As he shut the water off, Peter heard his phone vibrate on the vanity. The screen listed three missed calls and two voice mails. Every number appeared as “Unavailable.”
While his post-Lucy coffeemaker hiccupped and hissed, he checked his messages: the head of patient care requested Peter stop by before his shift; Bluto said, Shoot me your address and social, doc, so I can cut you a check.
The phone buzzed again, another unavailable number. Peter answered; he would always be convenient.
“It occurred to me you wouldn’t know it was a Sunbeam Tiger,” Cross said. “You used to call it the Go-Go Car.”
No, Peter thought, the Go-Go Car overheated on the DC Beltway—he and Judith had walked to a gas station and hired a tow truck to retrieve it, but by the time they returned to where they’d left the car there was only a wet spot on the pavement. The Go-Go Car, he knew for a fact, had been a Plymouth Volare.
“Forget it,” said Cross. “So why didn’t you check my blood pressure?”
“I didn’t?” Peter remembered getting the cuff out, but after that . . . little details came to mind, the gold fleur-de-lis pattern on the carpet, Cross’s yellow-blue eyes, the satin edging on the brim of the cowboy hat.
“Don’t be surprised if Tony gives you an earful.”
“Are you talking about Tony Ogata?”
“Just giving you a heads-up.”
“Tony Ogata doesn’t know who I am.”
“He’s learning. He’s talking to people.”
From his living room window, Peter watched the white roof of a city bus as it pulled away from the curb. “Wait, who is he talking to?”
“Your references.”
“Excuse me?”
“He likes doing favors for me. I’m sure he’ll be discreet.”
“I thought I was the one doing the favor.” The words spilled out.
Cross was silent.
Peter plugged a finger in his ear so that he could hear better, but there was no one there.
11
It feels like someone is rapping their knuckle inside my head. The McDonald’s manager stands there, fussing with the blue tongue of his pocket square. He signals me to roll down my window.
“A person can’t sleep here,” he says.
I blink. Past my windshield, a breathing V of birds arrows out of town.
Sitting up, I pat my pockets. “I guess I nodded off.”
“Keys are in the ignition.”
I start the car, then look over my shoulder to back out.
The man puts his hand on my forearm and leans down so I can see his face. He’s got a trim little mustache, like a patch of Velcro. “You’re a long way from home.”
The Corolla5 has Texas tags.
“Then,” I say, “I have a long way to go.”
•••
WHEN I FIRST joined the tour, I would scribble the setlists on 3-by-5 cards—listening to the shows felt like trying to learn a foreign language, so I made myself take notes. I stored the cards in a shoe box that I wedged under the passenger seat. In the afternoon, I’d take the cards out and flip through them. When the shoe box started to fall apart, I replaced it with a little red toolbox.
My mother’s sister, Aunt Liddy, my chief patron, bought me a laptop computer to help me track my expenses. Overnight my 3-by-5 cards looked as ancient as cuneiform tablets, so I collated my setlists into a single, searchable spreadsheet.6
The laptop came with a trial membership to AOL, which is how I stumbled onto the Internet. Cross’s fans kept a newsgroup (rec.music.cross), but the content skewed to the emotional rather than the empirical. It wasn’t my thing. On a whim I registered the domain name JimCrossCompendium.org and designed the most basic of websites (a splash page that read, “Click HERE to see the Big List,” which linked to my updated file). The whole thing took me a few hours. When it was completed, I posted a plug for my site on the newsgroup, then I went for a long walk.
The next time I logged in, there were three replies to my thread:
Can someone check to see if this is legit?
and
This reeks of one of the labels. They’re probably ramping up to release some epic box set.
and
If Cross really played “Cherry Wine” and “Poseidon Gets the Blues” in Lisbon, Portugal, on 6/8/94, then I need to build a time machine.
The concept for my site has always been very simple: I attend the show, then I post my setlist. Sometimes I write a bit more and sometimes I write less.7 If a visitor learns about me in the process, that’s unavoidable. Take June 13, 2000:
The band jumps on “Tennis Shoe Blues” like it owed them money. I don’t know why they were late going on, but I get the feeling they aren’t happy about it.8 A. J. Wyatt punishes his drum kit. The band follows with the slowest rendition of “Long Gone” I’ve heard in years—I wish they played it like this all the time. How does JC know so much about betrayal? For the fifth time in eight shows, the encore went “Sally (& Gin),” “Pleiades for Breakfast,” and “Last Bus from Mexicali.” It’s certainly a melancholy way to close. Finally, a lot of you have been asking after my aunt Liddy. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve had anything to report. However, sometime late last night she passed away—of course JC played “Lovely Tia Morena” to close yesterday’s show. Faithful readers know Liddy has helped me out from time to time (easing my financial responsibilities9 and, thus, ensuring that I could continue with this project). She remained upbeat and encouraging until the end. I will be flying out to pay my respects tomorrow morning, but will make it back before the opening act (the Nose Candies?!) complete their set.
Depending where you look, JCC can appear like a virtual library or a corner bar. Thanks to the site, I’ve been able to connect with fans all around the globe.10 JCC is like that character from “Aphids on Apples,” the one who “keeps a Rolodex file for the addresses of every dog’s door.”
Gene’s driveway is empty, but I still park on the street. A white envelope flags out from the railing of the raw wood staircase that leads up the side of the garage to the new apartment. It’s addressed to me:
Oh, Restless One,11
Sorry I’m not here to welcome you. I had to get to work early and Cory was called out of town (let’s not talk about it). In the meantime, make yourself at home. I’ll be back around six.
Gene
P.S. I won’t bother you in case you’re sleeping. Come down when you want company.
12
During his residency, Peter and Lucy shared a tidy one-bedroom apartment—formerly service quarters—in a mansard-roofed Victorian. The house was ringed by a hedge, which the owner trimmed with the aid of a laser level. Lucy kept hinting that she wanted out of the suburbs, so when the hospital offered him a salaried position Peter got in touch with a Realtor. The stability of a mortgage excited Peter. Besides, he always needed a goal to work toward—he’d always been that way.
THE REALTOR’S NAME was Margo Benedict. Peter would confess to Martin that talking with her reminded him of how, in the movies, a shy kid will hire a prostitute to take his virginity. (Martin said, “That’s not a film genre I recognize.”)
Margo didn’t care for conversation. Her favorite expression was “Tell me I’m wrong.” She specialized in pronouncements. “Young people don’t want a lawn,” Margo said. “You want your kitchen island and a discreet place to put a huge TV.” She said, “You want the openness of a loft, but you don’t want people staring at your bed during a dinner party.” She took him all over the city. When viewing a property, Margo had a tendency to clasp Peter by the biceps. She always wore red lipstick and heels. She had to be sixty.
Margo professed to be an expert on Peter’s “lifestyle.” He needed twenty-four-hour access to a gym. He wanted concierge service and the convenience of attached parking, but he wouldn’t feel comfortable with a doorman.
Peter trusted her, though he didn’t always recognize the qualitie
s she attributed to him. In order to become the person Margo saw in him, he’d have to let her find him a home.
She asked him to meet her at the Cavanaugh Dry Goods building—he’d never heard of it. There were contractors in the lobby, piles of rubble. Someone gave them hard hats to wear—Peter put his on, but Margo held hers a few inches above her head, like a parasol. As they rode a padded freight elevator upstairs, she told him about the building’s provenance. Cavanaugh Dry Goods had been a leader in the region, but the Depression decimated the company and they were bought out. An accounting firm occupied the building in the ’50s; despite having ties to Kodak and IBM, they still went belly-up. Peter wondered if the building had bad luck. “You love the chalky brick,” Margo said. “They don’t make buildings like this anymore. The walls are two feet thick.”
The developer had finished a model unit on the fourth floor. The water didn’t work and the appliances were still clad in their protective film, but couldn’t Peter see Lucy emerging from the elevator after a hard day’s work? On the counter, a three-ring binder contained an artist’s interpretation of what the building would look like once the renovation was complete. Women in cocktail dresses and guys wearing suits without ties mingled in a stark lobby. Sparkling drinks balanced on a railing overlooking the city. Germanish cars stabled in the basement garage. The setting sun painting gold reflections on the triple-pane, LEED-certified windows.
One of the builders stopped by to introduce himself. He greeted Peter with a handshake. He said, “Do you know about customizing?”
If Peter bought early, he’d be able to select certain features—bathroom fixtures, kitchen cabinetry, the backsplash, sink, and counters.
“Which floor are you thinking about?” the man asked.
“Fifth,” said Margo.
“That’s good. You see everything from there, but you don’t have to pay a premium for a penthouse.”
“He’s a shrewd buyer.”
“Internet money?”
“He’s a doctor.”
“Hey, good for you.”
Why hadn’t Lucy come with him? Had she known they were running out of time? Maybe she thought she was doing him a favor by moving him downtown, that it would make things easier when the time came for them to start seeing other people. He wanted to believe their breakup had surprised her, too.
IN THE MOST mundane sequence of meetings, Peter acquired an attorney, a mortgage broker, a mortgage, and, finally, a 1,600-square-foot condo outfitted with a suite of appliances, a parking spot, and a locking storage space. From beginning to end, the whole process took less than three months.
He and Lucy gave notice to their landlord, then waited while the construction crew put the finishing touches on their new condo. They moved in on a raw day in March and two months later she left, taking with her the espresso machine that the property management group had thrown in as a housewarming gift. Peter assured her he had no patience for the temperamental machine, but they both knew she’d become addicted to steamed milk chai.
FIRST MARGO DISAPPEARED, then Lucy, then the contractors. Now, Peter was alone in the building. Not alone, exactly. Though owner occupancy hovered around 30 percent, the developers had started renting units on every floor. Nobody talked to anyone else. Selling wasn’t an option. Depending on whom he talked with, the market had either corrected or retracted or collapsed. If he tried to walk away, the loss, at least on paper, would have been an obscenity. The graphite-colored cement kitchen island consoled him. The precision of his recessed cabinet hinges consoled him. The view from his bedroom consoled him. He tried not to consider the rest. The lap pool never materialized, nor the sauna, nor the concierge, nor the women in their cocktail dresses.
PETER RODE THE shuddering elevator down to the garage. When the doors opened, he looked at the same maroon Subaru he’d been driving since before he started med school. It wasn’t one of those aggressive rally-cars with the wing on back or one of those overbuilt wagons that seemed designed to shuttle kayaks and mountain bikes into remote places so their owners could have sex in tents or while dangling from a rope off a cliff face. He had the one that resembled an early Camry—Martin had urged him to buy a new car, telling him, “A car is like a suit. The right one can enhance your best attributes and conceal your shortcomings.”
Well, Peter never needed a luxury condo and look where that had landed him. No, he’d drive his car until it died. That would teach him a lesson. The car would probably run for another ten years to spite him.
AS SOON AS he pulled out of the building, his phone rang again.
A woman’s voice asked if he would please hold. Tremulous flute music filled his ear, reminding him of the dusty tape player Judith kept behind the counter in the gem shop. He could picture the electrical cords taped to the carpet and the little strongbox bolted to the floor of her closet.
“Dr. Silver?”
Peter had heard Tony Ogata deliver the keynote for the National Association of Inpatient Physicians and at a three-day affair in Reno called ReThinking Wellness. And, of course, Peter recognized Ogata’s voice from the Ken Burns specials (he’d described field amputation in lurid detail for The Civil War and in Baseball he outlined the advantages of Tommy John surgery). In his mind’s eye, Peter saw Ogata, that shock of white hair, the hair of an artist. “Yes?”
“Hey, I’m glad to get you on the line. It’s been a crazy morning. ABC sent a crew over so I could explain polyps—supposed to be a two-minute segment, but they wound up shooting an hour’s worth of tape. You still there?”
“Is this Dr. Ogata?”
“Listen, Peter, I know your blood type, your credit score, and what you missed on the MCATs. You’re the man of the hour. What I don’t understand is why an accredited professional would agree to see a patient and then not even attempt a proper examination? Are you some kind of faith healer? Did you compare his aura to Benjamin Moore paint swatches? That’s a joke. At least faith healers lay hands on their patients. I’m kidding. You there?”
“I’m here,” Peter choked out. Could Ogata have seen his MCAT scores?
“So, what’s the deal? Jimmy hasn’t pulled this sort of stunt before. Not that I’m calling it a stunt.”
Peter pulled up on the hard shoulder of the road, his tires squealing against the curb. “I met him at his hotel last night.”
“You can’t get him in a hospital. I should know—he’s been my patient for forty years. It’s easier giving a cat a bubble bath. My question is did you see anything?”
At first, Peter thought of the blinds and the candied almonds. No, there was more. “He reported some cognitive issues, memory problems. He mentioned having some lapses.”
“Help me out. Are we talking catatonia? Fugue states?”
Somehow Peter was shocked that the guy sounded the same on the telephone as he did on TV. “He said time seemed ‘slippery.’ He mentioned a hallucination.”
“Does that sound serious to you? Because where I’m sitting, the hairs are sticking up on my arms. So why didn’t you check his b.p.?”
Though Ogata’s voice maintained its unshakable optimism, his question landed like a body blow. What was Peter’s excuse? That he’d been blinded by fame? Could Tony Ogata understand what fame did to an outsider? Peter would have better luck explaining wet to water.
“Our meeting got cut short—he had a plane to catch.”
“He came down to see me in Costa Rica this spring; I gave him a ride in this souped-up CAT scan I’ve got down there. It’s an amazing machine, but the FDA won’t allow it into this country.” Ogata sounded incensed.
“Why not?”
“It has nothing to do with gamma rays. It’s a political thing.”
“I told him he needed to take these symptoms seriously.”
“Jim and I visited Fermi Labs once; he talked theoretical particles with those eggheads. He made an observation. He said that once they found the smallest thing, if they looked inside i
t they’d find a mirror! I don’t know where he came up with it, but it blew everyone away, Italians, French, Russians. Those guys couldn’t get enough of him. Hold for a second.”
The flute music came back on. Was Ogata closing the distance between them? Were they repairing a rift? And, if so, who had caused it and how?
“He said you wanted to bring him to the hospital. Maybe you’re on to something with these cognitive issues. I’m sure you considered TIAs. He can’t have a stroke. I’ll try to get him on low-dose aspirin. Maybe we can get him to submit to an MRA. Baby steps. He’s under a lot of stress with Allie showing up.”
“I’m not sure who that is.”
“Of course you do, Alistair, his kid.”
Ogata was right. Peter knew something about Alistair. There had been a grainy video of Cross’s son being escorted off a flight at LAX. Maybe Alistair had thrown his shoes at someone or he’d refused to come out of the bathroom—Peter wasn’t sure if he was remembering one incident or two. Alistair had been one of the trailblazers who established public fuckup as a viable form of celebrity. But he wasn’t some kid anymore; he had to be close to Peter’s age.
Ogata exhaled. “We need to talk about your exposure.”
“Exposure?”
“If you witness a person hit by a car, then you’re obligated to give aid, but you went over there on your own. You agreed to see a patient outside of the medical facility where you’re employed. Whether you realize it or not, you opened that hospital of yours to a huge liability. Can you imagine the kinds of damages Jimmy’s people would seek if he keeled over? Do you have a copy of your contract?”
“There wasn’t any contract. He knows my mother.”
“I’m talking about your employment contract. The hospital sure as hell had you sign some paper. Typically they stipulate that you can’t practice medicine outside of their facilities, not without informing a supervisor. Have they called you yet, probably someone senior, someone who you didn’t think knew your name?”
Vexation Lullaby Page 4
