Vexation Lullaby

by Justin Tussing

  He says he’s undecided.

  “You should.”

  WHY AM I writing in the third person? Who am I trying to fool? The answer: I’m trying to fool myself. Because that person who owned a printing shop is a stranger to me; I barely remember living in that house. I certainly don’t remember what it felt like to anticipate seeing Cross play for the first time.

  •••

  At six, I found myself changed out of my work clothes, in my car, headed to Richmond. I’d been to the theater once, with Gabrielle: a puppet troupe performed Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. Gabby spent the whole show hiding behind my coat, unable to watch and unwilling to leave.

  An older crowd had assembled for Cross’s concert. Most of the people could have kids in high school. A few college kids, the anti-fraternity crowd, tossed a Frisbee in the parking lot. I regretted that I hadn’t called a friend. If someone asked me if I had tickets to sell, I might have driven home with cash in my pocket. If someone asked, I might have given the tickets away. Nobody bothered asking.

  So I headed inside, the spare ticket alone in my pocket.

  I walked across the lobby, pushed through the double doors with their porthole windows. My eyes adjusted to that cool darkness—the place looked half full. Bells on women’s anklets tinkled. I watched people smoke marijuana in tight little knots, the twisted cigarettes held backward to ease passing, the way Russians smoke in movies.

  After the houselights cut out, the red lights of the Exit signs asserted themselves.

  A tall man with a guitar stood beside a pretty woman who appeared to be hiding behind an accordion, the opening act. The duo ran through four or five songs without ever really engaging the audience, as though they had only stopped by on their way somewhere else. They walked off to a smattering of applause. As the curtain glided closed, men in dark clothes shifted equipment on the dimmed stage.

  I knew the lights wouldn’t stay down forever. On the other side of the curtain, someone brushed past, sending a ripple across the stage. The crowd yipped and yelped. Feet stomped against the floor, an agreed-upon cadence, a universal rhythm. Over the PA system, a voice like a game-show host’s announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome five-time Grammy winner and Kellogg recording artist . . .” The unmistakable whanging of an electric guitar sent the crowd around the bend. Someone gave the signal, made the curtain fly.

  NINETY MINUTES LATER, soaked in perspiration, trembling, I called Patricia from the lobby. I told her I didn’t think I was meant to be running a printing company. Where’s this coming from? she asked. I’d discovered something intimate, something intrinsic, that connected me to the other concertgoers. “Come home,” Patricia said. “I’ll make you a drink.”

  I said, “What if I’ve found my people?”

  “What are you talking about, ‘your people’?” Her patience evaporated. “Stop playing around, Arthur.”

  But I was going to Baltimore. I didn’t know anything beyond that.

  “Don’t hang up,” she shouted. A thought flashed through my mind—she wasn’t mad at me; she was mad that I’d escaped first. “I’m going to go wake Gabby; I want you to say good night to your daughter.”

  Two teenagers stood close by—they were probably waiting to call their parents for a ride.

  I told her I had to go.

  “Have you lost your mind, Arthur?”

  Years would pass before I understood what happened that night. Patricia wanted Arthur back, but he never got her message. She was speaking to the Restless One.

  54

  Just off the lobby, the hotel had converted a coatroom into a business center. Peter sat down at one of the workstations and ran a search for Lawrence Brand, the Scientist.

  The few stories Judith had told about his father were so familiar that they’d assumed the texture of memory. Peter could see the index cards the Scientist taped to things in order to teach himself German. When a summer storm dampened a book that Peter had left beside an open window, he recalled the swollen textbooks the Scientist had abandoned on the lip of a tub. Nobody but Peter’s long-gone father would read by the light of a glove box. For that matter, nothing was more repellent than the Scientist’s habit of starting his day with canned tuna . . . and his inexcusable practice of drinking the water the fish had been packed in. Peter’s favorite quasi-memory: a mathematical equation, scribbled on the back of a paper plate, describing the fate of a tadpole’s tail.

  During the second year of his residency, Peter had scoured the web for information about his father. His professional training almost behind him, his life partner selected, a family, perhaps, on the not too distant horizon, he felt prepared to dig into the past. It had taken him only a few minutes to identify a prime suspect. A company called Parallax Circuit Design listed a Lawrence Brand as the head technology researcher. Downloading Brand’s c.v. off the company’s website, Peter had been able to confirm the few biographical details Judith shared: a BS from Rutgers, an outside interest in astrology, some knowledge of German. She’d told Peter that the Scientist studied magnets. Brand held a PhD in electromagnetic engineering from Kansas State.

  SINCE THE LAST time Peter peeked in on him, Brand had added two lines to his c.v. In 2008, the Western Apicultural Society certified him a Master Beekeeper; he’d also attached a link to a locked thread from a beekeeping board where a moderator identified as LarryBee, in one huge, blocky paragraph, debunked the myth of a connection between Colony Collapse Disorder and the proliferation of microwave transmission towers. The tone of Larry’s post, a paternalistic lecture, left Peter feeling condescended to.

  Using Google Earth, Peter spied on Parallax’s headquarters, a gray-white rectangle marooned in a pink sandscape dotted with sagebrush. In a dirt parking lot, three pickups and a white sedan crouched over their shadows; Peter wondered if one of the cars might belong to his father. With a few mouse clicks, he found himself staring at a glass door set in a taupe building. A figure in white appeared to stare back from the glass—a person in a lab coat? When Peter zoomed in, any sense of form disintegrated.

  Outlaws and mystics escaped to the desert, artists in search of a particular strain of nothing. It certainly wasn’t where a person went if he wanted to be found.

  Peter searched his father’s name again, this time putting Lawrence Brand, PhD, in quotes. The search engine returned three hits, two from the Parallax website and the third an apparent misspelling of a Lawrence Band, PhD. Then Peter searched Peter Silver and tried to comprehend the rather unmanageable number of 38,000; the total was, in part, due to what Wikipedia called “disambiguation.” But even if only a thirtieth of those hits referred to him, he was a thousand times more renowned than his father. This quantitative superiority felt like a bloodless patricide. No matter if he felt timid or retiring, he was not his father; he hadn’t buried his head in the sand.

  On a whim, Peter executed another search. He typed “Jimmy Cross,” then hit Enter. What did 65 million hits even mean? There was a sponsored link: Funniest Jimmy Cross Jokes. Peter clicked it.

  Q: What’s the difference between Jimmy Cross’s band and the band on the Titanic?

  A: One band played on a sinking ship. The other drowned in the North Atlantic.

  And on the following page:

  Jimmy Cross walks into a bar. He’s wearing a bowler hat and he’s got a pair of shih tzus on leashes. He orders a bottle of champagne, pours the champagne into his hat, places the hat on the floor. The dogs drink the champagne. Then Jimmy orders a hamburger. “The kitchen’s closed,” says the bartender. “That’s okay,” says Jimmy, “I don’t need it cooked.” The bartender heads out to the kitchen and comes back with a raw hamburger on a plate. Jimmy sets the hamburger on the floor and the two dogs leave the hat and eat the burger. Next, he asks the bartender to make “the world’s biggest Shirley Temple.” The bartender fills a pitcher with ice, mixes in grenadine, 7Up, pours a bottle of maraschino cherries on top. Ji
mmy picks up the pitcher, leans over the bar, and dumps the drink into the sink. “Is there a problem?” the bartender asks. “No, I just wanted to see it.” The bartender then writes out a check and sets it down in front of Jimmy. “What’s that supposed to be?” Jimmy asks. “It’s your bill.” Jimmy stands up, ties the dogs to the stool, says, “I dispute it.” “Is this some sort of a joke?” asks the bartender. Turning to head out the door, Jimmy says, “How would I know?”

  (Buffalo Bar, Riverhead, NY, August 6, 1974. A true story.)

  For perspective, Peter did a search on Bill Clinton. Despite the blue dress and troopergate, despite the impeachment and “what the meaning of ‘is’ is,” Clinton returned only half as many hits.

  “Sorry about the confusion last night.”

  Turning away from the computer, Peter found Wayne standing in the doorway.

  “I got here okay.”

  Wayne unzipped a nylon folder, retrieved a sheet of paper, and handed it to the doctor: Peter’s itinerary. “I saw you looking up Clinton. Someone tell you about the Kennedy Center fracas?”

  Peter shook his head.

  “Clinton’s people let it be known that he wanted to play with Jimmy. Well, Cross got word to Clinton’s people that the president could play his horn if Leonard Peltier played tambourine.” Wayne raised his fist.

  “Peltier isn’t a Black Panther.”

  “You sure?”

  “He’s American Indian Movement.” A Peltier bumper sticker featured prominently on Judith and Rolf’s refrigerator.

  Wayne opened his hand. “How!”

  “That’s not the preferred greeting.”

  “It’s a postracial world, doc.” No, Peter thought, it was a hybrid world. Someone named Wayne Shiga ought to realize that. Analog faces on digital watches. Gas-electric cars. Casual business attire. Jimmy was folk rock or western blues, a throwback and the avant-garde. For crying out loud, “cross” was a synonym for hybrid.

  “Do you know where I can find Bluto?”

  “He and I are meeting on the bus at five. It’s on your sheet.”

  “What if I need to see him before then?”

  “I could call him, but that would piss him off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re meeting at five.”

  “Well, I need to talk to him now.”

  “Two minutes ago you were googling Bill Clinton. What’s changed since then?”

  55

  As we drive into Columbus the patchy clouds that dogged the morning have vanished; instead, we have one of those perfect fall days that outshine anything summer can offer. The sky is as deep and blue as the Caribbean.

  “Do you know what a wedding costs?”

  “You’re not thinking about getting married again, are you?”

  “I was thinking about Gabby.”

  She punches me lightly on the arm. “I realize that.”

  “It would be nice if I could help out. She wouldn’t expect that.”

  “Make sure you like the guy.”

  “I haven’t even met him.”

  “You told me.”

  The streets are crowded with people basking in the weather.

  I spot the sign for a DoubleTree hotel. Whenever I see the logo I can’t help but see an endorsement of lesbianism (they’re supposed to be trees, I realize):

  What would the McDonald’s manager say about that?

  “Look, it’s my hotel,” Rosalyn says.

  It turns out she booked a room last night; she had Hilton points, or whatever they’re called, because of her job. That I’d driven us right to the place, Rosalyn believes, is further evidence of our fated journey. After parking, I carry her bag in.

  At the desk, Rosalyn turns to me and asks, “Arthur, do you need to use the bathroom, or the Ethernet connection?”

  In fact I could use both—but my most pressing need is for a little bit of space. She probably feels the same. So, after making dinner plans, I drive around the corner to a café that offers decaf and free Internet.

  Last night’s show has the online world in a tizzy. On CrossTracks someone started a thread: Pittsburgh: Best. Set. Ever. A guy claiming to have a recording from the soundboard is soliciting bids: he’s been offered a case of Burgundy as well as the right to choose the middle name of a girl due in November. LapisAzuli complains that ever since the show she hasn’t been able to tolerate any sort of noise—her cat’s purring, cars driving past her house, her husband’s voice.

  But was it an extraordinary show? ActuaryGary insists that the setlist was only one deviation from standard mean. That leads Gumbosian, a consumer-habits pollster, to take issue with Gary’s methodology—ActuaryGary computed the frequency of the various songs, but failed to factor in the likelihood that they’d be played together. By Gumbosian’s calculations, Pittsburgh represented a 1 in 16,238 event—Gary then concedes that he might have oversimplified the math, possibly to take the sting out of the fact that he wouldn’t be seeing Cross until Chicago and he didn’t want disappointment to be a foregone conclusion.

  More than fifteen hours have passed since anyone has added anything to the threads about me. The last entry, posted right before Cross took the stage: “Either these are the trippiest mushrooms I’ve ever eaten, or Pennyforger has a couple women hanging on him.”

  I GO THROUGH my emails.

  Neil Young Guy checked in: “Did you hear? Neil Young has a tour bus that runs on methane; it gets 500 miles on one Cross CD.” Plus, “Neil Young inspired Pearl Jam; Jimmy Cross inspired the ‘pearl necklace.’”

  An acquaintance in Chile, claiming to have contacts in the entertainment industry there, tells me that Cross’s management is planning to be in South America next July, more or less on schedule. According to his sources, Cross has tentative dates in Santiago, Lima, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and Caracas. Nothing in Brazil, supposedly, but one can’t read too far into rumors. If Cross will be in South America next summer, I should probably bone up on my Spanish.

  Dear Mr. Pennyman,

  My name is Jay’Den Delacroix. I am a student in Ms. Weatherby’s 7th-grade World History class in Passaic, New Jersey. We have been learning about how we communicate today and what gets taken for granted. There’s a project paper we got to write. My original idea was Morse Code, but Ms. Weatherby said no.

  She thought I should write you because you are supposed to be some expert on Jim Cross and he is a historical figure who lived through big changes in tech. Please answer these questions or I’ll fail.

  How has technology changed Jim Cross?

  Are these changes for the good or bad?

  What would Jim Cross say about the Internet?

  Thank you SO much.

  Your friend,

  Jay’Den

  Dear Jay’Den,

  First: Cross is still very much living, and, like all of us, he continues to adapt to changes in technology.

  When I first started following Cross, the CD was new—people thought it might be a fad. The only people I knew with cell phones were doctors! If I wanted to make plane reservations, I needed to contact a travel agent. Oops, you asked how technology has changed Jimmy and I’ve gone off talking about myself. I guess the best answer is that technology has changed him completely and not at all. So far, his lyrics haven’t mentioned Google, iPods, the Walkman, laptops, cell phones, Facebook, or anything else that seems especially current. He does mention records (like vinyl LPs and EPs—ask Ms. Weatherby), radio, rockets, electric keyboards, biplanes (in an ironic context; he’s not that old), and television (if yours is the computer generation, mine was the TV generation).

  This is a tricky question. You called me an expert on the musician, but I think the truth is that I’m expert at listening to his music and, maybe to a lesser degree, at being a fan of his music. So what do I think? I think that those of us who listen to his music probably have ambivalent feelings about changes in tech. For
one thing, change is always bittersweet. The world doesn’t change without changing us. I drove a car with a 4-speed manual transmission and a tape deck to the hospital where my daughter was born; I called my parents collect on a pay phone (again, ask Ms. Weatherby) to let them know they had become grandparents. Bittersweet. Can you imagine that one day you’ll have similar feelings for your cell phone or whathaveyou?!

  Here, finally, I can offer you something concrete. In 2002 Der Spiegel (a famous German newspaper—ask Ms. Weatherby about newspapers . . . just kidding) asked Cross if he used the Internet. The interview, unfortunately, is in German, but I’ve seen a translated version. Cross said that he traveled with a portable computer (for a lot of people, one of the lessons of September 11 was the importance of staying connected). He mentioned watching Kurosawa films and that on the odd occasion when he finds himself cooking—can you imagine him cooking?!—he’ll look up recipes. I’ve heard rumors that he maintains a private Facebook profile to get in touch with his far-flung friends, though I can’t confirm this. So far, the few aliases I suspected have refused my friend requests.

  Good luck with your paper! I hope this helps.

  Best,

  Arthur Pennyman

  SteeltownLarry writes, “Is something going on between Jimmy and the band? Besides introducing them during ‘Loss of Pressure’ he hardly seemed to acknowledge anyone the whole night. Did you notice that he exited the stage on the opposite side from the rest of the guys? It’s been a while since he cleaned house—even the kid has been with him for a few years now. Do you expect we’ll see new faces come spring?”

  Dear SteeltownLarry,

  In my tenure I’ve seen eleven guitarists, nine percussionists, three bassists (people ignore Tony’s mysterious40 leave of absence at the end of ’97 and his brief illness in ’08), two keyboardists, and one erratic mandolin player (William Styles’s one-night stand in Seattle). I won’t mention all the special guests, both headliners and has-beens, who’ve dropped in for a set.