Vexation Lullaby

by Justin Tussing

  ROSALYN STOPS WALKING, which, because we’re holding hands, stops me.

  “Was I going too fast?” I ask her.

  She bites her lips, shaking her head.

  I kiss her. I kiss her on the edge of this vaulted space. Then this unexpected woman stares up at the ceiling with me, Arthur Pennyman.

  I want to be alone with her and so I tow her toward a bank of elevators—the elevator’s doors are another miracle, a tangle of astrological symbols and industrial motifs, everything rendered in filigreed brass. The doors are counterpoints and peers to the frescoes. Each one must weigh a thousand pounds. And there, above the door, I spot a single word brazed upon the lintel, a single, extraordinary word. I lift our clasped hands so that we point at it together.

  Here’s one more indisputable fact: that word is Health.

  We step into the elevator. I press the button for the top floor, but the doors don’t close. My galloping heart knows this is a very bad sign. It’s as if the elevator has judged us to be missing something essential.

  A black man with a thin (there’s no other way to say this) Jimmy-esque mustache, wearing a blue-gray security uniform, stops in front of the elevator. “Folks, you need a key to go up.”

  “Busted,” Rosalyn says.

  I say, “It’s her birthday.”

  “Is it your birthday, ma’am?”

  Rosalyn scrunches up her face.

  He leans into the elevator, smiles at Rosalyn. “Promise you’ll come back down in ten minutes?”

  “Absolutely,” she says.

  The guard slots a key in the elevator’s override and presses the top floor. “Don’t do anything up there unless you want to be on the ten o’clock news. They got cameras everywhere.”

  The doors pinch shut. In the next moment we feel ourselves being hoisted up.

  “Let me guess,” I say. “There’s an elevator scene in The Holy Screw.”

  Rosalyn presses her shoulder against mine, squeezes my hand.

  After the surgeons do their job, what would become of the new space inside her? What happens when they take something like that out? Should a person be heartened to learn she can survive without all her original parts, or will it remind her that everything we love is on loan?

  Our windowless box creeps higher, chiming each time it brushes past a hidden floor.

  “I have a favor to ask,” I say.

  “A favor?”

  “The day after tomorrow, I’m meeting Gabby’s friend.”

  Rosalyn takes a step back, shaking her head, as though I’m some misguided pet bringing her a dead mouse.

  Her reaction triggers sparks of panic inside me.

  The elevator halts. Like china in a cupboard, we shake a little, settle. The doors open and we step onto the forty-seventh floor. The bare concrete floor is laced with dried adhesive. To our left, sheets of plywood make a crude wall. On our right, behind glass doors, a bright reception area with austere, blocky furniture and matching filing cabinets; everything is taupe, except for a potted orchid.

  Why had I whisked Rosalyn away from the lobby to show her this?

  Rosalyn pushes against a section of plywood. It scrapes across the floor. She looks over her shoulder at me and winks.

  The space is cavernous, empty but for a few stark columns. Coils of telephone wire dangle between panels of the drop ceiling.

  Standing by the windows, we look out over Columbus, over the constellation of streetlights and house lights, headlights and stoplights extending out of the city. At the horizon the sky smolders, a thin ribbon of electric blue. I can imagine we are seeing the curvature of the Earth. It feels as though we’ve left Earth, like we’re aboard some spaceship.

  I kiss Rosalyn, again. I kiss her soft cheek. I kiss the corner of her mouth. I kiss her parting lips. I kiss her teeth.

  “God, Arthur. You’re making me light-headed.”

  I kiss her twisted neck.

  “Okay. Okay.” She doesn’t kiss me back, but she says, “I’ll go with you to see your daughter.”

  58

  Peter walked around the downtown for more than an hour. The sidewalks were crowded with people enjoying the day. He didn’t come across Maya or Alistair. The faces he saw didn’t recognize his face.

  He ate a grilled chicken sandwich and a side salad in a restaurant attached to a middle-tier hotel. To keep busy, he pulled up the Ohio Theater’s website on his phone. Apparently the space had been designed in the Spanish Baroque style; Peter wondered if Cross had chosen the venue for how it would complement his black bullfighter getup. He paid his bill and took a cab to the theater.

  When he knocked on the stage door, Lumpy let him in without comment. The backstage was indistinguishable from Buffalo or Pittsburgh: standpipes and electrical panels, circular staircases and catwalks, everything painted matte black. Endomorphs in boxy T-shirts emblazoned “Security” checked his credentials again and again, reinforcing his suspicion that he was forgettable.

  He found a quiet spot near the curtain that permitted him to look into the hall. Every surface was either red or gold. Depending on a person’s self-regard, one would feel like either a head of state or else a peasant, drunk on stolen wine, lost in a castle.

  The opening act, a couple guys with banjos and a woman with a quivering voice, did their thing as the crowd filed in.

  The Blister walked past, saluted Peter with two fingers splinted together with duct tape. Peter wanted to ask what had happened, but the roadie vanished somewhere.

  While the opening act were taking their bows, Sutliff sidled up beside Peter. “Alistair didn’t push him down the stairs.”

  “Did someone say he did?”

  “He was trying to catch his old man.” Though they were talking, Sutliff didn’t look at Peter. The whole time he kept playing his unplugged guitar.

  “You’re saying Cross stumbled first.”

  Sutliff pointed a finger at the ceiling.

  High above, the lights dropped away until just a few cans glowed like cats’ eyes. In the artificial twilight, a stream of stagehands bumped past, as though Peter were an uncharted island.

  When the lights blazed on, Cross and the band had already taken their places. A roar from the crowd rushed the stage, but the guys mounted a quick counterattack, releasing a squall that overwhelmed the audience, setting them on their heels. And then the noise became music.

  Some of the songs were so familiar it seemed easier to attribute them to a civilization than to a single human mind. It hardly mattered that Cross didn’t have the greatest singing voice; someone else could make the songs pretty.

  A hand clamped on the doctor’s elbow, pulling him backward. Had he been on the stage? As he backpedaled, it seemed that a few faces in the audience turned to watch him withdraw.

  Cyril said, “I need you.”

  Peter chased after Cyril to avoid being dragged. Unlike the irresistible forces he’d encountered in physics textbooks, Cyril wasn’t hypothetical.

  The music filtered through the building—the walls buzzed as they charged into the basement.

  Cyril unlocked the door to an empty dressing room and pushed Peter inside. “He’s in the bathroom.”

  “He” was Alistair.

  Despite a whirring ceiling fan, the room smelled of puke and cigarette smoke. Cross’s son sat, naked, in a pool of urine; his sodden clothes scattered across the floor. His elbow rested on the rim of the toilet. He was smoking.

  Peter noticed little shards of glass shining in the piss. No, they weren’t glass.

  “You throw ice water on him?”

  Cyril nodded.

  The doctor crouched down, watched the naked man smoke, watched the slow way he blinked, how he couldn’t seem to keep his head up.

  “You feeling okay?”

  Alistair twisted the cigarette between his fingers, stubbed it out on the tiled wall. “My clothes are wet.”

  “Did you throw up?”
r />   Alistair licked his lips.

  “He passed out on the throne,” Cyril said. “I couldn’t wake him.”

  No wonder Maya hadn’t heard from him.

  Alistair managed to climb halfway to vertical before one of his feet slipped. He went straight down, his head glancing off the toilet, his body slapping on the floor. He started snoring; he’d knocked himself out cold.

  “Shit,” said Cyril. “That ain’t going to help.”

  With his phone’s stopwatch, Peter checked Alistair’s pulse and respiration. “Do you know what he took?”

  Cyril stood outside the bathroom door, so only his tilted forehead peeked in. “Wayne saw Allie getting up in Fletch’s grill earlier, but I don’t want to speculate.”

  “So how long’s he been like this?”

  “You believe me if I said his whole life?”

  Peter turned, one shoe squeaking on the floor. “I mean today.”

  “Maybe an hour or two.” Cyril stepped into the bathroom, opened the faucet and washed his hands. “You think he’ll be okay?”

  When he rotated through the ER, Peter had dealt with every species of overdose: drug abusers, accidentals, suicides, and parasuicides. Before falling, Allie had seemed coherent enough. Puking was good. The ice water was good. He’d rather Cross’s son hadn’t hit his head, but with his vitals stable it wasn’t a huge concern. He’d probably have some bruising on his face, a headache, sure as hell.

  Peter pointed toward the dressing room. “Can you find him some dry clothes?”

  Cyril nodded. He touched a finger to his earpiece, had a short conversation with someone. “Wayne’s going to see what he can come up with.”

  “Where’s Bluto?”

  “He can’t be involved in this.”

  Peter grabbed Allie’s ankles and dragged him away from the toilet. He rolled him onto his side, then pinching his ear, said, “Alistair, I need you to sit up for me.”

  The naked man rubbed his cheek with his hand. “Did you punch me?”

  “Nobody’s hitting anybody,” Cyril said.

  Alistair picked a sodden cigarette off the floor and plugged it in his mouth.

  Peter snatched the cigarette and tossed it in the toilet. “Do you know where you are?”

  “Why’d you take my clothes?”

  Peter checked Alistair’s pulse again. “How do you feel?”

  “I feel fine.”

  Peter used the light from his phone’s camera to check Alistair’s pupils.

  “No pictures!” Alistair said. “My eyes are copyrighted.”

  “What do you want to do with him?” asked Cyril.

  Peter stood up, looked at the bodyguard. “Have him drink a quart of orange juice or Gatorade in the next hour.”

  “Are you going somewhere?”

  “I’m not going to sit here and hold his hand.”

  “What if that’s what the Big Man wants?”

  Peter watched Alistair unspool the toilet paper on the wall. “Tell him I’m not obliged to be convenient.”

  “I’ll have Wayne play nurse. Promise you won’t go anywhere until he gets here.” Cyril put his hand on Peter’s chest. “Don’t test me.”

  AFTER CYRIL LEFT, Allie sat up again. “Find me a towel.”

  Peter grabbed a stack of towels from a dressing table. He handed them, one at a time, to Allie, who piled them over his lap.

  “Is your back better?”

  Allie could only manage to focus one eye at a time. “I’m you.”

  “You’re me?”

  Allie nodded.

  “What did you take?”

  Cross’s son pantomimed buttoning his lips.

  “I saw Maya earlier. She was looking for you.”

  Allie unbuttoned his lip. “She’s got a boyfriend.”

  Peter believed him.

  “You think you might be sick again?”

  Allie slapped at the plunger and flushed the toilet again.

  The dressing room door opened and Wayne walked in. He poked his head into the bathroom and made a quick assessment. “Have you met your spirit animal?”

  “Shut up,” Peter said. “Did Cyril tell you what you’re supposed to do?”

  “I have to get him to drink something and I can’t let him out of my sight.” Wayne shook his head. “My father wanted me to go pre-med.”

  59

  Columbus doesn’t hear the band that played in Pittsburgh. The setlist never deviates from the mean. Cross stays out in front of the guys, a tenth of a beat ahead, riding the brakes.

  Maybe, for him, tonight is the ideal and last night the aberration. The songs unwind in a familiar way. He sounds like people expect him to sound. It’s rote entertainment.

  Rosalyn looks pale. A purple scarf wraps around her neck. She’s not sleeping, though her eyes are closed. After “Blue Fancy,” she squeezes my hand and says, “That was pretty.” She’s not wrong, but I wonder if she’d be more comfortable in her bedroom. And then it occurs to me that I’m not afraid that Cross will have a bad show, but that I will—that when the show ends, I’ll find myself missing something I’d counted as mine at the start of the show.

  Albert reaches out his hand and claps the cymbals with his palm. Cross releases a solitary chord. It reminds me how a breeze will sometimes announce the arrival of a summer storm. The crowd bolts up in their seats

  I scan the wings, to see if Allie is standing there holding his four-string guitar.

  Rosalyn leans over to speak into my ear. “What’s wrong, Arthur?”

  They’re playing “Acrobat Daredevil Circus.” For eight years the crowd has chanted “A.D.C.” They’ve begged in Rome, in Denver, in Cairo, and everywhere else. The begging is a material part of the ritual of a show. Why would he quit the embargo?

  “Listen.”

  “It’s beautiful!”

  But that’s no justification. After all, it’s always been beautiful.

  When the song is over, the band walks off the stage. Really, what else can they do?

  Rosalyn says, “What’s the deal with that song?”

  “He’s not supposed to play it. It’s called ‘Acrobat Daredevil Circus.’ He’s not supposed to play it. It’s about his son.”

  “Why wouldn’t he play it?”

  I say, “It’s better when he doesn’t play it,” though I don’t know exactly what I mean. I waited eight years to hear that song and instead of having a memory of hearing it, I’m left with the sense I hallucinated it.

  THE BAND STARTS the second set with “Absolutely Nowhere.” It’s a relief to be back on steady ground. Rosalyn kisses my fingers while Cross plays “Platte River”—as lackluster a song as he’s ever put his name to. And who’d imagine “Tycho Brahe” (played in 5/8 time!) might soothe me?

  A body appears at the back of the stage, a guy in a dress shirt. A slim figure, so it can’t be Allie—unlike his scarecrow father, Allie’s always been generously proportioned, his gut more formidable than his chest. Hidden among the shadows, this person is perceivable only when he shifts his weight. His face may be unremarkable, but I recognize him all the same. It’s Dr. Silver. I try to will the doctor to look my way, to find my face in the crowd, but, like everyone else, he’s only got eyes for Jimmy.

  And now the guys in the band step out from behind their instruments, they unplug, stow their instruments, leaving Cross alone on stage. He turns his back to the audience, crouching down near the drum riser.

  When he stands, he’s wearing the Darth Vader armature that holds his harmonica.

  IN THE GLOVE box of the Corolla, I keep a pocket-sized journal listing the 428 songs (originals and covers) Cross has played since I joined him on the road. Does he play “Wayward Satellite”? Does he dust off “Concrete and Carnations”? Alone on the stage, he steps into the hard white spot—the rest of the lights have cut out—and blows a quivering note that climbs toward the darkened ceiling of the hall. He brings the guit
ar in, a growling chord as solid as an anvil. And this time I’m the first one in the room to know what he’s up to. As inconceivable as it seems, he’s launched into “A.D.C.” again. “Launch” is the wrong word. It’s tentative; every note seems provisional. His voice is a whisper, a night voice. It sounds like the lights are off. And then, in the next moment, someone kills the spotlight.

  In the sudden black, I feel the world wobble, the way a spinning top will shake and right itself as it slows. Did I see something before the lights quit? The way he moves his plodding feet, his listless hands, the shapes his lazy mouth will make, this is the scope of my hard-earned authority. Really, he’s a stranger. Really, we’re all strangers. Gabby is a stranger to me, and Patricia, too. Rosalyn is a stranger. Who is Arthur Jacob Pennyman? A person could follow me for years and never find an answer.

  Cross’s voice still warbles in the darkness.

  Is this it? I wonder. And I tell myself I don’t know what that question means.

  60

  Peter knows about festivals in India where paper flotillas are set alight on holy rivers. The ships contain offerings to the dead. He hasn’t seen the festivals in person—he learned about them watching Globe Trekker; after Lucy moved out, he watched the show a lot. Despite the fact that they traveled with a cameraperson, the show’s hosts always manage to seem alone—walking across desolate beaches, hiking into rain forests, riding trains beside shockingly poor natives. Peter liked that the hosts didn’t resemble other women on TV; each had some obvious flaw, a crooked tooth, a heavy bottom, a too-round face. They favored hiking boots and knee socks—sometimes you’d spot a zit.

  What reminded him of the burning ships was something he saw at the end of the show. Cross dismissed his band to play a slow and halting song. Peter wondered if the audience found it indulgent, the inwardness of the music, but they looked mesmerized. A ramp of light connected Cross to the rafters. Then the light quit him. That’s when it happened. Like those burning envoys, a swaying constellation appeared. It wasn’t like concert footage a person might see from the ’70s; these weren’t lighters. It was strange and beautiful. He was looking at cell phones.