“No, I can’t wait. Please get up. Please let’s do it now.” I picked up a pair of cotton underpants from the floor and put them on. I picked up a white satin slip and pulled it over my head. He reached out and pulled me into the bed and climbed on top of me. “Move,” he said. “See if you can move.”

“I want to have ten sons who look like you. Ten tall sons to carry my coffin to the grave.”

“Why do you always talk about dying?” He got up and stood beside the bed. “You’re only twenty years old.”

“I can’t help it. That’s how I think.”

“Don’t get your feelings hurt. I’m getting dressed. Come on, see if you still have the license. You didn’t lose it, did you?”

“No, it’s right here. I have it here.” I pulled the license out of my pocketbook and read it. He came and stood beside me. We moved into each other’s arms. Electromagnetism, Aphrodite, sun-spots, whatever explains such things.

“Do you want to get breakfast first?”

“No. I want to be the first person married today in South Carolina or in the world.”

“Okay, get dressed. Let’s go.”

* * *

The sheriff of Milan County had bought a pickup truck and a motorboat with the money he had made performing marriages on weekends, he later told us. Ten dollars here, five dollars there. It added up.

“Come on in,” he said. “Have a seat while I round up the bailiff. He likes to be my witness. Well, you got a pretty day for it. I’ll say that. How old are you?”

“I’m twenty,” I said. “He’ll be twenty next month.”

“Marrying an older woman. You both from Atlanta?”

“We go to school there.” Malcolm shook hands solemnly with the sheriff and handed him the license.

“That will be twenty-five dollars,” the sheriff said and Malcolm got out the money and handed it to him.

“We could let Denise witness it, if we can’t find Bobby. There he is. Come on in, Robert. They’re chomping at the bit to say the vows. Come on in. Stand by her, boy, that’s the way. Take her hand. You got the ring?”

“I’ve got it,” I said and produced it from my pocket and gave it to Malcolm. I had been wearing it off and on for days.