Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

“She can’t imagine being a fish, so she cheats and imagines she’s Ruben.”

“She does?”

Rosalyn kisses my ear. “Then she falls asleep.”

“Whisper my name again.”

She says, “Horrible Arthur.” Her lips are wet with gloss.

“Hungry?”

“Do we have time?”

“There’s always time.” I hardly recognize my own voice.

At five, Peter found himself on the band’s bus with the silent driver — the crooked little man with the Greek fisherman’s cap whom Peter had heard people refer to as the Arbiter. The doctor had spent most of his afternoon watching the bus’s satellite television and trying to come up with scenarios that would result in Cross’s consenting to a hospital visit. Peter’s only hope, he concluded, was a miracle.

The driver turned in his seat. “Hey, doc, you know this lady?”

Maya stood in front of the bus, peering into the windshield.

Peter went outside to speak with her.

She was looking for Alistair. The night before, he’d promised her an interview with Cross and she’d spent the whole day waiting for her phone to ring.

Her eyes were even greener in the daylight.

“When did you last see Alistair?” Peter knew he was prying.

“I dropped him at the airport last night.”

Peter wanted to tell her that he’d missed the flight because he’d been waiting in the basement for Alistair (for her!). Would the truth make him seem pathetic? Incompetent? “He didn’t offer you a seat on the plane?”

She looked over her shoulder. “No, he did. He told me to leave my rental in the parking lot; he said he’d take care it.”

“You turned him down?”

“Should I have taken him at his word? He’s famously irresponsible.”

“Well, primarily with his own health.”

She reached up and pulled her hair back. “Besides, I like driving. I grew up watching American TV, Miami Vice, Magnum, P.I. I wanted to rent a Ferrari, but my research stipend wouldn’t cover it.”

If Martin had been there, he’d have taken the opportunity to tease Peter about his unsexy car. If Alistair were there, he’d rent her a Ferrari.

“I need this interview,” Maya said, “but I’m afraid if I go behind Alistair’s back he’ll be vindictive. Is that like him?”

Peter said he didn’t have much to go on.

“Aren’t you friends?”

“I met him two days ago.”

Maya rubbed her forehead. “Why did I think you’d known each other longer?”

Concerned that their conversation could be on the verge of ending, Peter changed subjects. “I’ve got a question for you: Why, when I’ve never really cared for Cross’s music, do I suddenly feel like I’m becoming a fan?”

Maya looked at him, smiled. “Had you ever watched him play before?”

“Does that matter?”

“Hugely. I have a whole chapter on the power of the stage. We’re social animals. Put us in a crowd and we fall in line. The expression ‘Preaching to the converted’ is misleading. The audience, not the preaching, is the real agent of conversion.”

“How does that work?”

“You must have studied the autonomic nervous system in medical school. That’s the mechanism.”

“Are you associating musical tastes with perspiration, respiration, heart rate, and reflexes?”

“You left out sexual arousal. Sometimes I tell people that my research focuses on how and why we fall in love.”

“As a physician,” Peter said, “it’s fascinating to hear how a sociologist understands the autonomic nervous system.”

“Maybe I’m a metaphysician.” Maya smiled. “Did you talk about the soul in med school?”

“I don’t recall studying the soul.”

“If I were to go looking for one, the autonomic nervous system is the first place I’d check.”

“Where are you from and are there more people like you there?”

She blushed. “I’m a Kiwi.”

“That’s funny.”

“Why?”

“Your eyes are kiwi-colored.”

She shook her springy hair. “Would you want to get something to eat?”

He’d put on his serious-business face, a guy who’d been watching television on a bus. “I’m waiting for Bluto.”

“But you do eat food sometimes, don’t you?”

“You’ve got very bad timing.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do I?”

What he’d meant to say was that her timing was bad for him, but he didn’t trust that he could explain the difference. “I would like to eat with you at some point.”

“At some point,” she parroted him. “If you see Alistair, tell him I was looking for him. Don’t tell him that I’m getting frustrated.” She turned and started to walk off.

He called after her. “Enjoy your food.” He deserved nothing.

WAYNE AND BLUTO didn’t show up at five. Or five-thirty. Peter flipped the channels on the TV, but nothing held his attention. He tried closing his eyes for a few minutes, which, instead of relaxing him, made him feel like a blind idiot. The only person he’d ever met from New Zealand was off exploring Columbus while he sat waiting on a bus. Time passed right through him. He couldn’t sit another moment. He needed to do something.

He walked to the front of the bus and asked the driver to let him off.

The evening had carried a damp earthy smell into the city. Where, he wondered, did the cornstalks start, or the wheat? He’d barely given Ohio a thought since fifth-grade geography.

He came across a two-way pedestrian path. Just beyond the path a big, slow river shone metallic pink. Peter was constantly being overtaken by a parade of joggers, the occasional bicyclist knifing through their ranks. Since when had women’s shorts become so, well, short? The jog bra craze had caught him off guard a few years ago, but now he was seeing hamstrings. Those teeny fucking black shorts. He’d just made peace with yoga pants.

Plump songbirds flitted about the underbrush bordering the path. He scanned the bobbing, hypoxic faces in the oncoming lane. A skiff gouged a white line up the river, disappeared beneath an overpass. Wasn’t it weird, Peter thought, that the same rivers that once enabled cities now girded them. That sort of penetrating intelligence would have knocked Maya’s knickers off. Watching the water corrugate around the cement pilings of a bridge, the doctor took out his phone and paged Martin.

A few seconds later, his phone shook.

“Tell me you’ve got good news.”

“I’m ninety-nine percent certain nothing’s wrong with him.”

The joggers kept brushing past Peter, pushing him aside. There must have been some innovation in Lycra, some breakthrough.

“We’re not having a conversation about your instincts. I’m drawing a line in the sand here. Either you get him in the tube tonight, or I tell Peg about his fall and she’ll do that thing where her mouth looks like a cat’s asshole.”

Who was being bullied now?

“I’ll get him to the hospital.”

“Seriously? You’ll bring him to Wexner Medical Center?”

“Right after the show.”

“Silver, you and I are a couple of forward-looking motherfuckers. Don’t jerk me around.”

“Make sure that tube is empty. He won’t hang out in a waiting room.”

On the opposite bank, a huge bird glided along the tree line trailing a gang of crows.

While we wait for our food Rosalyn tells me more about her tumor, which is slow-growing and about the size of a cocktail olive. I ask if there’s anything doctors can do. She says her oncologist recommends “snipping out all my plumbing.” While she’s sleeping on the operating table, the surgeon will evaluate tissue samples and decide if anything else needs to be done.