Chapel of Ease

by Alex Bledsoe

  “No, it has nothing to do with the war,” I said. “I saw you when you came to visit Ray in New York.”

  Her easy smile changed to a forced and obviously false one. “Me? I haven’t been to New York since before she was born, and then it was just overnight. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Then you’ve got a twin,” I said, not about to let this go. “We talked at the press preview the night Ray died, less than a week ago. I was as close to you then as I am now. You asked me if we’d stop the show if Ray told us to.”

  “What’s a ‘press preview’?” she asked innocently.

  Now I started to get mad. “It’s when you do the show for the critics.”

  “Well, it’s a coincidence. It must be. Did this visitor have a baby with her?”

  “No.”

  “Then I promise you, it wasn’t me, because she and I go everywhere together.” The baby smacked her mother’s cheeks and giggled. “Well, it was nice to meet you, but I have to pick up some diapers before this little lady gets tired of sitting in her own pee.” She turned and strode into the convenience store, more quickly than her casual air would imply.

  “That was strange,” C.C. said.

  “That was bullshit,” I said through my teeth. “I swear it was her.”

  “Why would she lie about it?”

  “I have no fucking clue. But she just did. Unless she does have a twin?”

  “Folks say all us Tufa look alike. But no, she’s only got brothers. Well … had brothers. One of them died a while back.”

  “Then it was her. I mean, I’d swear on a stack of Bibles with a gun to my head.” I started toward the store. “I’m going to go talk to her some more.”

  C.C. grabbed my arm. “Whoa, wait a minute. That might work in New York City, but not here.”

  “I’m not going to hit her, C.C.”

  “That ain’t what I mean. She’s important.”

  “Yeah, I know, she’s a war hero, so you said.”

  “No, she’s more than that.” He paused, debating whether to continue, then blurted, “She’s what we call a First Daughter.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The firstborn daughter of a firstborn daughter. And she’s pureblood Tufa.”

  “Which means…?”

  “It means there’s etiquette involved.”

  I looked up into his strong, sincere face and saw he meant every word. He was, in fact, rather scared of this young mother.

  She came out of the store, waved at us with the hand carrying the pack of diapers, and got into her truck without another word. I said nothing.

  As she drove off, C.C. said, “Thank you.”

  I muttered insincerely, “You’re welcome.”

  “All right.”

  “All right, what?”

  “All right, we’ll go back to the chapel. But not during the day. We’ll go at night. That’s when the Durants are usually too drunk to be much trouble.”

  “Usually?”

  “Those are the best odds I can give you.”

  “Tonight?”

  “No, tomorrow night. Tonight … I have something else I want to show you.”

  You can imagine my first thought, but there was nothing sexual in the way he said it. Then I wondered if perhaps I should be worried. Had I shown too much disrespect to the so-called First Daughter so that he now believed I needed to be taken out and taught a lesson … perhaps permanently? But no, I could be wrong, but not that wrong. “I’ll look forward to it. Do I need to dress up?”

  “Ha! No. It’s not formal.” He met my eyes, and this time there was definitely something there, something a good deal more intimate than secrets buried in churches.

  “I’ll look forward to it,” I said again.

  Before we could proceed to any interesting innuendo, yet another truck pulled up beside C.C.’s. This one was loud and rusted, and squeaked when it came to a halt.

  “Oh, shit,” C.C. muttered.

  “What?”

  “Let me do the talking,” he said.

  A man got out of this truck. He was about thirty, with Tufa hair and teeth, but a shifty, vaguely dishonest air about him. As he approached, C.C. made a quick, elaborate gesture with his hand, just as he had for Bronwyn Chess earlier. The newcomer responded with a different one.

  “What’s up, Cyrus?” he said. Then he looked closely at me. I realized he was trying to fake being tough, like a bad actor. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Matt Johansson,” I said, and stood to shake hands.

  His grip was faux firm, just like his glare. “Judging from that accent, you ain’t from nearby.”

  “No, I’m from New York.”

  “He’s a friend of Rayford Parrish’s,” C.C. said quickly, as if I was about to get myself into trouble.

  “A friend of Rayford’s from the big city,” the man said. He sat beside C.C. and rested his arms on the table. I sat back down, too. “Yeah, now that I think about it, I’ve heard about you. Sure was a shame to hear about his passing. Kind of you to bring his ashes back home.”

  “He was glad to do it,” C.C. said.

  “Were you?” the man asked me.

  “I was.”

  “And I hear you been doing a little sightseeing up in the Durants’ holler.”

  “He wanted to see the old chapel,” C.C. said.

  “Now, why would a Yankee give a shit about an old broke-down church?” He said this in reply to C.C., but looking at me.

  “I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked. I was already annoyed by Bronwyn Chess, and this wasn’t helping.

  “Everybody calls me Junior. I’m what you might call a person of authority. Nothing official, no badge or election or anything, but…” He smiled and shrugged, as if his power should be obvious. “So why did you want to see that church?”

  “My friend Ray wrote a play about the chapel, and it’s going to open in New York City in a week. While I was here, I wanted to see the real place that inspired him.”

  “You know that’s on private property, right?”

  I was starting to really dislike this guy, and truthfully, felt a little cocky after my trouncing of his friends, the Durants. “Is it yours?”

  “Mine? Naw. But the people it belongs to are mine. I’m responsible for them. And if they get hurt, I’m always concerned.”

  “Did they get hurt?”

  “They said you used some kind of kung fu on ’em.”

  I laughed. “Me? I’m a Broadway dancer, do I look like Jean-Claude Van Damme to you?”

  He leaned back and looked at me anew. I sat as limply and non-butch as I could, and it took all my self-control not to bat my eyes at him. At last he said, “Well, then, you tell me what happened.”

  “They told us to leave, so we left. We didn’t want any trouble. Did they?”

  Again Junior was silent; then abruptly he got to his feet. “Hope you enjoy the rest of your visit,” he said, then went back to his truck. A moment later it started and he rattled off down the highway.

  C.C. laughed. I realized I’d never heard him laugh, not like this. He sounded a lot like Burt Reynolds. “That’ll rattle around in his head for a while,” he said. “I’d love to be a fly on the outhouse wall when he tells the Durocs that they were beat up by a dancer.”

  “Will it cause you any trouble after I’m gone?”

  “I hope so,” he said, still laughing. “I purely do hope so.”

  17

  We drove along for several minutes before I realized we weren’t headed back to the Parrish farm. I looked over at C.C. sharply. “Uh … where are we going?”

  “I want to show you something,” he said.

  “I thought that was tonight.”

  “Yeah, that’s something different. This has to do with Rayford’s show.”

  I’d already seen the chapel, so I couldn’t imagine what he meant, but it wasn’t like I had any choice, although I did briefly consider leaping from the truck into the trees. The road wound t
hrough the woods, until at last we stopped at a spot that, to me, looked like every other place along the road. “We have to walk a bit from here,” he said.

  The trail was clear, even if it bore no sign of recent passage. Insects buzzed in the air, and shafts of sunlight came through the trees. It was certainly beautiful, but also spooky, as if strange things might lurk in the deep shadows between the pools of illumination.

  Then we emerged into a clearing. In the center was a small, fenced-in graveyard with perhaps a dozen headstones. Three enormous crows lifted off as we approached, their caws echoing in the silence.

  C.C. opened the gate in the waist-high fence. The hinges squeaked like the sob of a lone mourner. The place’s atmosphere was somber, and I said softly, “What’s this?”

  “A graveyard. Don’t they have these in New York?”

  “Yes, but I assume there’s a reason you brought me to this particular one.”

  He stopped before one small, weathered headstone. Greenish lichen grew along the curve at the top. “Well … this is where they buried one of them people Rayford wrote about.”

  I got a chill despite the hot sun. “Really?”

  He patted the stone. “This is Byrda Fowler.”

  Fowler. They had no last names in our play. I reverently knelt before it and put my fingers on the stone. I could make out the name, the salutation, HERE LIES just above it, but the dates were worn and indecipherable.

  Around the base of the tombstone were several flat, smooth rocks. “What are these?”

  “Markers of respect. Visitors leave them.”

  So Byrda wasn’t totally abandoned. I also remembered the box of rocks I’d seen at the bar dance. “Should we leave some?”

  He held out two from his pocket. “Got us covered.”

  I carefully placed mine on the tombstone’s cracked, crumbling base.

  “I’ve heard tell some folks have seen her haint around here,” C.C. said.

  “Not at the chapel?”

  “Haint can be in more than one place. Haint can be wherever it wants.”

  I stood back up and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

  “Oh, yeah. Three. One time when I was a little boy, this old woman walked across our yard one afternoon. Right as she reached the road, she vanished. Just went poof right in front of me and my cousin. We ran inside and hid under the kitchen table. Never saw her again.”

  “And the others?”

  “One other one was just like that. A young man in Confederate gray walking across the field while I was out plowing. Got about ten feet away from me and disappeared, just like that old woman. Never said a word. But the other…”

  He paused, mustering the story. I wanted to put my hand on his arm, let him know he wasn’t alone, but even though we’d kissed that morning, I wasn’t sure whether he’d welcome that.

  “I was fishing one day, about three years ago,” he began. “Off by myself, at this creek I know about. This old man comes out of the woods with a cane pole, says howdy just as nice as you please, and sits down right beside me. I mean, close enough I could see the whiskers in his beard. He drops his line in, and I do remember thinking I’d never seen such a smooth drop, it barely made the water move. Then we sat there, watching our floats, just bullshitting about the day. He told me all about his grandkids, about his farm, just the normal stuff you’d talk about. Only strange thing was the way he looked when I mentioned my truck, like he had no idea what I was talking about.”

  Again he paused, and when he spoke again, his voice shook in a way I’d never heard before.

  “And then I looked over at him, and I could see through him. I mean, right through, like he was superimposed on a picture or something. And he smiled at me, and it was the scariest thing I ever did see, before or since. Then he just faded away.” He laughed at his own terror. “And I ain’t never been back to that fishing hole, I tell you that.”

  “Wow,” I said. I had no context for that sort of thing.

  “I don’t know how it is with regular dead people, but the Tufa dead, they don’t always move on. If they got business, they stick around until it’s taken care of.”

  That was the whole point of Ray’s play, so it made sense. “Thanks for bringing me here, C.C. You think Byrda would mind if I took some pictures?” I knew Julie would love to have one. She plays Byrda in the show.

  “I reckon if she minds, she’ll let you know.”

  I took out my phone and tried to open the camera app, but it wouldn’t work. I turned the phone off and back on, and it still wouldn’t work. “Huh,” I said.

  “Camera not working?”

  “No.”

  “Then I reckon she’s letting you know.”

  That sent a fresh chill through me. I looked down at the stone and said, “Okay … Byrda … message received. I mean no disrespect. I’m just going to take a picture of the graveyard in general, if that’s okay.”

  I went through the gate and moved a few feet away. When I tried again, the app opened with no problem. C.C. stepped out of the way, and I took several pictures in rapid succession. I put away my phone and said, “Thanks, Byrda. Rest well.”

  I looked back just before we entered the woods and saw that the three crows had returned to their perches.

  * * *

  When we got back to the Parrish farm, it was midafternoon. C.C. excused himself to go check on Gerald’s tractor out in whatever field he was plowing. I went to my room and found, to my great discomfort, Thorn seated on the edge of my bed.

  “Hi,” she said. She had a guitar across her lap. “Close the door, would you?”

  “Uh—”

  “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. But please, close the door. I need to tell you something in private.”

  I hesitated for a moment, then did as she asked.

  “Thank you. You want to sit down?”

  “I’ll stand, if that’s okay. What’s up?”

  She strummed an E chord on the guitar. “I need to clarify what I was asking you yesterday. And what I was really talking about.”

  “I think I got the idea.”

  “No, you didn’t, because I came at you all wrong, and I apologize.”

  “No need.”

  She strummed again, and said, “Yes, there is. I really had no interest in you, sexually. Even if you were straight. But…”

  She noodled on the instrument, a tune I didn’t recognize but that fit perfectly with the kind of music I’d heard at the barn dance. “You see, I want the same thing Ray did: to get out of here for a while. I know the mountains are lovely, the clean air is great, blah blah blah. But I’ve got nothing to compare it to.”

  “Okay.…” I had no idea where this was going. Or rather, I had a very good idea where this was going.

  “I admit it,” she continued. “When you first got here, I intended to seduce you and use you to get out of here. I’m not proud of it, but you have to use what you have to work with to accomplish your goals, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “So now … I want you as a friend.”

  “I am your friend, Thorn.”

  “Good. Then as my friend, I’m begging you: Help me get out of here.”

  I lowered my voice. “Are they keeping you here against your will?”

  “What? No!”

  “Then how can I help you?” I asked guardedly.

  “First, listen to this and tell me if you think it’s any good.”

  She strummed again. I felt a great sinking feeling, because if there was one thing I hated, it was being asked for my opinion on a song or a play by a struggling artist. In my experience, there was usually a reason they were struggling, and usually it was that they sucked. Or if they didn’t, they brought nothing new to the table, just rehashes of whatever songs or shows that most inspired them. I can’t tell you how many friends and acquaintances had brought clones of Wicked, Evita, and any other popular show to me to see what I thought. So I prepared my usual answer
: I think it shows a lot of promise. It always sounded flat and unconvincing to me, but the artists were so desperate for reassurance, they jumped on it like it was a rope and they were in the water beside the Titanic.

  But as she began to sing, I realized that, in this case, my presumption might have been misplaced.

  You were there my whole life

  Many times I wished you weren’t

  From the cold mornings at the bus stop

  To the summer days when we’d get burnt

  You taught me how to fish and swim

  You made fun of me for dresses

  You beat up the boys who treated me bad

  And helped clean up my messes

  You flew to the city because you had to

  And I understand, and I agree

  But the woods and roads are so empty now

  When it’s no longer you and me.…

  When she finished, I had to wipe a tear from my eye before speaking. “Wow, Thorn, that was beautiful.”

  “I wrote it the night before you got here,” she said evenly, arms folded across the top of her guitar. “Took me about an hour. They say the best songs come fast.”

  “Why didn’t you play it at the wake?”

  She shook her head. “The wake was a celebration. You don’t want to make people sad when they’re happy.” She paused, then said, “So do you think I could make it in New York?”

  “What do you mean by ‘make it’?”

  “Make a decent living with my music. Playing in a bar or something.”

  “Well, you’re a beautiful girl, and if you’ve got other songs this good, you’d probably get a gig somewhere. But I don’t really know much about the music scene, except as an occasional fan.”

  She began again, only this time it was a grinding, bluesy number. I hadn’t seen her retrieve it, but now she had a slide on her left hand. She sang:

  Down in the holler where the good ones play

  You’ll find me waiting there all alone

  A torn dress off my shoulder and a flower in my hair

  If you come to me, you’ll never go back on your own.

  I can turn you into dust with a flick of my hip

  I can put you on your back, or your knees

  Because down in the holler where the good ones play