Where You’re Supposed to Be

“Hey Billy, wait up!” the Beav called out, as he ran across the vestibule with a Bible tucked under his arm like a football. Everyone called him The Beav because of his resemblance to Leave It To Beaver. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” I said, slowing down by the door to wait. My friends oohed and awwed as they filed out of the church. One even made devil horns with his fingers as he mouthed “You’re in trouble!”

He was only a few years older than me, but carried himself as much older. He wasn’t a pastor. Not yet, anyway. I’d heard the minister say he was on the “divinity track.” He and his wife helped chaperone the youth group.

“I had a dream last night.” His eyes expanded wide as he talked, beaming ovals like the headlights of a Studebaker. “And you were in it.”

“Really?” I said. I had only talked to him once before. At Lake Junaluska the previous summer, when I capsized my canoe, he showed me how to paddle it in partially submerged.

“Really,” he said, with conviction, like this was the most important conversation he had ever had. His hands spread out in front of him as he talked, conjuring the scene. “I was in a wide grassy field. White tents punctuated the horizon, their support beams reaching skyward like a medieval cloister. Music filled the air as throngs of people danced and sang.”

“And I was there?” I laughed nervously. My first concert was still a few years away.

“Yes, you were.”

“Was I performing?” I said, hopefully.I had recently gotten a guitar. I thought that might be cool.

“No, you weren’t performing. You were off to the side.”

“What was I doing?”

“Doing? You were by the stage. A big wooden one, under a stand of trees.”

A loud bang rang out, followed by a girl’s scream. We both turned to the parking lot where my friend’s VW bug had backfired when he started it up. A wisp of blue smoke lingered above the car, before disappearing.

“I’ve got to go,” I stammered. “My friends are waiting.”

“Don’t you want to know why you were there?”

Was he serious? His expression said he was. “Why was I there?”

He paused, like he was calculating something. One of my friends told me he waited tables at Daryl’s when he wasn’t helping at the church, but I hadn’t seen it. He shifted his Bible between his hands.

“I think it’s where you’re supposed to be.”

I looked towards the parking lot, then back at him. His countenance was unwavering. He seemed content that he had delivered his prophecy. I withered under his gaze, unsure how to respond. Honestly, he weirded me out. We stood in silence, until I finally spoke.

“It was just a dream, right? That’s not real.”

He put his hand on my shoulder, and leaned in.

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?”

He smiled, clapped me on the back then turned and walked into the church. I didn’t see him again after that day.

A few years later, I was a freshman DJ at Appalachian State. I was alone in a production room, facing a microphone and a technics reel to reel machine. Spools of half-inch tape stared back at me, oversized and black like a bug’s eye. The VU meter flickered, measuring my breath like a lie detector. Through the adjoining window I could see the studio, where my roommate DJed the afternoon shift like Terminator X on the Wheels of Steel. The booth was airless, cold and unforgiving with sound proof tiles and noise canceling carpet ensuring silence.

I volunteered to record the PSA when I heard it was a festival.

I doodled a cartoon guitar in the margin of the copy, buying time because I didn’t know where to start.

North Wilkesboro? Where’s that, I thought as I read over the script. Did I drive by it on 421? Was the Festival at the race track?

I pulled a few records from artists playing the festival for the music bed. I wanted to use something by Chet Atkins but most of the station’s country records had been pilfered over the years. The Seldom Scene’s latest album was an option. The instrumental opening of “I’ll Be No Stranger There” might work if I doubled it.

“Tickets for the third annual Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Festival…” I read the copy dry, while focusing on my sibilance the way Dr. Tyrie had taught me. When I finished, I rewound the tape and listened back. I hated hearing my voice but thought I was passable. I dubbed the cart, labeled it, and dropped it into the production manager’s box. And I wondered about the festival.

Life sped ahead. I graduated, married and had two kids. I blinked and I was over 50. Music still mattered but it was a career. Festival season was marked on my calendar in red. I traded my microphone for the business of supporting artists and their art.

A few weeks ago I hit the road. I spent the morning in Charlotte in meetings, then battled rush hour traffic to go to Merlefest. I was running late.

I had boxes of Jim Lauderdale merch to deliver to the festival. Merlefest has an efficient transportation system. A driver in a golf cart met me outside the gates and helped me wrangle the tshirts, CDs and LPS. He dropped me off at the merch tent.

I stacked the boxes on the table, so they could be counted in. I watched as fans streamed past me filling the grassy field. My back hurt and I was hungry.

“Hey there feller.” The merch manager said as he opened one of the boxes. He pulled out a Jim Lauderdale LP and held it up. “Looks like you’re where you’re supposed to be.”

I froze. I was fourteen again. I remembered the way the Beav held his hands when he delivered his prophecy.

A band started on the main stage, the wooden one under the trees. People sang and danced. I was off to the side.

I smiled, and started unpacking the boxes.

“Yeah, I’ll be no stranger here.”

This One’s Called… Where You’re Supposed To Be.