Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

“The other night, when you mentioned Judith, I assumed she owed you money. Then, after I realized who you were, it seemed funny that I’d mistaken you for a collection agent.” Peter glanced out at the idling car. “It’s weird that she does kind of owe you money.”

Cross’s face became serious. “Look around. Do you really believe I’m owed anything?”

The jet shifted.

“That’s going to be Cyril hurrying us along.”

The bodyguard ducked into the cabin. One of his pant legs had gotten bunched up on the shaft of his boot. “Bluto called to tell you the people of Pittsburgh don’t deserve any mercy.”

Cross smiled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asked.

The bodyguard bent over and dressed his pant cuff. “It means the people of Pittsburgh don’t deserve any mercy.”

Fuck Cyril Coleman. Fuck his Brioni suits and his calfskin gloves. Fuck his nineteen-inch neck and his sweet voice announcing “Big man coming through.” 31He didn’t take my ticket in order to keep me out of the show. If that had been his goal there’d be attorneys involved and court orders, the folks scanning tickets would have a color-copy photograph of my driver’s license taped to the backs of their stations and in the break rooms.

Cyril took my ticket to let me know he knows my habits, too. Ours is not a cat and mouse game. It’s cat and cat.

SINCE SCALPERS DON’t take credit cards, I head off in search of an ATM. A few blocks away, I spot one in a Subway restaurant. After grabbing some cash, I decide to get a sandwich, since the juice wasn’t exactly filling.

I always get the same thing at Subway, a turkey sub on whole wheat with spinach, tomatoes, green peppers, black olives; I avoid salt, mayo, and cheese because coronary disease killed my father and, indirectly, my uncle. I ask for olive oil and vinegar (every so often my body craves vinegar). The sandwich artist hands me my bagged food and I carry it over to one of their anti-ergonomic booths — they could make the seats more comfortable, but they don’t want people to loiter.

I start feeling blue, which could be the booth design’s real intention, since so many people use food to self-soothe. If I wasn’t so aware, I might try to comfort myself with one of their peanut butter cookies.

When Gabby felt down — the smallest things used to set her off, a shoelace breaking, if you put catsup on her fries as opposed to next to them — Patricia used to throw a pity party. We’d make a box cake and sing “It’s a pity for you” to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” It worked like a charm. I’m not sure what Patricia did as Gabby got older. A pity party probably wouldn’t help ease heartbreak or being ostracized, or feeling like you’d been abandoned.

This woman comes over and puts her hands on the edge of my table, like she wants to borrow the last chair at my table. She smiles, but there’s a general thinness to her face, lips, and fingers, like she’s never eaten dessert. The roots of her hair are darker than the tips, but in a way that looks intentional. I can’t decide if she looks good for sixty, or if she’s seen forty rough years.

“Artie?”

I shake my head.

“I can’t believe it,” she says. “Artie, it’s me, Mindy Vinter.”

Both of our mouths hang open.

Mindy Vinter! She’d been a neighbor when we were both sophomores at a yellow-brick high school in Thornbrook, Illinois. Sometimes at night, I would take the screen out of my window so I could stick my head out and stare at the pink curtain of her bedroom window. Forty years ago I had vivid fantasies where her house caught on fire and I saved her. One day, watching her practice with a hula hoop in her yard, I got up the courage and kissed her. When I stopped, Mindy stood there looking at me, the hula hoop on the ground, and said, “Artie, I thought you were going to punch me.” For a few weeks, whenever she went outside to walk her parents’ dog we’d rendezvous at the center of a cluster of pine trees and kiss until the dog (Rascal, I remember!) began to whimper.

“How’d you ever recognize me?”

She shakes her head. “You still do that thing where you loom over your food. Right, you basically eat down.”

“I eat ‘down’?”

“Wait,” Mindy says, “are you in Pittsburgh?”

“I am tonight,” I say, which sounds preposterous coming out of my mouth, so I add, “Remember Rascal?”

“Poor Rascal.” She pouts. “Not a dignified end.”

“Are you married?” I ask.

Mindy says she’s married, which surprises me because she’s not wearing a ring. Not wearing a ring seems to suggest that, at the very least, she’s not entirely married.

“How long?” I ask, which comes out sounding a bit aggressive, like I’m trying to catch her in a lie.

She says, “It seems like forever.” Really, what kind of answer is that? “And you?”

I tell her I’ve been divorced for almost twenty years and that I have a thirty-year-old daughter. Mindy tells me that she has three sons and two daughters. Five kids with this invisible husband! I say how that’s fantastic and how no one would ever guess (which is an acceptable thing to say to a woman, but has always seemed really odd to me).

“Are you here on business?”

I say, “Business and pleasure.” And then I tell her, as briefly as possible, about JimCrossCompendium. Sometimes when I start talking about JCC (and this is especially true when I’m talking with a woman), I fail to recognize the point at which real interest is replaced by rote nodding.

Mindy punches me in the shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re a blogger,” she says. “My girlfriend and I are going to his show.”

Just when it seems we’ve run out of things to catch up on, a woman walks up to us, a fleshier version of Mindy — the same under-siege blond hair, but face, lips, and fingers all buttery. “Min, honey,” she says, shaking a ticket in the air, “I can’t sell it. I feel too conspicuous.”

They’ve got an extra ticket! I mean it’s right out of “Paris in Winter.” 32

Mindy’s friend goes by Robinson. And, when I tell them my problem, they insist I join them for the show. Mindy and Robinson used to work together, along with a Claire, and the three of them still try to get together once a month. Luckily for me, Claire twisted her ankle on an escalator and didn’t feel like coming out.

I say, “It looks like my luck is turning.”

And Robinson, who is also not wearing a wedding band, pinches the lapel of my coat and says, “Are you a bad boy, Artie?”

And Mindy says, “We have time to get a drink, don’t we?”

THE THREE OF us go across the street to one of those faux Irish bars where everything is authentic, mullioned glass, dark wood, and brass, but inside it’s lit like a museum. My companions don’t seem to mind. They get white wines while I have a Guinness. Robinson lifts her glass and says, “I never drink.”

“You never drink a little,” Mindy laughs.

These two women put on a play for me: they are attention-starved sisters and I’m the traveling salesman who’s been invited to supper. Robinson says she can’t believe Mindy never mentioned me before. And Mindy tells her friend that I used to throw stones at her bedroom window (I have no recollection of this).

“How come we never slept together?” Mindy asks me.

It’s like asking Wilbur Wright why he never flew to the moon.

“You wanted to,” Mindy says, “so bad.”

I pick up the bill. “Ladies,” I say, “the concert awaits.”

As we’re leaving the bar, Robinson turns to me and says, “I hear this could be his last tour.”

I could tell her that it’s all one tour, but I’m smart enough to keep my trap shut.