Quickie wedding, City Hall thing, they wrote their own vows, party later.
They never got to the party part, both working, just married, rarely seeing each other.
They celebrated anniversaries, Phil and Arla, intimate when they could be, finances and job responsibilities pulling them in different directions.
Then Dorvik Kzmat showed up on their front porch.
Arla’s grandfather.
Unannounced.
Unhappy.
He had never been to America, never wanted to be, but through a bizarre set of circumstances he was not only in America, he was standing on their front porch, Arla in her robe about to get ready to leave for work, Phil en route home from his job.
Phil arrived home and saw a strangely but stylishly dressed man standing on his porch.
Arla called and took a personal day. He introduced Phil to her Grandfather, who glared at him and did not offer a handshake.
Phil had never seen eyes on a stranger angrier than Dorvik’s.
To learn that he was related to Arla, and the source of his anger was Phil himself, turned Phil’s insides to a frothing sea of acidic mayhem.
“He doesn’t recognize our marriage as being legitimate.”
Then Dorvik went to the car he arrived in and got a large bag.
From the bag, Dorvik produced a shotgun.
Arla, rather incongruously, smiled sweetly at her grandfather.
She translated harsh sounding words, her grandfather interjecting rapidly, repeatedly.
Did he understand her English and not know how to speak it himself?
“This is a ceremony that goes back centuries in the village my family is from. It is the way they recognize a man’s worth to be married to a woman of the family.”
Phil nodded and smiled agreeably.
“Is he going to shoot something off my head?”
“No,” Arla said. “You’re going to shoot my shoe out of a tree.”
“That’s a relief,” Phil said. “I mean, I’ve never, ever shot a gun before but being behind the barrel sounds preferable to being in front of it.”
Dorvik barked.
“What did he say?” Phila asked, hoping Dorvik wouldn’t be any more offended than he already seemed to be.
“It’s nothing,” Arla said.
“Please tell me,” Phil said, nodding and smiling at Dorvik like he himself was incapable of doing anything but nodding and smiling.
“He…well…he said you look like a baby lamb too weak to live that climbed back into the uterus and became the uterus.”
Phil smiled again.
Dorvik scowled.
“He wants me to go inside and get my wedding dress and my shoes.”
“You married me in jeans.”
Arla bit her lip.
“I’ll figure it out.”
Dorvik pulled a rope from the bag,
Phil grimaced, probably the most aggressive thing he had done since he saw Dorvik.
Arla returned wearing her old International Pancake Tavern uniform from college and some white pumps.
She had pinned a Christmas ornament over the IPT steaming pancake logo.
She motioned Phil around to the backyard. Dorvik followed.
“Wuudlamandandoporflum!” Dorvik bellowed with a smile.
He smiled. Phil didn’t think Dorvik could.
Phil relaxed one tiny iota.
“What did he say?” Phil asked, a squeak of hopefulness in his voice.
“Nevermind,” Arla said.
Phil looked, leaned slightly in, in a please tell me kinda way.
“He…ummm said…well, loosely translated he said I’m too beautiful to marry a dwarf made of bird droppings.”
“I’m 5’10”” Phil whispered.
Dorvik stepped forward and handed Phil the rope.
Phil stared at it dumbly.
“Take the rope and climb one of the trees in the backyard,” Arla said. “Climb to approximately twice your height and tie the rope to a branch. I will walk to you, remove my right shoe. You will climb back up the tree…”
Dorvik bellowed something and spit.
“What did he say?” Phil asked.
“This time, there’s no way I’m telling you, because he’s about to give you a loaded gun,” Arla said.
“I’d never shoot your grandfather.”
“If you knew what he said, you’d shoot yourself.”
Phil took the rope and climbed the tree, tying the rope at what he felt was an acceptable height.
He climbed down.
Arla stood next to her grandfather across the yard.
Dorvik pulled what looked like a clarinet with a bladder tied to it out of the bag and started playing something that sounded like moose were trying on underwear that was too tight.
Arla walked toward Phil carrying the shotgun.
When she reached him, she placed the shotgun at her feet and removed her right shoe.
Phil took the shoe, climbed back up into the tree and tied the rope around the shoe.
He climbed down and stared at the shotgun as though it might levitate into his hands.
“Pick it up,” Arla whispered. “I’m not supposed to talk.”
“What if I don’t shoot the shoe out of the tree?”
“Our marriage is void and Tokra…Grandfather… Dorvik is taking me back to the old country to find me a suitable husband.”
“Is this a set up, Arla? So you can leave me? If that’s the case, you can just go.”
“No, Phil, I swear to all the natural deities that I love you. Shoot the damn rope.”
Korvik stopped playing the moose song and bellowed.
Before Phil could ask, Arla said “You don’t wanna know. Shoot the rope.”
Phil aimed the gun, and hand shaking, pulled the trigger.
He wasn’t sure how bad he missed, but he missed badly.
“You have five more shots,” Arla whispered.
“If I shoot five times, the cops will come.”
“That might be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
Phil pulled the trigger again.
Nothing.
“No, Arla, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Awww, honey, that’s really sweet. Shoot the damn rope.”
Dorvik bellowed again as Phil pulled the trigger.
There was a snap. The branch that held the rope broke and the rope and shoe tumbled to the ground.
Dorvik howled, then played a deep note on the clarinet bladder thing.
“Don’t move,” Arla said to Phil.
Dorvik walked forward, chanting something, and lifted the shoe from the ground. He untied it, grumbling, and held the shoe aloft.
Then, from his breast pocket, he produced a flask.
He poured the contents of the flask into Arla’s shoe and handed it to Phil.
This time Dorvik looked to be legitimately smiling.
The shoe smelled like kerosene.
The liquid inside seemed to be a greenish brown hue, like something from a pond you wouldn’t swim in or something that would get the EPA called to a machine shop.
“Drink it, dearheart,” Arla said. “All of it.”
Phil examined the best way to drink from the shoe. He decided toe first.
Then he sniffed again and gagged.
Dorvik said something.
Arla said something in her grandfather’s language that was either “Hush” or “I’ll get my bags.”
Phil tipped the shoe to his mouth and drank.
Whatever he was drinking made him feel like his ears were bleeding and that tentacles were forming on an alien in his esophagus.
He finished the liquid in the shoe.
Dorvik stepped forward, took the shoe and placed it back on his granddaughter’s foot.
Then he stepped to Phil and said three short syllables.
The world spun, and Phil retched on Dorvik’s shoes.
The steady stream of a foreign tongue drowned out Phil’s horrible smelling apologies.
Dorvik barked and laughed, barked and laughed, while Arla said foreign words often punctuated by No, Nooo, and Noooooo.
Phil looked at his bride.
She looked both astonished and thrilled.
Dorvik grabbed Phil by the shoulders.
Phil began to recite the Our Father out loud.
“Shutup, Phil,” Arla said. “Let Tokra Dorvik speak.”
Phil bit his lower lip, smelling kerosene and defeat.
Dorvik ripped off a rapid fire speech, bowed slightly, reached into the pocket of his shirt and handed Phil a large blue stone.
Arla put her hand to her mouth and in the process knocked her Christmas ornament brooch off her pancake uniform wedding dress.
Phil started to giggle, whatever booze was still left in him reaching his head.
Dorvik walked away from Phil, picked up the gun and fired the remaining three shots into the air.
Phil looked at the giant jewel in his hand.
“Sapphire,” Arla said, then passionately kissed her pukey husband.
Phil pulled back. “What do I do with it?”
“We sell it honey, it’s a gift from Tokra Dorvik. He was required by village tradition to be fast enough not to get puke on his shoes.”
***
Love this one.
Somehow kind of sweet!