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Paddy's Pub
10:30 am, on a Monday
The gang sat at the bar while Dee wiped glasses humorlessly. "Have you guys seen Charlie anywhere? The toilet's been overflowing for an hour and he really needs to deal with it."
Just then, Charlie burst into the bar, slamming the door open and dropping a pile of mail to the floor, waving one envelope in the air.
"This is the greatest day of my life! Frank, we're going to Hawaii!"
"I'm not going anywhere," Frank replied. "Islands have diseases . Little island children come steal your wallet and replace it with a piece of cardboard full of AIDS."
The bar was silent as they all stared. "Frank, that is not remotely how AIDS works," Dee spat.
"I won a gay honeymoon sweepstakes," said Charlie. "I entered while me and Frank were married. Come on Frank, I can't cash this in without a gay marriage."
"AIDS wallets, Charlie." Frank got up and walked away, muttering.
"Okay, well if Frank won't do it, who will? Dennis, will you gay marry me?"
"No way, Charlie, I'm done with marriage. Forever." Dennis shuddered.
Mac put his hands up defensively. "You know how I feel about gay marriage, Charlie, so don't even fucking look at me."
Charlie rolled his eyes. "It's a free trip to Hawaii! We could catch sand crabs and drink their delicious nectar! You just scoop them up and smash them with hammers!"
"I'll gay marry you," said Dee from behind the bar. "But first, go fix the fucking toilet."
"Charlie and Dee Get Gay Married"
[ theme music plays]
*****
"You can't gay marry Dee, Charlie, she's a girl."
"It's the perfect plan, Dennis. We just tell them I'm a girl too."
"What?"
"No, Charlie, we're telling them that I'm a boy. It's more believable."
Dennis and Mac stared at her, looked back at each other, then back at her. "Why is it okay if you say it but if we say it you throw bottles at us?"
She picked up a bottle from behind the bar and glared. They shrunk back.
"There's a three day waiting period for a marriage license. We just have to go apply for it today, go to the courthouse Thursday, and Friday we're in Hawaii!"
"Which hammer should I bring?" Charlie asked. He picked up a wooden mallet. "I feel like this one has the best surface area for smashing crabs but it doesn't have the follow through of the steel model." He hefted a ball-peen hammer in his other hand. "Do they let you bring hammers in your carry-on? What if I tell them it's for crabs?"
"Charlie, I've never heard of sand crab juice, and I think you'll have to check your...bag of hammers," Dee replied, wincing. "They're not going in my bag. I'm bringing six bikinis, my diaphragm, and a gallon of baby oil." She tossed her hair. "I'm getting tanned and I'm getting laid, bitches."
"I know you're going to have to check the baby oil," added Mac.
Just then, the phone at the bar rang. Dee answered it. "Hello, Paddy's Pub. Why yes, I am Dee Reynolds...you're doing a story? For the Philadelphia Herald? About the gay honeymoon sweepstakes winners?" She gulped. "Yes," she said in a high-pitched and seductive voice. "We are available to be interviewed."
*****
"Hello Carmen? This is Dee Reynolds. How did I get this number? Didn't you give it to me? You didn't? Well, that's not important. I had a few questions for you..."
*****
"I'm Dee Reynolds, and this is my wife, Charlie," Dee said, shoving Charlie forward to shake the reporter's hand.
"How do you do, my lord," Charlie said. She elbowed him, hard. "That's domestic violence and I don't have to take it!" he whipped around, pointing at her.
"The hormones make me so volatile, I'm so sorry," Dee said, trying to cover, turning him back around.
"I'm a transgenderist," Charlie volunteered, sneaking a look at the notes he had written on his hand.
"What Charlie means to say is that I'm transgender. I have a cadaver penis," Dee said, leaning forward as if to break the news to the reporter.
"I was the penis donor," Charlie added.
Dee turned and stared at him. "Charlie, sweetie..."
"It was in very good condition," he continued. "Hardly ever used. My lord, do you want to see the hammer collection I will be bringing on our gay honeymoon in Hawaii?"
"I'm...not a lord," the reporter said, looking at the two of them with confusion. "Are you sure I'm in the right place?"
Frank wandered into the bar from the back office. "Husband stealer," he said accusingly at Dee. "I hope you get a purse full of AIDS." He opened a bottle of hand sanitizer, drank out of it, then turned and left. The reporter made a note in his notebook.
Dee slammed the rest of the beer in front of her. "I assure you, we're in love."
*****
“Your honor, we need one gay marriage, please,” Charlie said to the woman behind the counter.
“Sir, I’m not actually the judge. So you’re applying for a marriage license?”
“A gay marriage certificate,” Dee interjected.
The clerk glared at them over the top of her glasses. “It’s the same form. I need a check for $60 and your ID. Fill this out.” She handed them a clipboard. They peered over it and walked back to sit down.
“What’s your full name?” Dee asked.
“Hoss Bonaventure,” Charlie replied.
“I’m not putting Hoss Bonaventure on our gay marriage certificate. What’s your real middle name?”
“I don’t have one. My mom forgot to fill out that part of the birth certificate. It was supposed to be Diana though. You know, Prince Charles, Princess Diana. She had it all thought out.”
Dee just looked at him strangely and kept filling out the form.
“So if we’re supposed to be a gay couple, do I put us down as both women or both men?”
“Did you know that sand crabs don’t have gender? They just mingle their fluids to reproduce.”
“You’re really fixated on this crab thing, aren’t you.”
“They’re nature’s candy.”
*****
Dee frantically dug through her wardrobe, looking for something to wear to the courthouse.
"I don't approve of this," Mac said accusingly.
"I don't care what you think," Dee said. "I just need you to drive me there in Dennis's car."
She withdrew a white cocktail dress, a harness, and a dildo. "Perfect."
*****
“Do you,” the justice of the peace said, squinting at the paperwork they had handed her, “...Kelly, take...Reynold? Ronald? to have and to hold, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” they both said.
“I’m Kelly,” said Charlie.
“Who’s Ronald?” Dee asked.
“I’m just trying to read what you gave me. Do you, Ronald, take Kelly to have and to hold, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
“Why did you change it up? Why did you add the death part?” Dee asked.
“Just answer the question. Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. By the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I pronounce you married. You may now kiss.”
Dee and Charlie looked at each other. “Sand crabs,” Dee mouthed to Charlie. He gulped and nodded. They kissed, first awkwardly, but then relaxed into it.
Breaking apart, Dee gave Charlie a soft look. “Thanks for laying off the cat food.”
“Thanks for getting an erection, just for me.”
The justice cleared her throat. “Okay, I’ll witness your signatures and you’ll be done. Sign here.”
“Don’t mind if I do, madam.” Charlie made an extravagant show of scrawling his X on the line with a flourish and then bowed over the document. Dee signed it too, her dick bobbing under her dress.
“Next in line!” she called as they left the courthouse, hand in hand.
*****
“Oh goddammit! What do you mean we’re not eligible for the gay honeymoon prize?” Dee shouted. “Look at my massive penis!” She gestured to her pelvis.
“That’s the thing,” the man in the suit said. “Our underwriters saw the article in the paper and were concerned you didn’t meet our criteria. Looking at your marriage license, it clearly shows Kelly Charles, female, and Reynold Deandra, male.”
“So I filled out the form backwards, what does that matter?” Dee asked.
“First of all, that Charles Kelly entered the contest. If you’re not Charles Kelly and your husband isn’t Frank Reynolds, then we can’t give you the prize. It was open to any self-identified LGBTQ married couple of any kind, but it’s not transferrable.”
“This is an outrage! You are transmisophilists! You are prejudiced against the transgender community.” Charlie stood up, sputtering.
“Yes, I am calling my fellow transgender woman friend to report you to the...board,” Dee said. She picked up her phone and dialed Carmen’s number.
On a beach in Hawaii, Carmen and her husband sat drinking cocktails out of coconut shells and admiring the scuttle of the sand crabs. Her phone rang: she looked at it.
“Who is it?” her husband asked.
She hit a button to silence the phone. “Eh, nobody I want to talk to while I’m on my honeymoon.”