Eastern Kentucky. Western Kansas. The Oklahoma panhandle. Anywhere in the stretch between Fargo, North Dakota and Spokane, Washington. Shows with a wide reach roll through these parts often like the circus or other family entertainment shows of which I’ve done a few. Because everyone likes to be entertained even if the town only has five thousand people.
On the surface, I enjoy quaint. America has lots of quaint. Lots of corn. Lots of trees. Lots of space from sea to shining sea. And within that, a quaint little town with white picket fences and little family-owned shops is a good breather from the usual, especially for a city rat like me.
West Virginia. The buses pull into a parking lot behind a Best Western at sunrise. Rooms aren’t ready yet. Even way out here, somehow, rooms have a way of selling out because of road trippers, wanderers, and probably some amount of prostitution. I take a seat on the curb around the side. The piece of sidewalk next to me has the remnants of a spray-painted swastika still humming on the surface. I take a sip of my instant hot chocolate. Quaint.
“So you travel doing shows?” the young woman at the front desk asks me not too long after. She rearranged things in the computer system. Turns out there were some clean rooms after all.
“Yeah.”
“Must be fun.”
“The word I choose is ‘interesting,’” I say for probably the thousandth time.
She says she used to do shows in high school. Never thought about having a career in it.
“It’s hard to make it as an actor,” she says.
“Yeah. But plenty of people work behind the scenes. Most of the people on those buses out there aren’t actors.”
She asks what I do, precisely, and I tell her.
“I got a job offer from out in Charlotte once. Turned it down,” she says.
“Why?” I asked.
“It just wasn’t the right time for me to leave. You know. I had a boyfriend and all.”
“And now?”
“No boyfriend now but… it’s still a big leap. What’s your favorite place you’ve been to?”
I tell her about Huntsville, Alabama first. A small city filled with rocket scientists on account of it being built around a NASA facility. I tell her about the huge duck pond there where for a quarter you can get food from the dispensers and toss it to the ducks and the fish. I mention Kansas City, a place that genuinely surprised me from what little of it I saw. She asks about New York.
“I lived there, actually,” I say. With that, she demands details and I give her all the tips and tricks of making the big move on a shoestring budget, should a job offer make it her way. Though I emphasize that there are a lot easier places to build a life for yourself than New York, especially if she’s attached to the feeling of West Virginia. I brought up a woman I worked with who went to West Virginia University and ended up being the technical director for a performing arts center out in Shenandoah Valley. “But she always went home for the holidays. Her town, just like this town, will always be here no matter how far away you go.”
Even deeper into Appalachia in a town with a little arena that could probably shelter everyone living within sixty miles in any direction, in an unexpected lull in my day I leave the venue and head for Main Street where I get a few stares from locals. As I’m waiting for my hot chocolate order in a cafe, the barista waves me over.
“Where do you come from?” she asks me bluntly. Even after I get my hot chocolate, we keep chatting.
She says she does lots of events around here. Says people come in for weddings because the area is so picturesque. She mentions the Hatfields and McCoys being the main tourist draw. Some of their infamous dealings went on in this town, I am informed.
“I’m waiting for the right time to leave,” she says. I ask what, precisely, she’s waiting for.
“I’m studying mortuary sciences.”
“An industry that’ll never go out of business!” I joke. “And lucky for you, there’s dead people everywhere.”
“Right? I’ve got a boyfriend here though. Won’t even think about leaving. Not even to Louisville.”
“There’s plenty of men in Louisville, alive ones,” I say. She accuses me of sounding like her mother. “You should listen to her,” I insist. “Because I can guarantee you, anyone holding you down this early in the game isn’t worth it. Did you know people live in Los Angeles who have never seen the ocean? Because their whole lives take place within a twenty city block radius.”
“Now that’s something that doesn’t make sense,” she says.
“And if an opportunity comes along that would give them a springboard for leaving, they turn it down because they feel as if they’re betraying something intrinsic about themselves. And I told them the same thing. This neighborhood isn’t going anywhere and this is a chance to at least say you tried, right? I know it’s not always that simple but… it’s worth thinking about is all I’m saying. Especially if this is something you already know you want.”
Somewhere out in Georgia, not too far from where my father’s side of the family hails from, I’m stopped in the hallway of yet another small multipurpose arena by an older black woman.
“Are you the tour manager?” she asks me.
“Yes,” I say.
“Can you come with me to the box office? I want to show you to my girls,” she says. A little confused, I follow along.
In the box office, I am enthusiastically introduced to a few other black women, probably college students.
“This young lady is the tour manager. She runs the entire show.” She then addresses me. “We really don’t see people like you in positions like this come through here. Ever.” She then pulls out her phone where she asks to take a photo together that she can send to her grandchildren.
“My folks are from Grantville,” I tell her. “A few of them moved up north in the seventies though.”
“Grantville? Oh yeah there’s nothing out there.”
“I like it. Used to spend my summers there pouring gasoline on fire ant hills, spitting watermelon seeds at tin cans, and counting how many cars would go by the house in a week. I think my record was seven. Though most of that was probably the same pickup truck.”
“I can imagine. But just like I tell these girls, they’ve gotta go out and see the world. This place will still be here when they get back.”
The woman on the other side of the computer screen finishes telling me about her qualifications. I’ve heard it all before but I’ve got the production manager on the call this time too for a general vibe check. She texts me separately saying she likes her. I go over more specifics about the band the tour is for and the audio gear we’re renting for it. I describe what living on a tour bus is like and ask if she’s claustrophobic at all.
“No,” she insists.
“Where did you say you were from again?” I ask.
“You wouldn’t have heard of it. Nowhere, USA. Between Austin and San Antonio. Sort of.” That made sense. She did mention she’d been doing sound for a few big music festivals in Austin over the years, festivals with bands very much like the one I was building this tour for.
“So I could fly you out from either airport?” She nods. “Alright… I do think this could be a good first tour for you. We’d like to bring you on.”