Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

While the opening act were taking their bows, Sutliff sidled up beside Peter. “Alistair didn’t push him down the stairs.”

“Did someone say he did?”

“He was trying to catch his old man.” Though they were talking, Sutliff didn’t look at Peter. The whole time he kept playing his unplugged guitar.

“You’re saying Cross stumbled first.”

Sutliff pointed a finger at the ceiling.

High above, the lights dropped away until just a few cans glowed like cats’ eyes. In the artificial twilight, a stream of stagehands bumped past, as though Peter were an uncharted island.

When the lights blazed on, Cross and the band had already taken their places. A roar from the crowd rushed the stage, but the guys mounted a quick counterattack, releasing a squall that overwhelmed the audience, setting them on their heels. And then the noise became music.

Some of the songs were so familiar it seemed easier to attribute them to a civilization than to a single human mind. It hardly mattered that Cross didn’t have the greatest singing voice; someone else could make the songs pretty.

A hand clamped on the doctor’s elbow, pulling him backward. Had he been on the stage? As he backpedaled, it seemed that a few faces in the audience turned to watch him withdraw.

Cyril said, “I need you.”

Peter chased after Cyril to avoid being dragged. Unlike the irresistible forces he’d encountered in physics textbooks, Cyril wasn’t hypothetical.

The music filtered through the building — the walls buzzed as they charged into the basement.

Cyril unlocked the door to an empty dressing room and pushed Peter inside. “He’s in the bathroom.”

“He” was Alistair.

Despite a whirring ceiling fan, the room smelled of puke and cigarette smoke. Cross’s son sat, naked, in a pool of urine; his sodden clothes scattered across the floor. His elbow rested on the rim of the toilet. He was smoking.

Peter noticed little shards of glass shining in the piss. No, they weren’t glass.

“You throw ice water on him?”

Cyril nodded.

The doctor crouched down, watched the naked man smoke, watched the slow way he blinked, how he couldn’t seem to keep his head up.

“You feeling okay?”

Alistair twisted the cigarette between his fingers, stubbed it out on the tiled wall. “My clothes are wet.”

“Did you throw up?”

Alistair licked his lips.

“He passed out on the throne,” Cyril said. “I couldn’t wake him.”

No wonder Maya hadn’t heard from him.

Alistair managed to climb halfway to vertical before one of his feet slipped. He went straight down, his head glancing off the toilet, his body slapping on the floor. He started snoring; he’d knocked himself out cold.

“Shit,” said Cyril. “That ain’t going to help.”

With his phone’s stopwatch, Peter checked Alistair’s pulse and respiration. “Do you know what he took?”

Cyril stood outside the bathroom door, so only his tilted forehead peeked in. “Wayne saw Allie getting up in Fletch’s grill earlier, but I don’t want to speculate.”

“So how long’s he been like this?”

“You believe me if I said his whole life?”

Peter turned, one shoe squeaking on the floor. “I mean today.”

“Maybe an hour or two.” Cyril stepped into the bathroom, opened the faucet and washed his hands. “You think he’ll be okay?”

When he rotated through the ER, Peter had dealt with every species of overdose: drug abusers, accidentals, suicides, and parasuicides. Before falling, Allie had seemed coherent enough. Puking was good. The ice water was good. He’d rather Cross’s son hadn’t hit his head, but with his vitals stable it wasn’t a huge concern. He’d probably have some bruising on his face, a headache, sure as hell.

Peter pointed toward the dressing room. “Can you find him some dry clothes?”

Cyril nodded. He touched a finger to his earpiece, had a short conversation with someone. “Wayne’s going to see what he can come up with.”

“Where’s Bluto?”

“He can’t be involved in this.”

Peter grabbed Allie’s ankles and dragged him away from the toilet. He rolled him onto his side, then pinching his ear, said, “Alistair, I need you to sit up for me.”

The naked man rubbed his cheek with his hand. “Did you punch me?”

“Nobody’s hitting anybody,” Cyril said.

Alistair picked a sodden cigarette off the floor and plugged it in his mouth.

Peter snatched the cigarette and tossed it in the toilet. “Do you know where you are?”

“Why’d you take my clothes?”

Peter checked Alistair’s pulse again. “How do you feel?”

“I feel fine.”

Peter used the light from his phone’s camera to check Alistair’s pupils.

“No pictures!” Alistair said. “My eyes are copyrighted.”

“What do you want to do with him?” asked Cyril.

Peter stood up, looked at the bodyguard. “Have him drink a quart of orange juice or Gatorade in the next hour.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“I’m not going to sit here and hold his hand.”

“What if that’s what the Big Man wants?”

Peter watched Alistair unspool the toilet paper on the wall. “Tell him I’m not obliged to be convenient.”

“I’ll have Wayne play nurse. Promise you won’t go anywhere until he gets here.” Cyril put his hand on Peter’s chest. “Don’t test me.”

AFTER CYRIL LEFT, Allie sat up again. “Find me a towel.”

Peter grabbed a stack of towels from a dressing table. He handed them, one at a time, to Allie, who piled them over his lap.

“Is your back better?”

Allie could only manage to focus one eye at a time. “I’m you.”

“You’re me?”

Allie nodded.

“What did you take?”

Cross’s son pantomimed buttoning his lips.

“I saw Maya earlier. She was looking for you.”

Allie unbuttoned his lip. “She’s got a boyfriend.”

Peter believed him.

“You think you might be sick again?”

Allie slapped at the plunger and flushed the toilet again.

The dressing room door opened and Wayne walked in. He poked his head into the bathroom and made a quick assessment. “Have you met your spirit animal?”

“Shut up,” Peter said. “Did Cyril tell you what you’re supposed to do?”

“I have to get him to drink something and I can’t let him out of my sight.” Wayne shook his head. “My father wanted me to go pre-med.”

Columbus doesn’t hear the band that played in Pittsburgh. The setlist never deviates from the mean. Cross stays out in front of the guys, a tenth of a beat ahead, riding the brakes.

Maybe, for him, tonight is the ideal and last night the aberration. The songs unwind in a familiar way. He sounds like people expect him to sound. It’s rote entertainment.

Rosalyn looks pale. A purple scarf wraps around her neck. She’s not sleeping, though her eyes are closed. After “Blue Fancy,” she squeezes my hand and says, “That was pretty.” She’s not wrong, but I wonder if she’d be more comfortable in her bedroom. And then it occurs to me that I’m not afraid that Cross will have a bad show, but that I will — that when the show ends, I’ll find myself missing something I’d counted as mine at the start of the show.

Albert reaches out his hand and claps the cymbals with his palm. Cross releases a solitary chord. It reminds me how a breeze will sometimes announce the arrival of a summer storm. The crowd bolts up in their seats

I scan the wings, to see if Allie is standing there holding his four-string guitar.

Rosalyn leans over to speak into my ear. “What’s wrong, Arthur?”