“Whoa,” said Erin. “When?”
“After one of the first times we hung out. We were sending picture messages, then you stopped and didn’t email and I felt really depressed.”
“Damn. Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“What was going on then?”
“I was kind of seeing Beau still then,” said Erin, and as the MDMA took effect Paul began using “the voice” sometimes, including when Erin asked him which of his previous girlfriends he felt closest to and he said “I’m not really sure” in an extreme parody of a stereotypical romantic comedy, and they laughed for maybe ten seconds. Paul had stopped using “the voice,” an hour later, when, during a silence, Erin asked what he was thinking and he said he was thinking why she hadn’t read or mentioned the first-person account of his life from April to July he had emailed her a few weeks ago, at her request, which had, to some degree, been obligatory, he knew. Erin said she felt strange reading about Paul’s romantic interest in other people while she was beginning a relationship with him. “Like, I felt jealous,” she said. “Of the Laura person, reading about her.”
“That makes sense,” said Paul earnestly.
“I also felt a little strange reading about your friendship with Daniel. I was like ‘whoa, they could hang out a lot, then just not anymore; damn, what if that happens with me?’ ”
“Daniel was really interested in how Kyle and I just stopped talking,” said Paul.
“Then you and Daniel stopped talking.”
“You don’t feel fine with that?”
“I do. . I feel fine with that. I just think of all possible situations going into something. . positive or negative. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” said Paul nodding. “When I first met Michelle I was telling her that I’ve had a lot of friends who I’ve just stopped talking to, and she said she was afraid I would do that to her.”
“That seems to be what happens with people.”
“You don’t have to read it at all,” said Paul.
“Okay,” said Erin.
“I trust whatever reasons you have. . for doing anything,” said Paul, and wondered if he had felt this before, or if he already no longer felt it.
The next night, after buying watermelon and salad ingredients from Whole Foods, they couldn’t find a parking spot at the Tropicana, then found one in a different area and walked a different route toward their room. Paul noticed a MARRIAGE CHAPEL sign at the end of the hallway and, after a few seconds, as they approached it silently, said “we should get married.”
“I was going to say that,” said Erin.
“I would get married to you.”
“Me too,” said Erin. “To you.”
“Let’s get married.”
“Let’s do it tomorrow.”
“Okay,” said Paul. “I’m confirmed.”
In Whole Foods, the next afternoon, Erin emailed her manager at the used bookstore that she was quitting her job, then scrolled through photos of Elvis standing between grinning, newlywed couples. Elvis appeared more energetic and alive than the couples in almost every photo, including one in which the couple was partially blocked from view by an over-eager Elvis who seemed to have lunged toward the camera, displaying the knuckles side of a peace sign.
“I don’t get it, at all,” said Paul.
“It’s what people do. This is what people want.”
“It really seems insane,” said Paul.
“People are insane,” said Erin.
“We should get an Elvis wedding.”
“I’m fine with an Elvis wedding.”
“Actually, I don’t want an Elvis wedding,” said Paul. “It seems extremely stressful.” Erin made a next-day reservation for a “desk wedding.” They discussed if they wanted to be on MDMA during their marriage ceremony. Erin said they should save it for the day after tomorrow, their last in Las Vegas.
“We might be dead by then,” said Paul.
“They won’t let us get married if we’re on drugs,” said Erin.
“They’ll think we’re on drugs if we’re not on drugs. We’re normal when we’re on drugs.”
Erin laughed weakly.
“We’ll just—” said Paul. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We’re going to be driving after the wedding, let’s just do it after we drive,” said Erin a few minutes later in a slightly pleading tone.
“Okay, okay,” said Paul earnestly while nodding and patting her shoulder, then hugged her briefly.
Across the street from the marriage license office was a billboard that said MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE about used cars and used car parts. In the office, which was bright and quiet and arranged like a post office, while filling out forms, Paul said getting married was like getting a tattoo, in that he just wanted to pay money and receive a service, not make appointments and go places and talk to strangers and be asked to confirm his choice. Erin said she was thinking that also and had been “having the same feeling” as before she got tattoos. Paul noticed a sign that said intoxicated applicants would be TURNED AWAY and focused, as they approached the window, on appearing normal, but realized he didn’t know how.
“Look at the helpers,” he said pointing at six to ten clips, each clasping an impressive seeming amount of paper, magnetized to the side of a cabinet. “I want one.”
“Me too,” said Erin grinning. “Which one do you want?”
“Any of them,” said Paul after a few seconds.
“I want the curvy one,” said Erin.
Paul stared at the identical, brown clips.
“The guy with the stripes,” said Erin. “My own ‘underling.’ ”
“I’m talking about the plastic paper holder things,” said Paul.
• • •
Walking to their rental car they saw a shiny building and an abandoned building side by side, in the near distance. Paul expressed amazement at this second, also obvious, though maybe less egregious metaphor — the first being the used car billboard — and said their marriage would resemble the abandoned building in five years. After a pause, which functioned unintentionally for comic effect, he said “or, like, five days.”
Erin laughed. “Five months, maybe,” she said earnestly.
“Yeah,” said Paul thinking that of the fives — hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades — months was, by far, most likely. “We’ll be that tree,” he said pointing at a tree that appeared healthy and, he thought, dignified.
“The apartments for rent,” said Erin.
“The tree,” said Paul.
“Yeah, the tree.”
“The tree seems good.”
“Nature. Natural.”
“Jesus, look,” said Paul pointing at an eerie building far in the distance, thin and black, like a cursor on the screen of a computer that had become unresponsive. He imagined building-size letters suddenly appearing, left to right, in a rush—wpkjgijfhtetiukgcnlm—across the desert.
The marriage chapel was less than a mile away in a building containing four to six businesses. Paul sat on a two-seat sofa, in a sort of hallway, while Erin used the bathroom. Around ten people, mostly children, surrounding what appeared to be a newlywed couple, passed through Paul’s vision, on their way out of the building, then Erin sat by him, then the pastor (a large man with white hair and a serious but friendly demeanor) sat behind a tiny desk (six feet away, at the opposite wall) and read a prepared statement, completing the marriage, at which point — coincidentally, it seemed — a door opened and a smiling woman, with a tiny dog at her feet, congratulated Paul and Erin, after which, sort of huddled against each other, they moved toward the exit grinning.
“I immediately thought ‘fuck you’ to the stranger congratulating us,” said Paul outside, on a sidewalk. Erin laughed and said she thought “pop-up ad,” because “it went through the door,” and they hugged and jumped repeatedly as one mass, spinning a little and sometimes saying “we did it” quietly. Paul ran suddenly away, onto the parking lot, in a wide arc that curved eventually toward the rental car in a centripetal force, accelerating to a speed that was, at this point in his life, unfamiliarly fast, but not near maximum, before slowing, as he neared the passenger door — and, knowing he would not collide with the car, briefly aware of the dream-like amount of control he had over his body — to a stop.