Vexation Lullaby (4 page)

LOL doctor

My heart is a fist
.
He's seeing a doctor?

IDK.

It's hard to make a big deal about one doctor. The tour attracts all sorts of hangers-on—when Cross hit Europe in '93 he brought three semis' worth of gear, fifteen roadies, two makeup people, a stylist, a personal trainer, and a twelve-person gospel choir. It was less a tour than an occupation.

I
T FEELS GOOD
to be on the road, especially in the fall. In these moments, when winter seems to be lurking over the next hill, I sense the real end of the tour is inevitable and nigh. I especially like it when the tour takes a jog across the upper Midwest, after the combines have trimmed the fields and the winds have stripped the leaves from the trees. Out there it's hard to forget that when Jimmy sings “
the grain elevators stand / prouder than our churches
,” he's talking about his home.

6

No one kept vigil outside Cross's room. Peter padded down the dim and empty hallway. He found his way back to the parking garage and his crappy car. Numbers stenciled on the parking garage columns counted down: 4, 3, 2, 1. At the entrance to the garage, the endomorph in the yellow Windbreaker held a phone in front of his face; the light of the screen made it appear as though the man was peering through a peephole at a sunny day.

The spectral photographer had disappeared.

7

Even without an encore, Rochester was a satisfying show. People didn't stand around shrugging their shoulders once the lights came up, something I saw a few times this spring.

The setlist focused heavily on the middle third of his discography, but I can't tell you what that means. I found the show reflective rather than pandering. There are people out there who try to read something into every song and sequence. I'm a witness, not a scholar. I have more in common with a person who's seen three shows than with some doctoral student who spent a year chasing Cross through a library. Cross has been deconstructed by Marxists, by feminists, by folklorists and psychoanalysts, but that's not where my interest lies. Most of those books offer nothing more than recycled mythology, misconstrued reasoning, and bad reporting. I don't want a writer to spend fifty pages explaining how Jimmy fashioned his stage act on Charlie Chaplin, when they can't prove he's ever seen a Chaplin film. Most writers are afraid of facts, because facts can't be argued.

I'm awash in facts.

I know the roadies call their 45-foot eight-bunk motor coach the Trojan Horse. The band rides in the Toolshed. An acoustic guitar is a Thick One. A keyboard is a Zebra. Cords are Snakes. Amps are Boxes. Crates are Coffins. Jimmy's harmonica is the Tin Whistle. A backup singer is a Rented Dress. The setlist is the Secret Formula. Security is Necks. The guys call their record label Box Top. Whenever the band plays overseas, the label sends a publicist to tag along; the crew refers to that person as the Box Top's Eugene, after a real Eugene who locked himself inside a hotel bathroom in Luxembourg and refused to come out. An ex-wife is Lost Baggage. A blowjob is a Mic Check. Phone sex is a 900. Jerking off is Jerking Off. The guy driving the Toolshed they call the Arbiter. Aisha Moon steers the Trojan Horse. When he's not on tour, Bluto Gilhooley lives in Huntington Beach, California. The venue is the Joint. Journalists are Inventors. Large headphones are Leias. Xanax is Don't Nod. An Ambien is a Dreamcatcher. Dawn is Vampire Medicine. Traffic delays are LA Weather, as in “We were late getting to the joint because of LA Weather.” A jet plane is a Cigar. A propeller plane is a Buddy Holly. If you want Cyril Coleman to dislocate your elbow, call him “Champ.” Jimmy stands five feet eight in his stocking feet, but he wears boots with stacked heels. The guys call him Hizzoner or Paycheck or the Big Man.

8

Peter headed back to the condo where he never expected to live alone, another story he didn't quite understand. The facts were clear: Lucy left, despite seven years of shared history, despite his uncontested decency and a universally lauded tandoori chicken, and despite the fact that every three months he took home an amount equivalent to her annual salary (Lucy tutored special needs students at an elementary school).

They'd been together long enough that after she moved out he had to go to a box store to buy replacements for all the things she'd taken. When he returned with his brand-new coffeemaker, spatula, hair dryer, mixing bowls, and an unconscionably expensive vacuum, all he'd wanted was to show her those things.

For months a single thought echoed in his head: if he was ever going to have kids, it would have to be with a stranger.

•••

T
HE BREAKUP HAD
triggered a flurry of social activities, the relationship's postmortem tour. As a rule, when he explained the split to their friends, the women nodded while the men shook their heads. Nobody ever asked what had gone wrong, which caused Peter to suspect that Lucy had already disseminated her version of events. Her version, the best that he could tell, was that he wasn't in love with her—one of the reasons he'd waited so long for her to change her mind was that he thought that his waiting weakened her argument.

When talking with their mutual friends, he made a point to never disparage Lucy. He wanted to appear positive. When a starfish loses an arm, the starfish grows a replacement, but the lost arm doesn't regenerate a starfish. Their friends would determine who'd come out the wounded starfish and who'd come out the dismembered arm.

He conceded city blocks to her. He vowed not to visit Rochester's art museum, because Lucy knew everyone there from the security guards to the head of acquisitions. He stopped buying the amazing, eggy challah from the bakery across the street, because he never would have discovered it if not for Lucy; his whole life, he'd been under the impression that challah was tasteless, like matzo or communion wafers. Judith Silver had grown up Jewish, but she'd raised Peter on a hybrid faith that borrowed equally from Carl Sagan and Chief Seattle.

When he shaved and especially when he didn't shave, Peter stared at his face in the mirror and wondered if he wasn't looking at a depressed person.

Lucy was the starfish.

T
HE ONLY SOUL
who cared enough to keep him from going off the deep end was Martin Vinoray. The Friday after Lucy moved out, Martin showed up with a case of beer and a sausage calzone. “I'm here for the wake,” he said, walking into the condo.

“It's not that bad.”

Martin handed Peter a beer. “Take a shower, then put on a suit.”

When Peter returned, there were two empty cans on the kitchen island.

“Who buys gray seersucker?”

“Lucy liked it.”

“Where do I start with that?”

“I'll change.”

“Forget it. I can't let you out of this place anyways, you're a public health risk.”

“Why'd you make me get dressed up?”

“Trust me.”

They drank as though the beer was evidence they needed to destroy.

At some point Martin said, “She took all the art?”

Peter spun a finger in the air.

“I know a designer. He'll take care of you.”

“I'm not worried about the art.”

“You'll get laid again.”

“Thanks.”

“I promise.”

Tears were sort of happening.

“You're a good doctor.”

“I'm okay.”

“Remember those arrowheads you made?”

Early in their acquaintance Peter had mentioned how, as a boy, he used to knap flint and obsidian arrowheads in front of the TV. Judith would sell them to tourists.

“Are you suggesting I'm methodical?”

“You're self-sufficient. Like me, you didn't grow up expecting too much from the world. If the UPS truck drives by my house without making a delivery, my kids are apoplectic.”

Peter had a long pull of his beer. “Your kids are fine.”

“They can't grasp that I grew up sharing a mattress with my two sisters. They think I'm a savage. Sometimes, when we're down at the lake house, I go poo in the woods. If they knew that they'd never talk to me again.”

“Wait, why would you poo in the woods?”

Martin finished off another beer. He tossed the empty into the sink. “Try it first, then we can talk.”

The setting sun filled the condo with champagne-colored light.

Late in the evening, Martin made a bed for himself on the sofa. “You've got enough abandonment issues.”

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
, while Martin played “Free Bird” on
Guitar Hero
, someone knocked at the door. Had Lucy returned to marvel at the mess Peter had become? No, it was a guy in a crossing guard's vest carrying two bags of Indian takeout.

After the beer was gone, they moved on to the Malbec Lucy liked.

“We need to drink it now,” Martin said, “or it'll get the upper hand.”

On Sunday, Martin announced that he was leaving. Peter sat still, reactionless—he'd managed to balance his hangover on a point above his left eye, but the slightest movement would send it crashing upon him. After calling a cab, Martin wandered into the master bathroom, yanked the shower curtain from the rod, and vomited into the tub.

In his final act of kindness, he snatched a bouquet of dried flowers from a vase in the entranceway and fed them into the garbage disposal.

“My mother gave me those.”

Martin turned on the faucet. “You're welcome.”

The visit had been a tremendous gift.

9

I'm not sure what made me think Buffalo was only an hour from Rochester. It's probably closer to a two-hour trip. Or it would have been if the DOT didn't have a dozen crews out installing shiny new guardrails. The construction zones were lit like operating rooms.

My mind plays tricks on me at night. After the radio stations power down, I start to feel as isolated as an astronaut. It takes a little self-mortification to maintain any faith. Why else would Cross accept the lifetime achievement award at the Kennedy Center wearing a “World's Greatest Grandpa” T-shirt? It was a hair shirt. What sort of family man stays out on the road a hundred and fifty days a year?

At least Cross can fall back on his legacy: nine studio albums, seven live albums, all those irrefutable songs, not to mention the royalty checks, the publishing rights, and his unimpeachable reputation. I've made similar sacrifices, yet I live in obscurity. Still, I can't shake the sense that my fate is owed a cosmic reaccounting. How can I explain that I feel special in my skin?

I come to another work site—flatbed trucks support giant lights that resemble an insect's eyes. Little oases of movement and life, then it's back into the dark.

I
T'S ALMOST SIX
by the time I get to Buffalo. There's some sort of precipitation: the streetlights have haloes, and the roads appear greasy. Following the directions emailed to me by my host, I drive past a used car lot, Denny's, Dollar Store, Great Wall of China: Chinese Food and Sushi, PetWorld, Guitar Center, another used car lot, and then the Denny's again. It's a Möbius strip mall. Somehow I end up in the overflow lot of a McDonald's. Chalking it up to destiny, I park and go inside.

A
PRETTY GIRL
, her hair pulled in plastic-looking marcel waves, wearing gold dollar-sign earrings as big as playing cards, stares at me openly. I'm the only customer. Her skin looks like a Hershey's bar and her eyelids are painted Easter egg blue. Standing next to her, with his back to me, is a stout man in a cornmeal suit. He turns just enough that he can pick me up on his peripheral vision.

“You gots a customer, Laverne.”

The girl pokes at the register. “Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order?”

“Good,” says the suit.

I ask for an orange juice and an Egg McMuffin without cheese.

“Where it say ‘no cheese'?” asks the girl.

“Don't agitate,” the man coos. “You got to consider it logically.”

The girl frowns for a moment before punching a key.

“For a dollar more you want a Newman coffee?”

I say no thanks.

The boss turns to look at me. “I bet you on your way to bed.”

“Shortly,” I say.

“This job certifies you an expert in people,” the boss says to the girl. “Everybody come to Donnie Mack. Rich or poor, sooner or later a person gets hungry in his car. Stare at those golden arches for a while and you going to see some spread legs. That's subliminal. And people think they're looking at a giant M.”

The girl covers her mouth with one hand as the other takes my credit card and runs it through the machine.

“He know what I'm talking about. Those legs means this business recession-proof. Now hold up a second,” the man says. He walks over to the ice-milk machine and lifts a stack of papers off the top. He pulls a FedEx envelope out of the mix and sets it on the counter. “What you see here?” he asks, staking his finger to the logo: