Guy announced his engagement at a Shell station while pouring Monster into a Big Gulp. He wore a ring pop. He stood in the pickup bed in a ripped windbreaker and a Halloween crown from last year, holding a mop like a scepter. The boys—Janko, Troll, Lil Zeke with the gimpy leg, and Sandman—clapped. They may have meant it.
“Wedding’s tomorrow,” he said. “Black tie optional. Bring offerings.”
They nodded. Lil Zeke asked what time the moon was available.
Guy didn’t answer. He stared at the sky, eyes full of debt and demand. She never answered his letters, but he swore she read them.
Guy tried to marry the Cracker Barrel once. The manager said no.
⸻
They held the bachelor party in the Waffle House parking lot. Troll brought Slim Jims and a Bluetooth speaker shaped like a skull. Janko read a love poem in Slovak, then translated it himself:
“The moon is a wound God forgot to close,
and every night it leaks a little light.”
They all sat quiet for a while after that. Even Sandman, who usually only respected explosions.
⸻
The next morning, Father A. Neil Beads arrived in his usual fashion: shirtless, shoeless, beads around his neck keeping time with his steps. He had a Bible in one hand and a bottle of Baja Blast in the other.
“Let us prepare our hearts and our groins,” he said. “For union.”
They climbed the water tower at sunset. The wind blew hard enough to make them feel alive, or at least temporarily immortal. Guy stood at the edge in a white bathrobe, hair slicked back with spit and Crisco. Lily the Horse was there too, wearing a sash that said BRIDESMAID in glitter marker.
Father Beads opened his arms. “Do you, Guy, King of This Place, Wielder of Mops and Spirit of Dairy Queen, take this celestial orb as your lawful and luminous wife?”
“I do,” Guy said.
The moon was late. She lingered behind clouds, distant and unapproachable.
“I do anyway,” he said again. His voice cracked, just enough for the boys to glance at each other.
⸻
They held the reception in the swamp. Lil Zeke brought moon pies. Troll set off a bottle rocket that hit Sandman in the chest. His scream carried the high cracked pitch of a baby goat. Janko whispered something to Lily in Slovak. She neighed.
Guy stayed quiet, stirring a styrofoam cup with one finger.
“Y’all ever think,” he finally said, “how maybe the moon don’t even know we’re watching?”
The boys didn’t answer. They looked up and squinted. Waiting for some sign from the sky.
⸻
That night, Guy lay in the grass beside the horse. The crown was tilted on his head. The robe was wet with swamp water.
“She didn’t show,” he said.
Lily blinked at him. Or maybe at the stars.
“But that don’t mean she didn’t mean it.”
The swamp lights dimmed, and even the bottle rockets sputtered short.
⸻
The moon came out at 2:48 a.m. Fat and distant. The color of things you only half-remember.
Guy, already half-asleep, smiled like it was her way of saying sorry.
She’d been watching all along.
Guy would reschedule the wedding for next week.