Chapel of Ease (19 page)

“That's the Durant pigsty,” C.C. said. “Anyone following us?”

I looked out the back window. It was hard to tell through the dust. “I don't think so.”

“Then our luck continues.”

The trees closed in around us again, and in the enforced dimness, he reached over and rested his hand on mine. It was only momentary, because he needed both hands to drive, but it was there. He didn't look at me, and neither of us said anything.

 

15

We got back to the Parrish farm and found only Ladonna at home, hanging laundry on a line in the side yard. “Well, where have you boys been?” she asked.

“I took Matt to see the chapel of ease,” C.C. said. “Spooked a couple of Durants.”

“Oh, good heavens, those Durants are pure white trash. Worse than the Gwinns, even. Was there any trouble?”

“No.” He looked sideways at me. “Just a few words exchanged. Sticks and stones, you know?”

“Well, that's good. We don't need no feudin' around here.”

“Mind if we help ourselves to some iced tea?”

“You go right ahead.”

I followed C.C. into the kitchen. He got two glasses, ice, and a big pitcher from the refrigerator. After he poured, he called, “Thorn? You back there?” When there was no response, he said, “You can understand why I don't want to talk where someone can hear.”

I took a long swallow, grateful for the drink. “Yeah.”

He didn't look at me when he said, “Not a lot of people know about me.”

“Doesn't seem like the easiest place to live out in the open.”

“No. Are you…?”

“Out? Yeah.”

He still didn't look at me. “Can you keep quiet about me?”

“Sure. I don't want to hurt you.”

“I appreciate that.” Finally, he looked at me across the table. “It was nice.”

“Yeah.”

“I wish you were in town for longer.”

“Me, too.”

I waited to see if he would say, or do, anything else, but he just turned to look out the window. I guessed that was that. I got out my phone and checked the signal, but there was still nothing. My hand still shook a little bit, but the adrenaline from the confrontation was fading at last, leaving me with that numb postcrisis feeling. I almost laughed out loud. I wanted to call my dad and tell him, then thank him for that long-ago decision. It had saved my ass more than once in New York, but never with guns involved. He'd be so proud. And then I had to call my teacher, Master Tracy, and let him know how well it had gone. “Might for right!” was the affirmation he taught us, and this had surely been that.

I said, “Hey, I hate to ask for another favor after the last one, but could you run me into town? Or anywhere I can get a cell phone signal?”

C.C. put down his tea. “Sure. I'll buy you lunch at the Fast Grab.”

I laughed at the name. “What's that?”

“It's the convenience store. They have picnic tables outside. It's all we've got since the Catamount Corner closed down. They used to have a nice little café.”

We both looked up as music began just outside. I followed C.C. to the living room and we peered out through the screen door.

Someone new sat on the porch with Ladonna and Thorn. He strummed a guitar, Thorn tapped on a bongo-style drum, and Ladonna sang in a pure, high voice that might've been the cleanest mezzo-soprano I'd ever heard.

They hadn't been a week from her,

A week but barely three,

When word came to the carlin wife

That her three sons were gone.

I wish the wind may never cease,

Nor worries in the flood,

Till my three sons come hame to me,

In earthly flesh and blood.

It was impossible to hear this without thinking of Ray, and I wondered if this was part of her mourning process. I'd really never thought about the way a parent would feel if her child died; none of my close friends were parents. But the ache and sadness in Ladonna's voice told me exactly what she was feeling, with a directness I didn't expect. Even the bright summer sun blasting on the yard couldn't overcome it.

Not that Ladonna was breaking down. She held her chin high, her eyes open and clear, her voice full and strong and perfectly controlled. It wasn't in the singing, and it wasn't in the song, but in the ineffable way they all combined to create the immediate experience. The music carried the ache of the missing, and it touched me in a way nothing had at the wake.

When they finished, we clapped and C.C. let out an approving whistle. That seemed awfully casual for what we'd just heard, but when they all turned to look at us, none of them seemed offended.

“How long y'all been standing there?” Ladonna said.

“Long enough,” C.C. answered.

“Matt,” Ladonna said, indicating the guitarist, “this is Don Swayback, from the newspaper over in Unicorn. He wanted to talk to you a bit about Rayford.”

“I met him last night at the wake. How are you, Mr. Swayback?”

“Good, but please, call me Don.” He put his guitar in its case. “Ladonna, I hate to break this off, but I have to go on the clock or ol' Sam will have me writing nothing but obituaries again. It's been a pure pleasure, though.”

“You know it,” Ladonna said. “You come back anytime, Don.”

He nodded at Thorn. “And Miss Parrish, always a pleasure.”

“Likewise, Mr. Swayback,” she said with a smile.

I opened the door and he entered, propping his guitar case against the wall. He said, “C.C., you reckon you could give me and Matt here a little privacy for this?”

“Sure,” he said. “I'll go rustle up Gerald, see if he needs any help with anything.”

After he left, I said, “Come on, I guess we can use the kitchen.”

Don followed me. I took the liberty of pouring him a glass of tea. We sat down across the table, and he took out one of those narrow little reporter's notebooks. “You don't record things?” I asked.

“There's only one thing worse than attending a county board meeting, and that's having to listen to it again later. I use notes; I'm pretty good at getting the quotes accurate. And this is a feature, not a news piece, so I'm not out to rake anyone over the coals.”

“That's good,” I said, and laughed a little nervously. “So where will this article show up?”

“In the paper, and on the Web site. Web site's just for subscribers, though, so it won't be a big circulation either way. Sorry.”

“No, that's fine, I just wanted to know.”

His pen poised over the notebook, he asked, “So how did you meet Rayford Parrish?”

“We're starting? Okay. I met Ray”—again I was careful not to use his hick name—“when he called me to come audition for his show,
Chapel of Ease.
He'd seen me in another play, and liked my performance.”

“And what was your first impression of him?”

I wanted to be on my guard against manipulation, but really, all I could do was trust: I'd be long gone by the time the story appeared, and reporters could twist facts to suit agendas just like actors could cry on command. I resolved, then, to be honest, so that at least I'd have a clear conscience about what I'd said.

“He was kind of goofy,” I said. “Theater encourages people to be enthusiastic, especially about their own work, but Ray was just … he was happy about everything. Every aspect of the show: the music, the dancing, the rehearsals. He'd been struggling to get a show that was entirely
his
off the ground for a while. He'd written songs for other people's shows, but this was the first time the music, the lyrics, the book, were all him, and he was determined to make it the absolute best they could be. Still, I only saw him get testy once.”

“And when was that?”

“When everyone demanded he tell them something about the script that he didn't want to tell.”

“And what was that?”

Oh boy. I wondered if he knew, and had simply maneuvered me into this position, or if I'd been so eager to talk that I'd just run headlong into it myself. “Well … can it be off the record?”

He shrugged and put down his pen. “Sure.”

“The play is about a ruined church. A chapel of ease. Do you know about it?”

“I know what one is.”

“Did you know there's one here?”

He looked dubious. “A church? In Cloud County?”

“It's there. I saw it a couple of hours ago.”

“Where?”

“Beats me. C.C. took me there. It was on land owned by the Durant family.”

“Ah, that explains it. Most people wouldn't go near their place. You know those old stories about revenuers who went up into the hills and never came out? The Durants may have invented that.”

I did know about revenuers, but only from the play. “Well, I saw the actual church Ray wrote the story about.”

“What is the story? Oh, and can this be back on the record?”

“Sure. Sometime during the Civil War, a couple named Byrda and Shad were in love, but he went off to fight. His best friend stuck around. When Shad came back, he asked Byrda to marry him, and she agreed, but something had happened while he was gone. She buried something in the floor of the chapel, and then Shad was killed by his best friend, who was actually in love with him.”

Swayback's eyebrows rose. “In love with
him
?”

“They had gay people back then, you know.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, it's just … a surprise.”

I could tell what he wanted to ask. “Ray wasn't gay.”

“I never thought he was.”

“Did you know him?”

“No, but that sort of thing … Well, there aren't a lot of secrets around here. Everyone knows everyone else's business.”

I wondered how many knew about C.C. “And they don't approve?”

“They don't care either way. It might not look that way from the outside, what with everyone having the same hair and everything, but this is a whole culture of iconoclasts. The rule is, mind your own business and let the other fella do his thing. Even,” he said with a wry little smile, “if that thing is other fellas.”

“Really?” I said, and made no effort to hide my dubiousness. I'd just that very morning heard the Durants call C.C. and me faggots.

“I know what you're thinking. And of course, there are some people here who have issues with it. But I think you'll find for the most part that the Tufa, certainly the ones that came to Rayford's wake, believe in letting people be who they are.”

I remembered C.C.'s “other side” comment, but decided to let it drop; after all, I'd be leaving in two days. I said, “Is there more you wanted to know about Ray?”

“Actually, yes. What do you think Rayford Parrish was trying to say with his play?”

This was the sort of question I might get asked about any show, and I knew just how to respond, since Neil had given us “approved verbiage” for just this sort of thing. “That depends on the playgoer. We all imagine something different buried in the chapel, and what we imagine determines what the play means.”

He looked at me with another sly smile. “That's a canned answer, isn't it?”

“Well, you asked a clichéd question.”

“Fair enough. How about this one: What's your favorite memory of Rayford?”

That one took me aback. I thought about our coffee dates, our lunches, the times he'd joked, a bit cruelly but never maliciously, about some of the other actors. He'd told me things about Emily that would make her turn so red, we'd see the glow from here. And yet …

“I think it was the first time I met him. I came in for an audition, and I already knew the director, but I'd never met Ray before. He played piano while I sang, which is kind of unusual for the composer to do. And when he played, there was just this immediate connection. Like he somehow knew exactly what I was going to do with my voice, and exactly how best to support it. Does that make sense?”

Don smiled, that same damn secretive, knowing little grin I'd started to notice on a lot of Tufa faces. “That makes perfect sense. You know, I'm only part Tufa, and for a long time I didn't acknowledge it. Then one day, I pulled my old guitar out of the closet, and it was like … coming home. The music was the only way I could really be myself. I'm sure Rayford felt that way, too, and that he really enjoyed sharing it with you.” He paused, then asked, “So do you think the show will be successful?”

“Well, the reviews are spectacular.”

“Reviews? I thought it hadn't opened yet.”

“We did the press preview the night before Ray died.”

“Did he see it?”

“Yes. He died later that night.”

He let out a low whistle. “Ain't that some irony.”

“Yeah.”

“But how do
you
feel about it? Especially now, without Ray there?”

Boy, this guy was good. Carefully, I said, “It really means a lot to me. Singing his songs means a lot, too. Watching how they work on people. Almost like—” I stopped before I said “magic,” realizing how lame it would sound.

Don closed his notebook. “Don't be afraid of saying what you know is true,” he said. “Especially around here. Nobody'll laugh at you.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

“Oh, and C.C.? He's a good guy. Better than most, in fact. Anything he tells you, you can believe.”

I glanced at his hand; he wore a wedding band. He also seemed very familiar with Thorn, which I knew wasn't mutually exclusive with the ring. But now he spoke about C.C. as if he was very familiar with him as well. Was it the same kind of familiarity, or just the friendship bred of being from the same isolated little town? Or was my big-city cynicism, so used to seeing sexual indiscretions everywhere, simply imagining things?