A worried man with a worried mind / No one in front of me and nothing behind / There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne… Bob Dylan, “Things Have Changed”

Blasting across America at three in the morning on a Delta flight to Cincinnati and then onwards to Hartford. I hate red-eyes because being thrown across a continent at 30,000 feet in pitch darkness unnerves me. But, despite my irrational fear of sudden oblivion, I am glad to be on this flight. Behind us L.A. is burning, like Rome before it, and the “moderate” air-quality was getting to me (along with a lot of other things). My official motive for being on this commuter rocket is to officiate one of my best friend’s weddings as an ordained Reverend. But my ulterior-motive is to get the hell out of Dodge for a few days and breathe some fresh air and let my brain cool off and my soul heal.

Hartford is pissing rain when we land and it’s another hour in the rental car to Bethlehem. Connecticut is old, cold and beautiful. It’s not hard to imagine Forefathers in white stockings and lavish jackets trotting around the scene, chopping wood and designing a new country. Most houses are at least a hundred years old and the bride-to-be’s mother lives in one that might be older. Friends and family gather here for the rehearsal party and Norman Rockwell might as well have painted the scene himself.

Like a subtle rip-tide that yanks you out into the middle of the ocean, I find myself cornered by The Ghosts of High School Past. The inevitable avalanche of questions: “How are those wildfires? How’s Hollywood treating ya? You a famous writer yet? Written anything we woulda read? How much is gas over there?”

The prepared responses: “The opposite of Buffalo blizzards… like a cheap hooker… any day now… you can subscribe to my magazine online… fucking expensive.”

Overwhelmed by old faces, I seek refuge in the ancient basement with Jared — who looks like a post-apocalyptic warrior with his mohawk, perhaps his personal protest to the tradition he so openly loathes. We crack a bottle of Jack and take turns — the whiskey burns its way down like a liquid cavalry. Jared pontificates, “Weddings are like zombies. At first, there’s just one or two. Before you know it, it’s a fucking pandemic and you’re getting your brains eaten.” Before long we’re beckoned to join the rehearsal. A good idea, considering I’m the Reverend.

Key players gather round for the run-through, and coming from Hollywood it’s hard not to feel like this is just a table-read for some movie. We rehearse the ceremony, the vows, because after all, I’m the crazy glue holding this wedding together. I was asked to become ordained specifically for this occasion, and it really does seem you can do anything on the Internet these days. A hard-drinking, existentially-challenged writer from L.A. would not be my first choice to officiate my holy matrimony with the love of my life, but to each their own.

Morning cracks me over the head and I throw on a sharp suit by Zara while all the groomsmen wear khakis and suspenders — which they feel awkward in. Maker’s Mark is poured into coffee mugs because everyone’s a little anxious, and it scorches all the way down but settles nicely and spreads numb confidence through the blood. Tony (the Groom) wears a tan suit and is about to get married by one of his best friends — I feel weird for him, but weirder for myself.

I follow the groomsmen and bridesmaids onto a school bus and it’s like a surreal field trip. Most of us have grown up together and ridden around on buses just like this en route to each other’s houses – a thousand years ago in a suburban maze that was our world. We’re off to another small town thirty minutes away passing churches, antique shops, graveyards, churches, antique shops, graveyards. Apparently, there’s only three things to do in Connecticut: pray to dead people, buy dead people’s things, or die.

We arrive at an old old white manor with a gothic garden and ancient trees. The wedding tent looks great and the sun tries to burn through the gloomy Atlantic clouds but can’t quite cut it. Before long the 200 guests fill their seats and I’m standing in front of all of them with the Groom. I had transcribed the ceremony into a small, leather-bound book and hold it tightly as everyone waits for the Bride while listening to the cello and violin. Emotions are stirred until a photographer falls over into a bush, prompting scattered laughter, which I struggle to resist. Nerves begin to get the best of me, sobering me to my bones. For the rest of their lives, I will be the idiot who oversaw this most important day. Great grandchildren will see these pictures, watch these videos, and I will be some weird footnote in their lives. Then again, we’re all a weird footnote in someone’s life.