Vexation Lullaby (11 page)

“Were you at the concert last night?”

“Sheila and I had tickets, but we got stuck at home. I heard he seemed spacey.”

Two women who seemed to have taken great pains to appear to be in their thirties, tanned, their hair blown out, their assets stuffed into strapless dresses, wedged between the men.

“Are you doctors?” asked the one closer to Peter.

Martin said he was a mechanic.

“I've never met an honest mechanic,” said the second woman.

“He's kidding,” Peter said.

The women fixed their eyes on Martin.

“At the moment I'm trying to repair this young man's heart, but I don't have the right tools.”

When the women stared at his chest, Peter pulled his shoulders back.

The woman nearer Peter leaned toward him and asked, “What happened to your heart? Someone break it?”

“Crushed it,” said Martin.

“Poor baby.” Specks of mascara had settled on her cheeks, like cinders.

He pushed his lip down, pouting. When she turned to repeat herself to her friend, he noticed a pink weal half an inch above the upper edge of her dress.

Martin ordered a round for the women. The whisperer was a Katie; her friend was Jillian with a J.

The bartender delivered drinks to the women.

“What are these?” asked Jillian.

“It's what the doctor ordered,” Peter said. His little joke seemed to sail over the women's heads. Martin gave him a look that Peter translated as
Cut the shit
.

“Is it a White Russian?” Katie asked.

Martin curled a finger to draw them close. “It's an Anchors Aweigh: bourbon, peach and cherry brandy, triple sec, and cream.”

The women frowned, but sipped their drinks.

“It tastes like poisoned candy,” Jillian said.

Martin reached over and took the woman's drink away.

Laughing, Katie added, “Or like something my grandfather drinks in his basement.”

Martin said, “I doubt either of you has a living grandparent.”

Peter had warmed to Katie. She had a flirty habit of bumping her bare shoulder against him, and it had gotten so he'd started to anticipate the next collision.

But Martin's comment hit its mark.

“What!” squawked Katie.

“Nasty,” Jillian said.

The women stood there sizzling like fuses, before storming off.

Peter said, “We should probably relocate before they enlist someone to teach us a lesson.”

Martin looked toward the door. “I won't let anyone mess up your face before you've had a chance to take advantage of your station.”

“What station is that?”

“You're going on tour.” Martin took a long sip of his drink. “Peg will tell you in the morning. Act surprised.”

Peter pulled his phone out of his pocket. No voice mails. No texts.

“You guys didn't even call me.”

“I called as soon as we'd sorted out the details.”

That's not what he'd meant. Why hadn't anyone called him while his future was still being decided? “Thanks.”

“If someone gave me the choice between watching my kids graduate college or hearing Cross play ‘Sin Perdido' live, I'm not sure which I'd pick.”

“You'd pick your kids.”

Martin tapped his glass against Peter's. “I've never dreamed of watching my kids graduate.”

Metallica's “Enter Sandman” played on the TV as Mariano Rivera walked from the bullpen to the mound.

A pair of large guys squeezed between the doctors and ordered four pitchers of beer—they wore matching T-shirts and goatees.

Peter glanced at the back of the room—maybe ten more men in goatees and T-shirts circled a table. A wave of laughter rippled through the group, and as it did Peter realized that they weren't gathered around a table at all, but around Katie, his favorite shoulder bumper.

When the men carried the pitchers to the back of the room, Peter told his colleague they needed to leave.

“Not before Mo strikes out these cocksucking Rays.” Martin glanced at the back of the room. “Silver Surfer, you ever been in a fight?”

Peter understood he wasn't talking over drinks with Dr. Vinoray—he was out with the Steel Retractors' impulsive front man. A sour taste blossomed in Peter's mouth. “In fourth grade.”

“How'd it start?”

On the TV, the batter took a defensive swing at an inside pitch. One out.

“This kid in my gym class pulled his arms in his sleeves so his elbows poked against the front of his shirt and he sort of made them go in every direction—”

“Like boobs.”

“Like Judith's boobs.”

“I take it Judith wasn't a fan of bras.”

Peter glanced at the back of the room. Nobody paid any attention to them. “His whole impression hinged on that fact.”

“You remember the kid's name?”

Peter could picture him, his face as round as a pie. “Danny Macanudo.”

“And you defended Judith's honor.”

“Something like that. Then he clobbered me with a rubber horseshoe.”

“Where'd he get a rubber horseshoe?”

“They were just there. Someone in the superintendent's office probably bought a crate of them, figuring they'd be safe.”

On the TV, the batter sent a pitch bouncing to the second baseman, who relayed the ball to first in time. A base runner scampered to second.

The horseshoe had caught Peter in the side of the neck and dropped him as clean as a gunshot. The gym teacher, who'd been supervising the kids from his glass-walled office on the other side of the gym, had come loping over, pulled Peter to his feet, and told him to “walk it off.”

“You want to get in a fight now?” Martin asked.

“Why would I want that?”

“It's hard to be depressed while someone's kicking your ass.”

“You think I'm depressed?”

“How are you feeling about Lucy moving to Albany?”

“When did I tell you that?”

Martin pinned three twenties beneath his empty glass, pocketed the rest of the bills, and stood up. “You didn't. She stopped by the house last weekend to say good-bye to Sheila and the kids.”

After watching two cutters almost bounce off the plate, the next batter camped out on a fastball and launched it out, out, into the October night, where it died, just short of the warning track, in the left fielder's glove.

At the back of the room, the beer drinkers cheered.

“That's the game,” Martin said. “Let's get out of here before we get Macanudo'ed.”

21

When I open my eyes I see a lightbulb burning in a tulip-shaped glass fixture beneath the ceiling fan. A white dwarf of a headache throbs at the base of my skull. The bed is beside me. At some point in the night, after dreaming I was suffocating, I relocated to the braided rug.

My tongue is a fossil. I pull myself to the sink, where nausea shakes me. I shuck my clothes and climb into the shower, but though I turn the handles like an Etch A Sketch, the water doesn't come. I make a rude orchestration on the toilet.

E
MERGING FROM THE
bathroom, I gather up my few things, my camera, a duffle of clothes I had hoped to launder, and my Dopp kit. I leave the spare key on the counter where Gene can't miss it.

I slink down the stairs.

Gene's car isn't in the driveway, which is a relief.

Then I notice something strange about the Corolla. Gene let the air out of all four tires; it's down on its rims. I've got a portable compressor that runs off the cigarette light, but it takes me almost an hour to get the tires filled. In that time three different women, all out walking dogs, make a point of crossing to the other side of the street, as though I'm some sort of criminal.

After I put the compressor away, I drive back to McDonald's. There I order an Egg McMuffin and an orange juice. When I unwrap the sandwich, the smell is so strong I have to roll the windows down and hold the steaming parcel outside the car. The orange juice does its job—the citric acid cauterizes my mouth.

After the sandwich has cooled, threads of waxy cheese hang down, like barbels on a catfish. I take one bite, feel the bile rise in my throat, and spit it out. A seagull swoops over and chokes the piece down.

I tell myself that last night is behind me. The secret to staying on the tour (the secret to anything) is to keep moving forward.

My phone vibrates. It's Gabby! I'm not in the mood to talk, but she doesn't call often and almost never in the morning. Like her mother, she's terrible at getting up. At thirty, she needs two alarm clocks and a programmable coffeemaker to spur her along.

Before I even say “hello” or “good morning,” my daughter says, “Daddy, I'm so mad at you.”

“If you need to yell at me, could you please use a soft and soothing voice, because I got poisoned last night.”

What does she do? She screams. “Listen to me, Daddy. You lied to me. You lied to your own
daughter
.”

That's inconceivable. Gabby and I talk about twice a month, and always about her. Could I lie to her about her?

“Sweetie,” I say, “I want to meet your special friend, but you know there are places I have to be.” She knows that the tour goes on hiatus in early November.

Gabby says, “Even when I told you how disappointed I was, you repeated yourself: ‘There's no way, sweetie.' You made a big point about the tour skipping Tennessee because of all the bitter songwriters in Nashville. Well, I just learned he's playing in Bowling Green, Daddy! Bowling Green!” Her voice drills into my tender head.

“It's a fund-raiser for Mammoth Cave National Park. You don't need to tell me his itinerary—”

“Bowling Green is ninety minutes from my house, Daddy!”

“It's not in Tennessee, Gabby.”

“It's an hour and a half from my house! Did you forget where I live?”

In some ways her anger, like the unforgiving braided rug I slept on last night, gives me comfort. Her anger reminds me where we stand in relationship to each other.

“Sweetie,” I say, “I didn't realize you're that close to Bowling Green.”

With her silence, Gabby makes it clear that she is calling to deliver a lecture, not to initiate a conversation.

I say, “After Lexington, maybe I can drive down to your place and meet this special person—we could have breakfast together. That would make me happy, Gabby.”

She says, “Mother calls you a sick old bat, and that's exactly what you are.”

I wait for her to say more, but she knows she's said enough.

“Are you still listening, sweetie?”

I hear her glowering.

I ask again if she is still on the line.

“What do you have to say for yourself, Daddy?”

I think about her question for a long time. I think and think some more. “What is it you want me to say?” But Gabby doesn't hear my question. She's hung up.

22

Kopp called in the morning and confirmed what Martin had said: the hospital's administration planned to grant Peter a leave of absence to travel as Cross's physician.

“You're going to be the first physician to embed with a touring rock band.”

Peter stood in his kitchen, watching his coffeemaker create concentric ripples in the glass carafe. Tour, Peter thought—not like a scenic tour, but like a tour of duty.

“Everyone is very excited.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“They want to call you the Rochester Memorial/Tony Ogata Ambassador for Wellness.”

“But what would I
do
?”

“You'll be available.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter noticed a dark form move
in the window of his microwave; it was his own reflection. “Is this considered a promotion?”

“I believe it's an appointment.”

An appointment, as far as Peter could tell, was an arrangement where a person received nonnegotiable currency—typically, prestige—in exchange for assuming additional responsibilities. “And this is official? Everyone assumed I'd do this?”

Peter thought he heard Kopp sigh.

“Remember how I said we had to find a way for people to save face? I think this plan represents a fairly elegant solution. Your director gets to tell her board that they're partnering with Tony Ogata. Your hospital gets to look . . . well, not innovative, but contemporary. And Mr. Cross gets someone to look after him.”

“What do I get?”

“You'll get to practice medicine on a rock-and-roll tour.”

A word appeared in Peter's head. That word was “boondoggle.”

“I still haven't signed anything.”

“That's correct. And we need to get everything in writing today. Mr. Cross will be in Buffalo tomorrow night and he expects you to be there.”

Peter had the sense that his calculations were merely repeating work done by someone else before him. And if that was the case, if someone else had bothered to follow this thread to its natural conclusion, then he didn't have anything to worry about. His fate was cast.

“Don't worry,” Peter said, “I'll sign whatever they want me to sign.”

23

I've never grasped why anyone would call Jimmy's performances the Endless Tour. His music will never go away. Fans will never stop decoding his lyrics. But his knock-kneed scarecrow stance won't survive. How can anyone watch his silhouette follow the glow tape off the darkened stage and imagine the tour is endless?

I started taking pictures as a way to preserve the aspects of Cross's life that aren't captured in concert videos and on his albums. I've got pictures of the tour bus, of Jimmy getting into town cars and deplaning, passing through customs, the view through my windshield, Jimmy Cross impersonators, the tables selling merchandise, the meals I've eaten, the beds I've slept in, the faces of the crowds, the lighting schemes, Cross's name spelled with black plastic letters, with lightbulbs, with LEDs, with lasers, on homemade signs, stenciled on the guitar cases and monitors, on bathroom walls and backstage passes.
¹⁵
The only thing I won't photograph is Cross on the stage.