by Alex Bledsoe
That caught me off guard. “Well … Ray was my friend.”
“Ray was my friend, too, but I’m in no hurry to run around Tennessee with his hick family.”
“But you were going to go,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound like an adolescent whine.
“Sure, because I felt like it was my responsibility.”
“Well, now it’s not your problem.”
“Don’t get smug. Maybe you’re the toughest fag in Manhattan, but it won’t stop a bullet. And everybody down there carries a gun, remember?”
“You really think someone will try to shoot me just because I’m gay?”
“I know what Ray told me. I’d prefer not to send you in the same way, and for the same reasons, that I’d never send Jason.” Jason, of course, was black.
“Well, I’m not worried. I’ll get a hotel room, keep to myself, and only show up for the funeral. It’s not like I’ll be out barhopping.”
“No,” Neil said knowingly, “you’ll be out chapel-searching.”
I said nothing, but felt my cheeks burn.
“I’m as curious as any of you,” Neil continued. “Maybe more, since I’ve been working with Ray on the story for so long. But whatever’s buried in the chapel of ease is not worth risking your life for. Knowing it won’t change the show: Ray was adamant about that.”
“I know,” I agreed sheepishly. Ray had stressed that enough throughout rehearsals, but none of us believed it. It was the central secret of the story, and Cassandra was right: knowing it had to change how we behaved and related to each other as characters.
“All right. I’ll let the funeral home and Ray’s family know you’re coming. You’ll be flying into Nashville, and either someone will pick you up, or you’ll rent a car.”
“The company paying for this?”
“Yes, yes, just keep your receipts and don’t buy dinner and drinks for everyone. I’ll call Ray’s parents tonight. And remember, they’ve lost a child, so behave accordingly.”
“What sort of person do you think I am, Neil?”
He let out a long breath. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Just … be careful, Matt. We need you for the show. Yes, Steve has understudied the part and could go on in your place, but Ray picked you because you brought something special to the part that he felt was essential. And he was right. I want you there when we open.”
I tried not to let my reaction show, but I left feeling unaccountably buoyant. It wouldn’t be a fun trip, exactly, but I knew I’d be bringing back knowledge that would no doubt improve my (apparently already pretty darn good) performance. If nothing else, my Southern accent would be note-perfect.
9
Joaquim, surprisingly, was totally against it.
“Are you crazy?” he said as we walked through Chinatown, sipping our milk tea. His had bubbles of tapioca in it; mine was free of what I called “phlegm balls.”
“No,” I said patiently. “It’s something that needs to be done for a friend, and I’m going to do it. I’ll be gone four days at the most. I have to be back for opening night, after all.”
“But why you? I mean, my friend Titus died last year, his body was cremated, and his ashes were just mailed home.”
“Really?” I said dubiously. “In one of those ‘whatever fits’ boxes?”
“I don’t know, but it’s the truth. Send them UPS if you don’t trust the post office.”
“Look, Joaquim, I want to go, okay? I liked Ray, and I want to be sure his family understands how talented and creative he really was.”
“Then send them a video along with the ashes. I’ll help you put it together. We can talk to people who knew him—”
“Look, what is wrong with you? Why does this bother you so much?”
We found a space against a wall to lean, and after a sip of his tea, he said, “I think I’m just jealous, Matt.”
“Of what?”
“Of Ray. Of the way you talk about him. Did he know how you felt about him?”
“He’s dead, Joaquim, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed. That makes it perfect, doesn’t it? He can’t disappoint or reject you.”
The urge to ask Joaquim to come with me was strong, and I knew that’s what he was maneuvering me to do. His passive-aggressive tendencies were really starting to bug me; I hated being manipulated. But I didn’t want him to come with me, for a couple of reasons. I knew I could play straight, and handle any rough trouble that came along. Joaquim, bless him, could not. He wasn’t a flaming cliché or anything, but he also had never tried to hide his sexuality, and I doubted he could if he wanted to. Plus, as a Puerto Rican, he’d be going into a hotbed of racism as well as homophobia.
And … there was some truth in what he said. I just wanted this trip to be about Ray’s memory and me. Plus if I did decide to track down the mystery of the chapel of ease, I didn’t want Joaquim constantly trying to talk me out of it. He didn’t understand my fixation on the chapel mystery. I doubted anyone not in the show could understand it. Hell, I didn’t entirely understand it.
“Look,” I said, hoping I sounded reasonable, “I know it seems weird. You’re not an actor, so you’ve never experienced what it’s like to bring a character to life like this. That’s why I’m so attached to Ray: he treated me like one of his creations.”
He looked at me. “Bullshit.”
He was right, and I knew it, and he knew I knew it. I sighed and said, “Whatever, Joaquim.”
“Just be careful, will you?”
“I will.”
“And come back.”
“I will. I have the lead in a great show, why wouldn’t I?”
“And a great boyfriend.”
“Oh yeah, that, too,” I teased, and we kissed.
* * *
I was packing for my trip that evening when Emily called me. “Matt,” she said with exaggerated calm, “I need your help with something.”
“What’s that?”
“Will you go to Ray’s apartment with me tonight?”
“Why?”
“I need to get some of my stuff that’s there. He gave me a key, don’t worry.”
“I’m leaving for Tennessee tomorrow, Emily. I have to pack.”
“Oh, come on. It won’t take an hour. Please, Matt, I don’t want to go by myself.”
“Can’t you ask somebody else?”
“Sure, I can, but I’d rather it be you. You knew him, Matt. I don’t have to explain things to you. Please?”
No polite way to get out of that, not with my promise to Ray to look after her. At least he’d been wrong about her collapsing or freaking out. If anything, she was a model of calm in a crisis. It might be an act (hell, given her profession, it probably was an act), but it was a good one. I told her I’d meet her at his building in an hour, which would give my laundry time to finish.
Emily was pacing outside the building, smoking and watching for me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face splotchy. As she hugged me, she said, “Thank you for coming, Matt. Thank you so much.”
“No problem,” I said into her hair. She wasn’t just hugging me out of politeness, either. She had her arms locked tight around my neck. “I can’t breathe, Em.”
“Oh! Sorry.” She released me and laughed a little. “I spoke to a reporter about Ray this afternoon. He wanted to know if Ray was on drugs, or had HIV, or even Ebola. They weren’t interested at all in what kind of person he was.”
“And that surprised you?”
“I just … I thought when I told them … Ah, never mind, I’ll just start crying again. Come on.”
The last time I climbed these particular stairs had been the night of the y’all-come. The atmosphere couldn’t have been more different, and as we approached his closed door, it was in stark contrast to that evening, when the door had been open and the sound of happy people had filled the hallway. Now it was silent—dead silent, I thought with cold irony.
Emily put her key in the lock, then paused. She stood
very still for a long time, until I said, “Emily, we don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, we do,” she said, and turned the key with such force, I worried it might snap.
The apartment was much smaller than it had seemed the night of the party. The long table was gone, and light came through the streaked windows with a funereal grayness. Ray had a futon for both a couch and bed, a coffee table, and a closet full of clothes. The walls were plastered with posters, an eclectic mix of music figures and musical shows. I hadn’t really paid attention to them the night of the party, but most of the musicians looked to be old-timers, whose black-and-white images I didn’t recognize. The shows, though, were all recent ones, many within the last ten years.
Emily gazed down at the futon. I had to nudge her aside a little to close the door behind us. I realized she was breathing heavily, and thought at first she was about to cry.
Then she walked over and put a hand on the back of the futon. Her other hand clenched into a fist, and a shudder ran through her. I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was, in fact, turned on; as in, really turned on.
“Emily?” I said quietly.
“Just g-give me a minute,” she said. She slowly sat down on the futon and leaned her head back, eyes closed. She put her hands flat on her thighs and slid them slowly up and down her jeans.
I felt very uncomfortable. I looked around at anything other than Emily’s aroused face, until finally she let out a shuddering sigh. Then she curled up and sobbed.
I sat down on the futon beside her. “Emily, honey,” I said gently. “Let’s get your stuff and get out of here, okay? You don’t need this, not today.”
“He’ll never touch me again, Matt,” she said into the futon mattress. “I can’t tell you what knowing that feels like. I’ve never been with anyone like him, and knowing it’ll never happen again…”
Well, this was awkward. Apparently Ray, in addition to his musical skills, was quite the cocksmith, too. I grew a little irritated, which I tried very hard to keep to myself. “I understand, Em. We can talk about it later if you want, after I get back.”
She crawled away, then turned to glare at me. “Talk about it? He’s dead, what’s there to talk about?”
“Emily—”
“He took part of me with him, Matt!” she yelled. Her voice echoed in the still, empty air. “Something I didn’t even know I had! It’s gone, gone with him, and I’ll never feel it again!”
If she was acting, or exaggerating for effect, she was a better performer than I ever thought. I got to my feet and tried to go to her. “Emily—”
“Stay back! Don’t touch me! Nobody can ever touch me again!” She ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. Her sobs were just as loud through the thin wood.
I sat down at Ray’s desk. His computer, hooked up to keyboards and a drum machine, was still on, humming contentedly. I nudged the mouse, curious to see what the last thing he looked at might have been. It was the show’s review from the Post.
No, I reminded myself. Ray never saw this. Emily had left it up for him, but less than six feet away, he’d already taken his last bow.
The bathroom door opened, and Emily emerged. She was still shaking, but seemed more in control. “I’m sorry, Matt. Maybe it just hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
“No worries,” I said, keeping very still. It felt like one of those moments where any move could set off chaos.
“I’m fine now,” she said. “I’ve got my stuff from the bathroom.”
“Who gets the rest of this?”
“I don’t know. Family, I guess, if they make arrangements. Thrift stores if they don’t.”
“What about his manuscripts and stuff? That could be valuable.”
“He didn’t do much work on paper. It’s all in his laptop.”
“Where is that?”
“At my place.”
“Shouldn’t that go to his family, too?”
“It will when I finish copying everything.”
“Why are you doing that?” I said suspiciously. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she intended to sell the stuff later, if the show took off as we all hoped it might.
“So I can print it out and roll around on it naked,” she said. Just when I thought she might be serious, she smiled a little. “Because it’s too good to lose. You ever read about what happened when Stieg Larsson died? His girlfriend has his laptop locked up in a safe deposit box because she doesn’t trust his family with it.”
“You don’t trust his family?”
“I don’t know them. He hardly ever talked about them. But this way if they do try to lock away everything he worked on, out of some weird Southern religious thing, there will at least be one copy.”
“Do you think—?” I started, then thought better of it.
“That the secret of what’s buried in the chapel of ease is in there somewhere? I don’t know. But if I find it, I promise I’ll tell you.”
“Thanks,” I said. Of course, Ray had promised, too, and that hadn’t worked out at all.
She went to the dresser and began removing clothes. When she finished, she also took a long look around. There was a poster of Hedwig and the Angry Inch next to one advertising the ’50s rockabilly star Byron Harley. “Look at these pictures. Old music, new shows.”
“Did he ever tell you what they had in common?”
“Sort of. He said, ‘The only music I care about is the real kind.’”
“So he didn’t like older musicals?”
“He thought they were fake. They were written by people who’d lived phony showbiz lives. They didn’t have any mystery to them, no … hidden depths.” She laughed. “And good God, did he hate Wicked, and that whole thing of rewriting old fairy tales.”
“He never mentioned that to me,” I said. Then again, that sounded about right. A man with so many secrets would naturally write a final show with a secret at its heart.
The front door opened, and a lean Hispanic guy poked in his head. “Hey, what are you two doing? Oh,” he added when he saw Emily. “It’s you. Sorry.”
“Ramón is the super,” Emily said. “He used to come play guitar with Ray.”
“Yeah, I’m very sorry to hear he’s gone,” Ramón said. He had very little accent, and wore a Slipknot concert T-shirt. “Did the paramedics mess anything up?”
“I don’t think so,” Emily said. “They were very conscientious.”
“Hmph.” He looked around. “Rent’s paid up until the end of the month. So take your time about getting this stuff out.”
“We will,” I said quickly, before Emily could tell him just to sell it or junk it. “I’m going to see his family tomorrow. I’ll let them know.”
Ramón didn’t meet my gaze. He was nervous, but I couldn’t tell why. He said, “Tell them he was a good man. He helped me to play better. I never used to get respeto before he showed me what I was doing wrong.”
“He loved playing with you, too, Ramón,” Emily said.
Ramón nodded, then crossed himself. “Adiós, mi hermano,” he said. Then he left.
Emily resumed pulling clothes from the drawers. I noticed she packed a few things that were unmistakably Ray’s, but I figured it was harmless. I spotted his cowboy boots in the corner, and considered taking them, but they were far too big for me.
We turned out the lights and closed the door. Emily locked the apartment, and I accompanied her home. She said nothing else the entire way.
* * *
That night I couldn’t sleep, so I left Joaquim snoring contentedly and went to a Greek-owned all-night diner a few blocks away. I just ordered coffee, since I wasn’t hungry for the fried rice balls that were their specialty. I put in my earbuds and listened to Ray’s voice on the original demo for the show that we’d gotten that first day in rehearsal. He was also, I was pretty sure, playing all the instruments. But it was his voice I wanted to hear.
“What are you listening to?” the waitress asked as I got a refill.
“Songs from a new show I’m in. You should come see it.”
“Oh, I don’t care much for that sort of thing,” she said. “My tastes run toward George Clinton. Know who he is?”
I shook my head. “Related to Bill and Hillary?”
That made her laugh, and I turned up the volume to drown it out. Well, she might not care about it, but I bet she’d know the name before long. I just had that sort of feeling, that the title of the show would slip into modern-day parlance, like Rent, or Cats, or Oliver! Then again, those were all one-word titles, so maybe we should cut ours down to Chapel. I’d have to run that past Neil when I got back.
But that was all for later. My mind was already in the air and heading south.
10
The flight to Nashville went through Atlanta, which according to my understanding of geography was quite a bit out of the way. Since it was on the show’s nickel, I insisted on flying first class, and the flight crew was incredibly kind. The box with the urn inside (prominently featuring the funeral home’s logo) probably helped.
When I landed in Nashville and emerged into the baggage claim area, I was surprised to see my name on an iPad, held by a slender young woman with the same black hair as Ray. She smiled when I waved, and said, “Hi, I’m Bliss.”
I offered my hand. “Contentment. Nice to meet you.”
She laughed. “I assume you’re Matt. I’m your ride to Needsville. Bliss Overbay.” Then she noticed the box, and her face grew more serious. “And that must be Rayford.”
“That’s Ray, yeah.” I felt the need to assert the name I knew him by over his hick name. I held the box tighter to discourage her from snatching it and running off, which of course, I had no indication that she’d do. On the whole flight down, though, I’d concocted various scenarios, including one in which I never made it out of the airport. Ray was stolen away and I was left shouting for help as a bunch of people in overalls jumped in their waiting flatbed truck and drove merrily away, to the accompaniment of the Beverly Hillbillies theme.
“It’s a real shame, bless his heart,” she said.