Steve leaned against the raggedy palm tree smoking a no-name cigarette, the head from his ape suit tucked under one arm. Two a.m. Some job. Public service announcements should use him in the Stay in School ads. He scratched at the fake reddish brown hair on his belly, noticed the blue Lexus idling gently in the turn lane like the driver couldn’t decide. A common occurrence at the Me Tarzan, You Jane Wedding Chapel, but the car was a real eye grabber. As was the woman behind the wheel. Parrot squawks and jungle sounds gibbered from the loudspeakers behind him as Steve waited for the driver to make a move.
Straggling tourists made their way down the sidewalk, daytimers booked into the cheap motels on the outskirts of the Vegas strip without realizing how far they had to hoof it to get to the Mirage or the Wynn. They should try it in an ape suit. Sweat trickled from his armpits, worked its way down to his heat rash. Bwana Jim, his boss, insisted Steve be out on the steaming pavement where the lovebirds could see him.
The blue car was still there, gleaming in the streetlights. A winner’s car. Didn’t see many of them around here. Last week a couple pulled up in a rusted-out Gremlin with a coat-hanger antenna. Three brats in the back and one in the bride’s tummy tum tum, the groom nervous as a live wire, ready to bolt, but the bride was built like a bulldog and kept the car keys clutched in her fist. After the ceremony they piled back into the Gremlin and Steve stood there listening to the engine grind for 10 minutes, the bride shouting over and over, “You’re flooding it, dumbass.” Put me on the jury when he goes postal someday, Steve had thought as the Gremlin lurched onto Las Vegas Boulevard, belching blue smoke. One of the kids waved and Steve had glanced around, then waved back.
Passing tourists gawked at the shiny sports car, then pointed at Steve with his ape head under his arm. A lady with a “don’t you wish you were hot, like me” T-shirt and too many trips through the $5.99 buffet line under her belt took his photo. He wanted to flip her off, but Bwana Jim said it was unprofessional.
Like witnessing quickie marriages dressed as an ape came with a health plan and a 401(k). The Lexus pulled into the parking lot, and Steve flicked the cigarette into the street, slipping on the ape head. Showtime. The woman slid out of the car. Even prettier than he first thought, a little excited, her eyes reflecting the red and green neon surrounding the wedding chapel. Nice smile too. She waved at Steve.
The man joined her, nodded at Steve. “Ungawa.”
“Save it for Bwana Jim, pal,” said Steve, voice echoing in the ape head. He lumbered toward the chapel, hunched over, knuckles grazing the ground.
The woman patted his hairy shoulder. “It’s OK, monkey boy, Terence has lived with cannibals.”
Ten minutes later the happy couple had filled out the forms, paid $75 for the ceremony, which also entitled them to the very fetching paper leopard-print sarongs and loincloths that they now wore over their clothes. Bwana Jim stood there smoothing out his bush jacket and asking if they were ready to start, but Terence kept beating his chest and giving the Tarzan yell. Every time he did, Julia smiled again, flashing those white teeth. They were both wound up, not drunk or wasted, just… giddy, falling all over themselves. Like they had been on the road for a while, CD player pounding out the tracks while the whole country just slid past, and now they were almost at the promised land.
Bwana Jim pushed back his pith helmet. The khaki shorts showed off his thin, hairless shanks. “We are gathered here together—,” he said.
Terence was quick on the draw. “I love you, Jane.”
“Thanks, Tarzan,” said Julia, “but it’s not like you have a lot of options out here in the middle of the rain forest.”
Bwana Jim ran a finger down the legal form. “Do you, Terence—?”
“I do,” Terence blurted.
Bwana Jim shrugged. “Okee-dokee, do you Julia—?”
“You do?” Julia asked. Terence nodded.
“Here?” Julia waved at the plastic vines and stalks of fake bananas surrounding the stage. “This is where you want to get married?”
“The man’s lived with cannibals, what did you expect?” Steve muttered, hopping around in a half-squat. His knees hurt.
“I thought…since we already filled out the paperwork…”
“How utterly romantic,” said Julia, her mouth a straight line.
“Dearly beloved,” said Bwana Jim, starting over.
“It was your idea,” said Terence.
“We were playing, remember?” Julia tore off her paper sarong and made for the car. Steve watched the back of her sexy head and everything else receding. “It was an impulse. A story to tell our friends afterwards,” she was saying as Terence ran after her.
“Million bucks says they never get married,” said Bwana Jim.
Steve peeled off the ape head, wiped sweat off his forehead. He saw Julia hip-check Terence, knock him off-stride, laughing as she climbed into the driver’s seat. Steve kept looking. “I’ll take that action.”