Big Bash at Billy's Place

For First Brother, a daughter's wedding becomes a work of art

TIME Correspondent Stanley Cloud has covered Jimmy Carter and his clan for nearly three years. Last week there was a wedding in the family, and Cloud was in Georgia for the event. His report:

Two Styrofoam swans, in full ostrich-feather plumage, floated serenely in the swimming pool, flanked by bouquets of roses and magnolia blossoms, at Billy Carter's place north of Plains. To the strains of the wedding march, Billy and his daughter Jana strode over a bridge built across the pool for the occasion. The bride wore white. Billy outdid the swans in his ruffled shirt and his pale, cream-colored tuxedo with brown piping and a broad brown stripe down each trouser leg. His hair is rapidly turning gray now, and he wept a little as he gave his 18-year-old daughter away to 19-year-old Johnny Theus, who works in an Americus mobile-home factory.

The President was there, with the First Lady and First Child. So were 1,000 or so other folks. In the background were the rolling farm land and pine forests of south Georgia. In the foreground was Billy's new and modest mansion, 19 long miles from Plains, a kind of post-bellum Tara, built out of brick and grit and Billy's determination to be an altogether different sort of person from his brother.

There were a few who were not there.

The White House press corps, by and large, was not. Cousin Hugh Carter, who had just published a gossipy little book called Cousin Beedie and Cousin Hot, which prompted Billy to describe Hugh as "a self-made son of a bitch," was in San Francisco. And where was Sister Gloria, who prefers to march to her own drummer? Billy exhaled some cigarette smoke, sucked on his beer can and said, "How do I know? You know I haven't spoken to Gloria in 2 1/2 years."

It didn't matter. Billy was in his element, reveling in himself, his nouveau wealth, his friends--good ole boys and all --and the members of his family about whom he still cares. Actually Billy cares about a lot of people and things, but he chooses, for reasons Freud could explain even if Billy could not, to express his caring through outrageous behavior and flamboyantly bad taste. Jana's wedding was more than simply a wedding: it was Billy's great work of art, his moment of total self-expression.

From the isolated knoll on which his house is perched, one can scan the Georgia countryside. Billy wanted to be alone with his family when Plains became a place to see, and now he is. For the wedding, cars jammed the farm land below the house, and vans hauled guests up the hill. Beyond the pool were tables of food (roast beef, lobster balls) and booze (California pink champagne, Blue Nun wine, Billy Beer and gallons of harder stuff). A large aluminum boat was packed with ice and jammed with wine and champagne.

Not until after the Rev. Earl Duke had said "I now pronounce you man and wife" and the last strains of organ music had faded, did it start to rain. Everybody ran for cover, the ladies lifting their long dresses to avoid splattering them with red mud. In 30 or 40 minutes the skies began to clear. "It's stopped raining," the President announced. As if on signal, people began to return to poolside.

But Jimmy Carter evidently sensed that something was wrong and that he was it. After a respectable interval, he and Rosalynn and Amy said their goodbyes and headed home hi their limousine. Now the real party could begin. The country-music band started to saw away. Some of the teen-agers complained that pot had been forbidden and so went after the booze as a poor substitute. Billy ripped off his tie and jacket and continued the binge that had begun the night before when he had thrown a party for 800 people at the local Best Western motel.

At the wedding, the drinkers went at it as if they were in a contest. Within an hour, 85 cases of beer had been consumed. Within two hours, the boat full of wine and champagne was empty. The glasses became scarce and people started drinking what was left directly from the bottles. They whooped and cheered and sang --and the sound rolled over the farm land that somehow had created it all.

A full moon hung in a damp mist overhead. Country-and-Western Singer Tom T. Hall sang at poolside. "Whisky's too rough," he sang, "champagne costs too much ... as a matter of fact, I like beer." The guests cheered. The mother of the bride joined Tom T. Hall, and they sang a duet. "It may be peanuts to you," they warbled, "but it's love to us."

Finally, the party was ending. But not for Billy. He and a few friends drove over to the Best Western where a free bar had been set up. Everyone was tired. For the most part they drank silently. When he had had enough, Billy went home to bed. By the time he awoke, his brother, the President, was long gone from Plains, headed for an appearance in Tennessee.

Billy was alone again.

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