Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

Lucy used to call Peter “mama’s boy,” when he rolled his socks into tidy balls, for instance. She’d wander into the kitchen, naked, stand before the open refrigerator, and retrieve one of “his” yogurts from the bottom row. “I’m stealing this,” she’d say, peeling back the foil, still not closing the door, her skin goosebumping. “You’re letting all the cold air out.” “Mama’s boy,” she said, licking the spoon. It happened more than once.

They met in a Laundromat during his first year of medical school. He’d gone to study while his clothes drowned. She’d wandered in to get change to feed a parking meter. She interrupted him, asked him what he was reading. He showed her the cover of his workbook. She said, “Is that any good?” then winked. Women didn’t usually approach him — he was long-limbed, gawky, too tall to be slight, but too thin to have presence. They never winked. He had the presence of mind to ask for her number. For their first date, he took her to an Italian place that someone had claimed was romantic. He discovered she was earning her master’s in early childhood development. “You must have lots of patience,” he said. She said, “Try me.”

He told Lucy he didn’t have time to date. Then he said he didn’t have time for a girlfriend. In both cases, he may have been giving himself an alibi for when she lost interest in him. He fell for her quickly and completely.

After a month, she suggested he invite her to move in. Not only would they save money, but he’d get to see her every night. He asked and she told him she’d have to think about it. She waited two months before she agreed.

It was heaven. They liked to lie in bed and scan catalogs together. They were both gung ho on the future. She said he was the first serious person she’d dated, not the first person she’d dated seriously. He kept a Formica table at the foot of his bed and oftentimes he’d be at the table studying when she woke. He loved hearing her breathing change as she awoke.

She had a younger brother, a laid-back tech rep who lived an hour north of Miami; Peter marveled at their easy friendship, their chummy affection. Peter realized he wanted to have two kids with her, which was not a rejection of his own childhood, or not simply. They visited her brother a few times, usually when winters in Rochester got to be too much. The brother had a condo that looked west, across a brown-black canal, toward the Everglades and the setting sun.

And later, yes, Peter caught Lucy browsing studio apartments online. That was what led him to talk with a real estate agent and a mortgage broker, brought him to the place he was now, an accidental property owner.

“Mama’s boy,” Lucy said, when he insisted she separate the salad forks from the dinner forks. But hadn’t it been affectionate?

Countless times, I’ve found myself sandwiched between the unusually large, the drunk, the belligerent, the unwashed. Those sorts of indignities are easy to forget when I am near the stage, when I can see, for example, a dry cleaner’s tag on the hem of Cross’s pant leg. The only nice thing I can say about Claire’s seat is that it’s close to the exit.

The difference between seats and great seats is almost not worth mentioning, but since I’ve given the subject some thought, I’ll say a bit more. A competent sound guy 33will monitor the levels throughout the hall. However, since an empty hall and a hall packed with sound-absorbing bodies are entirely different things, there are really only two places to sit. You should either be close to the stage, to hear what the performers hear, or sit near the soundboard, since the sound engineer will tweak the levels so that things sound right to him or her.

Everyone knows that sound and light travel at different speeds, but that’s not something one is usually reminded of while at a concert. Yet, in Pittsburgh, I can see Jimmy’s fingers make a run on the keyboard before I hear that run. And when he tilts his head back and belts out something heartfelt, I have to wait an eternity before I find out where he’s taking us.

At least the company is excellent! Mindy and Robinson both seize my arm when Jimmy first walks on stage (what had they expected?). Likewise, when he launches into a rote version of “Long Gone,” they’re in awe. They sing along when they know the tune, and when Cross plays something more obscure I feed them the title and locate it in his discography. “You could rent yourself out,” Mindy says. “A concert gigolo,” Robinson says. My stock peaks when I correctly predict Cross will follow “Alabaster Ragout” with “Tennis Shoe Blues.”

It feels like a magical night. Cross tears through “Ripcord”(!), jumps into “Bomb Shelter Romance” (!!), reassures the casual fans with “Absolutely Nowhere,” before covering the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” (@?$%), doing that whole ba-ba-ba-baaaa-ba, ba-ba-ba-baaaa-ba on the harp! Robinson grips my thigh, which is thrilling, and then she moves her hand and — it’s probably an accident — squeezes my penis through the fabric of my pants (my decorum is protected by my duster).

But I am eternally Arthur Pennyman — which means that nothing can go right unless something else goes wrong. My brain receives an urgent message from my gut: that horrid juice is wrecking havoc on my gastrointestinal system.

I unlatch Robinson’s electrifying grip to slide past Mindy. As I turn up the aisle, I want to shoot Robinson a look to let her know I’ll be back, but she’s following me! Does she think that we’re making our escape, that I’ll ravish her in the parking lot? I wait for her, trying to think of a quick excuse. Then she says, “I have to tinkle.” Which is a relief, obviously.

We reach the lobby and I dart off to the men’s room.

THERE ARE A limited number of situations where a duster causes an inconvenience; the restroom is undoubtedly the chief example. My fingers have to do the fine work with my belt and zipper, while my core muscles clench. I’m praying that I can complete the operation and only suffer a close call as opposed to a humiliation. When my pants puddle around my legs, I flip the tail of my coat over my head and drop onto the seat. In short order, internal pressure and external pressure equalize. Like a summer storm, there is thunder and wind; the temperature in the stall drops twenty degrees in about five seconds — or so it seems. I don’t remember sweating, yet all at once I’m aware of sweat cooling, on my scalp, near my kidneys, behind my knees.

I stagger to the sink. I want torrents of glacial runoff, but the faucet is one of those water misers; I have to punch it a hundred times. As soon as I’m clean, it’s time for round two. At last, hollowed out like a flute, I leave the stall. Rip Van Winkle stares back at me from the mirror.

Impossibly, I find Robinson waiting for me in the lobby.

“I was beginning to think you’d gone out a window.”

I don’t say, “I nearly went down the drain.”

She hands me a scrap of paper. Snippets of lyrics from four songs: “Minister of Moonshine” (!!), “Rothko’s Circus” (!!), “Evaline,” and “When You Wash (Your Hair)” (!). 34

It’s an amazingly thoughtful gesture and I tell her so.

“You want to get out of here?” she asks.

I do. But wanting is fleeting. Besides, leaving early — regardless of the circumstances — would only feed ammunition to my detractors. A life is defined through a million opportunities to abandon principles.

WE STAND AT the back of the hall (I don’t for a moment entertain returning to our seats) while the crowd pleads for its encore. 35Robinson leans against me so that her head touches my shoulder, but while it appears that she is resting on me, the effect is that I feel propped up.