough, it’s not pretty.

I’m not an alone, alone.

I have a friend. My friend my cat.

The third act, last mile, thinking about this and that and the last lap, with the last cat on me lap.

Many was the time I was out with you know who and who was that, when I just wanted to be at

home with my cat.

Until, I backed into something.

I would normally say, and do, is you can trust anyone you want for as log or short as you desire.

I would also say, and do, only depend on those who you are making money for.

But I met her and I gave up being and acting normal.

Mono went to stereo, if you know what I mean, since I’m always the last to know.

It was a meeting made in heaven at 7-11.

It was my birthday the next night.

She lived in a nice area but the place was modest, like she was.

Always smiling she was.

At her worst, she is more than perfect.

It was too good to be true

She would come over when ever I called.

She was 15 years younger than me.

She was Danish beautiful, inside and out.

On our first date we fucked and I noticed her tights had a hole in one toe, and from that second

on, I looked at her like a poor matchstick girl in a Christmas snow storm out there alone trying to

make a living, or at least enough to get something to eat.

In my luxury eight certainly not needed bedroom house with heated pool and un-heated owner,

the things she responded most to was me, and the cat.

I figured she was trying to show me how un-awed, she was by my wealth.

In my five star kitchen she said she didn’t cook but she would do my windows.

I said throw in a gutter or two and she got it and howled.

She was a good howler.

In the back of my insecure stupid social inter-action dating head was the belief that she was after

me money like all the rest, and thou I did make her laugh, I was sure she was laughing at, and not

with me.

But I kept on seeing her anyway because she was the prettiest human I ever got my hands on,

and she was smart.

We could talk about anything.

She always offered to pay when we when out, and I thought it was a nice touch since I figured

that she never had a dime.

I never let that first night hole in her tights get past the feeling she was living hand to mouth and

soon the paranoia took hold too tight.

Once I said come over later, just tell me what time, and she says “When it gets dark”.

I said what are you? An Indian? She laughed so hard I could see that little house on the prairie

face of hers’ thru the phone.

I then started to question her motives when she wanted to live together.

I mean we had been going out for over a year.

And for the first time the questions became loud.

If she moves in, it’s palimony time anyway. If she wants to get married so bad, I might as well

get it over with.

But I started to panic and came up with an idea that might stop her in her huntress tracks. I said I

was going to my lawyer to make up a pe-nup that would exclude her from me money for a

million years, or so.

She thought it was the funniest things she ever heard of but agreed and I made an appointment

with the attorney for the signing ceremonies.

On the way she asked if we could stop by her parents house, who at this point. I had never met

much less thought of, or about.

I wondered, how out of the way the trailer park would be?

We eventually, due to her directions, wound up on a surprisingly well manicured lonely dirt

road.

Every hundred yards or so I looked over to her with a where the fuck are we going look, and she

would just say keep going, and I did.

I asked finally when we would be at her parents and she said we have been for a mile or so, and

that would be a house soon.

I was worried it would not even be a trailer, but that they lived in an old school bus in the woods,

and they were going to kill me, and then eat me for dinner with enough left over for breakfast

and lunch.

Then I saw how they lived.

The house looked liked Tara in her prime from “Gone with the wind” and when she said, “Don’t

ask me if my folks work here, they own the joint. Just like their folks did”.

During lunch she mentioned to her dad that we were going to live together right after our

agreement was lawyerised. That’s how she said it. Then get married.

Her father asked how much I was worth and I just went up and told him.

He said that is what he finds in the couch, and that it was chump change, then he asked me if I

was a chump, and I said yes, and then I said, you’re paying for the wedding.