Vexation Lullaby

by Justin Tussing

  I used to know the city, but developers have been tearing down postwar buildings and replacing them with facsimiles of prewar architecture—as a result, everyday Pittsburgh looks more like a fantasy of the past.

  On the edge of the Carnegie Mellon campus, I duck into a café. Inside, young people are sprawled out over the furniture as though they’d been gassed. I’m older than any three of them combined.

  A plump girl with short blue hair—it’s styled in a severe manner that no one of my generation could look at without thinking of Adolf Hitler—says, “What do you want?” Reading the written-in-chalk menu on the wall, I realize that they don’t sell food. It’s all juices! I ask for their most substantial juice. “You want meat and potatoes, huh?” She calls something to a skinny boy wearing what looks like a woman’s blouse, who mashes a bunch of things into a howling contraption. He hands me a pint glass full of bruised liquid that’s the consistency of cream of wheat.

  “What’s in here?”

  “Beets, carrots, potatoes, spirulina, kale . . . and red grapes.”

  Exactly what I deserve for trying to revisit the past. I fork over nine dollars, pinch my nose, and drink it down.

  THE GARAGE NEXT to the Peabody Center wants ten dollars. Since I know my way around, I drive until I find a free place on the street. Walking to the venue, the clouds spit rain, but I stay dry from my neck to my ankles. A lot of people believe you have to coddle leather goods, but nothing could be further from the truth. When properly treated (with waxes and plant oils), leather excels in inclement weather.

  When I get to Will Call I shake my jacket and the raindrops fly away! But my smile disappears when the high school kid manning the booth says he has no record of my ticket. I tell him to look again, so he turns around and spends ten seconds pretending to check other places.

  “I’m not finding a ticket,” he says, not looking me in the eyes.

  I see a hundred and fifty dates a year, I see shows in Panama, I see shows in Moscow, in Oakland, in Latvia. In each of those places I’m able to walk up to Will Call and collect my ticket, but in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, there’s a problem. If I went back to my car, I’d be able find a copy of my receipt in the plastic accordion file where I keep my expenses, but it wouldn’t do me any good. I know exactly where my ticket is: it’s in Cyril’s pocket—this is how he punishes me for me shooting Alistair at the airport.

  42

  The jet sat parked on an empty corner of the runway. Cross had slept through the landing, through the cabin door being opened and the brisk Pittsburgh air rushing in. He’d slept while the rest of the band, Bluto, Wayne, and Alistair deplaned, cramming into a passenger van en route to the Warhol Museum for a VIP tour. The musician snored through his overlong nose, while someone from the ground crew snapped plastic covers over the engine intakes and exhausts. He slept while Cyril ducked outside to take advantage of a break in the clouds to stretch his legs.

  Though Peter had been curious about the museum, he was happy to be on the plane. He finally had a job to do. Even if babysitting underutilized his skill set, Peter liked having expectations that he could meet.

  To entertain himself, he sent two picture messages to Martin. The first shot, a fish-eye portrait of the plane’s interior, failed to illicit a response from Vinoray. Upping the stakes, Peter sent a close-up of the singer’s monogrammed kangaroo-leather cowboy boots.

  Bring me those boots, Martin replied, and I’ll make you the hospital’s liaison to Rochester’s Junior League.

  Peter lifted his phone to capture the coup de grâce, a photo of the sleeping singer. But, though Cross still snored, his eyes had opened.

  The singer wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Were you taking a picture?”

  Peter waved the phone around. “I was checking my reception.”

  “People used to say hi. Now they just shove a phone in my face. When I have to piss, I make Cyril clear the place out first.” Cross swiveled his head. “Where’d everyone vanish to?”

  Peter explained about the Warhol Museum.

  “Maybe thirty years ago I got invited to this party in a warehouse on the East River. The warehouse didn’t have rats because the rats expected the place to fall into the water. But the place was infested with artists. The owner was a Getty and he had ten million reasons to hate his family.

  “This woman and I were dropping hot dogs through a hole in the floor, trying to get a seal to eat them. Someone came over and told me Andy wanted to say hi. I’d met him a couple of times, so I said, Send him over. Andy was pink in real life, not gray like his estate would have you believe. He came over accompanied by this cosmonaut—his friend’s wearing the full getup, boots, gloves, helmet, those crazy Cyrillic letters on everything. The guy inside the suit is sweating so much it looks like he’s having an attack of malaria. There’s condensation on the inside of the face mask. I said, Andy, who’s your friend? You know who it was?”

  Peter couldn’t have imagined a name that wouldn’t sound ridiculous.

  “It was Rocky! Sylvester Stallone.” Cross kicked off the blanket, walked to the back of the plane, and ducked into the restroom.

  Peter checked his phone. Martin hadn’t texted back.

  When Cross returned, he said, “How does Allie seem to you?”

  The singer wanted a first impression? A diagnosis? The truth: Alistair looked like a candidate for coronary artery disease. In another ten years he might give himself a heart attack by shoveling snow, or sleeping with a twenty-year-old. “I offered to look at his back, but he seemed a little suspicious of me.”

  “He’s suspicious of people in general and you in particular.” Cross pressed his hands up against the ceiling of the plane, stretched. “Of all my kids, Allie’s the only one I worry about. His sisters call him ‘Baby Allie,’ even though he’s the oldest. And he’s the only one who calls me Dad; everyone else calls me Gramps.”

  Peter said, “He’s made it this far.”

  “That’s what I tell myself. At some point the numbers start to mean something. Maybe he’ll read a book, or get his heart broken by a dog, and everything will start to click.” Cross scratched the loose skin under his neck.

  “I heard he’s been away for a while.”

  Cross turned his head snake-fast. “Who told you that?”

  Peter had been under the impression that it was something of an open secret. Ogata had said something the first time they’d spoken. “Is that not the case?”

  “I see all my kids. We talk on the phone, do the video thing, get together for holidays. I guess Allie hasn’t been on the tour for a little while, but he’s been holed up overseas. He’s got his own life to lead.”

  “That must be it.”

  “That must be what?”

  “I guess I’d heard he’d been overseas.”

  “Well, he’s here now.”

  Peter had waited for a plane to get clearance and he’d waited while a plane got de-iced, but he’d never waited like this. All Cross needed to do was snap his fingers and they could be off for Toronto or Rome. It wasn’t the freedom that appealed to Peter as much as the sense of exclusivity, being inside this little bubble. Judith had raised her son to be suspicious of privilege. She believed in waiting in line, in being part of the multitude. Just beyond the jet’s wing a town car waited to take Cross wherever he wanted to go. That idling car would have sent Judith around the bend—something like that would be enough to trigger one of her spontaneous migraines.

  Cross opened a bulkhead and retrieved a coat. “Allie wanted to see you for himself.”

  “He wanted to see your doctor?”

  “Do you feel like you’re my doctor?” The singer still had his back to Peter.

  Their conversation had reached a level place. They could leave things as they were and trust that they wouldn’t shift. Cross turned around. He’d wrapped a scarf around his throat.

  “The other night, when you mentioned Judith, I as
sumed she owed you money. Then, after I realized who you were, it seemed funny that I’d mistaken you for a collection agent.” Peter glanced out at the idling car. “It’s weird that she does kind of owe you money.”

  Cross’s face became serious. “Look around. Do you really believe I’m owed anything?”

  The jet shifted.

  “That’s going to be Cyril hurrying us along.”

  The bodyguard ducked into the cabin. One of his pant legs had gotten bunched up on the shaft of his boot. “Bluto called to tell you the people of Pittsburgh don’t deserve any mercy.”

  Cross smiled.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asked.

  The bodyguard bent over and dressed his pant cuff. “It means the people of Pittsburgh don’t deserve any mercy.”

  43

  Fuck Cyril Coleman. Fuck his Brioni suits and his calfskin gloves. Fuck his nineteen-inch neck and his sweet voice announcing “Big man coming through.”31 He didn’t take my ticket in order to keep me out of the show. If that had been his goal there’d be attorneys involved and court orders, the folks scanning tickets would have a color-copy photograph of my driver’s license taped to the backs of their stations and in the break rooms.

  Cyril took my ticket to let me know he knows my habits, too. Ours is not a cat and mouse game. It’s cat and cat.

  SINCE SCALPERS DON’t take credit cards, I head off in search of an ATM. A few blocks away, I spot one in a Subway restaurant. After grabbing some cash, I decide to get a sandwich, since the juice wasn’t exactly filling.

  I always get the same thing at Subway, a turkey sub on whole wheat with spinach, tomatoes, green peppers, black olives; I avoid salt, mayo, and cheese because coronary disease killed my father and, indirectly, my uncle. I ask for olive oil and vinegar (every so often my body craves vinegar). The sandwich artist hands me my bagged food and I carry it over to one of their anti-ergonomic booths—they could make the seats more comfortable, but they don’t want people to loiter.

  I start feeling blue, which could be the booth design’s real intention, since so many people use food to self-soothe. If I wasn’t so aware, I might try to comfort myself with one of their peanut butter cookies.

  When Gabby felt down—the smallest things used to set her off, a shoelace breaking, if you put catsup on her fries as opposed to next to them—Patricia used to throw a pity party. We’d make a box cake and sing “It’s a pity for you” to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” It worked like a charm. I’m not sure what Patricia did as Gabby got older. A pity party probably wouldn’t help ease heartbreak or being ostracized, or feeling like you’d been abandoned.

  This woman comes over and puts her hands on the edge of my table, like she wants to borrow the last chair at my table. She smiles, but there’s a general thinness to her face, lips, and fingers, like she’s never eaten dessert. The roots of her hair are darker than the tips, but in a way that looks intentional. I can’t decide if she looks good for sixty, or if she’s seen forty rough years.

  “Artie?”

  I shake my head.

  “I can’t believe it,” she says. “Artie, it’s me, Mindy Vinter.”

  Both of our mouths hang open.

  Mindy Vinter! She’d been a neighbor when we were both sophomores at a yellow-brick high school in Thornbrook, Illinois. Sometimes at night, I would take the screen out of my window so I could stick my head out and stare at the pink curtain of her bedroom window. Forty years ago I had vivid fantasies where her house caught on fire and I saved her. One day, watching her practice with a hula hoop in her yard, I got up the courage and kissed her. When I stopped, Mindy stood there looking at me, the hula hoop on the ground, and said, “Artie, I thought you were going to punch me.” For a few weeks, whenever she went outside to walk her parents’ dog we’d rendezvous at the center of a cluster of pine trees and kiss until the dog (Rascal, I remember!) began to whimper.

  “How’d you ever recognize me?”

  She shakes her head. “You still do that thing where you loom over your food. Right, you basically eat down.”

  “I eat ‘down’?”

  “Wait,” Mindy says, “are you in Pittsburgh?”

  “I am tonight,” I say, which sounds preposterous coming out of my mouth, so I add, “Remember Rascal?”

  “Poor Rascal.” She pouts. “Not a dignified end.”

  “Are you married?” I ask.

  Mindy says she’s married, which surprises me because she’s not wearing a ring. Not wearing a ring seems to suggest that, at the very least, she’s not entirely married.

  “How long?” I ask, which comes out sounding a bit aggressive, like I’m trying to catch her in a lie.

  She says, “It seems like forever.” Really, what kind of answer is that? “And you?”

  I tell her I’ve been divorced for almost twenty years and that I have a thirty-year-old daughter. Mindy tells me that she has three sons and two daughters. Five kids with this invisible husband! I say how that’s fantastic and how no one would ever guess (which is an acceptable thing to say to a woman, but has always seemed really odd to me).

  “Are you here on business?”

  I say, “Business and pleasure.” And then I tell her, as briefly as possible, about JimCrossCompendium. Sometimes when I start talking about JCC (and this is especially true when I’m talking with a woman), I fail to recognize the point at which real interest is replaced by rote nodding.

  Mindy punches me in the shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re a blogger,” she says. “My girlfriend and I are going to his show.”

  Just when it seems we’ve run out of things to catch up on, a woman walks up to us, a fleshier version of Mindy—the same under-siege blond hair, but face, lips, and fingers all buttery. “Min, honey,” she says, shaking a ticket in the air, “I can’t sell it. I feel too conspicuous.”

  They’ve got an extra ticket! I mean it’s right out of “Paris in Winter.”32

  Mindy’s friend goes by Robinson. And, when I tell them my problem, they insist I join them for the show. Mindy and Robinson used to work together, along with a Claire, and the three of them still try to get together once a month. Luckily for me, Claire twisted her ankle on an escalator and didn’t feel like coming out.

  I say, “It looks like my luck is turning.”

  And Robinson, who is also not wearing a wedding band, pinches the lapel of my coat and says, “Are you a bad boy, Artie?”

  And Mindy says, “We have time to get a drink, don’t we?”

  THE THREE OF us go across the street to one of those faux Irish bars where everything is authentic, mullioned glass, dark wood, and brass, but inside it’s lit like a museum. My companions don’t seem to mind. They get white wines while I have a Guinness. Robinson lifts her glass and says, “I never drink.”

  “You never drink a little,” Mindy laughs.

  These two women put on a play for me: they are attention-starved sisters and I’m the traveling salesman who’s been invited to supper. Robinson says she can’t believe Mindy never mentioned me before. And Mindy tells her friend that I used to throw stones at her bedroom window (I have no recollection of this).

  “How come we never slept together?” Mindy asks me.

  It’s like asking Wilbur Wright why he never flew to the moon.

  “You wanted to,” Mindy says, “so bad.”

  I pick up the bill. “Ladies,” I say, “the concert awaits.”

  As we’re leaving the bar, Robinson turns to me and says, “I hear this could be his last tour.”

  I could tell her that it’s all one tour, but I’m smart enough to keep my trap shut.

  44

  Lucy used to call Peter “mama’s boy,” when he rolled his socks into tidy balls, for instance. She’d wander into the kitchen, naked, stand before the open refrigerator, and retrieve one of “his” yogurts from the bottom row. “I’m stealing this,” she’d say, peeling back the foil, still not c
losing the door, her skin goosebumping. “You’re letting all the cold air out.” “Mama’s boy,” she said, licking the spoon. It happened more than once.

  They met in a Laundromat during his first year of medical school. He’d gone to study while his clothes drowned. She’d wandered in to get change to feed a parking meter. She interrupted him, asked him what he was reading. He showed her the cover of his workbook. She said, “Is that any good?” then winked. Women didn’t usually approach him—he was long-limbed, gawky, too tall to be slight, but too thin to have presence. They never winked. He had the presence of mind to ask for her number. For their first date, he took her to an Italian place that someone had claimed was romantic. He discovered she was earning her master’s in early childhood development. “You must have lots of patience,” he said. She said, “Try me.”

  He told Lucy he didn’t have time to date. Then he said he didn’t have time for a girlfriend. In both cases, he may have been giving himself an alibi for when she lost interest in him. He fell for her quickly and completely.

  After a month, she suggested he invite her to move in. Not only would they save money, but he’d get to see her every night. He asked and she told him she’d have to think about it. She waited two months before she agreed.

  It was heaven. They liked to lie in bed and scan catalogs together. They were both gung ho on the future. She said he was the first serious person she’d dated, not the first person she’d dated seriously. He kept a Formica table at the foot of his bed and oftentimes he’d be at the table studying when she woke. He loved hearing her breathing change as she awoke.

  She had a younger brother, a laid-back tech rep who lived an hour north of Miami; Peter marveled at their easy friendship, their chummy affection. Peter realized he wanted to have two kids with her, which was not a rejection of his own childhood, or not simply. They visited her brother a few times, usually when winters in Rochester got to be too much. The brother had a condo that looked west, across a brown-black canal, toward the Everglades and the setting sun.