I had to go into that building to get my Marriage License. Even though I had once been a Tour Guide in City Hall, I got lost. The Marriage License Bureau was down in the basement, at the end of a long corridor of unfinished concrete. A lonely, bored, cranky, clerk peered out of the darkness at me, took my money, and stamped some papers. Then she told me to get on the train and go to Boston City Hospital’s STD Clinic to get a free blood test.
Perhaps they thought it was “Progressive” to discourage such an antiquated institution as MARRIAGE. In any case, it wasn’t very “festive” at all. I was made to feel as though I was doing something clandestine and shameful.
Of course, I was dressed like a hippy, so there was that.
“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”