He sighed again. “You’re still on our side, right? It almost sounds like you’re working for her.”
“I’m not working for her. Let me know what you decide.”
She disconnected and dropped her Hoodie. The ocean greeted her with a roar.
37
LUCE
Manifest Independence
The marquee from that last night Before still had my name on it. Of all the changes and incongruities and instances of past overlying present, I’d never once considered that one. It made perfect sense. The last show before we collectively gave up on trusting each other in proximity, captured in time. A memorial plaque for who we used to be.
“Oh, man,” said Silva, and I realized whatever I was feeling as we approached must be even stranger for him, since he had worked there. He would have been the one waiting every day for the go-ahead to change the sign during that hellish upheaval.
The C and H from the name had fallen or been stolen, leaving THE PEA. Grackles nested in the remaining letters and most of the bulbs surrounding the sign looked like they’d been shot out. Somehow, nobody had stolen the movable letters that read TONIGHT: LUCE CANNON.
Looking closer, we saw the marquee was propped up by a couple of new-looking jacks. The posters were gone, the glass ticket booth boarded up, the sidewalk cracked. Time was a bastard on the best of days.
“This poor old girl.” Silva shook his head as we turned down the alley.
Marcia watched us both with curiosity. “Why is it always ‘she’? I don’t think I’ve heard someone call a building she before, but ships and guitars…”
Silva shrugged. “I have no idea, but if the outside looks this bad, I’m a little nervous about the inside.”
“They would have taken any opportunity to move us to their campus if it wasn’t possible to play here,” I said, though I was wondering the same thing. I had pictured the place frozen in time, perfectly preserved. Stupid. Preservation is an action, not a state.
We turned another corner, and I was surprised to see that the back was as busy as the front was deserted. A dozen trucks and vans crowded the loading dock. We had to block one of them in, but it was reasonable to think they wouldn’t be leaving before us.
I shouldered my guitar and looked at the others. “Last chance to turn around.”
“This was your idea, not ours,” Marcia said. “That’s completely your call.”
“Silva?”
“I want to see what she looks like inside.”
Backstage bustled with activity. Nobody gave us a second glance; if we were there, we belonged. Some of them were assembling camera rigs, others trying to raise a new curtain, others loading more equipment in through a side door halfway down the room. We walked past and onto the proscenium.
“Oh, man,” Silva repeated.
The seats were gone. Paint hung from the walls in long strips, and the place carried a vague smell of—water? Trash? There was a stain in the shape of Australia on the ceiling above the balcony. A couple of workers snaked wires off the stage and around the wall to a corner in the back, where they’d set up a makeshift control booth.
Still, it was beautiful. The wall sconces, the stage, the elegant balcony molding, the chandeliers. A thought crossed my mind that if someone had been using it as a secret venue, I might have ruined everything for them by choosing to play here when I could have picked anyplace. I could have made them film me at the 2020. Why had I chosen this? Because, I told myself, you wanted to show them a past that didn’t have to be past. Or something like that.
“You made it! And you were right: this place is beautiful! I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I turned to see Rosemary approaching from the wing. Funny how I always heard her before I saw her. You had to give the kid this: she was enthusiastic. I felt a pang of sympathy for her “never seen anything like it.” It had been a beautiful room, but not unique in its day.
“Is everything going okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s all working out pretty well. The city owns the building, and they had no problem turning on the electricity as long as we were willing to pay to get everything inspected. It mostly needed a good cleaning. The company liked that the chairs were gone. Said it’ll be easier to film. All the sound equipment was sold off a long time ago, but we would’ve brought ours in either way. And you should’ve seen how excited they were about that marquee with your name on it. It was like they’d discovered an intact dinosaur fossil. Um, you’re not the fossil in that scenario. The marquee is.”
I sighed. More nostalgia. Maybe I brought it on myself by picking this place, this format.
“So, um, thank you for telling them to make me your artist liaison for this gig. I don’t really know what that entails, since it isn’t part of my normal job, but tell me what you need from me and I’ll do it.”
It wasn’t like we’d ever had an artist liaison for anything before. A host supplied by the enemy. I didn’t really know what to ask for, but scrambled for something to make her feel useful. “Could you rustle up some people to get our gear inside? It’s faster with help.”
She saluted and disappeared, returning with two burly guys and a burlier woman.
“Minions! Excellent!” Marcia led them out the door. I followed, but they picked up two more people along the way, and I didn’t end up needing to carry anything. One trip, and everything was in for us to assemble.
“Closer to the front,” I said to Marcia as she unrolled the rug that kept her drums from moving. “I want us all tight and intimate if we’re playing for cameras.”
She saluted and dragged her rug closer to me. Techs began to circle us, taping marks onto the wooden floor.
“Hi, I’m Luce,” I said to the guy miking my amp.
“Hey,” he said without introducing himself.
It took a while for them to get the sound under control, the speakers emitting earsplitting crackles and squeals like creatures that didn’t want to be tamed. The challenge would be creating a mix that worked both for their recording and for the live space. I was more worried about the latter.
“Rosemary, how many tickets did you sell?” I asked the question into the mic and she appeared in front of me instantly.
She gestured out into the empty room. “They gave away ten pairs of tickets in a contest, along with transportation to get here.”
Ten pairs. “What was the contest?”
“They had to say where they first heard ‘Blood and Diamonds.’ I know that’s not what you would have wanted, but Promotions insisted that was the best way. There were a lot of entries, for what it’s worth.”
This was the first I was hearing about it, but the contest was a distraction. “What I’m trying to say is it’s going to sound awfully boomy in here with no seats and no bodies to absorb the sound. Twenty is nothing in a room this size.”
“Maybe it’ll work itself out?” She looked away again.
“Twenty isn’t what I had in mind when I told you I needed a live audience.”
“I know, but it’s all I could get them to agree to. Better than none, right?”
“I guess it is what it is. We’ll make it work.” Not much choice.
We eventually came to a point where I was satisfied with the live sound and the nameless soundperson adjusting levels didn’t seem to be fiddling anymore. Then we went through it again for the recording rigs and the lights. Beneath it all, I heard the grumbling of the techs as they repositioned their equipment. “What the fuck are we doing here?” one of them muttered to another, and I wondered the same. What was the point of my insisting we do this here if there wasn’t any audience? No, twenty wasn’t nothing. I’d play for ten or five or two if they were into it. I’d just have to convince these contest winners that the recent stuff was as good as the song they knew.