Part Two

the Nuptials of Middie and Jerry

If Jerry Porter had a first wife, Wallace never met her, and she had been sensibly long gone when Wallace hired on as a member of his crew of motleys; but Wallace did have the dubious opportunity to be present, once, when the man committed himself, heart and soul, to the eternal bliss of sacred matrimony, for whichever time it might have been. This was a union made not in Heaven, as some are thought to be, but instead in the cornfields and backwaters of either Copiah or Simpson county, not far south of the capital city of Jackson, MS. The gushing bride's name was Middie.

Where the two lovers met is unknown, but it is safe to assume it was not inside the smoky confines of the Out of Bounds lounge on Jackson's Ellis avenue, where Jerry, on most days when he was in the city, held court. The joint had once been a gas station, back in the so-called day, when attendants in uniform would saunter out to pump gas for the customers. They were alerted by a bell ring every time a car ran over a black rubber hose that stretched across the concrete, perpendicular to the pumps. The attendant would pump gas, check the oil, wash the windshield and check tire air pressure if the customer asked, all for twenty-seven cents a gallon. Years afterward in the state of Oregon, legally bound attendants still came forward to pump gas for customers; but then, Oregon is not in the same universe as most other states; and it is unlikely that the gas pumpers then were clean-shaven, middle-age white males wearing pointy paper hats.

In the Sip, aka Mississippi, in 1979 the legal drinking age, for beer anyway, was 18. This is why Jerry’s crew knew that Middie and Jerry did not meet inside the saloon on Ellis avenue. Jerry, of course, at age 38, was plenty old enough to buy beer; but at age 15, the bride-to-be was not. (You read that right.)

Hailing from clapboard shack country, little Middie was a sight to behold, all vivacious and alert and as foul-mouthed as any of her would-be groomsmen. And if it is never possible when she is in her mid-teens to always estimate what a female will look like when she grows into adulthood, based on the fact that Middie was already showing signs of the woman she would become, coupled with the fact that she was only five feet tall, Wallace had but few reservations in his estimation that she, if alive, had by age 27 taken on a more spherical shape than God had perhaps originally intended.

Wallace’s memories of the wedding ceremony were sketchy. In fact he could remember nothing whatsoever of the actual service. His wife later recalled that it happened in a tiny chapel in the pines; and, given that attendees found themselves in a part of Mississippi where it was illegal to be of any denomination other than Primitive Baptist, Wallace took for granted that the holy vows were repeated in an establishment befitting of just such a time and place.

A reception, of sorts, was held later at the home of Middie's parents, and Wallace’s memories of that special gathering are somewhat more lucid. He could vividly remember the spectacle that was the groom's attire. You will recall that Jerry Porter was quite tall, slumped and gangly, and possessing of physical characteristics that on his wedding day were sent rocketing to heights of absurd unbelief by the man in a smoky-gray tuxedo jacket, the sleeves of which terminated about three-inches shy of the man's over-sized hands. To his credit, the sleeves of the white shirt beneath did reach all the way to his wrists, while the single jacket button that Jerry did manage to fasten worked to so tightly cinch up the rayon cloth that it gave him the appearance of a very ugly, red-faced woman wearing a corset. The trousers only served to enhance the profound effects of the groom's habiliment, for high above Jerry's white-socked feet stuffed into black brogan shoes, the trouser legs rustled and flapped like nautical pennants in a cow pond regatta.

Wallace and his (future) wife had dared not venture inside the house, for fear of being beaten in the head with a Bible, or bitten by rattlesnakes, if not both. They were content to shift their weight from foot to foot on the front porch floorboards, where they awaited any merciful hint that it would be socially permissible to depart the premises. As they stood there the screen door suddenly burst open, and Middie, in her long white wedding gown, sallied forth. (Was she wearing tennis shoes?) Jerry had already taken a seat in a rickety rocking chair, while another man, about Jerry's age, and probably the father of the bride, sat in another rocker and gummed a lip full of snuff.

The effervescent Middie, all rouge and eyeliner and crazy-eyed grins, halted her stride as the screen door banged shut. Then without warning she jumped flat-footed up in the air, to land in the four-foot long arms and lap of her unsuspecting, newly-made, ever-loving husband. With a glee and with an exuberance unparalleled in the annals of humankind, the teenage bride clapped her hands and beamed at all those gathered before her, and exclaimed, "Hot dog! I'm murried now!"