The groom’s wedding party disperse into other rooms to get dressed while my mother and grandma fret over them. I love the excitement in the room, even though I know some of them must think I’m a complete dick for making them dress up.
One by one, they come out. Happy, utterly disgusting, and a few ready to party. My grandfather is there, filling pint glasses and hollering something in Gaelic, which I don’t understand, as he pours Guinness for each of them. The guys don’t understand either, but they all cheer, clank their glasses together and follow my grandpa as he dances around.
There’s a knock on the door, and I tell the crew it’s time to go. We head outside and into the limo I rented for us to get downtown. At the end of the night, once the bars have all shut down, whoever is left can get a lift back. Honestly, I expect half these guys to bail by dinner time, but whatever. Tomorrow is another day, another party.
In the limo, we pass around bottles of whiskey and we down shot after shot until we hit the roadblock of traffic. From here we have to walk until we reach the parade line. Not that we’ll actually see much because people start lining up in the early hours of dawn. We pile out of the limo, one by one, each of us dressed like the most ridiculous Irishman we could be, only to be matched by others. Today, everyone in New York City are friends and they’re all Irish.
We meander through the crowd, stopping every so often to talk to someone we know, chat up a group of women, and to regroup. Stewart is staying close to me until we duck into a bar and order a round. Green beer for all. It’s nothing but shit beer with green food coloring added to it. I much prefer Irish beer which I will happily drink instead of that green trash. The first time I had it, I could barely swallow it. Took all I had not to spit it out all over the bar. It’s the color that gets me too. Beer shouldn’t be green. Unfortunately, with Stewart and the other guys around, I might not have a choice but to drink the green shit. I once tried the green ketchup which Heinz came out with and couldn’t bring myself to dip my fry into it. I tried. I remember sitting at the table when I was younger with my hand poised, ready to dip and every muscle in my body froze with fear. Of what? Who knows, but I couldn’t do it. When I was sixteen, my dad sat me down and gave me my first Guinness and told me if I can stomach this, I can stomach everything. He’s partially right. I’m still not a fan of green beer, but once I’ve had a pint and some shots, I can pretty much down anything.
We each drink a pint and head back outside. Among the sea of green, white, orange and some gold, we blend in. Today, would be the perfect day to commit a crime because we all look alike. My buddy Stewart, the groom to be, is sporting a long green beard with orange beads around his neck. He’s getting looks from women and like a man smitten, he’s ignoring them.
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “They only like your beard.”
“Is that why you won’t shave yours?” he asks. I reach under my fake beard and brush my own. Up until last week, it was long and scraggly, something which irritated my mother. Along with the out of control beard and the industrial bar I drunkenly had jammed through my upper ear lobe after my last relationship ended, I’m a disappointment to her. She tells me I’m never going to find a good Irish woman to marry me and give me children. She’s probably right. Not that I’m looking. I’ve been down the path of falling in love with who my parents deemed the right Irish girl, only to be burned badly. Hence the steel bar and shaggy beard period of my life.
“Hey, I trimmed it up for your wedding.”
“Hallie threatened to do it for you if you didn’t,” Stewart points out.
That she did. When we were together last month for our tuxedo fitting, she pulled out a pair of scissors and told me she was going to cut off my manhood and pointed the shears at my face. I took her threat very seriously and went to the corner barber and had him give me a good trim. When I saw my mother the next day, she cried and told me I was sure to find a leannàn now. She just wants grandbabies and lots of them.
“I would’ve done it for your wedding, man,” I tell my best friend. I would’ve. No one wants the ugly guy in their photos.