Three weddings

In January of 2004 it was time to turn my little leased Saturn in.  Jay and I decided to buy a truck.  Now Jay’s step-father had worked for GM for many years.  Because of that he got what is called a GM certificate.  It allows GM workers to buy GM cars at wholesale price.  The person who’s name is on the top of the deal, the primary buyer, must be related to said GM employee.  Jay and I are not legal married at this point.  The date has been set, the clothes are being made, the dress has been bought and the invitations have gone out but no we are not married at this point.  My name goes on the top of the deal, because I have a little better credit score then Jay does.  We sign the papers and I take the truck home.  I’d always wanted a truck!

We get a call a few days later from our salesman that there is a problem with the paperwork.  The lien holder had kicked it back because my name is on the top of the deal, I am not official GM family, and not authorized to use the certificate.  We have committed a little bit of fraud.  We have two choices: bring the truck back and try to redo the deal, or get married immediately.  We decide to get married. 

On February 5, 2004 Jay and I are legal married by the local Justice of the Peace, in my Momma’s living room in Keatchie.  I wear a simple white shirt, black skirt and no shoes.  My mother freaks and keeps yelling at me to put my shoes back on.  Oy Vey! It is just my parents, Jay and I and Paige.  It all happened so fast that Jay forgot to invite his parents.  My father gives me away by kissing me on the forehead.  Something he used to do when I was little and sick and he was trying to check my temperature. It’s just our little thing.

As I start to say my vows I become overwhelmed.  My father is standing behind me, I almost faint on him.  He pushes me with two fingers, ‘cause he is a very big man, and says, “Don’t make me get the Shotgun!”  What??  I regain my composure.  We had never practiced our vows.  When I said them for the first time, I wanted them to mean something.  I place my hand over Jay’s heart, swearing on it when I take my vows.  I say all the vows, but I refuse to say that I will obey him.  I believe no one should have to blindly obey anyone.  It should be a choice.

There is an old saying that when you marry someone you marry their whole family, and that is very true.  A wonderful husband with a bad family can be a new bride’s worst enemy.  I know many women who have a lot of trouble with their in-laws.  I am blessed that Jay has a wonderful family.  That is one of the reasons I agreed to marry him. 

I’ve often said that when I married Jay I not only got a husband, but I got a grandmother too.  There is another old saying that men marry their mothers.  While I love my mother in law, and she has never been anything but nice to me, we are very different people.  We are cut from different cloth, me and her.  She loves to shop.  I hate to shop.  She loves shoes and purses.  I despise shoes and spend most of my life barefooted.  At the time I could count my shoes and purses on my hands.  I have since become a bit more girly.  My mother in law is very much a city girl.  Nothing wrong with that, it’s just different.  She is by no means a Novelle!  She and I are both steadfast in our resolve that we love and what whatever is best for Jay. 

Knowing Jay’s mother, and how different we are, I often wondered why he would choose to fall in love with a very country girl like me.  When I met Momma Muriel, Jay’s paternal grandmother, I knew why.  The first time I met her she told me a dirty joke.

“Hey!  You know how to kiss a ducks ass?” she said

“No.” I said

She then blew, as if to blow the feathers away, and made a kissing noise, “But you got to be quick!”

We both exploded in laughter!  She from the joke and me from the fact that this woman of 76 has just said the word ASS.  Novelle would never have done that!  Oh I liked her already.  Momma Muriel and I became fast friends.  We were both country girls and cut from the same cloth you could say.  She’s spent more the 40 years as a nurse and had seen it all.  She was fierce and independent, despite being confined to a scooter most of the time.  She still drove and did all her own errands. 

Momma Muriel lived in an old trailer on 22 acre just north of town.  Her land was full of very tall old pine trees, beautiful Bartlett pear trees, thick woods and a creek.  I feel in love with this place the first time I saw it.  Years later she would ask us to move out here to care for her and in her will she gave it to us as her last gift.  The more I feel in love with this little piece of land, the more I knew I wanted to be married here, in the spring when the Bartlett pears bloomed with their beautiful white flowers. 

I had spent months sewing and weaving clothes for our Ojibwa wedding.  For Jay I made a cream colored drop sleeve shirt.  While not period, it looked nice.  I wove him a belt on an Inkle loom.  He wore his brown canvas pants and a black beaded choker that he had made for himself long ago. 

My regalia had taken months to construct and research.  I had made for myself a purple drawstring skirt, a full length white apron with ribbon embellishment, an embroidered pocket, a handkerchief with a tatted edge, a blue tribal style shirt circa the 1700’s with ribbon embellishment, and a double sided shawl with fringe, in our wedding colors of purple and teal.  Jay made a leather sheath form me to carry my dear antler handled knife in.  We beaded the bottom and added tinkle cones.  We designed the sheath to hang on the string of my pocket.  Jay also made me a beaded choker, and Maddie gave me a cow tooth to hang from it.  I wore my hair in braids.  I also wore a ring given to me by the Caddo tribe years before and earrings made by a Caddo – Adais lady. My maid of honor, Mary, had made me a leather head band, with eagle plumes that Jerry had given me.   In my hands I carried a bouquet of feathers that Mary had also made for me.  Both of these things were her wedding gifts to me.

While I might have looked silly and stupid or disrespectful to some people, I felt beautiful.  I felt I was doing something very true to my heart and my soul.  It was always our intention to be as respectful as we could to a culture we felt such a connection to. 

In attendance were Momma Muriel, my parents, Mary and her husband, Jerry and his wife.  Jay’s parents refused to attend.  Prince, Pumpkin, and Precious looked on at us from the pen.  I had hoped to have them in one of the ceremonies, but having them watch and protect us during this time was the best I could do.

At sunset Jay built us a sacred fire.  We gathered close to it with Jerry and his wife.  She wrapped us in a blanket that Momma Muriel had crocheted many years before.   Jerry brought out a small little bowl to bless the fire with.  Inside was cedar from the tree under which his grandmother was born.  We were all shocked to find out that she and I had the same birthday.  To it we added our gift of tobacco.  Jerry gave me the bowl as a wedding present.  It sits on my altar to this day. 

At some point Jerry tied our hands together and we took our vows to each other.  I think I was crying a lot, ‘cause I don’t remember as much as I should.  Jerry spoke many words to us.  He told us of marriage and to keep our minds and our bodies clean.  He told us we were married in this life and the next and we could never divorce.  We like to joke around our house, that the only man who could undo our marriage is Jerry, and he is long since dead.  We are stuck with each other, whether we like it or not.  Finally Jerry brought out an eagle wing and blessed us with it.  That was the most magical moment for me.  To me this was my wedding.  If you ask me when my anniversary is I will give you this date.   To me everything else was just for show.  There was no reception.  We just all went out later and ate fried catfish, Momma Muriel’s favorite. 

The next day on March 20^th, 2004, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, at Keatchie United Methodist Church, Jay and I were married, again.  We were married in the same church my parents had been married in 22 years before.  Our invitations were simple and printed on parchment paper, in color from our home computer.  They were sealed with a silver wax stamp of two intertwined hearts, our little symbol.  We hand delivered invitations to those we could and mailed the rest to those we could not.  We had about 30 or 40 people in attendance.

The wedding was very simple and informal.  I wore a white chapel length dress with a v-neck and short sleeves.  I was hesitant about wearing white, because I had been married before.  Etiquette says that a bride marrying for the second time should wear cream.  When I told this to Jay he said, “You wear white for me baby.”  I loved that, and so I did.  My hair was piled high on my head with ringlets.  I wore a wreath of flower and ribbons in my hair and carried beautiful silk flowers with ribbons. 

Mary, made all the flowers as her gift to me.  She made all the corsages, flower for the bridesmaids and stood as my Maid of Honor.  Maddie and Paige were my bridesmaids.  Instead of buying stupid dresses for the ladies to wear, that were ridiculously expensive and they would never wear again. I asked that they all wear something purple, something that they would wear again.  They did and they all looked lovely. 

Jay wore a white shirt and black pants.  His grandfather was his Best Man and his friend Robert was his Groomsman.  All of our friends and family were there, yes even Novelle. 

As my Dad walked me down the aisle, I stopped to light a candle in front of a picture of Oma.  We were married by a pastor who’s name I don’t even remember, and I am not sure I had even met before.  By this time we were kind of old hats at this. 

For less than a hundred dollars we rented the Keatchie town hall and held our reception there.  We had a lovely Italian cream cake, with double hearts on it, green sherbet punch, and finger sandwiches.  We had decided on an afternoon wedding, because we didn’t have the money to feed everyone.  It was a nice way for everyone to have a break in their day, and still have time to go home and mow their lawn.  We had our little toast and cut the cake for our friends and family to enjoy.  As Jay does not dance and we have never had a special song, until recently, there was no dancing.  We opened gifts, thanked everyone for coming and went home. 

Jay and I were too poor for such a thing as a honeymoon.  We would not take that until years later.  We just changed clothes, loaded up our dogs, got in our car and headed back home to Ebarb.

Ilsa

 

Making Plans

Jay and I continued seeing each other, falling deeper and deeper in love.  He would steal away to my house whenever he could.  He would come for what we called, “sleepovers.”  I was not allowed to sleepover at his house.  While my mother in law loves me, she was not too keen on her unwed son having sex under her roof.  I had told my parents long ago at least if I have sex in the house, you know where I am.   I’m not out on a pipeline somewhere, or back in the woods where if something happens to me you can’t get to me.  My parents adored Jay, they still do.  When Mom would come to say goodnight to me, she would tuck Jay in bed first and then me.  I still think they like him better than me.  At some point my father told me, “If you ever decide to get a divorce from Jay, just walk right across the hall and take out a restraining order against me ‘cause I’m going to kill you.”

Now I had lost my job in the Summer of 2002 and I continued to look for work, any work for many months.  When you have a B.A. most people don’t want to hire you.  They think you will become bored with the job and leave as soon as they have invested all that time and money in training you, or your find something in your field.  They also don’t want to hire someone who has a lot of education and not as much work history.  Again a lot of men doing the hiring are intimidated by an intelligent woman. 

My Anthropology degree, while pretty on the wall, was not worth very much here.  North West Louisiana does not invest in science or preserving their history.  There were a few private museums here that were run by volunteers and only one was run by the state.  There are also no state historic sites here.  There was nothing here where one with my degree might make a living.  It’s kind of like having a marine biology degree while you are living in the middle of the desert.  My dreams of a higher degree had been dashed by my GRE results.  I was too stupid for graduate school, plus now I was in love and I did not want to leave him behind.  I took the civil service test and began to look for work with the state. 

About the time I meet Jay I had finally found a little job as a barista.  That job lasted a few weeks, before the owner told me they were having money trouble and would have to let me go.  They closed a few months later.  I had friend named Paige (who’s so twisted she deserves her own article and that I plan to write a little later) who’s father owned a convenience store.  I asked her to get me an interview with him.  She did and I was hired a few days later.  Even he was intimidated by the fact I came to the interview in business attire, with a resume in a nice folder for him, and had a degree.  He didn’t want to hire me at first because I had a degree.   He, like so many others, was afraid I would get bored and leave.  People like him sometimes forget that we all have to eat.  Paige had to explain I was just very professional.  I stayed almost 6 months, a lot longer than many of the people there. 

I got the word in September of 2003 that I would be a Park Ranger at Fort Jesup State Historic Site outside of Many, Louisiana. It was built in the 1820’s and had been used as a staging ground for troops in the Mexican American war. I was terrible excited that I would finally be able to put my degree to good use, and to make a living for myself.  It was an hour south of where I was living and an hour and half south of Jay.  For the first few weeks I commuted back and forth from Keatchie to Many.  But we knew this would never do.  I began to look for a place to live. 

I refused to leave Precious the first behind.  Would you leave your human children behind if they suddenly became inconvenient for you?  No she was my child, just because she had fur did not mean I got to cast her aside because a place to live would not allow pets.   

Precious the first had come to me in those years of writing the “Prodigal Daughter,” from a friend.  She was a beautiful black and tan Dachshund.  She had been rescued from the Bossier pound.  Her owner had been an elderly lady, who had died of a heart attack, a few weeks after Precious the first had delivered puppies.  The family had sold the puppies and took Precious the first to the pound.  The day my friend got her Precious the first was so engorged with milk that she had to ride home on a towel.  For years Precious the first would wake up screaming in her sleep.  I know she was dreaming of her pups.  Over the years she had become my trusted companion. No I was adamant she would come with me.  I would not leave her behind. After a few weeks I lamented to a co-worker the problem I was having trying to find a place for both of us.  He told me that he had a cousin who had a trailer that would allow pets.  I was overjoyed.

In October Precious the first and I moved into a little trailer in the tiny community of Belmont.  Jay came to visit when he could, but for the most part we were on our own.  It was the first time, other than living in the dorms in college I had ever lived on my own.  It could be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, especially at night. 

I did not want Precious the first to be lonely while I was gone to work, so I decided I should get her a playmate.  I put a call into the Shreveport Pound and told them if they came across a Dachshund to give me a call.  They called three days later.  They told me they had picked up three doxies knocking over garbage cans to stay alive.  I told them I would take all three.  I happened to be on a date with Jay when we got the call.  By the time I ran to the bank and got out the cash, they had already adopted out two.  On the way there we had already decided on the name, Pumpkin.  No matter the color or the sex of the dog.  It was October you know.  I was calling everybody Pumpkin about that time. 

When we get to the pound we are led back to the kennels.  There sat the most beautiful, scared, little red Dachshund on a green bed.  They opened the door and I crawled in and laid on my back in submissive position.    She began to give me kisses.  I picked her up, proclaimed her Pumpkin, and gave her to Jay.  And so we add Abigail Pumpkin Plaisance to our family.  Pumpkin and Precious the first fought a lot in the early days, but at least they were company for each other. 

Jay and I had been together for about 10 months at that time.  We were engaged but had not set a date as of yet.  Our families were getting pretty tired of the fact we were sleeping together, but not married yet.  We decided to set a date.  We would marry the week after my birthday in March when the flowers would be in bloom, my favorite time of year.  I figure that in the coming years he might remember one of the two dates, since they are so close together.  He has never forgotten either. 

Now at this time in my life I am Christian but I am also still very interested in Native American Spirituality and Native American culture.  Jay is and has always been interested in their different cultures.  At this time I have even danced in a Pow-Wow, and have my own regalia.  Although it might be cliché and not politically correct Jay and I feel we have spent many lifetimes among the tribes. 

I am talking on the phone one night with Mary, a friend of mine.  I mention to her how I wish we could be married by a Medicine Man.  She asks me, “Isn’t Jerry Fairbanks a Medicine Man?  Can’t he marry you?”  I said I will find out.  Indeed my friend, who I have talked about before, is an Ojibwa Medicine Man and can legally marry Jay and I.  We are delighted!  We begin to make plans for our Ojibwa wedding.

When our family hears of this, they are not pleased.  They do not consider such a thing to be “legal,” their way of saying they don’t consider it to be correct.  I tell them if they want us married in the church then they will have to pay for it.  They say they will.  So we begin to plan for a church wedding as well.

Ilsa

Marrying Mike

We made plans that fall to marry during the winter break of 1996.  I had no idea that we would marry on what would later become a sacred day to me, December 21^st, Winter Solstice, one of Holda’s most holy days.  It just happened to be on a Saturday.  My dress was a simple white dress my mother had bought from Catherine’s for me. We got the license and I had called around that week to Justice of the Peace’s in the area to see who had an opening.  We were married in the back yard gazebo of Tom Carlton.  Who was at the time the Chancellor for Bossier Parish Community College. 

It was me, Mike, my parents, his parents, Nicholas and Mr. Carlton.  My mother walks me down the aisle and whispers in my ear, “You can still get out of this if you want to.  It’s harder to get into a marriage then it is to get out of one.”  It just strengthened my determination that I was going to fix Mike and prove her wrong.  The service begins and we are not passed the “Dearly Beloved,” when my mom begins to speak up behind me.  I am terrified of what she has to say.  God she’s going to ruin my wedding!   Is she going to protest our union?  Nope.  She says to Mr. Carlton. “I know you!  I’ve seen you on the cover of the National Inquirer.” 

“Well yes Mam, you have,” he says.  Now I’m thinking oh god what have I gotten myself into and are there aliens involved in all this.  No mom, ever the lover of animals has seen an article on Mr. Carlton who was forced to give up his pet alligator.  See he had raised him since he was a baby, but once his insurance company found out about said alligator they make him give it away.  All this while I am trying to get married.  After all that explanation we take our vows and the ceremony is complete.  No reception we just went back to Mike’s dad’s office.

Mike’s father ran what he called a Media Marketing company.  He made junk mail. We often spent time stuffing envelopes for him.  His office was in an old house in Broadmoor.  The houses along this one street had been originally been residential and then eventually zoned as commercial.  Two rooms were used to make mail, but there was still a shared living room where we stuffed mail, a bathroom, a kitchen, a bedroom and other room that had junk in it.  So our first night as a married couple was spent in that house.  We had come there right after school ended and we had been living together about two weeks before we got married, I think.  Mike’s father was such a pack rat, and so nasty it took me almost a week to carve out enough space to live in.  We won’t even talk about the horrors of the shower that was black and piled high with boxes.  It took me more than a week of steady cleaning, but I made it as comfy as I could.  I even put up a Christmas tree in the big bay window up front.  We passed our first Christmas in that house as man and wife.

In the Spring of 1997 we returned to school.  We put our name on the list for married student housing, but we were told there was a year wait.  So the first six months of our marriage we spent living in different dorms.  From my dorm room window I could see the lights of Mike’s room, and at night it would give me comfort.  I wasn’t alone and I loved him so much.  Some nights I would just stare at his light.  He no longer had the money to live in an apartment as he had done before he left for USL.  In fact I don’t know how he had paid for that apartment unless his parents had paid for it.  And I don’t remember if the idea of us getting a place together ever came up.  I don’t know that Mike was working at that time or not.

The Summer of 1997 found us living in an upstairs apartment that Mike’s father owned, next to his office building.  Downstairs was my kitchen and dining room; upstairs were our living room, bedroom, bath, and a small room that served as my closet. 

In going back and rereading my stuff I had written from the days of the “Prodigal Daughter.”  I found a painful memory I had forgotten.  It is of one of the first times he had emotionally abused me. We were living in the upstairs apartment.  It was rather late and I had tried to convince Mike to come to bed, to no avail.  I lay in the dark room wondering what my new husband was doing.  One minute I would hear the TV and the next I would not.  After a few minutes, I got up to see what was going on.  There in the blue light of the television sat Mike masturbating to a porno.  His pants unzipped with penis openly exposed and a sock to catch whatever evidence remained.  I was shocked.  I did not understand.  My calculations and analysis could not come up with the right answer.  I had believed once we were married and living together that this behavior would stop.

“Michael, what’s going on here?”  I asked in a timid voice.

      
He turned to me, his eyes filled with rage, “What are you doing up! Go back to bed! Why are you not in bed?!  Go away and leave me alone!”

“Michael if you want sex why don’t you just come to bed?!  I don’t understand?  What are you doing?  Why are you doing this?”

He became enraged, screaming at me, “It is all your fault!  If it wasn’t for your backwoods Victorian morals, you would not have a problem with this!  It is all your fault!  Get back in there and go to bed!” 

I do not remember the rest, only that this was the beginning.  I felt as if he had ripped my heart out, and deep down I knew that it was true. I had caused this.  I was fat. I was ugly, I was naïve and out of work.  I became suicidal the next day.  I hid in a closet until I was found, I ran into the park, close to our apartment, with our BB gun to kill myself.  Whatever insecurities I had about myself were confirmed on a daily basis with him.  The next day I became terrified of him.  I was so afraid.  I did not understand what I had done wrong.  I had had no other lovers but Michael.  I must be doing something wrong.  He was right I knew nothing of sex other then with him, so I began to verse myself in the sexual arts.

There was no internet where we lived.  Most information was still in books.  So every time we went to the book store I would hide myself in the sex section.  I read as much as I possibly could on the subject.  I was determined to please my husband.

 

Despite what I learned, it was not enough.  My nightmare had begun and there was no escape for me.  I was too ashamed to tell my parents what was going on.   That my husband preferred to gratify himself rather than touch me.  My parents did not know until right before I left him that Mike had a sex problem and what he had put me through in that department.  I was so embarrassed.  Only Joe and another friend ever knew what was really going on in my home. 

Ilsa