Vexation Lullaby (18 page)

All of Peter's friends had the same complaint: their mothers had no idea how to write a proper hundred-word email. A bunch of inveterate letter writers, their mothers composed essays. Reading her message on his phone was like viewing a mural through a loupe.

Judith's mention of a time machine seemed prophetic: her email had taken him back. When had he last thought about science camp? He remembered shaving a plantar wart off a kid's heel with a plastic-handled scalpel; he'd performed the surgery for the same reason the patient agreed to it—to attract the attention of a home-schooled Amazonian named Lauren Platz, the only girl at the camp.

This email had shocked him. Why would she have let Cross loan her money? Loans produced debt. Peter's sense of Judith's untarnished self-sufficiency took a hit. Plus, he felt retroactively wounded—he'd always imagined that he and Judith were equal partners in the store.

When Cross first called, Peter had wondered if he wasn't trying to collect a debt. Was it possible that his instinct had been correct?

37

I refuse to let myself be dragged down by a few anonymous voices on the Internet, and certainly not while driving to a great American city to see a great American performer, Live and In Person.

Is Pittsburgh
²⁸
a great American city? I suppose some people still think of it as Steel Town, USA, but it's remade itself into a great technological city, a great medical research city, as well as a cultural hub. Is anything more American than our right to reinvent ourselves? A collection of colonies became an independent country. We ended slavery and gave women the vote. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Norma Jeane Mortenson, and Caryn Elaine Johnson became Mark Twain, Marilyn Monroe, and Whoopi Goldberg. The folk-song/protest singer became the rock rebel, became the born-again prophet, became the rockabilly/two-step/western/world musician. A by-the-books small-business owner, husband, and father walked away from everything in order to chronicle something larger than his lawn. Look what happens to those people and places that don't reinvent themselves: Detroit. Buffalo Springfield. People like my ex-wife.

I
T SHOULD HAVE
occurred to me that Gabby lived near Bowling Green. It's strange that I didn't notice while I was planning my itinerary. For the most part, I'm very thorough, but our minds will play tricks on us. At this point, nothing I can say will convince Gabby that my oversight wasn't intentional.

Once, when Gabby was sixteen, she surprised me by showing up at the MCI Center (now the Verizon Center) in Washington, D.C. I was watching the show when she clapped her hands over my eyes and said, “Guess who?” Finally, I thought, we could see a concert together.

It wasn't until after the show that she told me Patricia didn't know where she was; she'd run away from home!

We went back to my hotel, and while I got the sofa bed set up she called her mother. Then Gabby handed the phone to me so Patricia could explain how our daughter had put herself at risk because of me, and that if I hadn't made a habit of running away from my problems, then Gabby . . . But I didn't feel that bad because I had my daughter with me and, on top of that, Cross had given a really solid show.

Gabby fell asleep almost instantly—I can't imagine how hectic her day had been—but I found it harder to quiet my head. I listened to Gabby snore and wondered if she and I might have had a breakthrough, if we might be emerging on the other side of something.

In the morning, I should have bought her pancakes and listened while she talked. Instead, as a surprise, I drove us to the National Zoo. I guess I assumed every teenaged girl was crazy about animals. As it turned out, Gabby only had eyes for the cages—she wasn't satisfied until she'd pointed out the camouflaged electric fences that ringed each enclosure. I thought she'd run away in order to see me, but after a while it became clear that she needed some space from her mother.

N
OW THAT WE
're both adults we get along better. But why does she insist on calling me Daddy? And why, when her friends know her as Gabrielle, do I call her Gabby?

38

Peter passed the morning in his room, waiting for someone to call on him. No one called on him. Instead, he'd watched a show called
Yukon Tech
about sixteen IT engineers who get airlifted into a remote Alaskan wilderness. A little before noon, he ventured into the hotel's restaurant, hoping to avoid eating alone. Around the room, solitary businessmen camped out at tables—with their bright neckties the men reminded Peter of betta fish.

Bluto sat at the bar, jabbing a toast point into an egg cup. Two black cell phones, identical but for a red rubber band that encircled one, sat atop a stack of paper. A glass of tomato juice sweated onto a paper doily.

“Great show last night.”

Bluto looked up. Blinked. “You need something?”

“Just lunch.”

The tour manager pointed across the room. “Sutliff's over there. Why don't you sit with him?”

The musician sat bent over in a booth, his hands doing some delicate task not related to eating.

“Sutliff's the guitarist, right?”

“A tampon is the only stringed instrument he can't play.”

Peter would use that line on Martin sometime.

“You need a formal introduction?” Bluto asked, holding the red-banded phone to his ear.

I
N THE MIDDLE
of the table, the guitarist had a small plastic tool caddy stocked with a spool of fine gauge copper wire, hemostats, and needle-nose pliers. In contrast to the bright particularity of those objects, a clump of silver lozenges appeared to have melted together.

Peter said, “Bluto sent me over.”

“Then take a seat.” Sutliff's attention stayed on a small object right in front of his nose, with the effect that he resembled a praying mantis.

“Are you making jewelry?”

“Is that what it looks like?”

Peter explained that his mother designed jewelry.

Sutliff pried one of the lozenges off the pile and slid it across the table to Peter. The metal felt oily to touch.

“That's samarium-cobalt. It's a rare-earth magnet.”

“For arthritis?” Peter had patients who swore by the palliative power of magnets. That blood contained iron served as the shaky linchpin of their argument.

“I make pickups with them.”

“What do you pick up?”

“Sound, man.” Sutliff replaced his tools in the caddy.

Peter said he was unaware that people made their own pickups. It's possible that Sutliff thought he said, “I've always wanted to know everything about pickups.” The guitarist explained electronic interference, magnetic resonance, and eddy currents. He outlined the intricacies of single, double, and stacked coils, shielding, and humbuckers. Peter felt certain that Bluto had set him up.

A waitress—her uniform read as sexy football referee—came over to take their orders, interrupting Sutliff's dissertation. When she'd finished, Peter took the opportunity to ask Sutliff how he'd wound up in the band.

“Jimmy heard a two-minute track I did, called me up, and offered me a job.”

“Just like that.”

“Well, before I became an overnight success I spent twenty years as a session musician in basement studios.” Sutliff raised his long face. “What about you? Someone told me you're Tony Ogata's protégé.”

“I've talked to him on the phone once.”

“You must have connections somewhere.”

“Cross used to be friends with my mother.”

Sutliff shook his head.

“You don't believe me?”

“I don't believe the Big Man has friends.”

39

Each day offers a choice: either you ride out to meet your destiny or wait for it to overtake you.
²⁹
After checking out of the hotel, I fit the 600mm lens to the body of my camera—JCC readers know I call the lens my “Pringles can” and that it was a gift from Aunt Liddy on my fiftieth—before heading back to the Jo-Ann Fabrics parking lot.

At a little after two, a pair of passenger vans turn onto the airport access road. I stop the Corolla just outside the fence, get out, and stabilize the camera on the roof of my car.

I'm still playing with the focus when Cyril spots me and flips me off. Though our relationship can appear adversarial, I don't take the gesture personally. And I can't help but think he has to be a little relieved that it's me out here and not some stranger.

Next I spot the hospitalist from Rochester, Peter Silver, M.D.—he looks collegial and out of place, in khakis and a Windbreaker. I snap a dozen pictures before the group disappears into an open hangar.

When they're out of sight, I review the shots on my camera's tiny screen. Something catches my eye. A paunchy guy with a Rasputin beard hides behind Dom in the second photograph I took. It's hard to be sure—he's wearing huge sunglasses like some Miami socialite—but I'm fairly certain it's Alistair Cross. I scroll through the other images looking for something. And there it is: in my last picture (!) the mystery man reaches up to pull his hair away from his eyes. A distinct shadow appears on the inside of his wrist—it's Alistair's ace of spades tattoo. No wonder Cyril gave me the bird.

I listen as the engines scroll up. The noise builds into a ferocious scream as Cross's plane lifts off above the golden trees at the end of the runway.

I spend a few minutes composing a note for JCC. Then I post it:

The Prodigal Son returns! Alistair Doyle Cross was seen boarding a jet whisking you-know-who out of Buffalo. ADC hasn't been on tour since 2002, when he had a very public struggle with substance abuse. Will Cross finally give the audience what it asks for and dust off “Acrobat Daredevil Circus”? It's been eight years since he's played it, but seeing Alistair has to be a hopeful sign.
³⁰
Pittsburgh is shaping up to be a can't-miss show.

The fans may not always trust me, but they need me.

I
N THIRTY MINUTES
, Cross will arrive in Pittsburgh. I still have a four-hour drive. I pray it's boring. If something exciting happens on the road, it's almost always bad excitement, a dog darts into the road, the “check engine” light blinks on, a tire pops, a wrench falls off the back of a flatbed and comes helicoptering at you. Spare me the heat lightning and sunsets that glow like Tiffany glass—the first lesson of driving is you'll wind up where you look.

40

The hotel shuttled them to the airport. Peter rode with Jimmy, Alistair, Bluto, and Cyril, while Dom, Albert, Sutliff, and Wayne Shiga shared the second van. Except for Bluto, everyone wore those oversized headphones that Peter associated with club DJs and helicopter pilots. Bluto spent the whole drive on the phone with Wayne, which made Peter wonder why they hadn't arranged to ride in the same vehicle.

At the airport, the vans drove past a chain-link security fence and across the runway before stopping beside a large aluminum hangar.

Inside, a twin-jet airplane, as glossy and immaculate as a drop of Wite-Out, waited for them. A pair of pilots, handsome and cocksure, with regulation military haircuts and amber Ray-Bans, greeted the group and welcomed them aboard.

•••

P
ETER HAD NEVER
ridden in a chartered plane. Ten plush leather chairs were spaced about the cabin. If the burl-wood veneer had been a few shades darker, the plane's interior might have recalled the library of a Tudor mansion.

A pretty hostess with shellacked blond hair took drink orders and stowed jackets. She showed Peter how to open the tray table recessed in the arm of his chair.

After closing the hatch, the captain paused in front of the cockpit door to address the men. “I just spoke with Pittsburgh. They've got a twenty-thousand-foot ceiling, five miles of visibility, winds light and variable. As soon as your baggage is stowed, we'll crank this bird up. Flight time will be about thirty-seven minutes. So, kick back and relax. Jessica will do your bidding, within FAA-mandated guidelines. I promise it won't be a long, strange trip.” Though his eyes remained hidden behind his sunglasses, he managed to convey a wink.

Alistair said, “‘Long, Strange Trip' is the Dead, man.”

His smile stretching thinner, the captain ducked into the cockpit.

Jessica went through the cabin dealing out a stack of pillows.

The plane shuddered as the engines cranked up. Soon they bumped along a taxiway.

“Prepare for takeoff,” the pilot's voice announced over the intercom. “It won't be ‘Long Gone' before we're in Pittsburgh.”

Sitting across the aisle from Alistair, Wayne Shiga said, “I prefer a pilot who can't properly attribute Dead songs.”

“At least he's not quoting Cat Stevens,” said Bluto.

“You mean because he's Muslim?” asked Dom.

“It's a joke,” said Bluto.

“My beef with Cat Stevens,” said Alistair, “is his songs are interminable.”

Wayne said, “Instead of ‘beef,' shouldn't we say ‘pork'? Lots of groups have a beef with pork.”

Sutliff said, “You know who has a beef with beef? Al Gore.” When no one responded, he added, “Cows produce millions of tons of methane each year.”

At the front of the cabin, Cross appeared to be sleeping. A throw blanket covered the singer's legs; the hood of his sweatshirt shrouded his eyes. In the seat next to him, Cyril cleaned his cuticles with a bone-handled penknife.

The plane pivoted at the end of the taxiway. “We're clear,” the captain announced. The engines roared, and they shot down the runway. Before Peter thought it possible, the aircraft punched into the sky.

Bluto typed away on his laptop. Albert had cracked the spine of a book titled
Zombie Dragons
. Dom worked on a crossword he'd clamped to a clipboard while Sutliff—Peter had to look twice to be sure—crotcheted the arm of a sweater.