Vexation Lullaby

by Justin Tussing

  Funny how the past waits to greet you everywhere you go.

  After our waitress buses the table, Rosalyn lifts a pill minder out of her purse, sets three tablets on the lip of the table, then replaces it. She picks up her water glass and washes the medications down with three quick gulps. I don’t ask what the pills are for. When she finishes, she says, “I reserved us a room in Lexington. I hope I’m not being too presumptuous.”

  “So, I drive and you book the room, is that our arrangement?”

  She makes me look at her. “Do we have an arrangement?”

  “How long can you stick around?”

  Her eyes drop. I suspect she heard a big question where I intended a smaller one.

  When the check arrives, I slide a few bills under my coffee cup.

  “You promised you’d meet my daughter.”

  “In a moment of weakness,” she says, rising halfway from her seat. Then she sinks back down. When she reaches up to touch her forehead, I see her hand tremble.

  I ask her if she’s feeling all right.

  “I stood up too quickly.”

  “Do you want to go back to our room?”

  Rosalyn blushes.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “In The Holy Screw,” Rosalyn says, “the narrator is surprised to find hickeys on her thighs and in the creases beneath her breasts. She accuses Ruben of being insatiable, but he explains that the marks are from bedbugs.” Rosalyn takes another sip of water. “Later, she calls him ‘Bedbug.’”

  I offer to bring the car around and she doesn’t protest. As I jog back to the hotel, I’m reminded what a blessing it is to have a healthy body; I mustn’t forget that.

  Rosalyn’s waiting at the curb when I pull up.

  I roll down the passenger window. “Want a ride?”

  “I’ve been warned about guys like you.”

  “There aren’t any guys like me,” I say, shaking my head. We’re playing a game, but it’s not just a game. I lean over and open the door for her. “Get in.”

  Merging onto I-71, the tractor trailers blasting past buffet my small car. Rosalyn reaches over and pats my thigh.

  “Without giving too much away, could you explain how the The Holy Screw gets its title?” I ask.

  “Of all people, you should know what a tricky business it is to decode a title.”

  “It makes me think of those tamper-proof screws you find in airplanes or fastening bathroom stalls. Does the author believe that Ruben has some special attribute that enables him to move her, bind her, or free her, when other men couldn’t? If the author is the Holy Screw, I guess that would make Ruben the Holy Screwdriver.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re serious,” she says, crooking her neck to look at me. “The book’s about sex. Ruben screws her and she awakens to the world and to herself.”

  “Got it.”

  Rosalyn laughs. “It’s not a meditation on Home Depot.”

  A funny thing occurs to me: all this time, Gabby has been thinking her special friend is going to be the big surprise. She’s never going to forgive me.

  “Now you’re laughing,” Rosalyn says, leaning over to grind her forehead into my shoulder.

  Gabby is going to explode!

  68

  Peter decided to watch TV in his room. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to congratulate him on saving Cross’s life. The dark berry still pulsed inside Cross’s head. Assuming the world contained a premier basilar-artery specialist, Peter felt confident that he or she would hear from Ogata directly.

  On the TV a guy with a skull as smooth as an artillery shell screamed at a smirking teenager. Peter had watched the show before; he’d seen the episode where the screamer’s wife, oldest daughter, and physician staged an intervention in the cardiac unit where he’d wound up after his third heart attack. Peter couldn’t recall where this particular episode fell in terms of the larger chronology. What he knew was that the teenager getting yelled at was the man’s son. The camera panned away from the action, to a poster behind the screamer, a picture of a donkey with its ears pulled back, its yellow teeth showing; the caption read, I Don’t Get Headaches, I GIVE Them!

  Something thumped against Peter’s door. When he investigated, he found Bluto standing in the hall, in sweatpants, T-shirt, and a black blazer.

  “You going to invite me in?”

  Peter opened the door wide.

  The tour manager came in. “Close the door, huh?”

  “I can’t discuss anything without Cross’s permission.”

  Bluto paused by the television. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Why did Fletcher get fired?”

  “Who you think scored the dope for Allie? Now, I like Fletcher. I’ve worked with the guy for almost ten years, but he should have known better. As soon as the show was over, I told him there was a ticket waiting for him at the airport. He didn’t get upset; he’s a professional.” Bluto pulled out a tin of breath mints; he popped one, then put the container back in his pocket. “I need a favor.”

  Peter put his hands up. “I’m fresh out.”

  “Listen to what I have to say. That was a nice trick you pulled off last night, but it’s not like you can go around saving his life every day.”

  “I haven’t saved his life.”

  “If a person claims you saved his life, then it’s at least partially true.”

  “Not when one of you has the least idea what doctors do.”

  “You mean besides hiding in their room and watching Motorcycle Humpers?”

  Peter clicked the TV off.

  “I want you out of here,” Bluto said. “It’s nothing personal, but the sooner you leave, the sooner Allie’s liable to get bored and fly off.”

  “So why don’t you talk to Allie?”

  Bluto shook his head. “If you give the Big Man a wallet, he’s liable to lose it or throw it away. He can’t be bothered to hold on to a phone. The only thing he carries is this battered little address book he picked up in Marrakech forty years ago. That’s how he knows the addresses for his kids and his grandkids’ birthdays. That tattered book is how he can get in touch with Ogata and that shrimp lawyer.

  “Four years ago he’s out taking a constitutional in Wyoming when some hick deputy picks him up for vagrancy. Cross doesn’t carry ID and they don’t believe him when he tells them who he is. They take him to the station and let him make a call. He pulls out that little book and he calls me. That’s how I found out I’d made it into his book. There aren’t fifty names in there and mine’s among them. Long after I’m dead and forgotten, that book will be in the Smithsonian. But if I pick a fight with Alistair, Cross will take out the nub of a pencil he carries, lick the tip, then scratch off my name. The next thing I know I’ll find myself in the Delta terminal with a one-way ticket home.”

  Peter pulled open his room door.

  Bluto walked out to the hall. “Did you forget that the only reason you’re here is he used to put the boots to your mother?”

  69

  Before we reach Cincinnati, Rosalyn has to use the facilities. I pull off at a truck stop. While Rosalyn goes inside, I stretch out on the hood of my car and let the heat of the engine warm my back. If I were by myself, I would never allow myself to feel so languid.

  I haven’t been able to let go of last night, how the world seemed to wobble and catch the first time Cross played “A.D.C.” The echo of that feeling still troubles me. I’d assumed he’d played it twice because he wasn’t satisfied with how it sounded, but another explanation occurs to me. What if he’d been playing a different song? What if he cloaked another song underneath “A.D.C.”?

  There’s only one ghost in the whole of Cross’s catalog, one song that, so far, has evaded the lyric detectives and ivory tower sleuths.

  I pull up the website for the hospital where Dr. Silver works and dial the switchboard. A woman answers in a patient, matter-of-fact voice.


  “Is there a doctor named Peter Silver working there?”

  “He’s unavailable. Would you like me to transfer you to his voice mail?”

  I have to think on my feet. “It’s a common name,” I say. “You don’t know his middle initial, do you?”

  “Please hold.”

  I wish Rosalyn were with me. It’s not an odd feeling, so much as an unprecedented one. Looking toward the truck stop, I will her back. I am a fountain of hope.

  “Sir,” the woman says, “it’s Peter R. Silver. Can I transfer you?”

  I hang up.

  Twenty-six letters in the alphabet allow for 17,576 possible initials—26 x 26 x 26. Coincidences are facts masquerading as meaning, but is it a coincidence that Cross’s inexplicable physician shares his initials with his most inexplicable song?

  And where is my Rosalyn?

  AT THE BANK of pumps, interchangeable cars arrive, fill up, depart. I head inside. She’s not in the convenience store. And I don’t see her in the donut and coffee place. Ditto the little annex that sells merchandise for truckers: mud flaps, wallet chains, pocketknives, paperback thrillers. I don’t find her loitering in the hallway crammed with pay phones, which leads to the back entrance (there’s a back entrance!). I look for her in the dim “arcade,” by the deer-hunting game and the pinball machine. I stand beside the ladies’ room door and listen. Then I head back outside, in case she has, somehow, circled back to the Corolla—she hasn’t.

  Why would she leave me? Half a dozen reasons pop into my head, including my selfishness, my general appearance, the fact that I don’t have a source of income, her health, the dawning realization that we are not acting our ages. Finally, I ask one of the young women at the donut store if she’d mind checking the bathroom for me. The girl can tell I don’t believe there’s anyone in there, but she comes out from behind the counter all the same. She freezes me with this look, like she thinks I might try to follow her.

  But when she returns she asks, “You’re Arthur?” The import of this question doesn’t register. “It’s okay,” she says, “come in.”

  There’s both an outer and an inner door—concert halls often employ the same airlock type of setup—and when I push past them I find Rosalyn sitting on the floor.

  I squat down and put my hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Arthur. I got so dizzy.” She shows me her phone. “I wanted to call you, but I don’t have your number.”

  The girl says, “Do you folks need me to call an ambulance?”

  Rosalyn lifts a shaky hand, draws it across her brow. “I’ll be fine in a second.”

  The girl—her name is Carrie—and I stand on either side and help Rosalyn to her feet. The three of us shuffle into the donut place. Carrie uncaps an orange juice, hands it to Rosalyn, while her co-worker handles the drive-thru duties.

  “I guess I overdid it last night,” Rosalyn says, swiping the back of her hard across her mouth.

  “I know that feeling,” Carrie says. “Bleh.”

  Minutes pass.

  The other girl chews gum and stares at us. “You have to listen to your body,” Carrie says.

  Rosalyn slowly closes her eyes. For a moment I think she might be falling asleep, but then a smile works across her face. When she opens her eyes, she’s looking right at me. “We can go now.”

  Carrie won’t accept money for the juice. “You didn’t order it,” she says. She presses a sandwich into Rosalyn’s hand—it’s not something they sell; she’d brought it from home, it’s her lunch. She insists on walking Rosalyn to the car.

  “Listen to your body,” Carrie says.

  Rosalyn nods her head.

  “She will.” I wave as we drive off.

  WHEN ROSALYN PUSHES the button to lower her window, my foot lifts off the throttle. I expect her to be sick, but with a flick of her wrist, Carrie’s sandwich goes Frisbeeing out of the car.

  I think of sweet Carrie, getting up early to make her responsible sandwich, slicing the tomato, tearing the lettuce, just a touch of mayo, only a hint. Bringing the healthy sandwich to the donut shop only to give it away to a stranger. That sandwich had so much hope invested in it.

  “Thanks, Carrie,” I say, mimicking Rosalyn’s wrist toss.

  Rosalyn laughs.

  I conjure up scenes from the girl’s life: Carrie giving her boyfriend a gift. “Oh, a sweater. Thanks, Carrie,” then the flick of the wrist. At Christmas, she gives her mother a snow globe. “Thanks, Carrie,” then the flick of the wrist. Five years from now, Carrie gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. She kisses the infant’s squished little nose, then passes the child to her husband.

  Laughter carries us through Cincinnati and over the Ohio River. Rosalyn and I are laughing as we arrive in Kentucky.

  BY THE TIME we reach Lexington, we’re both exhausted. We check into the hotel. Rosalyn curls up on the bed while I set up my laptop.

  “Sit next to me while I fall asleep.”

  I do.

  Nestling her head against my hip, she says, “You’re a bit of a porcupine today, Arthur.”

  “I had a bit of a revelation. I’ve been distracted.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I should have come looking for you earlier.”

  “You were giving me privacy.”

  What she said echoes. “Say that again.”

  “You were giving me privacy.” Her eyes stay closed.

  “I think that’s the answer to a riddle.”

  “Arthur, you’re being impossible.”

  “Why would he pull a song off an album? To give someone privacy.”

  “We’re talking about Mr. Cross again?”

  I kiss her forehead.

  “Who’s privacy is he protecting, Arthur?”

  “His son’s.”

  “Lot of good it’s done.”

  “I’m not talking about Alistair.”

  She looks up at me. “He has another son?”

  “It’s a theory.”

  Rosalyn pulls my hand to her mouth and kisses it.

  “It’s more than another son. There’s a song, too, a bastard song.”

  “Don’t use that word,” she says.

  “You’re right.” It’s so hard to explain. “I think he snuck it past us last night.”

  Rosalyn sits up. “If you’re not going to let me nap, you could at least talk to me in a way I can understand.”

  “I don’t think he played ‘A.D.C.’ twice last night. I think he played it and the song it’s based on.”

  “Who can you ask?” She raps me with her knuckles. “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “That’s just it: I’m the person that you ask.”

  It’s my turn to close my eyes, and when I do I feel that I’m in a moving car. And for some reason, because I know I’m not in a car, because I know that I’m in a hotel with Rosalyn, I find the feeling of being in a car to be incredibly soothing. I’ve always loved to be going anywhere at all.

  70

  Peter watched a nature show that explored the astounding variety of life-forms living deep in the ocean. Then he watched adrenaline junkies pilot wingsuits through a red-walled canyon.

  A chime let him know he had a text.

  The message was from Cyril: Bourbon is being consumed. Your presence is required. Do not delay. The bodyguard included a street address.

  Peter didn’t feel like drinking and he certainly didn’t feel like watching Cross drink, lest anyone view his presence as tacit approval (he did not approve). Peter decided to go all the same. If he went, Martin couldn’t call him a square, Martin couldn’t say, Good for you, Silver, someone has to have the stones to stand up for orthopedic shoes and middle-class responsibility.

  During his interim as a touring physician, Peter had discovered that time moved like an avalanche, not at all and then all at once. He showered, pulled on jeans and a polo shirt, what he imagined to be appropriate bourbon attire. He wasn’t
much of a drinker, but he’d give it a shot. What was the point of being a rock-and-roll physician if he didn’t indulge in the lifestyle? It occurred to him that he might get wasted.

  THE CAB STOPPED in front of a limestone mansion. A dark green awning tented the entranceway; burgundy carpet cascaded down the stairs. Was he wrong to think it resembled a funeral home?

  At the top of the stairs an engraved brass sign: We Request Gentlemen Wear Jackets and Ties.

  A tall woman in a slim gray dress intercepted Peter. She belonged to that tribe of people whose beauty is so compelling that it serves as a sort of wit. “Are you meeting a party?”

  Peter gave Cross’s name. “They didn’t tell me about the dress code.”

  “You must be Dr. Silver.” With a narrowed glance, she appraised him from head to toe. “And, I think you look fantastic.”

  Lying is erotic because if a person can say anything, then anything is possible.

  A really dumb thing to do, Peter decided, would be to send Lucy a picture of him drinking bourbon with Cross.

  Peter trailed the hostess through a dining room, focusing all of his attention on a square button a few inches above the small of her back, which appeared to mark the precise point where her hips pivoted.

  When they reached the table, Alistair lifted a pair of empty glasses to his eyes, twisting them as though focusing binoculars. “Ah,” he said, “it’s the man of the hour.” Bluto sat beside him, stone-faced.

  “I’ve found your doctor,” the hostess said, slipping away.

  Maya was there! She turned to him and smiled; she had a notebook open before her on the table. A pair of bifocals perched on her nose. He decided that Alistair had been lying about her having a boyfriend. He simply chose not to believe it.

  Where was Cross? He turned around in time to watch the singer return from the restroom. As he traversed the dining room, Cross drifted off course, as though at the mercy of an invisible current.

  When he reached the table, he clapped Peter on the back of the neck. “You’ve met Helen of Lexington?”

  Peter said he had.

  “We’re all a bit in love with her,” Maya admitted, “except for Bluto.”