White Wedding

White Wedding – Billy Idol

'Ahem… Uhhhh… Well… Yeah… I guess… I mean, yes… I do. I do.' His dandelion mustache trembling, the boy strings the words together much in the manner his prospected spouse used to take her birth control pills: irregular, absentminded and strangely convinced that, if you just make sure to finish the strip at some point, all will be well. His fiancee is clutching the wedding bouquet her mother purchased from one of the smooth operators standing day in, day out, at the base of the steps outside the New York City Marriage Bureau, selling (and, on bad catch days, reselling) posies for fifteen bucks.
The will-be groom's suit itches. Any sudden movement might urge his imminent stepfather in law to seize him by the collar of his borrowed attire lest he make a run for it. So instead of scratching, he studies his immobile feet, cemented in the floor of the Marriage Bureau like a Mafioso about to sleep with the fishes.

The registrar wipes his brow, simultaneously glancing at his watch. He is sweating profusely; little streams of wet salt trickle down his chest and settle, for now, in the basin of his belly button. Somehow the conditioned air in the Marriage Bureau never seems to reach the little white alcove that is impersonating a small town wedding chapel. Just off the spacious main entrance hall, its dimmed lights, white curtains, candelabras and all the near-intimacy in the world can't hide the fact that The New York City Marriage Bureau churns out a fresh Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So roughly every 10 minutes. That's 42 wedding albums a day (210 a week; 10,920 a year) filled with pictures featuring the alcove and the outside steps and the Bureau's brick walls.
The registrar finds some relief in the triple mint gum he has been chewing since he directed his first ceremony of today. People never comment on the drudgery his jaws deliver with the vows uniting them till death do them part, he ponders. Couples getting married at the Marriage Bureau tend to be quite modest when it comes to expectations on the part of his performance. The registrar's main concern is not with them, but with the precious minutes leaking from each ceremony like the brackish drops that ooze from his pores. He looks out the alcove and into the Bureau lobby, at the next couple already waiting to be served; a blissful looking middle aged duo surrounded by boisterous friends, number 17 today. Better wrap things up.

My sweetheart and I are sitting in front of one of the computers in the center of Marriage Bureau entrance hall that are poking each other in the ribs like a huddle of wired bridesmaids bracing themselves for any incoming bouquets. We are applying for a marriage license, and vaguely consider the possibility of getting married right here, at the Bureau; all it takes is a 24 hour wait and an appointment. It's cheap (a total sum of $ 60: $ 35 to apply for a marriage license, another $ 25 for a ceremony, performed by an appointed official), quick, and painless – we remind ourselves that romance is dead, anyway. After we get a number to have our application certified and bonafide by one of the Office of the City Clerks, we take a quick look around.
If marriage is an institution, the New York City Marriage Bureau is its undisputed headquarters. From the first line you stumble into upon entering the neo renaissance hall (to state your affairs); via the line for the computers (to apply for your license); down to waiting your turn for the City Clerks (to complete your application), and the final queue for the actual institutionalization; along the way, everyone’s love story is minced in the meat grinder of bureaucracy. This morning, there is a hive of shotgun, tourist and drunken monkey weddings to be performed, already buzzing around the entrance hall, and peeping into the make-believe wedding chapel; as morning grinds to afternoon, they slowly make way for the low budgeters, third timers, and elopers who'll start bustling in around lunch time.

For a city where the pursuit of individual happiness reigns supreme, a whopping average of 182 marriages are performed every day, adding up to a solid 66,483 mutual 'I do's in 2007 alone. Promising enough, the state of New York can boast the country's third lowest divorce rates (with 8.1% in 2008, only in New Jersey and North Dakota do couples stick together better). We decide that romance isn't dead, after all. Not only is it very much alive; it is calling out our number. Next! (We decide to get married somewhere – anywhere! - else in the city, where there are bound to be fewer strangers, no lines and only one bride around. Well, anywhere but the Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn.)

'By the power invested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife,' the registrar brings the ceremony to a close. He slams his folder shut. The groom's wistful upper lip jumps to attention. He may kiss his bride. Should he use his tongue? Or just give her a quick peck? How does one go about these things? His girl looks at him, blushing. She tilts her head, expecting once more. Where does he put his hands? He should have thought this through! Too late now. He closes his eyes and lunges. The mother of the bride, too, shuts her eyes, in reluctant anticipation: the inevitable clatter of teeth will make for a clanking first toast to their happy ever after.

Dear Doctor

Dear Doctor – The Rolling Stones

Instant nausea. Sweating. God, can I sweat. My mouth is watering. I need to throw up, there's no way around it. Only thing is: I am afraid to even blink, let alone heave. Standing between me and a purifying round of projectile vomiting is the metal instrument that, from the feel of it, is trying to stab my frontal lobe to shreds by way of my right ear. The doctor at the other end of the stick is trying hard – sweat on his brow, too – to scrape a full summer's worth of caked ear wax out of my head. His assistant, a worrisome twenty-something, is holding up an awkward looking, '80s desk lamp to my right lobe, her eyes shut tight against the bright light. Or maybe she's trying to shield her innocence against the clotty mess the doctor is hauling out of my ear with grim resolve – brains and all, if necessary. I press my nails into my palms and sit quiet as a mouse – well, I am squealing like a piglet getting a shave, obviously, but without so much as a whisker twitching.

Out of 30,085 (give or take) practicing physicians in New York City (says NYC.com) I have dug up one right around the corner from our place, on West 97th Street. Or rather, I have found two: one general practitioner and one gastroenterologist sharing a practice. It's open for consultation, all day long, the lady on the phone reassures me. In a long, healthy family tradition I have waited to see a doctor until my loved ones couldn't stand my pseudo-brave litanies ('Really, I'm feeling much better – Don't touch it!! What, are you crazy?!') any longer. Last straw is the moment I whine out loud on how our apartment seems drenched in stale French cheese for three continuing weeks now – and my sweetheart delicately (and from a considerable distance) points out that really, I am the only one actually smelling Camembert where ever I turn to the right and maybe, just maybe, is it possible that the smell is coming from inside my own head? There is no further denying: I am suffering from a bad case of cheese-ear and it's not going to heal on its own. To the doctor's it is.

The doctor's office is fitted with four rows of tepid smelling patients, some moaning softly, some explaining in assiduous Spanish why they really, seriously should see the doctor right now. Either of them. The desk ladies are in perfect control of everything, except of the incessant tears streaming down the face of one of them, a tremendous ruin of a woman. In between the friendly and firmly directing of patients back to their seats and the copying of identity cards, nameless rivers are leaking from her crushed face. Every time the phone rings, she resolutely addresses herself in Spanish, snorts and answers in a tone that is just a bit too bold, 'Doctor X and Y's office, how can I help you!' She listens, answers in Spanish and sometimes in English, hangs up the phone and buries her crumpled face in her plump hands once more.

Then she looks up, sighs, and calls out my name. Do I have insurance? Of course I do, I nod confidently as I flash my Dutch Achmea World Health Insurance Card. The desk lady and I both stare hopefully at the plastic card for a bit, as if, any second, it can transform into an exotic doctor who will magically heal my cheese-ear and whisk her away from her tear stained life, to a place where everything is good and beautiful and well insured. No such luck. The lady sighs again, then smiles and says: 'Do you have anything else on you?' Not yet, I start valiantly, but you see, as soon as I am registered as a legal partner I will be added onto my sweetheart's insurance. So I do not have any actual health insurance in the US, at this moment? Well… I can't just be tucked away into the line of 46.3 million Americans without any kind of health insurance (says the U.S. Census Bureau, statistics 2008), can I? 'You know what, dear', the lady solves any upcoming am-to, am-not insured debate, 'what if I make a copy of your ID and enter that into our system for now, and you can go see the doctor for 110 dollars. Once you are insured, you will be reimbursed for the money.' And so it is done.

So here I am, in a pretty bad state. Without puking, or moving, for I am sure this doctor will not hesitate to yank my sense of humor out through my ear, for all the world to see. His private office forces itself upon the corners of my eyes: a row of peculiarly put up – for every single one is askew at the exact same angle – paintings (crying Gypsy boy, ocean panorama, still life with fruit), dust flecks on the carefully slanted frames. Stacks of papers on the desk, the floor, the window sills, the bookcase, the relentlessly patched up upholstered chair.
On a wash table coated with a determined grease film, a glass jar filled with surgical instruments. No two minutes ago the doctor, using his pen, pulled the metal stick that is now jammed down my ear from that same jar. On a coffee table next to the door are a couple of happy family pictures: the doctor, his arms around two successful looking young men; a little girl on a swing. Not a glove in sight. Or a professional examination lamp, for that matter – hence the assistant. Next to me lies the full scale model ear the doctor used to explain what he had in store for me. 'Ay theenk you hab ay sure-o-money infection, si, and plus a regular eer infection, tambien', he declares after a whiff of my ear. 'Forst, I wheel take out dee eer wax, and after, wee will see. I know dat aroma, ha ha! Dat aroma ees classico!' We both laugh.

That was ten minutes ago. As it is, the doctor is using one leg to brace himself against the examination table; his free hand freeze-fixes my head as he is rummaging around my most inner thoughts. Suddenly, with a horribly smacking plorp sound, he pulls back his arm. He almost trips, grabs his perplexed assistant by the head to steady himself, lets out a breath of relief and says, 'Bueno! Dat ies part one!' Another ten minutes and one woozy ear flush session later, I am back in the lobby, clutching a prescription for antibiotics and one for eardrops – to cure both my regular ear infection and my additional Pseudomonas infection – and a check-up appointment in ten days. I leave behind my inner beauty in a metal dish: a pestilent, pungent nugget in stark yellow and clotted red. Nice.