The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Chapter 1If we say we that we have no sin We deceive ourselves, and we have no truth in us. —Christopher Marlowe Dublin, Georgia August, 1970 One wouldn’t expect to find fine theater in a backwater town in Georgia. Especially inside of a stuffy, smelly tent. The stage was placed in the middle of the audience, and it might as well have been a dozen crates stacked next to each other, for as solid as it looked. Foldout chairs circled the makeshift stage, and behind them were benches made of wood and cinder blocks. Maybe the place would comfortably seat two hundred people. But the walls of the tent had been folded up, and there were hundreds more sitting on the grass, or milling around the perimeter. They couldn’t see the stage from where they were, but that didn’t seem to discourage them. The Doctor Faustus road show had been receiving positive reviews from tiny newspapers across the south. People who would normally never be interested in Christopher Marlowe showed up in droves. Perhaps the subject matter spoke to them, especially since Faustus got his in the end. Perhaps they were just bored, and the play provided three hours of cheap entertainment in the drowsy summer evenings. The most expensive tickets were ten dollars, and they guaranteed a seat right at the edge of the stage. Everybody else paid just a few bucks, and some didn’t pay anything at all. They showed up and mingled with the crowd, confident that nobody would send them away again. Or perhaps it was the star of the show. A man who would attract attention no matter what he was doing or where he went. No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t attract attention. He demanded it. He dared people to ignore him, but nobody ever took the challenge. Simon had paid his ten dollars and even showed up early to claim his seat. He had a direct, unobstructed view of the stage. He had brought a newspaper with him, and he kept his head buried behind it while the rest of the audience settled in around him. Normally, he didn’t mind when people recognized him and asked him for his autograph. In fact, he usually enjoyed it. He liked to hear what people had to say, and he enjoyed the small amount of influence he had in their lives. He made them happy. Maybe just for the moment of their meeting, or maybe for the next several days, but he had a power that few people could claim. A power he had no wish to exercise that night. He wanted to be anonymous in that tent. For a little while, at least. The information he had could have been wrong. When he first heard it, Simon thought it had to have been wrong. Which was one reason he had cleared a full two days from his packed schedule and caught a flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta. From there, he drove a rented car one hundred and thirty five miles to Dublin, pushing it just a little bit too fast, and hoping that if he did get pulled over, the cop would be impressed with his celebrity. Fortunately, it hadn’t come down to that, and he had reached the small town with time to spare. Flies droned around his head, fat and lazy in the heat. Simon made a few efforts to bat them away from his face, fluttering the newspaper when they got too annoying, but it was an effort doomed to failure. There were too many bodies holding too many different types of food—people packed in their own but there were also vendors selling popcorn and salty pretzels—and the flies had nowhere else to go. The air didn’t move. In fact, it weighed on him, making it difficult to concentrate. Either the traveling or the heat had given him a headache—red-hot blades sliced through his eyes and sinuses. To make matters worse, he was dying for a drink. He’d be shaking for one by the end of the show. Fortunately, he had passed two bars on his way into town. He’d do more than just pass them on his way out. The performance might be in a tent, surrounded by the endless drone of flies and the merry scent of popcorn, but the locals did take it seriously. Perhaps too seriously, given how ridiculous the situation actually was. They wore their Sunday best, and they all held themselves with a sort of grace and confidence you might expect to see from a Broadway audience. Simon supposed that for them, this wasn’t a ridiculous situation. This wasn’t some sort of strange farce. This was simply part of their lives—lives they didn’t need to be rescued from. But not everybody was meant for this sort of thing. He might not have been the best friend Alan Ricks ever had, but they had been more than just acquaintances. And he understood Alan. He might have been the only person in the world who truly understood Alan. Or he was the only person in the world who had tricked himself into believe he truly understood Alan. Regardless, he was the only person in the world who cared enough to rescue Alan from his own personal, living hell. Simon didn’t know how long Alan had been playing Mephastophilis in the road show. Nobody did. He hadn’t said good-bye when he left Los Angeles, and he may have been gone for weeks or months. Simon had had some sort of vague idea that Alan had returned to New York. He’d had a solid career there once before, and he was a good, reliable actor with a broad range and a strong background. Why shouldn’t he go back to New York? Once the thought occurred to him, he never questioned the wisdom of it. Not until he ran into Alan’s ex-wife, Grace, and she told him the truth. There was no Broadway play for Alan, just an old pick-up truck, his favorite Rottweiler, and a narrow stage under a canvas tent. The only thing Simon didn’t understand was how Alan had made it all the way to Georgia. Grace hadn’t understood it, either. “His girls miss him. He calls, of course, but it isn’t the same. I wish he would come back to California.” He knew something had to be going on—something more than Grace let on—because Alan would never choose to be separated from his daughters for so long, and by so many miles. After three days, he convinced himself that he needed to go to Georgia so he could help reunite Alan with his family. There was no more to it than that. He certainly didn’t have any personal reasons to track Alan down to a tiny town south of Atlanta. Besides, Alan didn’t function well on his own. Some people did just fine by themselves, but Alan wasn’t one of them. How many times had he found his way to Simon’s dressing room just because he couldn’t stand the silence of his own? This was an errand of mercy, and he had no doubt that Alan would recognize that fact. The lights strung above the audience’s heads went dim, and the ones lined up around the stage flared to life. Simon hoped that whoever was in charge of the wiring knew what he was doing, otherwise, it would be a very shocking experience for everybody in their metal seats. Simon lowered his newspaper, quietly folding it and tucking it under his seat. Nobody even glanced his direction. If the reviews were right, Alan’s performance would be so electric that nobody would even be interested in the stranger sitting in their midst. Simon was counting on that. The last time he had seen Alan was much like the first time he had seen Alan. Walking away from him, his head down, his shoulders slightly hunched, like he was looking for a fight. Simon had watched from his Buick, sitting behind the wheel, keys in hand. His throat had itched with hundreds of words. Words that made up an infinite number of combinations. He could have shouted anything in that moment to catch the other man’s attention. But he hadn’t said a word. He remained silent and motionless, tracking Alan’s progress across the lot. Even in his obvious anger, he had been beautiful. There was no other word for it. He wasn’t the fresh, eager kid he had once been, but the years hadn’t taken anything away from him. He had stopped to talk to somebody Simon didn’t recognize, and during the short conversation, Alan had smiled. There wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy about a smile, but Simon remembered that moment vividly. He had smiled, and Simon had believed everything would be okay. Maybe that was where the fiction of New York had been born. He needed to tell himself something, otherwise he never would have started the car. He never would have been able to leave the studio, leave Alan behind, if he thought Alan really needed him. Not that Alan would have ever asked him for help. Even if Simon had some to offer. In fact, he was certain that he was the last person on the planet Alan would ever want help from. He had considered finding Alan’s truck before the performance. But it did absolutely no good to talk to the man about anything before he was scheduled to take the stage. He might not have been a classically trained thespian, and he might not have any real sense of the different techniques other actors employed, but he had his own process. A routine. He didn’t like that routine to be disrupted in any way, and Simon had enough respect for him as an actor to leave him alone before the play began. He was probably making pennies, probably living off of whatever charity he could find, and probably hated every second of it, but he would still devote himself completely to the drama. That was just the sort of man he was. Five minutes after the lights dimmed, the young man playing the part of the Chorus stepped onto the stage. Simon hid his wince as the kid began to speak. He wasn’t ready to be on the stage. He probably wasn’t even ready to be somebody’s understudy. Words like Thrasimene and audacious fell out of his mouth without a bit of grace. He held himself stiffly, like there were wires on the back of his shoulders, keeping him upright, controlling each of his movements. But for all of his oratory problems, his lack of talent, and his stiffness, it was easy to see why he was on the stage. Dark eyes, full lips, high cheekbones, and a trim, young body recommended him. He deserved to be on stage, if only so an admiring public could enjoy the view. For years the critics had said the same thing about Alan. He was disarmingly handsome, and that had been both a blessing and a curse. It got him noticed in a crowd, to be sure. But it was also easy to dismiss him because of it. He also had a sort of charm, a way of smiling, that rendered any defense completely useless. He flashed a knowing smile that managed to be completely innocent. It conveyed hey, we’re both in on this wacky joke together and also imparted a sense of I really need help and you’re the only one who can do it. He probably could have had a career in snake oil, if he had been born a century earlier. But the critics weren’t exactly fair to Alan. He was attractive, no doubt about that. But he was also very good at his job. Maybe that was why they were all packed into a tiny space together. Not because Alan’s reputation preceded him, but because Alan’s work ethic demanded he put on a play, and by sheer force of will, he found his audience. Simon didn’t think it sounded impossible. Or even that improbable. The man playing Faustus was only a few years older than he and Alan. He was also marginally more talented than the Chorus. He was about the level you would expect from a production like this. Competent without being dazzling. Surely he had not been the source of the praise in the reviews Simon had read. Or maybe the people reviewing the play simply didn’t know better? Without a broader context, perhaps they thought this was the pinnacle of fine art. Simon glanced around at the rapt faces. Despite the difficulty of the language and the complexity of the play, they were fascinated. They were not, however, simpletons. Simon was quite certain they would know good work—good art—when they saw it. He knew Doctor Faustus quite well. He had been a part of three productions of it, and had had speaking parts in two of those productions. Once as Robin and once as Faustus himself. Beyond that, he quite liked the play, and had read several times purely for the pleasure of the language. He knew when Alan would be making his entrance, and he knew the first words Alan would utter. But somehow, simply knowing these facts wasn’t enough to prepare him.