Andy Abramowitz - Thank You, Goodnight

Jumbo flashed me a tolerant grin. “They do to him.”

He then jerked some knobs on the dash and the AC roared to life like the afterburners on an F-14 Tomcat. Arctic wind huffed into the Monster Truck Show–vehicle. Within seconds I was shivering, positioning my body to avoid the streams of frigid air.

“What are we doing here, transporting a liver?”

“I’m kind of a worrier when it comes to temperature and kids,” said the father of none. “You can suffocate on hot air much quicker than on cold air. Bet you didn’t know that.”

I didn’t. Because it’s ridiculous.

In the fish-tanged air of the Baltimore harbor, I watched Ingrid spin about on a merry-go-round, clutching the reins of a plastic horse as my once and future guitar player held her steady. I didn’t imagine that any band had ever been launched under these conditions, and in that respect, I suppose we’d already made rock history.

As far as I was concerned, small children were pretty useless unless you wanted to preboard a plane. Parents always looked so miserable. I pitied them when I ran headlong into the interminable drudgery of their weekend grocery outings. They all looked like if you offered them immediate legal dissolution of the family, each member being handed a hobo stick and fifty bucks—“Good luck to you, son.” “Same to you, Dad.”—they’d go for it without a second thought. Young mothers seem to find catastrophe everywhere, even in the lunch tray that their husbands dared to bring over. You got Connor a hot dog? Connor doesn’t eat hot dogs! And the husband stares back at her with a mountain of desolation, thinking, I took this girl to one fraternity formal twenty years ago. How did things go so horribly wrong?

“So, about that thing I wanted to discuss,” I said when my companions had disembarked the ride. Jumbo had begun to tear off easily digestible quantities of turkey and bread and was handing them to Ingrid.

“Yeah, man, talk to me.”

“Well.” I searched for the right words; they didn’t exist. “There’s no other way to put this. I’m considering reviving the band.”

He stopped cold. “No shit?” His eyes shot to Ingrid. “I mean, no shoot?”

“I’ve written some new songs. I want to record an album. Sonny Rivers may produce, schedule permitting.”

“Sonny Rivers! Holy shit, man! That’s awesome! I mean, holy shoot!”

Fortunately, the little girl was too preoccupied for the naughty word to register. Some fur-suited characters were gathering at a makeshift stage, and Ingrid was trying to decide if they were terrifying or the most wonderful things she’d ever seen.

“I never thought I’d be doing this again, but some things have happened to me over the past few months. I’ll explain everything when we sit down and talk, but for the first time in a long time—”

Jumbo interrupted my backstory with unequivocal support. “Dude, I’m in. Definitely. Count me in.”

“Hold on. I want you to think about it.”

“Don’t need to.”

“Yes, you do. I’m talking about a commitment here. Taking risks, possibly leaving jobs. I’m not asking if you want an oatmeal cookie.”

“Mingus, you don’t have to tell me what’s what. I was in the biz, remember?”

All too well. “I don’t want issues, James. I’ve had enough of your issues.”

“I’m a lot more responsible than I used to be. Hello? Exhibit A?” He gestured proudly to Ingrid. As if keeping a toddler alive for a few hours erased decades of waywardness and debauchery.

“You’re a great musician, Jumbo. I wish you weren’t, but you are, and that’s why I’m here. But we’re not twenty-three anymore. I want to do this the right way, like adults. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Of course.”

“Well, just in case you don’t, I’m saying that I need to be able to count on you.”

“You can, dude.”

Just as it dawned on me that I was being told what I wanted to hear and that it was unfair to extract a promise that Jumbo was ill-equipped to deliver, our two-year-old companion suddenly shrieked and bolted in the direction of the costumed furballs. A bargain brand Big Bird had begun to juggle bowling pins before a mass of bewitched kids, and Ingrid would be damned if she was going to miss it.

“Ingrid!” Jumbo yelled. “Stay! Shit!”

As he pulled up anchor and gave chase, I almost had to look away. I don’t think I’d ever seen Jumbo run before, and there was something jarringly unnatural about it. It was like when they showed Kermit the Frog on a bike. It just didn’t look right. Who knew he had legs?

I followed my companions, shaking my head, my steps heavy with ambivalence.

Minutes later, we were all seated on abrasive concrete while a collection of teamless mascots and characters without a network—not-quite-Eeyore, Smokey the Bear’s inbred cousin—danced, cartwheeled, and wobbled on unicycles before captivated children and their wrist-checking parents.

I stared out into the harbor, watching sailboats make for the bay in slow motion. I had to do this, I reassured myself. This was necessary. Without Jumbo, more than anyone else, we were a different band, a lesser band. I needed him. I hated that I did, but I did.

I’d filled Sara in on this sorry road trip the night before. Armed with a bottle of Chianti, we’d walked three blocks to the Mediterranean BYO owned by clients of hers, expats from Cairo whose restaurant had been around forever despite never hosting more than a smattering of diners at any given time. The hostess led us to a table by the window, uncorked our wine, and allowed a stream of deep burgundy to tumble into our glasses, all the while recounting the chorus of compliments she and her husband had received about Sara’s decorating handiwork in their home. Soon afterward, a complimentary mezze platter of hummus, tzatziki, kalamata olives, and little cheese cubes surrounded by fallen dominos of grilled pita arrived at our table via a lovely olive-skinned young woman, the owners’ daughter. As we smiled her away from the table, I said to Sara, “So, I’m going down to Baltimore tomorrow to see Jumbo.” The night of my webcast with Sonny a week earlier had been the last we’d spoken of my musical fits and starts.

“Jumbo? Why?” She surfed a pita wedge through the tzatziki, then bent down beneath the table to retrieve her napkin. It was an endearing idiosyncrasy of hers that her lap seemed ill-fitted to accommodate a folded napkin, and at least twice every meal she had to blindly grope the floor.

“I’m going to ask him to help me. I think he could contribute to the recordings.”

“Isn’t he . . . kind of a moron?”

“He is.”

She smiled weakly. “But not enough of a moron.”

“He’s plenty a moron. Let’s put it this way: on the day of our record-company audition, he wore a tattered T-shirt that read ‘I Got Sand in My Pants at the Sig Ep Beach Party,’ and all I remember thinking was, Thank God he’s wearing a shirt.”

Sara gave me a mild smile behind which she was surely imagining the changes to come in the unlikely event anything actually happened with these songs. Where might this downward path end for the man with whom she cohabitated? Joblessness, the keeping of strange hours, shady characters crashing on our couch for weeks at a time, and then inevitably, tantrums, bitterness, alcoholism. It wasn’t money that concerned her. We were fine. She made enough to live on, and I’d amassed a respectable savings. The true source of distress had to have been that she lived with someone who, in the middle of his life, was capable of casting off everything for something completely asinine.

“And after Jumbo?” she asked.