The Wedding Guest

Stella and I were up on the roof working on the outer front wall of the atrium. The redwood planking, warped by the sun, had started to come away from the wall. We were removing each board, pulling out their nails and then putting them back up with screws.

The work we were doing was simple, but time consuming.

Mostly we had to be careful we didn’t split the boards. I would secure the planking, run a screw as tightly as I could without splitting the board and put the batten back on loosely. In a week, I would come back, tighten them down fully and resecure the batten.

A head popped up the ladder we had placed on the sun side of the house and watched us. It was Don, our immediate neighbor to our north.

“Is this a private party, Uncle Paul, or can anyone play?”

“Sure, come on up and join us.”

He came up and I explained what we were doing. Grabbing a pry bar, Don started to help remove the planking. With his help the job went very quickly, and after a bit, when it looked like we were almost done, Stella started down the ladder headed for the kitchen.

“You guys finish up. I’ll go below and make lunch.”

We were just finishing when Stella came up on the roof with a pitcher of lemonade and avocado and bacon sandwiches on fresh French bread. She laid it all down like a picnic on the flatter part of the roof, the porch overhang, and we sat down to eat.

“All right,” said Don, grabbing what I belatedly realized was the biggest of the sandwiches. “If we get eats like this all the time, I’ll come up here every day.”

I pointed out that he had taken the biggest sandwich, but he just smiled happily and kept on eating.

It was a brisk March day. The sun was out and things were starting to become more pleasant in comparison to the day’s rather chilly start. We sat there, letting the sun warm us, looking out over the water, drinking the lemonade and eating the sandwiches. After a bit, I leaned back on the warm roof and started to doze.

“Looks like we have company.”

I sat up and looked. On the beach road, a car with Wisconsin tags had slowed after passing the house. Now it was backing up. It kept in reverse until it was back in front of the house and then stopped. Two men got out--one with a camcorder. They waved.

“Hi! What are you people doing up there?”

Don stood up. At six foot two, there was a lot of him to stand. He toasted the two men with his lemonade.

“We’re partying, man.”

“On the roof?”

“We’re having a roof party,” Don said. “Don’t you people party up in Wisconsin?”

The man laughed. “Not on the roof, we don’t.”

“No kidding? Man, you people are missing something up there. Here, we do it all the time. Laissez les bon temps rouler.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Let the good times roll.”

“Can we take your picture?” said the man with the camcorder. “This may be normal to you, but they won’t believe it back home.”

“Sure, why not?” we answered. The man came from around the car and started to take pictures. We saluted them with our lemonade; they took more pictures, we yelled more nonsense, and they laughed, waved goodbye and left. I leaned back, and feeling the sun and the food, resumed my nap.

But it turned out that that was only the start.

The following week, I spotted Don up on his roof. When I climbed up to join him, instead of lemonade, he handed me a beer. In a little while, Lee, another neighbor came by and joined us. We lay back on the warm roof shingles for several hours, and as Pogo best described such get-togethers, we “sang songs and told lies.”

It didn’t take long before roof parties were a common happening around the neighborhood. I was sure that by the time summer heat came around, they would have disappeared. But with the cool spring weather, it was fun to sit up high like that, with friends, with something cool to drink, and watch everything go by that’s not really out of sight, but just below your momentary concern.

There was one party, however, that was my downfall.

We were up on Lee’s roof. Lee was blessed with a roof that was broad with only a mild slope and could support a lot of people. That day, I believe, it supported about twenty. All ages and sizes and even little Shannon, Henry’s youngest daughter was up there, tooting on a long, plastic horn. It was long, like a herald’s horn.

And like all long, plastic children’s horns, it was annoying.

I already had had my two-beer limit when Shannon came by me tooting the horn. “Shannon, let me show you something with the horn,” I said, trying to think of a way to take it away from her nicely. She looked at me warily -- she was seven years old and very mature.

“I don’t trust you, Uncle Paul.”

“No, no, don’t be silly. I want to show you a trick. Let me have the horn and get Don to bring over one of those beers.”

I had suddenly remembered a fraternity drinking trick shown to me by a sophomoric Navy pilot. Don came over with Shannon and handed me the beer. I popped the lid, put the can on one end of the horn and raising the horn to my mouth, I tilted my head back, elevating the horn straight up in the air.

Glug! Swoosh! The can of beer was empty.

God!” said Don. “Lee, come over here and see this. Shannon, quick, get Uncle Paul another beer.” Lee came over and I repeated the chug-a-lug with the second can of beer. I now had twice my normal limit. Henry came up and wanted to see me do it also. Don handed me another beer.

I looked at it and suddenly, began not to feel too well.

“I’ll do it in a bit, but I have to go back to the house for a moment. I forgot something,”

I began climbing down from the roof.

“Where is he going?” asked Henry. “I want to see the trick.”

“Uncle Paul has to go to potty,” said Shannon.

I hurried back to the house and walked into the living room where Gretal, our Weimaraner, was lying on the floor dozing. Holding up one of the side walls, I looked around the room and then critically surveyed the couch. It didn’t look all that stable. I looked at the floor where Gretal, now awake, lay watching me.

I decided she had the right idea and lay down beside her.

However, once I positioned myself, Gretal with an audible “hmpff,” got up and walked away.

I didn’t need her anyway. I rested. In a little while, I heard a voice in the kitchen. It was Stella, she was back from shopping and she was talking to Gretal. She followed Gretal into the living room,

“Where’s Daddy? Oh, there you are.”

“Mmm.”

“I thought you’d be up on the roof at Lee’s. They’re having a party.”

“Mmm.”

“Oh, I see. You’ve already been up there.”

“Mmm.”

“This is it.” She went and got a blanket … “You could have killed yourself” … and threw it over me … “The whole roof thing is stupid.” … and put a small pillow under my head. “No more roof parties. Understand? No more roof parties.”

She went back in the kitchen and Gretal followed her.

That was the end of the roof parties.

But sometimes, when I’m up on the roof, sweeping leaves from the gutters, or putting up the shade cloths, I sit down and pull a coke out of my nail apron and relax, feeling the warm roof under me, watch a squirrel steal one of my pecans, a mockingbird chase another mockingbird in another of their endless fights and see the sun hitting the water just right so that every so often I catch a flashing flicker of light.

Then I pull the tab on the can, toast the wind, lean back and have a roof party just by myself.

I once lived in a house by the water. It was a large, comfortable house, standing among several old live oaks with broad verandas on its south and west sides. About 35 yards from the south veranda was a county road and across from this a sandy beach and the tea-brown waters of the Mississippi Sound.

The Sound is a long, somewhat narrow, biologically rich estuary that separates the southern Coast of Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico. On the south side of the Sound lies a long string of barrier islands that protect this coast from Gulf storms.

On a clear day I could stand on the porch of my house and see the trees on one of these islands, Cat Island, and my wife and I would sometimes use this event as an excuse to call our neighbors to sit with us on the porch, enjoy a cool drink, talk and “watch the island.”

I lived in that house by the water for many years before a storm came and took it all away. I’ve lived other places, but I lived there the longest. It was my home and the people in the small coastal town around me were my friends. In the years that have passed, I find that my remembrances of sitting on the porch of that house and watching the water are different from anyplace else that I have lived.

In the short stories in this book, I will try to describe what that difference is to me. Please read them and enjoy the