Flower Boys and Ring Girls

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
–Audre Lorde

“The birds all sing as if they knew, today’s the day we’ll say “I do,” and we’ll never be lonely anymore.”
--The Shirelles


I imagined myself taking a nap at the altar, my head resting on the white satin pillow, divine light illuminating my olive complexion and cherub face. At five years-old I was the ring-bearer in the wedding of an older cousin. The traditions involved in a Catholic wedding ceremony—the long version, not the modern abbreviated one—perplexed me. Months before, while being fitted for my miniature white tuxedo, my mother explained to me the solemn responsibilities of my job, “Well, you’ll follow the flower girl down the aisle; you’ll carry a pillow on which rest the wedding rings; when you get to the altar the groom will take one, place it on the finger of the bride, she in turn, will do the same.”
“Will I have to wear a bear costume under this tuxedo?”
“No, Austin. It’s not that kind of bear.”
“What about a bear mask?”
“No, Austin.”
This was the first conversation my mother and I shared before the wedding, where I, confused by my own half imagined, half reasoned conclusions, would be set straight by my mother’s mature knowledge on the subject.
The afternoon my mother told me that the following Saturday she would be attending a bridal shower, that it was only for women, and that I would be left under the watch of my brother, my incredulity and protests began immediately and continued until the afternoon of the shower.
“What are you and Aunt Leenie and those other ladies going to do in the shower?”
“It’s not that kind of shower, Austin. We are going to give gifts to the bride and have tea and chat.”
“But won’t the gifts get wet?”
“No, Austin.”
I pictured my mother in her two-piece bathing suit, holding a cup and saucer from the china my Aunt Leenie washed every week and never used. I imagined my slim, fair-skinned, permed mother chatting in a crowded shower with other ladies, with stacks of presents, and all of them trying not to get their hair wet. “Why can’t I go?”
“It’s not for little boys, Austin.”
“I won’t look I promise.”
“No, Austin.”
I sulked the whole afternoon. When my mother returned I made her pick me up and sit me on her hip so that I could examine her hair for dampness. Her hair was as perfectly set as when she had left; although she did bring back a pink bag filled with soaps and perfumes and other ladies frivolities. My confusion overwhelmed me.
When the day of the wedding came, I was still baffled by the traditions of marriage, but as we arrived at St. Anthony’s Cathedral—the St. Paul’s of Des Moines, Iowa—I resigned myself to decorum and a perfunctory performance of my duties. I followed the flower girl in timed steps, presented two gold bands on a white satin pillow, and didn’t lie down for a nap.
The epic ceremony was complete, but I was not relieved of my obligations. “After the wedding there will be a reception,” my mother had previously warned me. “And the ring-bearer dances with the flower girl,” horror crept across my face as she continued to reveal my awful fate.
“What kind of dancing? Do we have to touch hands?”
“Yes, Austin, you have to touch hands.”
A kind of dread I had never before been aware of overtook me. Ladies in the shower might have seemed weird, but this new revelation was just cruel.
After the dinner, I listed out my futile excuses. “Austin, I think it’s time for the dance,” my mother said to me from across the table with a naturalness that made it sound as if she wasn’t sending me to my hanging.
“I think I’m sick from the cake.”
“Austin.”
“My foot’s broken.”
“Austin.”
I hid behind my father; I asked my brother (age 18) to take my place.
“Austin, now.” My mother took my trembling hand and lead me to awaiting misery in the form of a brown-haired, blue-eyed, five year-old girl.
As I approached her on the wood laminate dance floor, the lights of the disco ball overhead danced in her eyes like a kaleidoscope—she was a woman possessed. My mother placed my hand in the girl’s and then abandoned me to my executioner. This girl was from the groom’s side, but to me she was from Pluto. She smiled with nervous excitement. I scowled with nervous fear. Quickly, I scanned the room and sunk in horror upon seeing every eye focused on the two of us locked in this death dance. I began to get the sense that this girl believed that this was her wedding or at least a practice run for the one she would one day have.
Without warning, she moved in and laid her head on my shoulder. My feet stopped; I recoiled as if a bucket of hot puke had been set there instead—I wanted it off, immediately. With great force I pulled her upright again. I noticed my mother with sipping champagne, my father laughing too loudly with his uncles, and my brother flirting with a girl who was probably our second cousin. How unfair it was that they could enjoy themselves while I was being eaten alive by this forty-pound beast.

When my despair could take no more, it happened. The creature in white and lace and satin closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and made a lunge for mine. My reaction was instantaneous; I locked my arms straight out and threw my head back with my lips resolutely sealed. Possessed by the passion of her delusions, the girl tried to fight her way around my defense. With the determination and superhuman strength particular to females in satin white dresses, she succeeded in getting her wish. Her cherry smacked lips stung mine and in her moment of bliss she relaxed her iron will. I being a young gentleman pushed her and ran. I ran past my father who had missed the scene, too engaged in his conversations. I ran past my brother who laughed and teased me as I continued by. I ran past my mother who in her crème colored knee-length dress with lace embroidery offered a hand in consolation. I ran to the table and hid below it until the dancing was done and it was time to go home.
When my mother told me within a year of that scarring day that my cousin and her husband were divorcing, I was irate. Had I suffered through all of those bizarre traditions for nothing? Did I sweat to exhaustion in that stupid white suit in the July heat for no reason? Did I have to live with the residual taste of cherry chapstick on my lips forever while the bride and groom just got to call it quits so easily? My opinion of marriage was decidedly set in the negative.

As a young gay man, my opinion of marriage remained largely unchanged: it was a series of empty traditions that ended in false promises and was shaded by pretended morality. I believed that gays and lesbians, instead of seeking the legal right to marry, should seek their own practice and traditions—something separate from the exclusionary and destructive hetero-normative ceremony. To me, marriage was a quickly crumbling institution and we gays and lesbians should be glad to be free of its walls when the roof fell. The rejection of archaic practices was the best means of progressive action.

The morning that the State of Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously to end the constitutional amendment that limited marriage to one man and one woman, legalizing marriage for gay and lesbian couples, I read the news from my computer, at my desk, with a cup of coffee. I was ecstatic. A new reasoning had been developing inside me for the previous year or so. While equality under the law was not the end of the fight for understanding and acceptance, it was a major and necessary step along the way.

It is absolutely important for progress that changes are made to the fundamental laws and systems that unjustly and immorally limit individual freedom to whole classes of people. Marriage does not work for every straight individual or couple and certainly, it won’t for every gay and lesbian person or couple. By removing the false pretenses from the institution of marriage we begin to reinvent an out-dated tradition to fit our own time. It is time that marriage is defined by what individuals expect of it, not by what marriage expects of them.
At my wedding, whatever form the ceremony takes, no little boy will have to dance with a little girl if he doesn’t want to.