Those who came before

February 12, 1977

“You feel like a cad when you marry them off,” Billy says, lifting the beer mug to his mouth so that the words echo slightly as he speaks, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy of thirty-something still young enough-looking to get almost any woman he wants and usually does, even some of the women who come in here to pick up one of the musicians, though tonight, he seems nostalgic, coming from somebody’s wedding I think must be his sister’s or some cousin, but turns out to be his ex-girlfriend.

“I go to them all,” he says, laughing, beer foam clinging to his upper lip until he wipes it away with a bar napkin, then sighs. “I know it sounds weird – and it is weird, especially for the groom who wonders what I’m doing there, and what my ex must be thinking to invite me – they always do. Maybe they remember how it was when we were together, how well we fit, how good I was with them – I remember everyone, and how different they all were, each one having a special place in my heart. The grooms always wonder if I’m better than them, and if my showing up at their wedding is a kind of taunt or threat, my ex telling them by inviting me that they’d better hold up their end or I’ll come back.”

He takes another long swig, then laughs again.

“I never go back,” he says. “One taste is all I need, even if that taste lasts a while. Once I move on, I move on, looking for something else, someone else, something special I could not find before. I go because I need to see the ones I had move on, find happiness they could not find with me, and get a kick seeing their faces framed by lace, their gazes still just innocent enough to believe in their hearts they are still virgins, or as close as any of us get these days, unviolated by anyone even me, though I always do my best to violate everyone of them in every way possible, and somehow still want more.”

He finishes his beer and thumps the mug back down on the bar, but shakes his head at Tommy, the bartender, when Tommy askes with a look if he wants another.

Billy usually only has two, but tonight has already had three, yet seems drunk in a way I’ve not seen him drunk before.

“The funny part, of course,” he says finally, “is how many others like her are lined up in the pews, women I’ve known before or after or even at a time when I was still with her, all of them clinging to the arms of men they have married or intend to marry, sneaking looks at me at the back wondering if I’ve noticed or remembered being at their wedding or when they got introduced to the men they’re with, some of whom I introduced to them – not exactly to get rid of them, not exactly telling them I’m moving on. It’s more like I want them to be happy, in a way I can never be.”