The Humper Game Pt. 07 Ch. 01

So we all signed that, as well.

The pastor sat back, and said, "Miss Bruja—"

Sam interrupted him to say, "Sam, please."

"Sam, then. I had heard your song on the recording you sent, checking to make sure it was acceptable. Thank you very much for that, by the way! But it is simply beautiful, and you sang and played it beautifully.

"Phil, do you mind telling me what happened? I know what we all saw. I mean, what caused you to react like that?"

"Well, we've told you I tend to do that under emotional stress, pretty much any kind. And obviously, getting married—to Ellen—is an emotional situation. And I love Sam, and her playing and singing, and she wrote that song for us, and it's beautiful. That was probably enough, right there. But on top of that, that is my favorite psalm, and has been forever. I think it was the first thing Granddad had me memorize, except some individual verses. And we discussed the meaning quite a few times, over the years.

"I mentioned all that to Sam, as we were getting the receiving line together, and Dad jumped in and said that it was Granddad's favorite, too. And that Granddad had gone through it with him, the same way. And anything that reminds me of losing Granddad and Grandmom hits me hard, too.

"I'm sorry to have disrupted the ceremony. Better me than anyone else, I guess, but I didn't mean to."

Ellen said, "He's making progress. He was back almost right away, less than a minute after Sam was done, I'd say. I'm sure it affected his mood a little longer, but he didn't fold up completely and he was back to appropriate emotions pretty fast.

"You had us worried for that minute, though," she added to me.

Sam said, "Pastor, Ellen's absolutely right. That was really quick, and he responded to Ellen and Jim. Phil, you still need to work on it. But I'll take it as a compliment. I'm glad you like the song. You couldn't possibly have told me more clearly that you do."

Pastor Mac sat in thought for a long moment or so, then said, "I think that's all right, then. Thank you. And since everyone is waiting on the two of you, we really do need to go to the reception." So we all got up and went. As we walked, Pastor Mac said to us, "Your commitment to me, to be here in church, is over. But I hope we'll still see you here."

Ellen said, "A lot of things are still kind of up in the air, but I'm sure you can count on that, at least sometimes."

I added, "And she doesn't mean Christmas and Easter only, or anything at all like that."

The pastor and Sam and Jim went in first, and conversation died down quickly. When we went in, everyone was standing, and there was quite a little commotion. Mostly, they didn't quiet down, either, but just kept going. I asked Ellen, quietly, "Are we going to give them a little show now, to shut them up, and then have to keep doing it every time they think of it? Or shall we just go sit down?"

She turned to me and laughed. "Yes, it's blackmail, but I really don't need an excuse to kiss you, do I?" She said, more quietly, for my ear only—not that anyone else could have heard normal speech, with all the racket!—"As long as you're not talking about clearing off a table!" She gave me quite a kiss. The commotion increased until we were done, but then it dwindled and people sat down.

We went on to our table, a larger, rectangular one at the end of the hall, and sat. To one side of us were Jim and Helen, then Jenny, Fred, and Ellen Manning. To the other were Sam, Pete and Tammy, Bill, and Deedee. We'd asked them all ahead of time whether this was OK with them. Sam had really wanted to meet Pete and Tammy, the day she had come to talk to Autumn and Kelly and Pastor Mac, but they had gone home for break, and they were interested in meeting Sam. And OK, the etiquette things mostly agree that spouses—or whatever—of attendants should not be with their partners, but we were a lot less interested in keeping the symmetry of the wedding than in having people together to celebrate. I was especially happy at the decision we'd made after the talk I'd had with Helen on Thursday. I was really glad to have her up there with Jim.

A lot of thought had gone into the seating for everyone else, but I at least had found it really awkward. We'd tried hard to put church people together, with their friends where we could, but at least with people they knew. Ditto for our former fellow students. And for our current fellow students—who overlapped somewhat with church people. This left a couple of tables mixed, from those three groups.

Our parents were seated together, with Pastor and Mrs. McDavid, leaving an empty chair. That had originally been intended for Steve, but he had decided to sit with the friend he had been staying with. They were closer in age, of course, but I thought they must have hit it off well together, too. I didn't know, but I thought perhaps either Uncle John or Mr. Miles might come and sit there to talk, at some point. And indeed, I saw later that both of them did, and it looked like they were enjoying it.

Mrs. Mac, as the congregation called her, had attended the wedding but not come through the receiving line. She had gone straight back to give some help to the kitchen ladies, who did a wonderful job. Mrs. Mac was motherly in dealing with people. I thought the two of them were probably in their forties somewhere, near enough to my own parents' ages. Or maybe their fifties. She seemed very motherly to me, and I liked her a lot.

She came over to us as we ate and talked, just speaking to us briefly. She congratulated us, saying in part, "Jonathan thinks the two of you are a very good match, and from what I've seen he's entirely right. We'll continue to pray for you, of course.

"I know your commitment to come to our church has ended today, and I have no idea what you may have said to Jonathan about the future, in that, but I hope we'll continue to see you."

Ellen said, "We're going to have to see. In one way, Sunday mornings are likely to be a chance at some, um, togetherness we're going to need. But we both have benefited from attending. We said as much to Pastor, very briefly, but we'll be here sometimes, for sure."

A bit later, Mrs. Mac said, "Is it too personal, or can you tell me what about Miss Bruja's song moved you so?"

Sam, sitting next to Ellen and listening—well, everyone else at the table was listening—said, "Just Sam, please, ma'am. Thank you."

I said what I had already gone through twice, and feared I would have to go through a few more times. At least a few.

She said, "Thank you, that's helpful. Is this—this kind of emotional reaction something we should be praying for? Or I should say, that you would like us to pray for?"

I said, "Please do. We've worked on it, and there's apparently a lot of improvement. But it can be incapacitating. You saw that, even if it was only for a couple of minutes this time. I don't know how long, because I was out of it, but I don't think it can have been more than that, after Sam finished." Of course, most of the time I was out of it, people were probably watching Sam, not Ellen and me, I realized.

Ellen said, "Yes. Including for wisdom for me, as I try to help Phil with it. It seems to derive from a very early grief, with later pains and griefs adding to it. I hope that knowing that I'm committed to stay with him, short of death, will help a lot. And thank you, very much."

The drinking vessels provided—the "glasses"—were all disposable, making it difficult for the traditional tapping of tableware on glasses to demand that the couple kiss. I thought that was a particularly offensive and stupid tradition anyway, myself. People worked around the difficulty, banging the handles of their tableware on the tables—no better, in my eyes. But since I had asked Ellen, and she had answered as she had, I felt we needed to go along. Of course, I wasn't objecting to kissing Ellen, and I didn't really expect to have trouble making my hands behave or anything. But it did make for a rather painful level of arousal, and I didn't need that just then.

I did lean back and say to Jim and Sam—Pete, Tammy, and Helen perforce being included, and maybe all the others even though I tried to speak quietly—"If people suggest that you say something to us about lying down on a table, please do your best to stomp on their egos. Tell them that school was school, but that's over with. Don't bother being too courteous or respectful, either." I was pretty sure that we hadn't said anything to Pete and Tammy about that, so I expected questions at some later point.

And apparently Ellen and Sam put their heads together, when I wasn't looking. The next time the pounding started, Sam got up, came over to me, hugged me, and gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek. A little later—I thought with no discussion unless with Jim—Helen did the same. This generated a lot of laughter, but it stopped the pounding on the tables, so I thought it got the point across. A few still did it, from time to time, but it didn't become general, and we ignored it. I grabbed a moment to thank Helen, and then Sam. Sam did tell Ellen and me, a little later, "I would rather have gone for a real kiss, but we've agreed that's off limits. It looked like Helen might have gone along, though, and I need to hear more about that someday! Anyway, some of those people probably would have just been encouraged, and this did the trick. But Tammy may be a little disappointed not to get a chance."

Almost immediately after those kisses, we were told off to be the first to visit the serving tables—Ellen and me, then our parents with Pastor and Mrs. Mac, and then our attendants and their escorts. One of the kitchen ladies had asked Jim to get everyone's attention and issue those instructions. For a wonder, he did so with no wandering around the subject. I thought that in some ways Helen was apparently a very good influence on him.

Someone—one of the kitchen ladies—sent everyone else, table by table. Jim had explained that part, too. The food was good, and plentiful, with some choices. Not fine restaurant quality, but more than acceptable to me. The process of getting everyone served really didn't take very long.

I privately thought that it looked as though there might be quite a bit left over, though I trusted that the kitchen ladies would have leisure to sit down and eat at some point. I later discovered how the leftovers were handled. They were given to us—in this case, one more thing Kelly took charge of. Most went into our freezer in meal-sized portions, to be discovered when we got home. Some Kelly took, and served to us at our next few Friday evenings at her apartment, after we got back.

We talked as we ate. Sam and Jim and Helen still had only barely met Pete and Tammy. I quickly threw protocol overboard, and told Jenny, Fred, Ellen Manning, Pete, Tammy, and Bill to move around to the other side of the table—Deedee moving over by Tammy. This put their backs to the rest of the room, but we made sure that they left room enough between them that Ellen—my Ellen—and I weren't hidden. This made talking much easier. It was only at this point that I realized I could no longer just think or say "Ellen M" for the other Ellen.

We sat talking for a while once we were all done eating, until someone—one of the kitchen ladies, again—came and reminded us about cake, suggesting that we have toasts immediately afterward.

I had insisted that we were absolutely not going to feed each other cake. Two of the kitchen ladies came out and cut the cake, putting it on plates, and we merely went and got the first plate. This was the entire, small, top tier, several times the size of any other piece, served on a dinner plate. We managed to finish it, and the cake was excellent. There was still time for some conversation, too.

Jim got up and called for attention, asking everyone to fill their glasses. He began his toast in his usual rambling, kind of goofy style, being very funny and clever, and then said, "But to be serious, for four years Phil was a better friend to me, and to quite a few other people, than anyone I know. He always preferred to keep a low profile, so most people who didn't know him personally weren't aware of how far he would go to help people. But everybody who watched and listened knew that he was always nice, never ever rude or disrespectful to anyone. I know of one girl—woman, now—he teased a little, one time, and she took him to be insulting her, about something important. He never stopped trying to reach out to her, and she eventually recognized that she had been wrong, and they reconciled. I know Wilma wanted very much to be here, by the way, and just couldn't come that far right now.

"That misunderstanding caused Phil to become thoroughly careful in his speech, even more than he had already been. Even in the face of great provocation, he was always courteous and always seeking reconciliation. He's been an example to me, and to a lot of other people who are here.

"He also became aware, two different times, of serious criminal behavior, and went out of his way to bring it to the attention of the authorities in a way that would let it be stopped. In one of these cases, he went out to try to defend the victim, to give her a chance to escape, expecting to be seriously injured at best, perhaps killed. Because of his previous warning, the authorities were ready, but he went out not knowing this.

"Once it was known how very nice and considerate he was, he became something of a magnet for young women, and he really did always treat them well—better than anyone else I know or have known." At this point there were comments from various quarters. "Ellen is as fine a young woman as I know. She's an outstanding athlete and student, and an excellent musician. She outshines Phil in all of those areas, for those who haven't had a chance to see this.

"I've never heard of Ellen's being less than kind, generous, and considerate herself. You can all see for yourselves that she's beautiful, too. And you all know that physical beauty counts with guys—" again, laughs and comments from around the room "—and Phil is no exception in that. But character and personality always count more, for him, and Ellen has those as much as anyone I know. If ever there was a marriage made in heaven, this is it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Phil and Ellen Morris."

The toast drunk was sparkling white grape juice or sparkling apple cider. There were bottles of both on all the tables. As people drank, Sam stood up.

"I'm going to say a few words, too. This is another toast, I guess, so you all may as well refill your glasses.

"The people here from the school where Phil and Ellen and I all met know about this, but for the rest of you, I need to give some background. Almost at the beginning of our freshman year, Phil irritated me in some minor way, so minor I don't even remember it. Probably he was being nice to someone, and I considered him a goody-goody. At any rate, I set out to pull him down to my level, harassing him constantly for over three years, trying to get him to retaliate. I totally failed. He was without exception courteous to me, offering to do whatever he could to make up for any way he had offended me.

"Early in our senior year, I had to realize that I admired him for this, and in fact had fallen in love with him, refusing to admit it to myself. At about the same time, I became involved in something much more seriously wrong, one of the criminal matters Jim just referred to. The outcome of that caused me to recognize how depraved and wicked I had become. Some of you probably hear those words and think I'm speaking lightly or facetiously, but I assure you I'm not, at all.

"One result of all this is that I realized how very much I had hurt Phil, over and over, for three years. Those who weren't there with us truly can't imagine how I had gone after him. And I realized that at the very least, I needed to tell him how sorry I was, that I realized what I had done.

"So I went to him at suppertime, when he was surrounded by his friends. I confessed what I had done, acknowledging how I had hurt him. And there was nothing I could ever do to make up for that, and I admitted that. So I did the only thing I could, asking him to forgive me, telling him I would understand if he couldn't bring himself to do that. And he forgave me, without questions, unreservedly. Within a few weeks, he was my best friend, the best friend I have ever had.

"Ellen was one of his closest friends, in the time leading up to that. Because of things at school, we didn't see as much of her for a while after that, but I still got to know her very well. Several of the young women here tonight welcomed me for Phil's sake, and Ellen was one. I can't tell you how much that means to me, either. I truly had been so bad that no one would have welcomed me for my own sake, at that point.

"Ellen and I both loved Phil, and Jenny—whom you all saw up there earlier with us—did, too. That sounds like a situation just made for jealousy and backstabbing, but it wasn't. This all just brought us closer together, almost without exception.

"Ellen is the one he's married, and we know that she is the one best suited to him—and vice versa. They are the most loving, dependable, trustworthy, and all-around nice people you ever will meet. I'm confident that there are great things in their future together, important things. Given Phil's modesty, and Ellen's too, we will never know what some of them are. Jim referred to a time when Phil went out to try to save a young woman from a horrible situation, and the only way most of us know anything about it is that the matter was serious enough that there was a trial, and that came out. And I should add that I was found guilty—and rightly so!—but my sentence is suspended because the authorities truly believed that I had reformed. Phil, and one young woman who was the victim of what I helped others do to her, and many others whom I had seriously wronged, have all been willing to go beyond that and forgive me. I'm humbled to realize how much better all of them are than I had ever been.

"What Jim said is right on the mark. Phil and Ellen were made for each other. I don't ever expect to have any friends better than they have been to me, both of them, and I can personally testify to their goodness in every way. Ellen even asked me to be her maid of honor, after everything I had done.

"So I also give you Phil and Ellen, Mr. and Mrs. Phil Morris. May they flourish, and have that quiver-full of strong sons and daughters. We need more like them." And she raised her glass, drank, and sat down.

Soon after the toasts, we quickly made the rounds, speaking to a few of our closest friends. Actually, to almost everyone. We talked to a number of them a bit longer than had been reasonable in the receiving line.

One surprise, to me anyway, came when we came to the Lanigans. Uncle John and Aunt Sally had pulled up chairs next to them. Aunt Sally was talking to Gene, while Bella and Uncle John spoke to each other in Italian. Ellen joined briefly in that, and then they addressed me in English. I wondered for a moment, and then felt really stupid. Sam had said her grandmother was Italian, and that her mother had spoken Italian to her when she was young. Uncle John was her mother's older brother, after all! I said something about this.

Uncle John said, "Yes, Bella is indulging me, and Sally and Gene are too, by allowing us to do so. I almost never have the opportunity to speak to anyone in Italian, and it brings back many fond memories. Bella's knowledge of the language is much better than mine, of course."