Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

“How can it be against me?”

“If a person wants your attention, all they have to do is hurt themselves.”

“Luckily, people don’t do that.”

Cross lifted a bunch of green grapes. “Do you think I was the only audience Allie had in mind for his little command performance? You’re the reason he’s here.”

Someone knocked on the door, three quick knuckle raps.

“Is that Cyril?” asked Peter.

“It could be anyone. Let’s see if they go away.”

“Why am I the reason Allie’s here?”

“I mean here on Earth and here on tour.” Cross dropped the grapes back on the platter. “When I told him you were coming on tour, he caught a flight that day. He hadn’t left Paris in six years.”

“How did he know who I was?”

“You were his prototype. When I was in the studio recording Midnight at the Bazaar , the working title was Me and the Boy .”

“Are you saying I was ‘the Boy’?”

“The songs are about childhood, about getting lost in the woods and my competing desires to settle down with a family and to sleep with strangers on the road. They’re my songs, but I didn’t know I could write them before I met you.”

“How old was I when you knew me?”

“You’d just turned three the last time I saw you.”

“I was just some kid.”

“And now you’re just some doctor.”

Peter walked to the wall and rubbed his forehead against the cool concrete.

“You’re not going to throw up, too, are you?”

The knocker had returned.

“That’s Cyril. Let him in.”

Peter didn’t move.

Cross cleared his throat, then walked to the door and opened it.

Cyril said, “Allie’s bingeing on sushi a couple blocks away.”

“We need to go to the hospital tonight,” Peter said, surprising himself.

“There’s no rush,” said Cross.

Peter turned from the wall. “Did Dr. Ogata call you earlier?”

“Tony’s more concerned about his good name than he is about me.” Cross picked a napkin off the table and blew his nose. “I told him nothing can hurt me. I’m a cockroach.”

“It ain’t like cockroaches is immortal,” said Cyril, philosophically.

“I need you to come to the hospital with me,” Peter said. “It’s important.”

“Important for whom?”

Peter told the truth. “It’s important for me.”

“You think that’s a good enough reason?”

Peter waited for Cross to look at him. “If you don’t like what I’m telling you, the only person you have to blame is yourself. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t plotted with Ogata and your lawyer friend.”

“How about we listen to the doctor,” Cyril said.

Cross turned his head so the words seemed to spill from his mouth. “I didn’t see this coming.”

“Neither you nor Allie has the slightest idea who I am.”

“Earth to Peter,” Cross said, “you don’t know who you are either.”

After the show, while Rosalyn visits the lavatory, I upload the setlist, so that Cross’s fans in Brisbane, in St. Petersburg, in Seoul, and in Bangkok can find out what they missed.

As I’m finishing, Rosalyn slides up next to me.

“You ready?” I ask, double-checking to make sure the page updated.

She doesn’t answer.

I turn to her, but instead of Rosalyn, I see a skinny kid with a railroad engineer’s cap pulled down to his ears. Maybe he’s twenty. His head looks like it’s resting directly on his shoulders. “Are you Pennyman?”

The way he twitches — his mouth going flat, then jagged — bothers me. His eyes dart around, settling on my face like a fly.

He jams his hands into the pockets of his coat.

On a different night, I might see him as a kindred spirit. But in this moment, I want to be away from him. He gives me the creeps.

“Pennyman?” he repeats. He’s looking at the face of my phone.

People mill around. Where is Rosalyn?

“No,” I say.

He seems to be wondering if my divergence from our script isn’t some kind of test. His eyes narrow and then, I swear, he sort of growls at me.

Rosalyn returns, plants a kiss on my lips. I clutch her warm fingers as she pulls me away. It almost feels true, that I’m not Arthur Pennyman.

There’s a bottleneck where we have to pause to squeeze through the doors. When I look over my shoulder, the kid is still watching me. He reaches his hand out to me, then, with a twist of his wrist, gives me the bird.

It’s cold outside. I grab Rosalyn’s small shoulder to keep her close. She says, “You’re staying with me.”

My phone chirps, notifying me that a text has come in, but I only have eyes and ears for Rosalyn. It will be eight hours before I learn that Milton Fletcher, Cross’s sound guy, after seven years of exemplary service and with fewer than a dozen dates to go on the fall leg, has been fired. By tomorrow morning the news will be all over CrossTracks and the other boards as people speculate what it might mean.

While Bluto and the rest of the band loaded onto the tour bus and departed for Lexington, Cross and his retinue took a van to the hospital.

Alistair rode in the front seat, next to the driver, his head hanging out the window like a dog. He threw up silently, as if pouring his guts out of a bucket.

Wayne said, “There’s a reason you never find bubble tea and salmon sashimi on the same menu.”

“Shut it,” said Cyril.

Wayne said, “You’re talking to the wrong guy.”

Sitting next to Peter, Cross asked, “How is Judith’s health?”

“She’s great.”

“What is she, about fifty-eight?”

“Fifty-three.”

Cross looked outside the van. “I guess she hasn’t retired yet.”

“No, and that’s not on the horizon.”

“If you’re not working, what are you doing?”

WHEN THE VAN stopped in front of the hospital, two figures emerged from a darkened kiosk, a crooked tree of a security guard and a stout woman whose short hair curled like cake frosting. Peter introduced himself. The woman, a nurse, explained that Martin’s friend, the imaging technician, was waiting for them in his lab. The security guard never lifted his eyes from the ground; he didn’t speak.

After whispering something in Cyril’s ear, Cross said, “Should we go inside?”

“Of course,” said the nurse, giving the security guard a gentle push toward the building.

WHEN THEY RECONVENED inside the lobby they were six: the nurse, the guard, Peter, Cross, Cyril, and Alistair.

“Did we lose the Asian fellow?” asked the nurse.

Cyril said, “He decided to stay with the van.”

The place felt shuttered. According to a sandwich board, visiting hours had ended at eight. A pregnant woman paused on a ramp to stretch her calves, while a slight man in cutoff shorts trailed behind her, whispering into a cell. In the middle of the lobby, like an animal gone to pasture, an enormous vacuum sat idle.

Peter approached Alistair and asked him how he felt.

“If you’re offering to help me feel better, I accept.”

“Tell me if you start to feel dizzy.”

“You mean dizzier?”

The group piled into an elevator.

Even with his folded posture, the security guard towered over Cyril.

The nurse pressed a button and the doors closed.

“So what’s this movie about anyway?” Alistair asked.

Nobody took the bait. The nurse stared at the digital readout above the door. “Almost there,” she said.

When the doors opened, the group poured out.

Peter turned to make sure Cross was following. What he saw surprised him. Cross had seized his son about the shoulders. The younger man, his arms pinned to his sides, looked stricken. Father and son stood rooted in the threshold.