Chapel of Ease

by Alex Bledsoe

  “Did you know him well?”

  “Grew up with him. We were in the same grade at school. He was something.”

  “He was that.”

  “What about you? Did you know him long?”

  “We were doing a show together. It’s a high-pressure environment. You get to know people pretty well, pretty fast.”

  She nodded. “Can I help you with your bags?”

  I indicated my backpack. “Got everything in here.”

  “Okay, then. It’s about three hours to Needsville, so let’s get started.”

  I followed her into the parking garage. I expected a battered old pickup, or maybe a sedan with rusted wheel wells, so you can imagine my surprise when she stopped at an ambulance marked CLOUD COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT. “I’m an EMT,” she explained, “and technically this counts as transporting a body, so they let me use it.”

  I’d never ridden in an ambulance as a patient, let alone as a passenger. I thought of the box under my arm, and how ironic it was that Ray was getting his second ride in less than week, and neither of them did him a bit of good.

  As I climbed up into the high seat, I flashed back on an ancient Springsteen song in which he urges a suicidal girl to “climb into my ambulance.” I couldn’t remember if the girl died at the end or not.

  Bliss didn’t run the lights or siren as we negotiated the airport traffic and emerged onto the congested interstate. After a while the other cars thinned out and we were able to get up to speed. We spoke of the weather, which was actually not so hot and humid as Manhattan had been, and I told her a little about the show. She was politely interested, but I sensed she held something back; whether information or her own opinion, I couldn’t tell.

  I texted Joaquim that I was safely on the ground. I wanted to take a selfie to show him how I was being chauffeured, but it seemed rude.

  Eventually we left the interstate for a smooth two-lane rural highway, and the scenery grew rounder and more lush, with the heavy green of summer quickly blocking out most signs of civilization. I saw what I assumed were deer standing in an open field. There were homes, and power lines, and lots of churches, but you got the sense that once you left the four-lane, there might be nothing.

  “Ever been down South before?” she asked.

  “Been to Florida a few times,” I said. “Worked in Orlando for a summer. They had cockroaches the size of this ambulance.”

  “Palmetto bugs,” she said. “We don’t get them this far north, thankfully. Or fire ants.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Rattlesnakes. Coyotes. Oh, and feral emus.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She laughed. “Do you know what an emu is?”

  “It’s like an ostrich, right?”

  “Right. Well, we had a farmer let a bunch of ’em go, and they’ve settled in. They’re breeding, and doing quite nicely for themselves.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “They can be. But they’re so skittish, they usually run off before you even catch a glimpse of them.”

  I looked out at the passing woods, glancing between the trees for a birdlike shape. But then my attention was drawn to the trees themselves, and from them to the mountains that supported them. I was used to things towering over me, but those were man-made, geometrically regular shapes. Here everything was random, and instead of being strictly vertical, they rolled into the sky, the curves making them seem organic and connected in a way buildings never would be.

  It was beautiful, for sure, but there was still an undercurrent of something that wasn’t benign. I couldn’t quite think of a name for it; “danger” was too blatant, but “caution” didn’t capture the urgency. It was like walking home at 2 A.M. with your boyfriend and seeing a lone person approach down an empty street. You should be safe, you outnumbered him and you weren’t doing anything wrong, but you could never entirely be sure until he was out of your sight. And the mountains were never out of sight here.

  With a start, I realized Ray had written about this very sort of moment, and had captured the emotions I was feeling with his usual vividness. In one of Jennifer’s songs, as she contemplated what it would be like to leave, she sang:

  When I was a baby I lay on the bed

  And my mother’s hips rose before me

  The mountains are my mother now

  And I can feel the way she adores me

  But like my mama, these mountains can rage

  They can roar and bellow and shake the sky

  I can only cower before her fury and hope she remembers

  How fragile I am.…

  Bliss turned on the radio to a country station, which wiped Ray’s song right out of my head. I knew virtually nothing about modern country music, so the song went right over my head. But Bliss sang along, just loud enough that I could tell she had an achingly pure voice that must leave a lake of tears behind it when she sang something sad. But this particular tune, about the troubles of being a girl in a country song, was jaunty and humorous.

  When it ended, Bliss looked at me with a shy smile and said, “Sorry. I tend to sing along. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Actually, I am. I only had pretzels on the plane.”

  “Do you like waffles?”

  “Waffles?”

  “Yeah, there’s a Waffle House just up here. We can stop if you’d like.”

  “That’d be great.”

  The distinctive yellow and black sign rose out of the trees as we neared. Several semis too big for the parking lot idled along the highway. I carefully left Ray’s ashes on the floorboard and followed Bliss past old pickups and sedans into the restaurant.

  A few people waved at her, all of them with the same jet-black hair. The rest looked quickly away, as if afraid she might notice them. I recalled some of the stuff I’d read about the Tufa. Were they afraid of her? Or of the other Tufa in their midst? Should I be scared?

  We got a seat in a booth and ordered coffee. As I looked over the menu, she said, “So tell me more about Ray’s show. What will happen to it?”

  “Well, we open next week. We pushed it back out of respect for Ray.”

  She looked surprised. “I figured with him gone and everything…”

  “No, the show must go on, as they say.” I sensed that this either annoyed or disappointed her. “Why?”

  She looked out the window at the trees, which waved in the summer wind. “I guess it’s better that you know, since you’ll be around them, but … Rayford’s family wasn’t too keen on him putting his songs out there this way.”

  “Why not? He was successful. He was about to be really successful, if the reviews were any indication.”

  “It’s not about that. To a Tufa, music is … well, sacred.”

  I’d read that, too, but hearing it from an actual person made it sound stranger somehow, like a convert talking about her religion. “We certainly take it seriously,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound defensive.

  “That’s not what I mean. Rayford was gifted, even for one of us.” She seemed to read my thoughts, because she smiled and said, “I must sound like a crazy person. What I mean is, most of the Tufa are musical. We start learning when we’re babies how to sing and play. But only a few of us have the gift of creating great music out of whole cloth. Rayford was one of them.”

  “And you don’t approve of how he used that gift?”

  “It’s not me. It’s…”

  “His family?”

  “Partly. They never approved of him running off to New York.”

  “Why?” I pressed.

  Bliss looked out at the trees again. I could practically see the truth straining to get past her reserve. “Because he was drawing too much attention to himself.”

  “Too much attention?”

  “Had you ever heard of the Tufa before you met Rayford?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly. And a lot of us want to keep it t
hat way. We like being forgotten, and it’s getting harder and harder to do.”

  “Is that why you sent somebody to New York to talk to him?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A woman came to the press preview and spoke to him. She said some of the same things to him. She had black hair like you, and him. And the same Southern accent.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Maybe your tribal elders did it without telling you.”

  That made her smile again. “Our what? We’re not Native Americans, Matt. We don’t have ‘elders’ who tell us what to do. I don’t know who went to see Rayford, or why.”

  The conversation was getting stranger, as every effort to put the Tufa into a context I could understand failed miserably. “Bliss, I don’t mean to be rude, but what exactly are the Tufa? I’ve read some crazy stuff online, and Ray told me a bit, but if you wouldn’t mind, please give me the party line on it.”

  For just an instant she looked afraid, as if being questioned so directly panicked her. I wondered what role she held in the Tufa community; had I inadvertently offended their chief or high priestess? Then it vanished and she was back to being lightly amused.

  “The Tufa,” she began slowly, “are just a group of families who have always been together, and always will. We don’t wish harm on anyone, and we don’t steal children or souls, despite what people whisper to their kids to make them behave. We’ve all heard the same stories you have, the ones that end up on the Internet or the History Channel between Bigfoot and ancient aliens. None of them are true.”

  I realized she’d denied more than she’d confirmed, and had offered no new information. Smooth. So instead I asked, “Do you know what Ray’s play was about?”

  “No.”

  “A chapel of ease somewhere in Cloud County. With a mystery about what’s buried in it.”

  “Ah.”

  “‘Ah’ means…?”

  “Well, like I said, we don’t generally share our stories with outsiders.”

  “Why?”

  Again she looked panicked, but by God, if these people were going to be all mysterious and wonky about stuff, they really needed better stories to fall back on. “Would you want a bunch of people who’d seen a play or a movie to come traipsing around your backyard, digging up places just to see what’s there?”

  That was exactly what the black-haired girl had said to Ray. “I suppose not.”

  “Well, neither would we. The chapel’s been left alone for a hundred years; we’d like it to stay that way.”

  “So you know where it is?” I asked, trying to keep the excitement from my voice.

  “No, I’ve never seen it. But I’ve heard of it all my life. It’s just a bunch of rocks now, barely anything left. Wouldn’t take much to tear it down for good.”

  For someone who’s never seen it, I thought, you sure know a lot about it. “Is there a graveyard beside it?”

  “Is that what Rayford said?”

  “It’s what he put in his play.”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve never been there.”

  “So you don’t know if the story of Byrda and Shad is true?”

  Our food arrived before she could answer, delivered by a waitress with the unlikely name of Alsie, and it turned out I was hungrier than I thought. As I devoured my waffles, I realized Bliss wasn’t eating. Instead, very softly, she hummed, a tune I almost recognized but couldn’t quite catch. It reminded me of Ray’s songs from the play, and I wondered if he’d borrowed them from folk melodies all his people would know.

  “What’s that song?” I asked between bites.

  “What song?”

  “The one you were humming.”

  “Was I humming? I’m sorry, that was rude.”

  Once again she’d answered without answering. I began to resent the woman, and vowed to be more direct with any other Tufa I met.

  11

  We drove some more after that, and the heavy, gentle motion of the ambulance as we went up and down hills and around curves started to lull me to sleep. I held Ray’s ashes safely between my feet and tried to concentrate on the scenery, but it had become monolithic: trees, with trees behind them, and great rounded mountains of trees looming over them. The radio continued to play contemporary country music, and the sheer sameness of it would’ve been maddening if I’d been fully awake.

  “Matt,” Bliss said gently. “Are you asleep?”

  “No, just dozing off a little,” I said, and forced myself fully upright.

  “We’re almost to Needsville. Ray’s folks live about a half hour past that, out in the country.”

  “Is there any kind of hotel or motel nearby?” I hadn’t made reservations; I just figured I’d stay at the cheapest place around.

  “There used to be, but it closed down last year. The owner’s husband died, and she didn’t want to keep it up anymore.”

  That wasn’t good news. “So where can I stay?”

  “With Ray’s people. They’re expecting you.”

  With Ray’s people, a half hour away from town, even. “I don’t suppose there’s a car rental place on the way, is there?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Needsville is pretty small.”

  “So how do I get back to the airport?”

  “Somebody’ll take you,” she said diffidently.

  At last we topped a particularly steep little hill and passed a sign that said, WELCOME TO CLOUD COUNTY. A few minutes later we entered Needsville itself.

  “How many people live here?” I said as I looked around. The post office was new, and the convenience store, and the bank looked relatively recent, but the rest of the abandoned and shuttered buildings looked like they might’ve last been used in the ’80s. The town looked like one of those bushes that’s dead except for a few tiny sprigs of green here and there.

  “About three hundred,” Bliss said. “But not many live in town. Most have farms or houses out in the country.”

  I looked at the circle of hills that surrounded the town, and the mountains beyond. The sense of isolation hit me anew, and impulsively I pulled out my phone. I got no signal.

  “Yeah, sorry,” she said when she saw what I was doing. “We had a cell phone tower in town once, but something happened to it, and they haven’t replaced it.”

  “So I’m cut off from all civilization?” I said, trying to sound light and not admit my apprehension.

  “We’re civilized, Matt. We may be isolated, but we’re not backwards. You can get a signal a bit further on.”

  She didn’t say it harshly, but I realized I was accepting the cliché idea of Southern rural life. “Sorry. Didn’t mean any insult.”

  We went through town and turned onto a road bumpy with fresh repairs to its asphalt, and followed it until we reached a small fire station. Bliss parked the ambulance and said, “We have to change cars here. I don’t want to take the ambulance down Geeter Road.”

  “What if somebody gets sick on Geeter Road?”

  “Their bill comes with a charge for new ambulance shocks and tire alignment.”

  We got out and drove on in her pickup. The lighter vehicle meant more bouncing, and I held Ray’s ashes tight in my hands. We turned onto a gravel road and, after another fifteen minutes, pulled into the driveway of a small farmhouse. A car and two trucks were parked beside it, and I heard dogs barking from inside after Bliss turned off the engine.

  “Those dogs sound big,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. Like I said, they know you’re coming.”

  We got out. I left Ray’s box on the seat; I wasn’t sure of the etiquette of this situation, but I didn’t want to just show up and hand them over like a UPS driver. That was the whole thing we were trying to avoid, after all.

  The screen door opened, and two big dogs of indeterminate breed rushed out, practically knocking each other down in their haste to reach me. When they did, they jumped up and licked my hands. Their paws were big and broad, and I felt th
eir nails through my jeans.

  “Get off’n him!” a man ordered, and the dogs did, but continued to mill around my feet, thick tails wagging. “Sorry about that, they get all wrought up when they meet somebody new.”

  The man was about fifty, with white touches at the sides of his otherwise black hair, and his resemblance to Ray was undeniable. He strode out and seriously shook my hand. “Reckon you must be Matt. That fella Neil said you’d be coming.”

  “I am,” I said.

  “My name’s Gerald. Pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  The door opened again, and an older woman emerged onto the porch. She wore denim cut-offs and an orange T-shirt that said VOLS, which I assumed was a local sports team. “Is this Rayford’s friend?” she called.

  “It sure is,” Gerald said. “Matt, this is Ladonna, Rayford’s mother.”

  She came down and graciously shook my hand as well. “I want to thank you for bringing Rayford home.”

  “It was the least I could do,” I said. “He was a good friend.”

  A third person came out. He was bigger, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and his black hair was tangled with sweat. He looked at me, and I felt a jolt all the way down to my toes. Things suddenly got a whole lot more interesting.

  “Who’s this?” he said, and his voice was just as deep and full as you’d expect from a rural Adonis.

  “Rayford’s friend from New York City,” Ladonna said.

  The man stepped off the porch and sauntered over. “Hi. Cyrus Crow. Folks call me C.C.”

  “Matt Johansson,” I said. His grip was firm, and the muscles on his forearm flexed when we shook. He was, without a doubt, the best-looking guy I’d ever been this close to, and given some of the dancers and actors I’d met, that was saying something. This was a complication I had not foreseen, and would have to do my best to shake off.

  “Rayford and I grew up together,” C.C. said. “We’ve been friends since we were knee high to a polecat. It was a real shock to hear about him.”

  “It was a shock to all of us, too,” I agreed.

  “Bliss, thanks for hauling him all the way from Nashville,” Ladonna said. “Bliss and Rayford used to date, did you know that?”