Finally. That’s what I thought when the reporter from the Times
called about Greg.
Every reading I went to, every opening, every show from Chelsea
to Bushwick, I talked about Greg and Cara: about our time together
at Wilmott, Greg’s music, and the tragedy that took him from us. I’d
corner any art-schooled, trust-funded loft-dweller who’d listen and
say, “Someone needs to tell Greg’s story.”
Invariably they’d say, “You’re a writer. Who better than you?” So
I’d have to explain that of course I’d written about Greg, how could I
not, but I only know how to write plays, and getting the backing for
a show about him, enough to do it right, on the scale he deserved,
was tough right now. If they knew me, or knew of me, this would sur-
prise them. “Didn’t you win that Kennedy Center Young Playwrights
thing?” they’d ask. “That’s got to count for something, right?” I’d tell
them that was a long time ago, another lifetime, when Greg was still
with us and I believed Broadway was just waiting for me to remake it,
and Cara was the spark that kept the fire burning in both of us. The
music industry had nearly missed out on Greg, and I wasn’t going to
just wait around for the theater industry to wake up from its stupor.
What I needed was someone who could get the word out right away.
Someone who could make Greg’s story, our story, into news.
I never doubted the call would come. I’d prayed for it. Don’t get 176 Daniel Browne
me wrong: that wasn’t the source of my confidence. I mean, I figured
God owed us one, me and Cara, but I’m not the kind of Christian
who thinks of Him as a wish-granting genie. The reason I was so cer-
tain was that I’d put in the time. I’d gotten to know the right people.
That was why the three of us had come to New York in the first place.
Truth be told, Greg and Cara never really settled in. They missed
Ohio something awful, especially Wilmott, with its red brick and
redder maples. I tried to get them excited about steampunk exhibi-
tions and political burlesque, but the two of them preferred to hole up
in their crummy apartment in the East Village, playing at the domes-
ticity they would have had if they’d stayed behind: Cara canned green
beans; Greg searched the animal shelters for an Irish setter in need of
a home, though he knew their place was too small. I’d forward them
invitations, and Greg would just say he was allergic to cheese cubes.
So I had to network for all of us. You see, I said silently to Greg when
the reporter called, I told you it would pay off in the end.
He said his name was Mike. “Amy Wright told me about your
friend.”
Amy had been in a few of my one-acts back when I was killing
myself trying to get into festivals. You try hard not to be too im-
pressed by people in this town, but I was impressed that Amy had
an in at the Times. I’d been hoping to get to someone at New York
magazine, maybe Esquire. But the Times?
“How do you know Amy?” I asked.
“We dated last summer,” Mike said, which didn’t exactly answer
the question but was enough for me. That’s what I admire about New
York: people are sophisticated about their relationships. They hook
up, they break up, but they stay cool, keep each other in mind. The
door is always open to exes—and friends of exes.
“What she told me was really sad and interesting,” Mike went on.
“She said I needed to talk to you to get the whole story.”
I waited a beat to answer. I’m an award-winning playwright. I
know how to build suspense.
“He was a genius and cancer ate his brain. That’s the story, man.”
Mike cleared his throat. Some directors and actors I know hate
that sound, but I understand what it means: someone in the audience
is unnerved. You’ve got your hook in him and he feels the pull. “Could we meet in person, maybe tomorrow?” Mike said. “It
doesn’t feel right to talk about this on the phone.”
“I’ve got prayer group till ten,” I said, “and I teach an improv class
at five. Anytime between, I’m yours.”
I suggested we meet at the High Line. I can’t stand hanging out in
the coffee shops, surrounded by all the laptop jockeys working on
their “projects.” None of the successful artists I know do it. If you
want to be out in the world, be out in the world.
For decades, the High Line was a blight; now it’s an inspiration,
tall grass and taller flowers sprouting between rusted rails, all kinds
of cool art installations claiming the dead space between buildings.
And who’s responsible? Just a couple of guys—one of them a writer—
guys with a vision, guys who knew how to line up the right people.
The High Line is my kind of place.
Mike was about my size, which is to say short, but he was stocky
where I was wiry, grizzled where I was clean-shaven. And his
clothes—no comparison there. The summer between high school
and Wilmott, I signed up for an exchange program, spent a month
in China. The lasting legacy of that trip was the five three-piece suits
I had made to order, still the best hundred bucks I ever spent. I was
wearing the gray pinstripe for my meeting with Mike, a white shirt
open at the collar, no tie. Mike was wearing jeans and a Columbia
hoodie. Taking him in, I had to revise my opinion of Amy just a little.
She slept with him? New York Times, I reminded myself.
“Which section do you write for?” I asked.
Mike took one hand out of the marsupial pocket of his hoodie and
scratched his beard. “I freelance for a few different sections.”
A freelancer. I smiled to hide my annoyance. I wondered if he’d
pitched the story yet, if the Times was even interested.
“I think this would be a good fit for Our Towns,” Mike said.
I’d never heard of Our Towns. The name made me suspicious that
he was going to portray us as a bunch of hicks who’d been chewed
up and spit out by the big city. Be cool, I told myself. He hasn’t even
heard what you have to say yet.
“Hey, you’re the writer of this little piece,” I said. “I’m just the
subject.” I smiled, the way only the thought of Cara can make me smile.
“Cara? Cara doesn’t come in, man. She’s the through line.”
Mike opened his mouth, but before he could ask for an explana-
tion, inspiration struck. As they often do, the right words just came
to me: “Greg and I were the stars of our little universe, okay? Cara
was the sky.”
Greg and I majored in Divinity, took Introduction to Pastoral
Ministry together our second semester. Cara was the only girl in
our section. Of course, we both noticed her severe beauty: long,
straight hair; sharp nose and chin; delicate, ballet-slippered foot
tapping under her desk, like an urgent telegraph. I also noticed
her noticing Greg. How could she not? The guy was six feet tall,
captain of the swim team, jaw like Batman; he played guitar on the
quad and held his sides when he laughed. I saw from the begin-
ning how it would play out. I swear I even saw myself presiding at
their wedding. And I was never once competitive or even jealous,
because I knew I would be her best friend, just as I was Greg’s, and
the intimacy among the three of us would be absolute. That was
God’s plan for us.
She was always the practical one. In that first class together, while
Greg and I debated the finer points of theology, challenging our pro-
fessor on predestination and biblical literalism, she asked questions:
How does a ministry support itself? Do pastors get 401ks? A year
later, when Greg and I had the shared revelation that our true calling
was art, she switched majors without thinking twice, graduated with
a degree in business administration. I teased her, of course, called her
“Business in the Front, Business in the Back,” but she was unflap-
pable. “Someone’s got to have their feet on the ground,” she said.
“God knows you boys don’t.”
She booked Greg gigs around campus and even a few engagements
at townie bars, unheard of at the time. For me, she found rehearsal
space, wrangled budget-conscious alternatives to my grandiose set
and costume designs. When my first student play went up, she lorded
over the till, refused to let us blow the take—all forty-five dollars
of it—on a celebratory keg. I knew then, no matter who I ended up sharing a bed or a name with, I’d never be more cared for. I’d never
feel more loved.
Our senior year, when I found out I’d won the Kennedy Center
award, she was the first one I told. The play was about a minister who
defends a painter accused of making sacrilegious art. I’d been reading
about the showdown between Giuliani and the Brooklyn Museum,
saw the potential there. Sure enough, there was interest in New York.
I’d known for a year the city was our next move, but I also knew I’d
need Cara’s help convincing Greg.
He’d spent the previous summer gigging around Ohio, winning
converts in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland. Somewhere along the
way, he’d found his voice. The crowds in those coffee shops and base-
ment clubs must have felt like they were at the Gaslight in ’62 seeing
a kid named Dylan for the first time, only Greg could sing like an
angel and work a room like Sinatra at the Sands. Sometimes the stories
he told—dead-on impressions of his brothers, Billy Graham, the Irish
setter he had as a kid—went on longer than the songs, which admit-
tedly were still working themselves out. Seriously, if you didn’t get to
see him live, you really missed something. Seems like the record com-
pany finds a new Jeff Buckley concert in the archives every few months.
The only tape of Greg singing live is in a shoebox in my closet.
The point is Greg was happy with the way things were going. The
buzz was building; the tour he had planned for the summer after
graduation would take him as far as Chicago. He could be an artist
and still be close to home. Cara was thinking about a house with a
yard, trading stocks on the Internet, a kid bobbing on her knee. But
all I had to say was, “You know he’s too good to stay.” She let it go
with a sigh.
“God’s plan?” she said.
I took her hand. “No doubt.”
A few days after we made the decision, the two of them gave me
a card with a picture Greg had drawn: three hands clasped together.
Inside, Cara had written in her precise hand, “Will you marry us?”
I still have it in the same shoebox with the tape of Greg performing.
By then, I was an ordained minister. Greg hadn’t bothered taking the
licensing exam. He figured, I’m an artist now, what’s the point? I was just as committed to writing as he was to music, but remember, I’d
seen this moment coming. Besides, I figured being a man of the cloth
would set me apart once we got to the godless cesspool of New York.
I performed the ceremony in the backyard of his parents’ house.
Cara walked down the aisle barefoot in a simple white slip dress.
Greg and I received her, he in a rented tux, me in the most formal of
my Chinese suits. I spoke of what it means to have a path in life, of
how important it is to have companions walking that path alongside
you, and how blessed I felt to be walking with Greg and with Cara on
the same path, together. They kissed, and then Greg sang a song he’d
written just the day before that brought all of us to tears. After the
picnic-style dinner, he and I dusted off some of our freshman-year
sketch comedy repertoire. I’ve got to say, we killed.
Cara and I made the move in June. The plan was to live together
until Greg joined us in September—he had to go through with the
tour—and then I’d find my own place. I was living off my Kennedy
Center prize, taking meetings with agents and producers. I tried to
convince Cara to take it easy for a while, explore the city with me,
but being Cara, she signed up with a temp agency right away. We’d
reconvene in the evenings in our fourth-floor walk-up. No furniture,
so we’d lie side by side on the floor, just like we did at Wilmott, drink
wine out of pint glasses, talk about our days, about Greg.
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