Meanwhile, we stand in a lengthening line.  A smiling, hesitant woman behind us holds a bunch of magenta tulips.  She hands half of them to me.  We had time to plan exactly this much -- stopped at Safeway, she says.  As if our tribe – members unknown to each other, from all over Oregon, and from other states too – rose up on a whim and converged to elope together.  Spontaneous combustion.  All fired off on a shotgun wedding.  A sudden, heady impulse to head down to City Hall and tie the knot when, as in our case, we’ve been heart-marrow-soul committed to each other for 15 years.  You can’t rush these things, as we joke with our next-in-lines once we get talking.  They are a high-school teacher (with the flowers) and medical technician (her shy partner); they’ve been together for 12 years. 

I’m probably not the only one with an eerie, what-if-we’re-let-in-the-front-door-then-whisked-out-back-into-the-waiting-trains feeling.  We’re queers, after all, one of the many groups in this world who never stand far from what’s-going-to-happen?  Like the Jews and the Gypsies and the disabled people, Hitler stitched us with stars.  And our knowledge of history “out there” echoes against what we carry “in here”—topics of conversation in therapists’ calm offices.  Most of us always have that worst, worm-eaten, long-ago driven-deep shame to contend with:  something really wrong with you, dyke, butch, lesbo, queer, fag, fairy.  Oh fairies, be with us now, help us out here: I do believe.  I do, I do. 

So with insides like ours, who needs hecklers?  And the hecklers so common to these scenarios (although fortunately, none are up so early this morning) – the ones with the signs and potty-mouths, God hates you fags and whatnot – what insides do they have to live with?  Or for that matter, what God?  Where on earth did they find a God like that?  A counter-heckler–that is, a supporter–will be photographed later the same day, standing outside the Multnomah County building with a big sign, GOD HATES SHRIMP, citing chapter and verse in Deuteronomy.  Or we might bring up other biblical strictures:  NEITHER SHALL A GARMENT MIXED OF LINEN AND WOOLEN COME UPON THEE.  Dual-fiber apparel is a big no-no in Leviticus 19, but how many lose sleep over it?  Even for the righteous, times change; or they should go picket a clothing store or a seafood restaurant and be consistent.  Two verses earlier the book says, THOU SHALT NOT HATE THY NEIGHBOR IN THY HEART.

Eventually the plate-glass doors open.  At 7:45 we begin to shuffle in eager, dazed lines from desk clerk to license forms to long tables set up for signing, which must be done just so, with no crossing-out.  Valerie, a “Basic Rights” volunteer with flowered mini-skirt and twinkling eyes, helps our table of 30 or so spike-heeled, buzz-cut, mascara-lashed, Birkenstocked, totally heterogeneous homosexuals through the suddenly heart-stopping process of putting pen to paper.  We want this to stick, to work, to be legal.  What if we make a mistake, do it wrong?  Misspell your mother’s maiden name, my dad’s birthplace?  And a slip of the Bic fucks up our document?  After who knows, 2000 years of waiting for our rights, or 2500 -- when was Sappho exactly?  Or maybe Sappho just wasn’t the marrying kind. 

Listen, Valerie is saying, This is important: one of you HAS to be the bride and one HAS to be the groom.  You can’t just cross that part out.  Like lots of couples, we flip a penny for it.  Abe Lincoln decides that I’m the groom.  Dianne’s the bride.  I do my best not to lord it over her. 

Weirdly, the form actually puts it thus: 

_____________  Bride.  (Sex:  Male ___ / Female ___)

_____________  Groom.  (Sex:  Male ___ / Female ___)

Yes, we’re told, these are the forms they’ve always used.  They haven’t been altered for this occasion.  Dianne says, Probably some fey clerk in the 1930s was having a giggle on the state, and they never changed it. 

Young Valerie, like our second-grade teacher, looks over our shoulders, makes sure the right words go on the right lines.  Patient, cheerful.  Valerie, thank you for helping us.