“Don’t drag me into this,” said Cyril. “You’ll get me in trouble.”
Cross took his seat. “We’re waiting for our final guest, a cherry-and-bourbon-glazed innocent with green pecans and black truffles under his skin.”
“The wait will be protracted,” Cyril said, picking up a pint glass with a straw in it. He took a long sip.
“Welcome to the party,” said Alistair.
A husky waiter set a flight of bourbons before Peter. Four stone cups, each containing an ice cube the size of a golf ball and, perhaps, an ounce of booze.
“Take your medicine,” Cross said.
FOR THE BETTER part of an hour, Peter played catch-up with the table. Alistair would not be caught.
Meanwhile, Maya continued to interview Cross. “Do you ever consider the experience of your audience?”
“You mean do I worry if they’re comfortable?”
“I’d be interested if you did, but I meant the question in a broader sense. How aware of them are you?”
“I can see them if I’m playing outside, like at a festival.”
“You don’t play many festivals in the States,” Cyril added.
Cross said, “We need more European festivals in the U.S.”
Maya reached out and rubbed the forearm of Cross’s sweatshirt between her finger and thumb. “The fabric is so thick.”
“It’s cashmere and Kevlar,” said Alistair.
Cyril leaned toward the woman. “Don’t write that down.”
Maya scratched out a line in her notebook. “What do you think about while you’re performing?”
Cross turned toward Cyril. “That’s a good question.”
The bodyguard kept his eyes on the front of the restaurant. “You think about movies.”
“Sure. I think about movies I want to see.”
“What’s a movie you want to see?”
“Any movie where Emma Thompson swims laps in a pool.”
Maya said, “She’s lovely.”
“She’s always so quiet. Even if she’s yelling, she does it at a whisper.”
“What about that dog?” asked Cyril.
“When Allie was young, we had this Bernese mountain dog. I think about that dog sometimes.”
Alistair leaned across the table. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
Cross took another sip of his drink. “Yes you do. If you were sitting down, it would put its head on your knee and stare at you.”
“I take it back,” said Alistair, “I remember him.”
“You loved that dog.”
“I stand corrected.”
“What was its name?” Maya asked.
“Black Dog.”
Alistair lifted his glass. “To Black Dog.”
Everyone drank.
“I’ll give you three more answers,” Cross said. “Gina Lollobrigida, an espaliered pear tree, and—”
“The Pottsville Maroons,” Maya said.
Cross sipped his drink. “I repeat myself sometimes. It’s an occupational hazard.”
Maya put her notebook away. “I didn’t mean to cut you off.”
Cross emptied the glass in front of him.
“Don’t forget,” Bluto said, “you still have a show tonight.”
“I know what I have.”
The dining room had cleared out. It reminded Peter of those scenes in a disaster film where stillness is used to show disarray.
Bluto waved to the hostess, who breezed over to the table.
“We need to get some food in these people.”
“I’m on it,” she said.
“This whole town is horse mad,” said Cross. “I’d like to come here sometime and order a roast horse.”
“You’ll get us arrested talking that way,” Cyril pointed out. “Probably get me lynched.”
“The next time we’re down here, Bluto, I want the whole band in silks.”
Alistair said, “Dom would look like a jockey with a thyroid problem.”
“I’ll carry a little whip and I’ll walk around and pretend to hit them.”
“Nobody whips the jockeys,” Bluto pointed out.
Cross nodded. “Why am I talking so much?”
“It’s unusual,” said Cyril.
The chef, an older woman with frosted white hair and wearing a fuchsia jacket, delivered to the table a platter of delicate horn spoons that held spheres of an emerald mousse topped with caviar.
Peter couldn’t imagine putting either substance in contact with the well of booze macerating in his stomach.
Bluto smacked his lips. “This is good stuff,” he said. “Everyone’s got to try a couple of these.”
Peter’s phone buzzed. It was Martin. He got up from the table to take the call.
“You still think he’s going to play tonight?”
“I think so. We’re drinking bourbon.” He’d wandered into an arched hallway. The walls were made of white bricks that felt cool to the touch.
“The setlists the last couple nights have been out of this world.”
“Remember, I’m not a fan.”
As his eyes started to adjust, Peter realized that he’d stumbled into the wine cellar. He was surrounded by bottles. He turned around and saw the door he’d come through. There was a sign—it couldn’t have been clearer—Staff Only.
“Listen, tell me where you’re at. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Peter felt a jolt of anger. “Did you fly out?” This was his thing. He didn’t want to share it with Martin.
“Believe me, I looked into it, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. Nobody’s willing to cover my shift tomorrow. Besides, I’m not a neurosurgeon.”
“We’re at a delicate balance.”
“You sound wasted.”
Peter reached out and grabbed a curtain to steady himself. “Promise me I’m not in trouble.”
“You’re the goose that laid the golden egg. But tell me where you are. I’ve got a friend there who you need to talk to.”
Peter found Cyril’s text and forwarded it to Martin.
•••
BY THE TIME he got back to the dining room, the table had been invaded by an armada of endive boats. Some transported dirty rice, some smoked trout, others featured little balls of blue cheese that had been rolled in candied walnuts.
Maya asked the table to excuse her.
When she was out of earshot, Alistair said, “I hope you plan on sleeping with her.”
“Be decent,” said Peter—there’d been women Peter had wanted to sleep with whom he ended up sleeping with, but in his whole life nothing ever reached the level of a plan.
Cross, who had been staring into a tumbler of bourbon and stretching his lower lip with his tongue, said, “I need to talk to the doctor.”
Cyril stood up. “Bluto, how about you and I take Allie out for some fresh air?”
Bluto scooted out from behind the table. “Sounds like a plan.”
Alistair shook a napkin in front of his face, said, “Abracadabra,” then he slid under the table. A moment later he crawled out from beneath the tablecloth. “A great magician never reveals his tricks.”
Watching Alistair and Cyril walk toward the front of the restaurant, Peter wished he’d gone with them.
“You didn’t have to save my life,” Cross said.
“You’re not saved yet.”
“The treatment’s the easy part.”
Peter hoped so, though what Cross called “the easy part” was more commonly referred to as brain surgery.
Cross reached a finger out and poked Peter in his chest. “You’re still magic, you know.”
“Bluto’s right. You need to eat something.”
“I’m going to help you be successful.”
Peter threw his hands in the air. “What makes you think I’m not successful?”
Cross shot a finger up toward the ceiling, then had it do a swan dive i
nto the table.
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean?”
The singer tapped his finger on the table. “If your life was where you wanted it to be, there’s no way you’d have wound up here with me.”
“For your information, I have a colleague who’d kill for the chance to switch places with me.”
“You’re talking about his dream. It’s not yours. Besides, you didn’t make this happen. Right? I did.”
Sure, he could be happier. But what was he supposed to do? Did a person become the changes he wanted? The voice in his head sounded a lot like Tony Ogata.
“Remember what I said earlier? I owe you a lot. I owed you before you found a time bomb in my head.”
“Everybody’s drunk,” Peter said.
“Promise you’ll let me help you.”
Deep inside, Peter could feel himself resisting. Why? Wasn’t it possible that his resistance was the thing holding him back all along? If ever there was an offer one couldn’t refuse, this had to be it.
Cross bent over and fussed with something under the table. In the next moment he reached his cowboy boots out to Peter. “I saw you looking at these earlier. Take them as a token of my feelings.”
“You can’t sit in a restaurant with bare feet.”
“Correction. You can’t sit in a restaurant with bare feet.”
71
When Rosalyn wakes from her nap, I’m sitting at the edge of her bed.
“Did you get any rest at all?”
I shake my head.
“Have you been here the whole time?”
“Almost. I needed to run out to do an errand.”
“Mission accomplished?”
“Notice any changes?”
“Did you get your hair cut?”
“No, but thanks for reminding me.”
She scrunches up her face. “You’re being mysterious.”
“I’ve got a secret.”
“I know.”
•••
ROSALYN FEELS THAT she needs to conserve her energy, so we order room service. She has a Cobb salad and a skinless chicken breast, while I eat half a rack of ribs. We sip sweet ice tea with mint and lemon wedges; we watch the currents of syrup folding in the liquid. Rosalyn tells me she enjoys watching me eat. She can’t help but see my thinness as evidence of neglect. She cares and cares.
I tell her Cross’s entourage has been drinking all day, and that if she needs to miss a show, tonight wouldn’t be the worst one to miss. The odds of another Pittsburgh aren’t very good. My voice echoes in my head, The odds of another Pittsburgh aren’t very good.
Rosalyn says she doesn’t want me going alone, so we trade my front-row ticket for a pair of seats near the back of the room. The opening act plays and plays. Either they’re trying to milk the opportunity for all it’s worth, or someone has asked them to stall. The lead guitarist and singer make banter between each number. It goes on too long, but nobody boos, the crowd stays civil. After an hour and a half they quit the stage. The lights drop.
I check out the soundboard. Instead of the steady calm of Milton Fletcher, Brucie Tzizek sits at the table. At first I wonder if he’s the source of the delay, but then I see him cover the mouthpiece of his headset and yawn. He’s not even looking at the board. The holdup isn’t on his end.
Rosalyn prods me with her elbow.
In the twilight darkness, a knot of bodies stumbles among the instruments. It’s like watching security footage of clumsy thieves. Only, the thieves aren’t taking anything. When they retreat, they leave a dark form in front of Albert’s drum kit.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome . . .”
The band takes their places as the stage lights pop on. Cross sits, marooned on a white folding chair, his charcoal cowboy hat pulled down to his brow, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Instead of his honey-colored Gibson, he’s behind his Nord electric organ—he rests his hands on the keyboard. It’s unfortunate that the instrument’s stand so closely resembles those aluminum walkers you find clogging the halls of every convalescent home.
The band plays the melody to “Long Gone” but Jimmy never moves his hands, never leans toward the microphone. I know the audience will applaud when the song finishes, yet I’m still disheartened when they do. Cross rouses himself enough to play keyboard on “Wayward Satellite,” yet Dom (!) handles the vocals.43 The band waltzes through “St. Sebastian,” while Cross, looking crumpled, does his best imitation of a martyred saint.
Rosalyn turns to me. “And I thought I had a rough day.”
Cross grabs the microphone and bends it to him. “Got a special guest.” The singer stirs his hand in the air, as though he’s corralling a soap bubble or a feather. “Get out here. Come on. I’m big proud.” The other guys look to Dom. “My inspiration. Okay . . . big hand.”
Allie shambles onto the stage, glossy with sweat. His fat face is loose in the jowls, his pretty blue eyes dart about. When he places a hand on his father’s shoulder, the crowd erupts.
Why bring Allie out now, in the middle of a throwaway set, on a calamitous night?
THE GIRL THEY picked up from Cirque du Soleil, the new Kev, prances out holding Allie’s four-string guitar; she waves to the audience, like she’s part of the show. The dumb crowd eats her up, her ironical curtsy.
“This is my son. He and I—” Cross’s voice cuts out, like he’s unplugged himself.
When Alistair stoops to speak into the microphone, a spasm runs through his body, as if someone has buried an axe in his spine. “We’ll play a little song for you.”
Will Jimmy, in deference to his son, reprise one of the five forgettable tracks that appeared on Alistair’s EP?44 Or maybe one of the songs about Alistair’s mother, either “Diamonds (for Breakfast)” or “Slender 11”?
“Stop!” I yell. Or I want to. And I suppose I want to remain in this state of not knowing what they’re about to do. That must be part of it. I have no clue what they’re about to play—and I know I don’t know better than everyone else.
Cross and Alistair are alone on stage, though I don’t remember the band leaving.
With one tremulous hand, Cross keys some bright, jumping notes. Alistair provides only the most minimal accompaniment, as though he held a triangle instead of a guitar.
When Alistair’s voice comes in, so low and pure, I forgive him for everything.
He sings:
Way up yonder,
Above the moon,
A blue jay nests
In a silver spoon.
The song evaporates in front of us, but Alistair leans down until his cheek must be touching his father’s:
Buckeye Jim,
You can’t go,
Go weave an’ spin,
You can’t go,
Buckeye Jim.
It’s a traditional tune, the sort of thing Cross cut his teeth on. But why “Buckeye Jim”? And why now? Sometimes it seems as though Allie lives without a thought to any past or future. Is Cross reminding his son that he, too, is connected to history? And maybe, by playing something off the book, Cross is reminding all of us to listen.
In Paradise,
The white bird sings,
Touch your face
With tender wings.
And maybe the point isn’t the number of questions one thinking person can generate. Maybe the point is what we can feel. Maybe the point is that the song is spare and beautiful. I think, here, of Rosalyn, who is, in her own way, spare and beautiful.
Buckeye Jim,
You’ll go, go
Weave an’ spin,
You’ll go,
Buckeye Jim.
The stage lights cut out.
I say, “That’s going to be the end of that. Saner minds have prevailed.”
“Look,” Rosalyn tells me.
What she’s noticed—what I see now—is that Cross hasn’t left the stage. The lighting person combs the crowd w
ith a blinding laser array, and somewhere above us fog cascades down, but amid all this hubbub, at the center of all the noise and confusion, Cross is waiting us out in plain sight—not exactly plain sight, the floor lights are down. A large form crouches beside him—it’s impossible to tell who it is, but I’d put my money on Cyril Coleman.
Rosalyn squeezes my hand. I can remember joining hands with Patricia and, of course, with Gabby—if Gabby asks, I will “give her hand” to the person she loves. I never expected I would hold hands with someone again.
The lights come back on, and now Alistair is propped in a chair beside his father.45
Cross plays his standard three-song encore with his son by his side, but it’s hard for me to pay much attention because twice Rosalyn launches into these coughing fits that she can’t seem to control; and, though she waves me away, I get the sense that these attacks have unnerved her as much as they have me.
I want to get her out of this place, but as soon as the houselights come up, there’s a crush for the doors. The two of us sit, Rosalyn’s head pressed against my shoulder.
72
The pig finally arrived, one more unnecessary intoxicant. The chef stood beside the table, doling out treats she trimmed from the carcass, strips of crackling, the succulent, silver-dollar cheeks. She removed the loins, each as slender as a child’s forearm, sliced them into medallions to serve with crab-apple chutney and crème fraîche. Chafing dishes piled with herb-speckled fingerling potatoes served to soak up the drippings and the booze. Peter picked at a bitter salad of collard greens, shredded brussels sprouts, and jade-green tomatoes.
Flecks of charred meat glistened on Maya’s teeth. Peter wanted a picture of her, but he seemed to have misplaced his phone.
A waiter delivered more cocktails; each carried a provenance—had been developed by a Civil War coward, had been the favorite poison of a city founder, had been blamed for the crash of a paddle-wheel steamboat.
Peter felt Cross’s eyes resting on him, like a neglected dog. When he couldn’t take the scrutiny a moment longer, he headed to the bathroom; he needed the privacy.
The urinals contained shining mountains of ice—he wondered why anyone would want to chill his pee. His shirt started to ring. Though he never put his phone in his shirt pocket, that’s where he found it. It was Martin.
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