Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

Cross ladled things onto his plate. “I can never remember what I like, so I got us a bit of everything.” He pointed at a sauce. “Watch out for that stuff. India’s full of contradictions — they make red food that tastes cool and green stuff that can strip paint.”

Though he couldn’t imagine eating, Peter loaded his plate.

“So, what made you decide you wanted to be a doctor?”

Most of the people Peter met in med school had familial connections in the profession — medicine happens behind closed doors, and the same mechanisms that protect the privacy of the patient protect the privacy of the practice. For Peter, becoming a doctor wasn’t the fulfillment of a dream, so much as the culmination of a process. He said, “People kept telling me I ought to look into medicine. Eventually, I listened.”

“Was Judith one of those people?”

Peter shook his head.

“Is there something funny about that?”

“She doesn’t care what I do. She just wants me to be happy.”

Cross said, “I always figured my son would make a good healer.”

“Healer” had to be Peter’s least favorite euphemism. Doctors treated and prescribed. They operated and they educated. Doctors didn’t heal.

“What does your son do?”

“Alistair Cross? He’s a musician.”

“I think I knew that.”

“Small Ideas, that’s his band.” Cross took a sip of his beer.

“Right,” Peter said. “Do you have other kids?”

“Allie’s got a younger sister, Bea, and two half-sisters, Rebekah and Ludella. I’ve got five grandkids, too.” Cross leaned back in the booth. “Do you, maybe, play an instrument or make art or something?”

“I don’t. I do not.”

The waiters had disappeared somewhere; they never returned to the table. The two men ate in almost perfect silence. Peter stuffed his mouth with food; it seemed safer than speaking.

“I’m grateful that you came out.”

Was Cross talking about dinner or the tour? The ambiguity made responding a challenge. Peter said, “I’m looking forward to the show.”

“I never talk about a performance beforehand. It helps to cultivate a little mystery.”

Peter noticed the lights at the front of the restaurant had been turned off.

“Did Judith have anything to say about you coming out on the tour?”

“She said the Sunbeam belonged to you, but you let her borrow it.”

“Did I tell you it was her car?”

Peter wasn’t certain what he remembered from that night. And now they were eating Indian food in Buffalo. What would he remember from tonight? “Thanks for this opportunity.”

“If anything, I should be the one thanking you.”

“Well, thanks for dinner,” Peter said.

Cross raised his hand, signaling Cyril. “See, there you go again.”

After the opening act takes their bow, a fan walks up to me in black, double-knit pants, and a skinny red dress shirt with mother-of-pearl snaps. Ostrich boots peek out from under the wide cuffs of his pants. He’s young, barely out of his twenties. The first thing he says is “Have you been to CrossTracks today?”

I say, “I try to stay off the websites.”

“But you’re Pennyman, right?”

I tell him I am Arthur Pennyman.

He scuffs his feet on the floor, giving me every opportunity to walk away.

“You know there’s a thread about you?”

There are no fewer than three threads about me, which is what I intend to tell the kid, when I notice that the conversations around us have ceased and that all these silent people are sort of discreetly moving toward us.

“Are you talking about a new thread?”

“Supposedly Cross saw a doctor in Rochester. Right? You took a picture of him.”

The kid seems to be after a reaction quote. A house burns down and they shove a microphone in the owner’s face. After a school gets shot up, they ask a victim’s parent how they’re coping.

I say exactly what’s on my mind. I say, “Wow.”

“It seems plausible after how weird that show was.”

I nod my head, not like I’m agreeing with him, but to confirm that I’m listening.

“Weird, how?”

“Like, right, he almost fell down.”

“So, were you at the show in Rochester?”

The kid blinks. We both know he’s done.

“Because, right , I was actually at the show,” I say.

One of the eavesdroppers, a guy about my age with hairy nostrils — it looks like he’s been snorting woolly bear caterpillars — abandons the pretext that he’s not paying attention and asks me, “Is it true? Is he seeing a doctor?”

I say, “I’ll find out.” Which is the sort of thing people say when testifying before Congress — it sounds like a strong answer, though it’s a coward’s gambit.

The interlopers stare at me. Maybe they expect me to confess.

“What sort of doctor was he supposed to have met with?” I ask, trying to go on the offensive. “Because there are all kinds of doctors.”

This guy I can’t even see, someone hidden in the second rank, chimes in, “So now you’re an expert on doctors, too?”

One can’t forget that it’s a fine line between an audience and a mob.

A limousine idled in front of the restaurant. Cyril opened the door, grabbed Peter by the wrist, and in one fluid motion incorporating elements of civility and judo, planted him on a rear-facing seat.

They were off.

Watching the road recede though the rear window reminded Peter that he was rushing blindly into the unknown. Cross didn’t need a doctor; he needed a barber (his ears were hidden beneath the curly wings of his hair) and a shave.

Cross lifted a bottle of water from a pocket on the door, checked the label, then cracked the seal and took a long drink. Sitting beside Cyril, the singer looked no bigger than a fifth grader. “Any word on Allie?”

“Not yet,” Cyril said.

The limo surged forward as the driver pulled onto an elevated roadway. Peter felt his body being sucked toward the rear of the car.

Cross was quiet for a moment. “Try to reserve judgment.”

“I don’t judge anybody,” Cyril said.

“You know, animals love him.”

Cyril thumbed his phone. “What sorts of animals are we talking about?”

“You remember those mutts that followed him around Paris.”

“Weren’t those his dogs?”

Cross took another sip of water.

“What am I supposed to be doing?” Peter asked.

Cross looked as though he didn’t quite understand Peter’s question. He turned to Cyril. “Is there somewhere he can watch the show?”

“We’ll find a place for you,” Cyril said.

“Good,” said Peter, though he felt guilty that the bodyguard would have to find a spot for him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Cross said, his attention somewhere outside the car. “It’s another circle. . ”

“Two minutes,” Cyril said.

The singer took a big sip of water, rolled down his window and spit.

Peter wondered if he ought to offer words of encouragement, but decided he was better off saying nothing.

“I’ll get out of the vehicle first,” Cyril announced. “Then the Big Man gets out. You follow him, doc. Be his shadow, just don’t clip his heels. Got it?”

Peter said he did.

AS THEY PULLED behind the Stanley Opera Center, a floodlight cut across Cross’s face and revealed a changed man — his jaw hung loose, his eyes dull and hooded.

A uniformed cop stood by the stage door, his head swiveling like a room fan. The driver opened the door for Cyril, who stepped out of the car, looked around, then reached a hand in to help Cross out. Peter scrambled out of the car. When the limo’s door thumped shut, he nearly climbed up Cross’s back.