Vexation Lullaby

by Justin Tussing

  “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.

  Except for the pictures I showed Gene, no one else has seen my photographs—when your whole life is public, it’s a luxury to keep a few secrets.

  I text my source on the tour: Can you get me the doctor’s name?

  He responds almost instantly: Favors aren’t free.

  $20? (I don’t know why I included a question mark.)

  Hahaha.

  I attempt to negotiate, but he tells me, basically, to stop wasting his time. The price of a name is fifty dollars. So I wire the money to his PayPal account. Five minutes later my phone beeps, a two-word message: Peter Silver. Just a name, no context, no mention of where he’s from or who he knows.

  A Google search for a Peter Silver in Rochester helps to sketch things out. A Peter Silver finished in the middle of the pack of a First Responders 5K outside Rochester. Two years ago, a Peter Silver, M.D., spoke at a Boys and Girls Club banquet. And last fall Peter Silver, M.D., took part in a walkathon that raised $135,000 to fight pediatric obesity. Finally I find a picture cached, of all places, at a salsa dance studio—he’s got one hand on the waist of a spinning woman; her head is tilted back, and her hair flies out like a dervish. He bites his lower lip, he’s focused, you can hear him counting in his mind. It’s him, Cross’s late-night visitor. Rochester Memorial lists him as a “hospitalist.” What sort of business would bring a “hospitalist” to a hotel?

  I feel hopeful. Despite a lingering hangover, I decide to drive to the lakeshore and look at the water.

  You don’t need a map to find the lake in Buffalo. Follow your nose. The lake smells like ozone and, beneath that, orange soda—if you mention this to people in town they’ll argue, but that’s because they’ve grown accustomed to it. I drive around with my window cracked and pretty soon I arrive at a lakeside park.

  On a day like this, when the wind teases the water into rows of teeth, it’s easy to think you’re looking at an ocean. Gulls perch on rotting pilings, facing into the wind; when they extend their wings, they don’t fly so much as levitate.

  Another car pulls into the lot. The driver glances at me—she says something to me! No, she’s talking to someone on her phone. She leans across the passenger seat, lifts something, and stuffs it in her mouth. She’s eating french fries. She looks at me again and laughs. She’s about Gabby’s age.

  Just like that, I’m thinking about my daughter. Why does she get angry so easily? She’s healthy. She’s not destitute. She has a job that she says she finds rewarding.16 And now there’s this person she wants me to meet. She’s found love! Does she live in a place where her friends are being murdered in the streets? Does she live in a place where her religion is mandated? Is the climate inhospitable? Is she told who she can and can’t associate with? No. No. No. No. She lives in America! Some women get used to sadness in the same way some men get used to having a mustache—they think it is part of who
they are and forget that it’s a choice.17 Heaven forbid a father try to impart this wisdom to his daughter. Gabby tells me to worry about myself. But I have nothing to worry about. I’m perfectly happy, most of the time.

  I spot a bicycle path alongside the lakefront and, despite the weather, I decide to go for a walk. I don’t want to get wet, but neither do I want to sit in the car just because there’s a chance I might get wet.

  Also, in the back of my head, it occurs to me that both Gabby and Gene would opt to stay in the car. Since neither of them seems particularly happy, I elect to do the opposite.

  There’s enough of a wind coming off the lake that I have to brace myself against it. I cinch my duster around my waist. Another car pulls into the lot. The driver’s hair is razored close to his scalp. He nods to me, another wandering soul.

  I follow the path, which is dotted with puddles.

  A duster is a very practical coat, especially a leather one such as mine. I got it in Australia in 1992. It’s both a simple jacket and, at the same time, dramatic. Mine’s got a flying yoke, which means that the back is shingled in a way that allows it to breathe. It keeps me dry from my neck to my ankles; I’ve slept in it more than once. On tour, people know me as the guy in the duster. The other thing I appreciate about a duster is that it’s a crime deterrent. Everyone’s seen the movie where the bad guy hides a shotgun in the folds of his coat. The duster is an unknown quantity, likewise its wearer.

  •••

  ON THE FAR side of a meadow, the path enters a stand of birch trees and I lose track of the lake. The blustery wind sets the white trunks of the trees swaying; I feel like a child lost in a crowd. How many people have lived in Buffalo all their lives and never visited this place? Even those who know about it probably blow right past on their bicycles or while jogging.

  When the path emerges on the other side of the trees, it borders a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Inside the fence there’s a windowless factory. The wall of the building is a maze of pipes, holding tanks, and relief valves. A dozen aluminum chimneys jut into the sky.

  A gust of wind catches the collar of my coat, causing it to slap my cheek. My hair is damp and cold droplets run down my neck. I turn around and start back. For the first time, I notice the grass is thatched with soda bottles and paper napkins, every kind of trash. How had I missed it before?

  And then, coming up the path, I spot my kindred spirit, the driver from the other car. Like me, he’d rather engage with the world than sit in a hermetic bubble. He’s not a sad person; he’s smiling.

  “I wondered where you went,” he says.

  I say, “Great minds think alike,” meaning, I guess, that we haven’t been deterred by the weather.

  He steps off the path and onto a trail that wends through the narrow trunks, toward the lake.

  I ask if there’s a view that way. He says, See for yourself, or something to that effect. And because I have nowhere to be, nothing keeping me on the path, I follow him.

  He wears those ankle-high rubber shoes, which I think are called duck boots. As the path gets spongier, the birch trees give way to these head-high reeds. The wind pushing through the brown stalks makes a sound like a thousand fingers counting money.

  Somewhere close by the choppy water polishes the shore, but we haven’t reached there yet. My guide turns to me; I read a mixture of hope and embarrassment on his face. Sometimes I make the mistake of assigning my motivations to other people.

  The stranger looks down and my eyes follow his. His penis has popped through the fly of his pants.

  I spin around and make long, purposeful strides back toward my car. I glance over my shoulder to make sure he isn’t following me. The stranger stands there in his state.

  “I have a wife,” I yell.

  “Honey,” he says, “we all have wives.”

  WHEN I GET back to the parking lot, the fry eater is still laughing on her phone.

  24

  At a little before nine, Peter found himself on Six West signing papers Peg Larsen had spread across her desk. One document released him from care delivery duties while another excused him from committee work. Each time she put a sheet of paper in front of him, she asked if he had any questions. He had lots of questions, but none he deemed worth asking. By the time they’d finished, he’d earned the right to add inaugural Rochester Memorial/Tony Ogata Ambassador for Wellness to his c.v.

  “If he coughs,” Dr. Larsen said, looking Peter in the eye, “order a chest X-ray. If he gets a splinter, call a surgeon. Remember, just because you’re the only doctor in the room doesn’t mean you’re the only doctor.”

  “I wouldn’t think that.”

  Peg nodded. “The full support and resources of this institution are available to you around the clock. Identify yourself to the switchboard and they’ll patch you through to anyone on staff. If you need to fly someone out to consult, say the word.”

  Despite Dr. Larsen’s lecture, Peter felt nothing less than hope.

  There was a knock. Peg got up, paused with her hand on the doorknob. “You’re a good doctor, Peter. I shouldn’t have let things go as far as they did. Please understand this was never personal.”

  Peter said, “Of course not.”

  Peg sighed, turned the knob, and opened the door.

  In walked Martin, carrying a tote bag from the hospital’s gift shop.

  “Dr. Vinoray volunteered to serve as your supervisor.” Peg didn’t return to her chair, but stood behind it. “Since we haven’t done anything like this before, I thought you two should sit down for a few minutes and discuss how you can partner. And, I believe, Martin prepared a little kit.”

  Martin lifted the tote like a watchman’s lamp. “It’s mostly stuff I want Cross to autograph.”

  Peg took a step toward Peter, who pushed himself back from the table. “Please, don’t get up. I have to rush off to update the board. Keep him rocking, Dr. Silver.” She paused at the door. “I feel terrible about yesterday,” she said before excusing herself.

  MARTIN HELD UP a thin plastic case. “She thinks I was kidding about the autographs. There’s a double-pressed forty-five of ‘Sunlight for Smoking’ in here . . . if he signs it, it’s worth three grand.”

  “Did she seem odd to you?”

  Martin lowered himself into the director’s chair. “Peg’s got two responsibilities: avoid making the board look bad and protect her staff. Well, first Oblitz got his hat handed to him, and then she made it clear that anyone can get shitcanned if some snake-oil salesman takes an unhealthy interest in you. This hasn’t been her best week.”

  “Do you think she’s mad at me?”

  “Listen,” Martin said, stirring his arm in the bag, “somewhere in here there’s a first edition of a chapbook Cross published under the name Caesar Bonaparte—get him to sign it and I’ll make sure all your interns look like the weather girls on Spanish TV.”

  “First, can you walk me through my responsibilities?”

  Martin set the bag in front of Peter. “As far as the administration is concerned, this is just a big marketing gimmick—in a couple weeks there’ll be a billboard downtown featuring a resident in a black leather lab coat. Just keep him upright and don’t panic.”

  “Why would I panic?”

  “You’re a homebody, Silver. Shit, you’re the only person I’ve ever met who unboxes his eggs and puts them away in one of those egg shelves. It’s hard to picture you living out of a suitcase.”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t bother you.”

  Setting his heels on the edge of the desk, Martin leaned back in the chair and gave his hips a few slow pumps. “I’d manage.”

  Peter took a deep breath. “I want to do this.”

  “Yeah? You going to have fun?”

  “Who can tell?”

  Martin checked his phone. “Do me a favor, gin up an excuse to bring me out for the Green Bay show.”

  “Is there a Packers game or so
mething?

  “The last time Cross performed in Green Bay, he was playing alto sax for the James Polk Purple Martins.”

  “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “They’re his high school marching band.”

  “I had no idea you were such a fan.”

  Martin dropped his feet to the floor. “I’m a fan of cheesecake and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I’m a fan of the Knicks. Jimmy Cross is my hero.”

  25

  Dear Mr. Pennyman,

  Please be more circumspect about what you write. You make it sound like JC is suffering from dementia! That is irresponsible of you. Maybe he had a senior moment. Or maybe he thought the crowd wasn’t paying attention. Regardless, you of all people need to stay positive.

  Yours,

  Ophelia in a spider wedding dress

  (4/16/90, 6/02/95, 9/22/95, 8/01/99, 8/02/99, 10/05/06, 5/30/08, 6/01/08, 8/27/09, 9/08/10)

  Dear Ophelia,

  I’m sensitive to your concerns. If I can read between the lines here, you might be assuming that what happened in Rochester did in some way resemble his stumble in Stamford (10/05/06)—which (check the archives) I didn’t report. These were very different incidents, which is why I reported (I did not sensationalize) what happened in Rochester. Trust me when I say that you and I are on the same side.

  Best,

  Arthur Pennyman

  I have a friend at a recording studio in Austin, TX. They were told to reserve the studio for a three-week period starting the second week of January! Any chance that Cross might be recording a new album?

  Hi.

  He’s certainly due for a new album (overdue, really). And mid-January would make sense, since he likes to spend holidays with his grandkids. That said, as far as I know he’s never recorded in Texas. In recent years he’s favored studios in the UK (Off the Map and Later than That were both recorded outside Glasgow). But he’s expressed his fondness for SXSW (he called it “Woodstock with better weather”18). Still, I’d characterize this as a long shot. I know some of the aliases his people use when they’re doing things on the sly. If your friend tells me “who” reserved the studio, I might be able to give you more information.