by Alex Bledsoe
I could tell by the look on Bliss’s face that Ladonna was mischaracterizing the relationship. “No,” I said, “we didn’t really talk about that.”
“It was a while ago,” Ladonna said. “I reckon we should get the formalities over with here. Matt, would you bring us our son?”
I took the box of ashes carefully from the truck and handed it to Gerald. He solemnly took it, bowed his head over it, and instead of praying as I expected, he hummed, similar to the way Bliss had done at the Waffle House. Ladonna put her hand on the box’s top and joined him in a kind of soft, harmonized keening. He took the ashes inside.
“That’s just our way,” C.C. said when he noticed my puzzlement. “Music’s a big deal around here.”
“So I hear,” I agreed.
Bliss handed me my backpack. “Pleasure meeting you, Matt.”
I realized I was about to be left alone at a house where I knew no one, and with a dangerously attractive—and probably dangerously straight—man right under my nose. I tried desperately to think of some way to convince Bliss to stay, as she was, at the moment, my only lifeline back to my world.
As if reading my mind, C.C. said, “Why don’t you stay for dinner, Bliss?”
“Ain’t having dinner,” Ladonna said. “We’ll eat at the wake.”
“And I’ll be there,” she said.
“Are you sure you can’t stick around for a little while?” I said, and tried not to sound desperate.
She smiled, and it was one of those Cheshire–Mona Lisa smiles filled with amusement and hidden knowledge. “There’s nothing to worry about, Matt. Gerald and Ladonna will take good care of you.”
I leaned very close and said softly, “Like the family in Texas Chainsaw?”
She laughed and said with equal quiet, “No, like good people with a guest. Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe here.”
I had no real choice, so I watched her drive off, trying not to panic as my only contact with the outside world disappeared.
I felt the presence before I heard the words, and turned to find C.C. right behind me. This close, he was even more handsome, and the sweat only emphasized his overwhelming, and probably straight, masculinity. I looked up at him, because he was a good four inches taller than me, and the sun backlit his black, wavy hair. He said, “I know what the stories say, but these are nice, good people, and they’re very glad to meet one of Rayford’s friends from the city. Ever since he left, they haven’t heard much about him.”
“I’m just not used to this … lifestyle,” I said weakly.
“What, rural family life?” he said with a laugh.
That made me smile. “Yeah.”
“It’s just like urban family life, except with less traffic and much lower to the ground.”
Oh, great—he was funny, too. I was doomed. “I suppose you’re right.”
“C.C., why don’t you show Matt where he can unpack?” Ladonna said.
I followed him into the house, wondering how many times Ray had walked these same steps. The dogs flanked me, still sniffing at my city odors. “These dogs have names?” I asked.
“The big yellow one is Ace,” C.C. said, pronouncing the color as yeller. “The blue heeler mix is Tom.”
“Ace and Tom,” I repeated, and the dogs happily lolled their tongues at me.
Inside the house was a schizophrenic mix of old-fashioned rural life and unmistakable modernity. The fireplace was big and worn, but the flat-screen TV mounted to the wall was practically new. Old work boots sat beside the door along with a pair of recently bought tennis shoes. A rack held three long guns, while a mounted deer head and two fish looked down on us with glassy disdain. On an end table beside the couch rested a black rotary phone, the kind I’d only seen used as props in period plays.
“You can put Rayford on the mantel, Gerald,” his mother said.
Gerald opened the box and took out the pearl gray urn. He placed it on the brick shelf, stepped back, and crossed his arms. Neither he nor Ladonna expressed any emotion, but just looked at it with the same blasé evaluation they might show a vase of flowers.
“A little to the left,” Ladonna said at last. Gerald did as she asked. Then she turned to me and said, “Matt, bring your bag after me.”
I followed her into a back bedroom. It was as small as anything you’d find in New York, and the corners were stacked with boxes and small bits of machinery I didn’t recognize.
“This used to be Rayford’s room,” she said sadly as she looked around. “We were using it as a storeroom, so you’ll pardon the mess.”
“It’s fine, Mrs. Parrish,” I said, and dropped my bag on the bed. “Thank you for putting me up. I had every intention of staying in a hotel, but there wasn’t one nearby.”
“No, the Catamount Corner closed up last year. Shame, too, but I understand why. Ms. Peggy, the owner, lost her husband, and I’m sure the place had too many memories for her.”
“Bliss mentioned there would be a wake tonight?”
“Yes, over at the barn dance. You’re welcome to come.”
“I’d like to. I’d enjoy meeting some of Ray’s friends.” I just couldn’t bring myself to call him “Rayford,” the way everyone here did. “Do I need to dress up?”
“Lord A’mighty, son, no. It’s nothing formal.”
“Well, I brought a suit for the church service.”
She looked at me through narrowed eyes, as if I’d suddenly revealed myself to be some sort of spy. Before she could speak, her husband joined us and said, “You’re probably pretty tired after your flight. Bathroom’s right down the hall on the left. Feel free to freshen up, or take a nap if you want.”
I remembered what Ray had said about churches in Cloud County, and wondered if I’d committed some major faux pas. Everything I knew about the South centered around God and guns, and that included hating people like me just for existing. Still, they didn’t seem to be aware of my sexuality, and I certainly wasn’t going to mention it.
Of course, if C.C. was around much more, I might not be able to hide it.
12
At 5 P.M., there was a soft knock at my door. I’d fallen asleep, and before I could get up, the door opened and a beautiful young woman poked her head in. Black hair peeked out from beneath a baseball cap and framed her small, delicate face. “Hello? You awake?”
“Yeah,” I said as I swung my feet over the side of the bed. “Come in.”
She was perhaps twenty, with a terrific figure and a coquettish air. She wore overalls and a cropped T-shirt, and in a lot of ways fit the stereotype of the hot hillbilly chick perpetuated by The Dukes of Hazzard and True Blood. I guessed that she was the sister Ray had mentioned. “Get some sleep?” she asked.
“Yeah. Too much, maybe. Is it time to go?”
“Pretty soon. I wanted to talk to you first. I’m Thorn.”
“Matt.”
“Short for Matthew?”
“Yeah.”
“Mine’s short for Thornblossom.”
“Really? Why don’t they call you Blossom, then?”
She grinned, and the resemblance to Ray was unmistakable. “I suspect after you get to know me, you’ll understand.”
“You can’t be that bad.”
“Maybe I’m that good?”
Oops. I’d inadvertently been flirting with a straight girl. That happened sometimes, when I was in situations where it wasn’t generally known that I was gay. I said quickly, “Well, I need to freshen up a little before we go to the wake. Your parents said it was in a barn?”
“Yeah. It’s where we all meet to sing and play. Ray used to love going there. He’d play until doomsday if nobody stopped him.”
“Well, I’m looking forward to it.” I waited, but she showed no signs of leaving. “If you’ll excuse me?” I prompted.
“You don’t have to be shy around me,” she said.
Oh boy. As softly as I could without actually whispering, I said, “Uhm … look, Thorn, I need to tell you someth
ing. I’m gay.”
Thorn looked skeptical, then surprised, then disappointed. “Really?”
“Really.”
“So you and Rayford were…?”
“Ray? No! He wasn’t gay. In fact, he dated one of my best friends. A woman friend.”
“People around here always figured he was secretly gay.”
“Why?”
“’Cause he liked those musicals. And he always talked about the theater.” She pronounced it THEE-ate-her. “We all just figured when he got to New York, he stopped pretending.”
“No pretending. He was straight.”
“Mama and Daddy’ll be glad to hear that.”
“But I’m not.”
“You’re not glad he was straight?”
“No, I mean I’m not straight.” Although she was more right than she knew.
“You got a boyfriend back home?”
“Yes.”
“You ever been with a girl?”
“Thorn, I don’t think we should pursue this. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get ready for the service. Thanks for waking me up.”
She nodded, as if still mulling over my presumed gender preferences. Then she left without another word. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, except the obvious: I was a fairly good-looking male from the big city, and she was a small-town girl with an itch the local boys could never scratch.
Of course, she hadn’t volunteered anything about Cyrus, such as, “Oh, you mean gay like C.C.?” That would’ve been too easy, I suppose.
I put that out of my mind, changed into some nicer casual clothes, and went into the living room. Gerald stood looking out the front window and turned when he heard me enter.
“All ready?” he said.
“I am.” I looked around. “Is, uhm, C.C. around?”
“He’ll meet us there.” After a moment, Gerald added, “You play anything?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Instrument.”
“Oh. A little piano.”
“Do you sing?”
“Yes, sir. That’s part of my job.”
“Well, you might get asked to sing tonight, if that’s okay. Seein’ as you knew Rayford and all.”
“That’s fine. I’m glad to do it.”
He nodded, almost identical to the way his daughter had, as if this didn’t answer things so much as cause him to think even harder. He resumed looking out the window. “Rayford was always writing songs,” he said distantly. “Little story songs, not just tunes. They always talked about things that happened.”
“He got very good at it, too.”
“That’s why he left. He said nobody here understood what he was doing.”
“Was he right?”
“I sure never did. He wanted to do what he wanted, and that was that. He was always gettin’ DVDs of musicals from Netflix, then he’d watch ’em and do nothing but bitch about ’em. Said they just gave up on trying to show the real world, or how people really are.” He tapped the windowsill with his fingertips. “Then he started writing his own musicals.”
“Was that a bad thing?”
“No. But he sure didn’t make things easy for himself. He still kept writing about things that really happened around here. Some people don’t like that, especially when it happened to them.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Through the open door to the kitchen, I saw several dishes covered with aluminum foil waiting on the table, I assumed to be taken to the wake. I got a rush of nervousness, and pulled out my phone to check the signal. There was one tiny bar.
While I had it, I quickly texted Joaquim, Getting ready for the wake. Ray’s family has been very nice to me. It took a couple of moments, but at last I got the whoosh sound that said it had been sent.
“All ready?” Ladonna said as she entered. She was dressed in jeans and a blouse with appliqué musical notes on it. Her hair, black with bits of gray, was pulled back and up into a bun.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Can I help you with anything?”
“You’re way too polite to be a Yankee,” she said. “You can take a couple of these dishes with you out to the car. Gerald, you about ready to go?”
“Pretty set,” he agreed. “Thorn!”
“I’m coming,” she called, and then entered in a sundress and cowboy boots that even made me do a double take. She saw it, too, and grinned knowingly.
Gerald said, “Well, let’s get going. Thorn, help Matt carry some of that stuff out to the car.”
Thorn did not look at me as we picked up the dishes and went to the car. I sat in the back with her, the dishes stacked between us on the old bench seat, and we headed out into the dusk. I tried to keep track of the turns and directions, but quickly realized it was hopeless.
I checked my phone, but Joaquim had not texted back, or at least it hadn’t gotten through; once again I got no service at all.
* * *
It was, as they said, a barn dance, and it took place in a literal barn. It was at the end of a gravel road, and through the trees I caught glimpses of enormous letters on its roof. When we got close enough, I saw that it urged people to SEE ROCK CITY.
“What’s ‘Rock City’?” I asked.
“It’s a place down in Chattanooga,” Gerald said. “Up on a mountain. They say you can see seven states from there.”
“Is that close to here?”
“Nope. But somebody a long time ago had the bright idea of buying up roof space on barns all over the place to advertise it.”
“You ever been there?”
“Naw. I got no need to see Alabama, and I’ve seen enough of the rest of ’em to do me for a while.”
We parked beside the barn, in a space I realized must have been left empty for us. There were a lot of vehicles already along the road, most of them older, and you never saw so many pickups in one place in New York. People clustered outside the barn, talking in little knots, and as we approached, they offered condolences to Ladonna, Gerald, and Thorn.
At the barn entrance sat an older man with a small wooden box on his lap. He wore a suit with an old-fashioned string tie, like a preacher in a Western movie, and looked sad and tired. But he managed a smile when he saw my hosts.
“Howdy there, Parrishes,” he said with forced joviality. “You got quite a crowd inside already. Mmm-mm, and smell that food. That your famous stuffing under there, Ladonna?”
“It is, Uncle Node,” she said.
I looked at the box he held, for all the world like a cashbox you might see at a place that charged admission. But I’d never heard of paying to get into a wake, although I’m sure someone like the Kardashians would try it someday.
Then the man they called Uncle Node saw me, and his eyes narrowed a little. I put on my best smile. He said, “And who’s this gentleman?”
“This is Matt, a friend of Rayford’s from New York City.”
He continued to scrutinize me. “You really from New York?”
“I am.”
“Ain’t that something. Don’t know that I’ve ever met anybody from New York City.”
“Well, you can’t say that anymore, can you?”
He grinned. “Reckon not.”
He opened the wooden box he held, and inside I saw, not money, but rocks, of all shapes and sizes. Gerald carefully placed four more in the box, and Uncle Node closed it with a snap and a smile. “Well, you best get on inside before people stampede over me to get to that stuffing. And I’m very sorry for y’all’s loss, Gerald.”
“Thank you, Uncle Node,” Gerald said, and led the way inside.
The barn itself was packed with people, and I was surprised to see that it was arranged as if for a concert: there was a small stage area at one end, an open space for dancing, and then bleacher-style seats made out of hay bales covered with thick blankets. It didn’t smell like I’d always imagined a barn would smell, either; the odor of food, laid out on one long table, overwhelmed everything else.
We put down our dishes, then tur
ned to look over the room. Gerald leaned close and said, “Some of these folks are likely to be a little wrought up.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Just then a large round woman dressed all in black came through the crowd wailing and threw her arms around Ladonna. “Oh Lordy, I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry for your loss! I’m so sorry!”
“It means that,” Gerald said.
“Ah,” I said. There was a similar moment in Chapel of Ease, in the wedding scene, and we’d all laughed about how overblown and exaggerated it was. I couldn’t wait to tell everyone that it was, in fact, totally realistic.
I scanned the crowd, all black hair and bright, perfect teeth, wondering how true the stories of hillbilly inbreeding really were, and trying not to think about Deliverance. My own family had been so proper and withdrawn, we barely raised our voices even when we were furious; since they also never made me feel weird or wrong about coming out, I really had nothing to complain about. But I was totally unprepared for this great crowd of mourners, all of whom seemed to know Ray, or “Rayford,” better than I did.
“Y’all remember that time Rayford and that Jennings girl…?”
“I tell you, that Rayford sure could play the piano.…”
“He was on the cable news, even. They mentioned his name, sure enough.…”
I turned, and Thorn was right beside me. She said, “He ain’t here yet.”
“Who?”
“C.C. I can tell you’re looking for him.”
I hadn’t been, but I felt myself blush anyway. I felt extremely vulnerable in a crowd of people who might not approve of my lifestyle, or existence. I said quietly, “Thorn, if you—”
“Oh, calm down, I’m not going to out you. But it would take a blind man with a sack over his head not to notice how you looked at Cyrus back at the house.”
I desperately wanted to ask about him, but I could think of no graceful way to do it. And she knew that, because she smiled and winked at me, then twirled off into the crowd.
This is about Ray, I told myself again, and pushed thoughts of C.C. to the back of my mind. I looked around to find Ladonna and Gerald still surrounded by sympathetic mourners. Ladonna motioned me over, and I was quickly introduced to a dozen people whose names escaped me the moment I heard them. I was familiar with that from too many cast parties, and hoped that, like those other soirees, I’d never have reason to regret not remembering these names.