Rosemary hung up. She still wanted Joni to like her again, to forgive her, but she’d settle for a return call, for now.
35
LUCE
Crying in the Wilderness
Nobody answered the door at the Athens venue and Silva couldn’t get ahold of his friend who’d gotten us the gig. We’d planned on splurging on motel rooms, but the motels we found said we had to have booked in advance to clear their background checks. We ended up spending the night in the van, which we figured we’d be doing more of in the future, so we might as well get used to it. In Dahlonega we played to a cold and empty campground, where at least the owners were enthusiastic; they fed us and let us stay for free.
After those shows, we headed back to Nashville for a couple of weeks while Silva lined up some Tennessee shows. The Knoxville mansion show went well, except that the PA picked up police radio and broadcast it through every silence between songs. They said it was a bug and a feature, an annoyance that kept them apprised if the cops were headed their way. I didn’t think they had that much to worry about in any case; they were obviously rich enough to buy their way out of any trouble.
A pounding rain caught us as we left Knoxville, and continued into the mountains. It thankfully put a stop to our random police encounters; they didn’t want to stand around getting wet while they asked us questions about nothing, I guessed. I’d bought new tires for the van, and they seemed grippy enough, but it made me wonder where we should be when winter hit. Not these mountains. Not up north.
After all the back rooms and basements, I would’ve thought I’d seen the worst venues the country had to offer. I’d never played this particular barn, though, and this particular barn smelled like the cows had only recently vacated, and left a present on their way out the door. It was a modern milk cow shed, with rows of pumps and gutters running full with rain and manure. How could they not even have bothered to flush them out when guests were coming? I couldn’t imagine an audience would want to sit there to listen any more than I wanted to smell that while I played. Its only selling point was a roof.
“Really?” I asked Silva.
“A gig is a gig, right?”
I sighed and followed him, choosing my steps with care. We walked out the other end of the barn and down a set of limestone steps set onto a hill, slippery even with the single galvanized pipe railing. I picked my way carefully behind Silva, with Marcia behind me. The gig bag on my shoulder was waterproof, and so was my amp’s case, but it was going to be a long way down wheeling that heavy thing, not to mention Silva’s amp, which did not have a case. Also not to mention that it would be an even longer trip back up if it was still raining. Still thinking, my head down, hood up to keep the water off my face, I ran straight into Silva when he stopped.
“Ta-da,” he said.
I’d been concentrating so hard on the footing, I hadn’t noticed we’d arrived at another building. Looking down, the ground still looked the same, grass clinging for purchase as its substrate became mud. We stepped into an older barn, though, or a new barn designed to look like an old barn, since this one didn’t smell like cows. The tin roof amplified the rain to a near deafening volume, but there were no leaks. Fall dampness pervaded everything—rain was the overwhelming scent now—but the metal folding chairs laid out in neat rows were dry. So was the stage, an honest-to-goodness raised stage at the far end of the building. Lights hung from each support beam, and a couple of high-end speakers pointed out toward the audience seating.
“It’s a real venue.” I took it all in. “You were messing with me?”
Silva grinned.
“A real venue in a cow pasture,” Marcia said. “How are we supposed to get my drums down here? Or your amps?”
Silva was still smiling. “There’s a driveway that leads down to the side door. I thought it would be more fun to bring you down this way.”
Marcia leaned against a post and examined the muck on her boots. “You mean we didn’t have to walk down the Staircase of Doom? Or get soaked?”
“I’m still stuck on you making us think we were going to play in that cow palace. I’m not sure we’re at the point in our relationship where you can drag me like that. You can bring the van down. I’m not going out in that monsoon again.” I tossed the key at him and he snatched it out of the air.
“Fine, fine. It was worth it.” He disappeared into the rain.
I shook my head again. I wasn’t really annoyed; more relieved, really. Relieved I hadn’t sunken to playing for a mooing audience. Relieved we didn’t have to breathe cow for two hours. Underneath that, a little pleased to have people back in my life who felt comfortable enough to prank me. Nobody would go to that trouble if they didn’t care.
“You must be Eric Silva’s new band,” somebody called across the room. An older man, in his sixties maybe, wearing jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.
“Yep,” I said.
“Welcome to Music City. Have you played here before?”
“Years ago, with a different band.”
“Glad to have you back, then. I’m Dave.”
“Is this your place?”
“Yeah. The dairy is my cousin’s, but he let me build this place. It looks like a barn to any drone passing overhead, and it’s too far out in the country for anyone to complain about noise.”
In the last few months’ travels, I’d discovered that people had endless creativity when it came to carving out space for music. I told him about the 2020; he frowned sympathetically.
Silva backed the van up to the side door, and we went to drag the gear inside. The soundcheck went quickly and proved Dave a good engineer. After that, there was nothing to do but wait to see if anyone showed up in the rain.
I was curious to see who our audience would be. In this age of flying under the radar, it was hard to tell who to expect. The venues had their own methods of spreading the word, their own local networks. In several places, I’d played to only a handful of listeners, but I didn’t mind. I’d play to whoever wanted to listen.
People began trickling in. This audience fell on the older age of the spectrum, like the antique store had. There were probably twenty of them visible from the brightly lit stage as we picked up our instruments to play. Silva had said to expect a musician’s crowd, and we’d rehearsed based on that knowledge.
I was so caught up in the joy of playing again that it took me a few songs to notice that the audience wasn’t really responding. A smattering of applause, but it felt polite. Obligatory. I tried not to let it bring me down. The rain added a cool ambience, and the barn was cozy and dry. We sounded good. Don’t take it personally.
Dave had said to play for an hour, but by thirty minutes I felt like we’d overstayed our welcome. Metal folding chairs become instruments themselves when people start shifting in them. I couldn’t figure out why they were bored.
“Should we cut it short?” I whispered to Silva between songs. “I don’t think they’re into us.”
“Finish the set. They paid, so we should play. And Dave’s enjoying himself, and it’s his place. Play to him.”
It was an odd feeling. I tried to put myself fully in the music, as I usually did, but there was a part of me observing us critically. We weren’t doing anything wrong; it just wasn’t our night. Only toward the end did I start to feel like there was somebody out there for us. The stage lights were bright enough that we couldn’t see into the crowd, but for the last three songs one person made up for the others with their enthusiasm. It cheered me, and gave me the energy to finish on a high note.