Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

Peter pulled open his room door.

Bluto walked out to the hall. “Did you forget that the only reason you’re here is he used to put the boots to your mother?”

Before we reach Cincinnati, Rosalyn has to use the facilities. I pull off at a truck stop. While Rosalyn goes inside, I stretch out on the hood of my car and let the heat of the engine warm my back. If I were by myself, I would never allow myself to feel so languid.

I haven’t been able to let go of last night, how the world seemed to wobble and catch the first time Cross played “A.D.C.” The echo of that feeling still troubles me. I’d assumed he’d played it twice because he wasn’t satisfied with how it sounded, but another explanation occurs to me. What if he’d been playing a different song? What if he cloaked another song underneath “A.D.C.”?

There’s only one ghost in the whole of Cross’s catalog, one song that, so far, has evaded the lyric detectives and ivory tower sleuths.

I pull up the website for the hospital where Dr. Silver works and dial the switchboard. A woman answers in a patient, matter-of-fact voice.

“Is there a doctor named Peter Silver working there?”

“He’s unavailable. Would you like me to transfer you to his voice mail?”

I have to think on my feet. “It’s a common name,” I say. “You don’t know his middle initial, do you?”

“Please hold.”

I wish Rosalyn were with me. It’s not an odd feeling, so much as an unprecedented one. Looking toward the truck stop, I will her back. I am a fountain of hope.

“Sir,” the woman says, “it’s Peter R. Silver. Can I transfer you?”

I hang up.

Twenty-six letters in the alphabet allow for 17,576 possible initials—26 x 26 x 26. Coincidences are facts masquerading as meaning, but is it a coincidence that Cross’s inexplicable physician shares his initials with his most inexplicable song?

And where is my Rosalyn?

AT THE BANK of pumps, interchangeable cars arrive, fill up, depart. I head inside. She’s not in the convenience store. And I don’t see her in the donut and coffee place. Ditto the little annex that sells merchandise for truckers: mud flaps, wallet chains, pocketknives, paperback thrillers. I don’t find her loitering in the hallway crammed with pay phones, which leads to the back entrance (there’s a back entrance!). I look for her in the dim “arcade,” by the deer-hunting game and the pinball machine. I stand beside the ladies’ room door and listen. Then I head back outside, in case she has, somehow, circled back to the Corolla — she hasn’t.

Why would she leave me? Half a dozen reasons pop into my head, including my selfishness, my general appearance, the fact that I don’t have a source of income, her health, the dawning realization that we are not acting our ages. Finally, I ask one of the young women at the donut store if she’d mind checking the bathroom for me. The girl can tell I don’t believe there’s anyone in there, but she comes out from behind the counter all the same. She freezes me with this look, like she thinks I might try to follow her.

But when she returns she asks, “You’re Arthur?” The import of this question doesn’t register. “It’s okay,” she says, “come in.”

There’s both an outer and an inner door — concert halls often employ the same airlock type of setup — and when I push past them I find Rosalyn sitting on the floor.

I squat down and put my hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Arthur. I got so dizzy.” She shows me her phone. “I wanted to call you, but I don’t have your number.”

The girl says, “Do you folks need me to call an ambulance?”

Rosalyn lifts a shaky hand, draws it across her brow. “I’ll be fine in a second.”

The girl — her name is Carrie — and I stand on either side and help Rosalyn to her feet. The three of us shuffle into the donut place. Carrie uncaps an orange juice, hands it to Rosalyn, while her co-worker handles the drive-thru duties.

“I guess I overdid it last night,” Rosalyn says, swiping the back of her hard across her mouth.

“I know that feeling,” Carrie says. “Bleh.”

Minutes pass.

The other girl chews gum and stares at us. “You have to listen to your body,” Carrie says.

Rosalyn slowly closes her eyes. For a moment I think she might be falling asleep, but then a smile works across her face. When she opens her eyes, she’s looking right at me. “We can go now.”

Carrie won’t accept money for the juice. “You didn’t order it,” she says. She presses a sandwich into Rosalyn’s hand — it’s not something they sell; she’d brought it from home, it’s her lunch. She insists on walking Rosalyn to the car.

“Listen to your body,” Carrie says.

Rosalyn nods her head.

“She will.” I wave as we drive off.

WHEN ROSALYN PUSHES the button to lower her window, my foot lifts off the throttle. I expect her to be sick, but with a flick of her wrist, Carrie’s sandwich goes Frisbeeing out of the car.

I think of sweet Carrie, getting up early to make her responsible sandwich, slicing the tomato, tearing the lettuce, just a touch of mayo, only a hint. Bringing the healthy sandwich to the donut shop only to give it away to a stranger. That sandwich had so much hope invested in it.

“Thanks, Carrie,” I say, mimicking Rosalyn’s wrist toss.

Rosalyn laughs.

I conjure up scenes from the girl’s life: Carrie giving her boyfriend a gift. “Oh, a sweater. Thanks, Carrie,” then the flick of the wrist. At Christmas, she gives her mother a snow globe. “Thanks, Carrie,” then the flick of the wrist. Five years from now, Carrie gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. She kisses the infant’s squished little nose, then passes the child to her husband.

Laughter carries us through Cincinnati and over the Ohio River. Rosalyn and I are laughing as we arrive in Kentucky.

BY THE TIME we reach Lexington, we’re both exhausted. We check into the hotel. Rosalyn curls up on the bed while I set up my laptop.

“Sit next to me while I fall asleep.”

I do.

Nestling her head against my hip, she says, “You’re a bit of a porcupine today, Arthur.”

“I had a bit of a revelation. I’ve been distracted.”

“It’s okay.”

“I should have come looking for you earlier.”

“You were giving me privacy.”

What she said echoes. “Say that again.”

“You were giving me privacy.” Her eyes stay closed.

“I think that’s the answer to a riddle.”

“Arthur, you’re being impossible.”

“Why would he pull a song off an album? To give someone privacy.”

“We’re talking about Mr. Cross again?”

I kiss her forehead.

“Who’s privacy is he protecting, Arthur?”

“His son’s.”

“Lot of good it’s done.”

“I’m not talking about Alistair.”

She looks up at me. “He has another son?”

“It’s a theory.”

Rosalyn pulls my hand to her mouth and kisses it.

“It’s more than another son. There’s a song, too, a bastard song.”

“Don’t use that word,” she says.

“You’re right.” It’s so hard to explain. “I think he snuck it past us last night.”

Rosalyn sits up. “If you’re not going to let me nap, you could at least talk to me in a way I can understand.”

“I don’t think he played ‘A.D.C.’ twice last night. I think he played it and the song it’s based on.”

“Who can you ask?” She raps me with her knuckles. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“That’s just it: I’m the person that you ask.”

It’s my turn to close my eyes, and when I do I feel that I’m in a moving car. And for some reason, because I know I’m not in a car, because I know that I’m in a hotel with Rosalyn, I find the feeling of being in a car to be incredibly soothing. I’ve always loved to be going anywhere at all.