Vexation Lullaby

by Justin Tussing

  I make some supportive sounds.

  Gene lifts his drink to his lips, then puts it down again. “Did you and your ex ever go to bed angry?”

  If Patricia and I kept score, I’ve forgotten. I say, “Maybe.”

  Gene taps me on the knee with the toe of his shoe. “It’s the kiss of death.”

  “Maybe.”

  He kicks me a little harder. “You look like you’re falling asleep.”

  I force myself to sit up straight. “I was relaxing.”

  He sips from his glass, but it’s empty. “Let’s play a prank.”

  “On Cory?”

  He shakes his head and the cigar’s ember leaves a zigzag trail in the air. “You’re not allowed to say her name again. Get your laptop.”

  •••

  I believe in proper manners. Manners represent a contract between the individual and society. They shouldn’t be ignored for the sake of convenience. So I set my cigar on the edge of the table, walk into the apartment, turn the lights on, stare at the bed, then grab my computer and go back outside.

  “We’re going to put together an ultimate setlist.”

  “Okay.” Anyone who has ever loved a band has played this game. The obvious solution is to list your fifteen favorite songs in ascending order, so that each number is slightly better than the one preceding it.

  “‘Queen of Kansas’ has to be on it, right?” Gene said.

  While poking fun at Cross’s voice is something of a competitive sport (Willie Nelson said he had a voice like “a yard-sale caulk gun”), the truth is that Cross is a fine singer but he hardly ever sings (on the albums or on stage). For whatever reason, “Queen of Kansas” is one of the songs he trusts enough to let his real voice emerge, deep and vulnerable and pure.

  “‘Grease Fire’?”

  “You’re two for two,” I said.

  “Crank your little computer up and write them down.”

  “You want to see my dream set?”

  I see Gene’s white teeth. “You son of a bitch, of course you’ve already got one.”

  When I first joined the tour, I would compose a setlist before each show. Like catching a fly with chopsticks, I figured if I kept trying, then one day I’d get it right. I’d carry my setlist inside—throughout the show, I’d worry the paper with my thumb, as though it were a lottery ticket. Once, in East Lansing, Michigan, my list paced Cross for the first five songs, until he played “Whistle Hound” instead of “Toast and Sorrow.”

  “Are you going to let me see it or not?” Gene asks.

  I tell him how, while stopped in gridlock outside Little Rock, a list came to me that I recognized immediately as perfect.

  “Enough stalling. Give it to the old Gene Machine.”

  It takes a second for me to locate the file. I double-click and it pops open on the screen.

  Gene lifts the computer out of my hands. He squints at the list. Looks down at the keyboard to figure out how to scroll. “This is your list?”

  “That’s it.”

  He reaches over and lifts my cigar off the table and places it beside his own in his mouth. He draws on both and they pulse like brake lights.

  Finally, he says, “I guess it’s okay. There’s nothing recent on here. You have to have ‘The Lake Song,’ or ‘Fifth of April.’”

  I explain that the dream setlist is fifteen years old.

  “So it’s time for a new one.”

  I take the laptop back from him and look at it again. It still seems perfect to me.

  Gene flips one of the cigars over the railing; it falls in a long arc, down to his yard. “He has to close with ‘Purple River Serenade.’”

  When Cross released Midnight at the Bazaar there were eleven cuts on the album, but the liner notes on the first printing listed a twelfth track, titled “Purple River Serenade.” Some of Cross’s fans claim that song—the theoretical song, since Cross has never played anything called “Purple River Serenade”—represents some Platonic ideal of music. They regard “P.R.S.” as a masterpiece.

  “It’s time for me to hit the hay.”

  “We’re not done yet,” Gene says. He splashes two more fingers of scotch into his glass.

  When he reaches the decanter toward me, I cover the glass with my free hand, but he pours the booze so it runs through my fingers.

  “Post the list,” Gene says. “Say he played a private show. It’ll drive people nuts.”

  “I don’t do that sort of thing. JCC is the site of record.”

  “That’s what makes it’s a prank!” He says this loud enough that I’m afraid his neighbors will hear.

  I open my laptop and press a few keys.

  “You do it?”

  I shake my head.

  Gene snatches the computer from me. “Where is it?”

  “Sorry.”

  He grabs the collar of my coat. I feel his hand at my neck. “Where’d you put it, Arthur?”

  “I erased it.”

  Now he’s shaking his head. “Why would you erase it?”

  “I’m going to go to sleep now.” I hold my hand out toward him.

  “You’re a sociopath, Arthur, seriously.”

  Carefully, I put both hands on the laptop. He releases it to me.

  “Do you remember what was on there?”

  “You were probably right. It was dated.”

  Gene is raking the top of his head with his fingers, scratching furrows into his scalp. “You’re a fucking loon.”

  I thank him for dinner.

  “I wanted to hit you in the worst way.”

  “Because I wouldn’t go along with some asinine prank?”

  Gene grabs the decanter and lurches toward the stairs.

  I see him start to fall forward, but he seizes the railing with both hands, catching himself. There’s a high and final noise as the vessel detonates on the garage’s cement apron.

  “You okay?”

  He looks over his shoulder at me. “I didn’t mean I wanted to hit you tonight. I wanted to hit you when we first met.”

  How can anyone understand another person? I go into the apartment, locking the door behind me. I fill a glass with water that smells like rubber cement, then I lay on top of the bed, feeling horrible, and knowing I’ll feel much worse.

  20

  Peter had almost reached home when he received a text from Martin Vinoray inviting him to get a burger near the hospital.

  The economic shift that eliminated so many of Rochester’s working-class jobs had failed to shutter the working-class bars. In their humble design, those squat brick structures seemed the perfect counterpoint to the gothic churches that were their ubiquitous neighbors. The bars had names like Oasis, the Wet Lounge, and Mitch’s Tap. Whenever Peter ventured into these places, he felt like he was going undercover.

  Inside, half the TVs showed the Yankees battling Tampa Bay, while on the other sets stone-faced college dropouts in sunglasses and Ed Hardy shirts sat around a poker table bluffing away millions. The green of the infield and the green of the felt were indistinguishable.

  Martin sat at the end of the bar. He wore blue scrubs. With his index finger he stirred a highball glass while with his other hand he picked over a plate of calamari. The key fob to his ninety-thousand-dollar Mercedes glittered on top of a stack of small bills. The only clue that he played rock and roll: the midnight-black ponytail that nearly reached his belt.

  Peter mounted the adjacent stool.

  “Hail the conqueror.”

  “It was a big misunderstanding, that’s all.”

  “Well, that was a neat little trick you pulled this morning. I wish I could have been in the room.”

  Peter said, “What trick?”

  “First Ogata crawled up the administration’s ass. Then, when they squirmed, Cross’s attorney threw a haymaker—”

  “Kopp is my attorney.”

  “You don’t have the juice to put that homuncul
us on a plane.” Vinoray made an upside-down V with his fingers and staked them to the bar, signaling the bartender to deliver two more drinks.

  “‘Homunculus’?”

  “That’s what Cooper called him. He said sitting across from that midget made his balls retract so far he had to stick a finger in his navel to scratch them.”

  Why did Peter feel such satisfaction? He’d almost walked into that room alone. Even if Peter had managed to keep his job, he’d have been branded a fool.

  “Cross has a big following in the Philippines. A couple years ago he filled the national soccer stadium—fifty thousand seats and twice as many people hanging around outside.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “Every Filipino man believes he has four talents: a great lover, a great boxer, an outlaw, and a singer.”

  “And that’s Jimmy Cross.”

  “Exactly.”

  The bartender delivered the next round.

  “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 be
d 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.

  EMERGING 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?