The Wedding Gig
"The Wedding Gig" is a short story by Stephen King first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in December 1980 and reprinted in its June 2004 issue.[1] It later appeared in the 1999 mystery story anthology Master's Choice, edited by Lawrence Block.[citation needed] Told from the viewpoint of a bandleader during Prohibition, the story centers around a small-time racketeer, Mike Scollay, who hires the narrator's jazz band to play at the wedding of his 300-pound sister, Maureen, and her 90-pound fiancé.At the gig, Scollay's enemy, the Greek, blackmails a man to come to the wedding reception and insult Maureen in front of the guests.The band leader is approached a short time later in a bar by Maureen, who is despondent and depressed, feeling that she caused her brother's death and is filled with self-loathing over her weight and the way she is aware other people perceiving her.