Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

“Don’t hang up,” she shouted. A thought flashed through my mind — she wasn’t mad at me; she was mad that I’d escaped first. “I’m going to go wake Gabby; I want you to say good night to your daughter.”

Two teenagers stood close by — they were probably waiting to call their parents for a ride.

I told her I had to go.

“Have you lost your mind, Arthur?”

Years would pass before I understood what happened that night. Patricia wanted Arthur back, but he never got her message. She was speaking to the Restless One.

Just off the lobby, the hotel had converted a coatroom into a business center. Peter sat down at one of the workstations and ran a search for Lawrence Brand, the Scientist.

The few stories Judith had told about his father were so familiar that they’d assumed the texture of memory. Peter could see the index cards the Scientist taped to things in order to teach himself German. When a summer storm dampened a book that Peter had left beside an open window, he recalled the swollen textbooks the Scientist had abandoned on the lip of a tub. Nobody but Peter’s long-gone father would read by the light of a glove box. For that matter, nothing was more repellent than the Scientist’s habit of starting his day with canned tuna. . and his inexcusable practice of drinking the water the fish had been packed in. Peter’s favorite quasi-memory: a mathematical equation, scribbled on the back of a paper plate, describing the fate of a tadpole’s tail.

During the second year of his residency, Peter had scoured the web for information about his father. His professional training almost behind him, his life partner selected, a family, perhaps, on the not too distant horizon, he felt prepared to dig into the past. It had taken him only a few minutes to identify a prime suspect. A company called Parallax Circuit Design listed a Lawrence Brand as the head technology researcher. Downloading Brand’s c.v. off the company’s website, Peter had been able to confirm the few biographical details Judith shared: a BS from Rutgers, an outside interest in astrology, some knowledge of German. She’d told Peter that the Scientist studied magnets. Brand held a PhD in electromagnetic engineering from Kansas State.

SINCE THE LAST time Peter peeked in on him, Brand had added two lines to his c.v. In 2008, the Western Apicultural Society certified him a Master Beekeeper; he’d also attached a link to a locked thread from a beekeeping board where a moderator identified as LarryBee, in one huge, blocky paragraph, debunked the myth of a connection between Colony Collapse Disorder and the proliferation of microwave transmission towers. The tone of Larry’s post, a paternalistic lecture, left Peter feeling condescended to.

Using Google Earth, Peter spied on Parallax’s headquarters, a gray-white rectangle marooned in a pink sandscape dotted with sagebrush. In a dirt parking lot, three pickups and a white sedan crouched over their shadows; Peter wondered if one of the cars might belong to his father. With a few mouse clicks, he found himself staring at a glass door set in a taupe building. A figure in white appeared to stare back from the glass — a person in a lab coat? When Peter zoomed in, any sense of form disintegrated.

Outlaws and mystics escaped to the desert, artists in search of a particular strain of nothing. It certainly wasn’t where a person went if he wanted to be found.

Peter searched his father’s name again, this time putting Lawrence Brand, PhD, in quotes. The search engine returned three hits, two from the Parallax website and the third an apparent misspelling of a Lawrence Band, PhD. Then Peter searched Peter Silver and tried to comprehend the rather unmanageable number of 38,000; the total was, in part, due to what Wikipedia called “disambiguation.” But even if only a thirtieth of those hits referred to him, he was a thousand times more renowned than his father. This quantitative superiority felt like a bloodless patricide. No matter if he felt timid or retiring, he was not his father; he hadn’t buried his head in the sand.

On a whim, Peter executed another search. He typed “Jimmy Cross,” then hit Enter. What did 65 million hits even mean? There was a sponsored link: Funniest Jimmy Cross Jokes. Peter clicked it.

Q: What’s the difference between Jimmy Cross’s band and the band on the Titanic ?

A: One band played on a sinking ship. The other drowned in the North Atlantic.

And on the following page:

Jimmy Cross walks into a bar. He’s wearing a bowler hat and he’s got a pair of shih tzus on leashes. He orders a bottle of champagne, pours the champagne into his hat, places the hat on the floor. The dogs drink the champagne. Then Jimmy orders a hamburger. “The kitchen’s closed,” says the bartender. “That’s okay,” says Jimmy, “I don’t need it cooked.” The bartender heads out to the kitchen and comes back with a raw hamburger on a plate. Jimmy sets the hamburger on the floor and the two dogs leave the hat and eat the burger. Next, he asks the bartender to make “the world’s biggest Shirley Temple.” The bartender fills a pitcher with ice, mixes in grenadine, 7Up, pours a bottle of maraschino cherries on top. Jimmy picks up the pitcher, leans over the bar, and dumps the drink into the sink. “Is there a problem?” the bartender asks. “No, I just wanted to see it.” The bartender then writes out a check and sets it down in front of Jimmy. “What’s that supposed to be?” Jimmy asks. “It’s your bill.” Jimmy stands up, ties the dogs to the stool, says, “I dispute it.” “Is this some sort of a joke?” asks the bartender. Turning to head out the door, Jimmy says, “How would I know?”

(Buffalo Bar, Riverhead, NY, August 6, 1974. A true story.)

For perspective, Peter did a search on Bill Clinton. Despite the blue dress and troopergate, despite the impeachment and “what the meaning of ‘is’ is,” Clinton returned only half as many hits.

“Sorry about the confusion last night.”

Turning away from the computer, Peter found Wayne standing in the doorway.

“I got here okay.”

Wayne unzipped a nylon folder, retrieved a sheet of paper, and handed it to the doctor: Peter’s itinerary. “I saw you looking up Clinton. Someone tell you about the Kennedy Center fracas?”

Peter shook his head.

“Clinton’s people let it be known that he wanted to play with Jimmy. Well, Cross got word to Clinton’s people that the president could play his horn if Leonard Peltier played tambourine.” Wayne raised his fist.

“Peltier isn’t a Black Panther.”

“You sure?”

“He’s American Indian Movement.” A Peltier bumper sticker featured prominently on Judith and Rolf’s refrigerator.

Wayne opened his hand. “How!”

“That’s not the preferred greeting.”

“It’s a postracial world, doc.” No, Peter thought, it was a hybrid world. Someone named Wayne Shiga ought to realize that. Analog faces on digital watches. Gas-electric cars. Casual business attire. Jimmy was folk rock or western blues, a throwback and the avant-garde. For crying out loud, “cross” was a synonym for hybrid.

“Do you know where I can find Bluto?”

“He and I are meeting on the bus at five. It’s on your sheet.”

“What if I need to see him before then?”

“I could call him, but that would piss him off.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re meeting at five.”

“Well, I need to talk to him now.”

“Two minutes ago you were googling Bill Clinton. What’s changed since then?”

As we drive into Columbus the patchy clouds that dogged the morning have vanished; instead, we have one of those perfect fall days that outshine anything summer can offer. The sky is as deep and blue as the Caribbean.