Chapel of Ease (6 page)

“Tell me what you need. Oh, Lance, this is my friend Matt.”

I shook hands with the megastar. “A pleasure.”

“Likewise,” he said. Then he pulled Ray into the studio. I was left with the production staff, two older men, one black and one white, who looked exhausted. A pair of girls lounged nearby, and barely gave me a glance.

“Hey,” the black producer said to me. “Stand behind me and you can see and hear the best.”

“Yeah, he always makes sure he gets the sweet spot,” the white producer said.

“That's 'cause I'm the sweetest mofo in this room,” the black producer shot back.

He was right: I had a view of the whole studio from there. Lance and his band took their positions, and Ray sat down behind the drum set. He adjusted a few things, then experimentally tapped the snare and cymbal. Lance counted four, and the band exploded into a rollicking old-school rock-and-roll number about a girl with a car coveted by the singer, although it was hard to tell which he wanted more. For some reason, I imagined this music being used to sell underwear.

Lance Abercrombie was certainly a hottie, but it was Ray who really held my attention. He played with a certainty and mastery that implied he'd been rehearsing with this band forever. His rhythms propelled the song, and when the guitarist started his solo, he expertly left space for the screeching tones. Then he took his own solo, an insane swirl of pounding that went right to the edge of chaos before snapping back into the pocket for the last verse.

The song ended with a mighty crash, and Lance jumped so high, I worried he'd smack his head on the low ceiling. There was a moment of dead silence, except for a faint buzz from one of the monitors. Then the band whooped and cheered, crowding around the drums.

“That boy can play a pair of tennis shoes and make 'em sound like Jimi Hendrix,” the white producer said.

“That's the only black musician he knows,” the black producer asided to me with a wink.

“Name one white musician,” the white producer shot back.

“Lance Abercrombie,” the black producer said.

“Name one who's not in this room.”

“Taylor Swift. It don't get no whiter.”

Then the rest of the band squeezed into the control room with us, and Ray recorded the drums solo, listening to the track through headphones. I couldn't tell if it was absolutely identical to what he'd played with the band, but it was close, and the band was equally as happy. He went through it three times, and when he finished, the band swarmed him again. Lance picked him up in a bear hug and actually kissed him on the mouth, but it was a playful smack, and not anything truly amorous.

“God
damn,
Ray, is there anything you can't play?
Please
come on tour with us!” The rest of the band chorused their agreement.

“Ah, you don't need me. Johnny can learn that.”

“In a year,” the guitarist said.

“Well, I can't right now, I have a show opening in six weeks. Matt here is the star.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me into the group. “Tell 'em about it, Matt.”

On the spot like that, all I could think to say was, “It's great.”

“You won't get as many girls playing Broadway as you will on the road with us,” the bass player pointed out.

“This ain't Broadway. This is what they call
Off
-Broadway. It's where they put the weird stuff.”

Lance took him by the shoulders and said, with total sincerity, “Please, Ray.
Please.
Write your own ticket. We need you.”

Considering what a raging egomaniac Lance was reputed to be, this begging was extraordinary. Ray patted the musician's arm and said, “Lance, I wish I could, but I can't be in two places at once. And this show is my baby.”

Lance looked down, disappointed. “I understand. Thanks for helping us out tonight. Same deal as always?”

“Same deal. I'll catch your show if you'll catch mine.”

“I'll do my best.”

Ten minutes later we were walking down the dark street as if we hadn't just spent an hour with one of the biggest stars in the world. I asked Ray, “Just how many instruments do you play?”

“I can find my way around most of 'em.”

“‘Most of 'em'? You mean you can play
any
instrument?”

He shrugged, as if the truth embarrassed him. “Pretty much. Although I ain't never got to try the cimbalom.”

“What's that?”

“It's like a big ol' hammered dulcimer.”

I had no idea what that was. “I'm still back at my last question.”

Ray laughed. “It's like an inside-out piano, and you hit the strings with little batons.”

“Ah. And how do you know Lance Abercrombie?”

“Oh, I do session work when I have to make ends meet. Did some stuff on Lance's big debut album, so I'm always glad to help out.”

“What did he mean by ‘same deal'?”

“I get union scale but no credit.”

“Union scale? For playing like
that
?”

“Hey, it ain't for the money. It's for the jam. Lance may be a pretty boy tabloid star, but he's also dead serious about his music. You notice
he
wasn't drunk or high.”

We walked in silence after that, and split up when I headed to the subway. But on the whole ride home, I thought about nothing but him, and the way his play and music mirrored the soul I now knew lived behind those dark, mischievous eyes.

I also remembered some of the wilder rumors about the Tufa that I'd read on the Internet. When I really thought about Ray and his music, somehow they no longer seemed so outlandish.

 

5

Still, work was work, and putting on an original show in six weeks was
hard.
For my part, learning the songs and words was a breeze; the trick was not getting wrapped up in everyone else's songs, during those long stretches when I was onstage listening. The music was so compelling that I lost myself in it just as we hoped the audience would.

And we guessed. We all had our thoughts about what was buried in the chapel of ease, and it was a source of constant discussion. We combed through the text, looking for clues, and with each revision Ray brought to us, we sought a new piece of the puzzle. After a week, someone hung a bulletin board, and Post-it notes with guesses quickly peppered it. Ray, damn him, said nothing, only smiled when he passed it and ignored our entreaties. (I know one actress offered him a blatant sexual favor if he'd tell her, but he turned her down.)

My crush on Ray, meanwhile, cooled a bit as I started dating Joaquim, a second-generation Puerto Rican dancer who worked in another show about to open. We met on the subway, and hit it off almost at once. I had no delusions that this was love at first sight or anything; I'd yet to meet anyone who inspired that sort of depth of feeling. But he was the kind of guy I could tell anything to, and had to stop myself more than once from sharing secrets never divulged to another soul. Experience had taught me that it was best to wait for such things until you'd been dating longer than two weeks.

*   *   *

At the beginning of our second week of rehearsal, the orchestra showed up.

Up until then, Ray had been playing piano for us. But now four other strange-looking players tromped down the aisle toward the stage, carrying instrument cases and looking around at the Armitage as if it were the Gershwin. When they got to the orchestra pit and began setting up, I saw that two were men, two were women.

One of the men whistled long and high. In a drawl every bit as heavy as Ray's, he said, “Ain't this place purty.”

“Looks like that whorehouse in Abilene your daddy's always talking about,” the other man said. “You know, where he met your mama.”

“Will y'all please act like you've been to town before?” one of the women said.

Ray looked up at us from his piano and gestured to the newcomers. “Y'all, this-here's the band. They're all good ol' boys like me. One's from Texas, one from Alabama, and the two sisters are from Kentucky.”

I saw the resemblance between the two women now. One of them said, “Y'all must be tickled to death to be doing a bunch of Ray's songs.”

“We are,” Jason said. Then he raised his eyebrows and said softly to me, “Can you actually
be
tickled to death?”

“Actually,” the other woman said, “tickling was the torture reserved for the aristocracy in ancient Asia.”

“Good ears on these ladies,” Jason said even more softly.

“Musicians got to have good ears,” Ray said. By now the others had set up their instruments: an upright bass and banjo played by the two sisters, and an electric guitar and small drum kit for the men. They tuned up quickly, then began a song I didn't recognize, sung by one of the women and the guitarist. The chorus mentioned something about dust and rattling bones. When they finished, they all expressed their satisfaction in a series of whistles and long calls I knew from our script were known as “rebel yells.”

“That one of yours?” I called down to Ray.

“Ha! I wish. That was Kasey Chambers. Australian, if you can believe that.” He looked at the rest of us. “So what'd y'all think?”

“Very nice,” Neil said. “How long do you need to warm up?”

“Any warmer, we'd burn through the floor,” the drummer said.

“Yep, we're ready to go,” Ray agreed.

“Perfect. Let's start with act one, then, and see what we've got.”

What we had, I realized later, was the soul of the show. We all had to sing harder and louder to be heard over the band, but we responded with our best performances so far. It was as if each added layer of production brought out things we'd missed or simply hadn't been able to create. With a full roots-rock band, the score came to stomping, aching life.

*   *   *

At the end of the second week, Ray invited all of us to his apartment for a potluck dinner. He called it a “y'all-come,” and said it was a common occurrence back in his hometown. I found out later that it was also a common occurrence among his extended circle of friends, as he threw one every six months or so.

I almost invited Joaquim, but at the last moment decided to go solo. Joaquim, as much as I liked him, was a gossip, and enjoyed snarking about people. I did, too, up to a point, but not about these people. They were more than coworkers now.

I took along some potato salad, and was surprised by how many people he'd crammed into his tiny apartment on the fifth floor of a prewar walkup in Washington Heights, right around the corner from the 168th Street stop. Not just the cast, but assorted friends and partners as well, all talking and drinking while a long folding table laden with food took up the center of the room. I squeezed my salad onto a corner and felt a small, slender hand on my arm.

“Matt,” Emily Valance said. She looked adorable, dressed up but not formal, with tasteful makeup. “I'm really glad you're here.”

I looked around, but didn't see Ray. “Are you the host's date?”

“No, I'm the cohost,” she said with a smile I'd never seen on her before. It was quiet, content, calm, and happy. Her brittle, harsh edge that I'd always encountered before was nowhere in sight.

“Are you drunk?” I asked.

She laughed. “No, I'm happy. And I'm happy for you, too. Ray won't shut up about how good you are in the show.”

“It's hard not to be good with his music.” I winced slightly at my momentary obliviousness, wondering if she was still sore about not being cast.

She read my mind. “I know. I've heard it many times. And there wasn't really a part for me in it. Now I'm just looking forward to opening night.”

Ray appeared from the crowd, slipped an arm around Emily's waist, and kissed her on the cheek. “Hey-there, honeybear.” To me he said, “Hey, Matt, glad you could make it. Not sick of hanging out with us?”

“This is the most fun I've ever had doing a show,” I said sincerely.

“I'm glad to hear that. Hey, sweet pea, do you think we need to steer people toward the table?”

Emily checked the time on her phone. “I think so.”

Ray let out a loud whistle, and everyone turned toward him. “Hey, y'all, we better scootch up to the trough.”

There were murmurs of confusion at this.

“What he means,” Emily said, “is that it's time to eat.”

“I reckon that's what I said, isn't it?” Ray deadpanned, and we all laughed.

Emily looked at me. “I'm learning to speak hillbilly, can you believe it?”

“You still look at me funny when I ask for the clicker, though,” Ray said.

To my puzzled look, she said, “The remote for the TV.”

We found seats in the eclectic collection of chairs around the table. I ended up in a folding one with duct-taped padding and a tendency to squeak embarrassingly if I shifted my weight. Ray, at the head of the table, stood up and tapped his beer bottle with his knife. “Y'all, I want to say something 'fore we start. Is that okay?”

We murmured assent. The way Emily looked up at Ray reminded me of how Nancy Reagan used to beam at Ronnie, as if he generated the light she needed to survive. If you'd told me two weeks ago I'd ever see her acting like that, I would've said you were crazy, and to tell you the truth, it
was
a little unsettling.

“I invited you here because, where I come from, family is super-important,” Ray continued. “I have a sister, a dozen uncles and aunts”—he pronounced the word
ants
—“and more cousins than you could fit in this room. But as I'm pretty sure most of you can understand, none of them ‘get' me. They didn't understand what I wanted out of life, or why I thought it was important. I mean, not a one of 'em has been to a play that wasn't put on at the high school.”