Justin Tussing - Vexation Lullaby

Even without an encore, Rochester was a satisfying show. People didn’t stand around shrugging their shoulders once the lights came up, something I saw a few times this spring.

The setlist focused heavily on the middle third of his discography, but I can’t tell you what that means. I found the show reflective rather than pandering. There are people out there who try to read something into every song and sequence. I’m a witness, not a scholar. I have more in common with a person who’s seen three shows than with some doctoral student who spent a year chasing Cross through a library. Cross has been deconstructed by Marxists, by feminists, by folklorists and psychoanalysts, but that’s not where my interest lies. Most of those books offer nothing more than recycled mythology, misconstrued reasoning, and bad reporting. I don’t want a writer to spend fifty pages explaining how Jimmy fashioned his stage act on Charlie Chaplin, when they can’t prove he’s ever seen a Chaplin film. Most writers are afraid of facts, because facts can’t be argued.

I’m awash in facts.

I know the roadies call their 45-foot eight-bunk motor coach the Trojan Horse. The band rides in the Toolshed. An acoustic guitar is a Thick One. A keyboard is a Zebra. Cords are Snakes. Amps are Boxes. Crates are Coffins. Jimmy’s harmonica is the Tin Whistle. A backup singer is a Rented Dress. The setlist is the Secret Formula. Security is Necks. The guys call their record label Box Top. Whenever the band plays overseas, the label sends a publicist to tag along; the crew refers to that person as the Box Top’s Eugene, after a real Eugene who locked himself inside a hotel bathroom in Luxembourg and refused to come out. An ex-wife is Lost Baggage. A blowjob is a Mic Check. Phone sex is a 900. Jerking off is Jerking Off. The guy driving the Toolshed they call the Arbiter. Aisha Moon steers the Trojan Horse. When he’s not on tour, Bluto Gilhooley lives in Huntington Beach, California. The venue is the Joint. Journalists are Inventors. Large headphones are Leias. Xanax is Don’t Nod. An Ambien is a Dreamcatcher. Dawn is Vampire Medicine. Traffic delays are LA Weather, as in “We were late getting to the joint because of LA Weather.” A jet plane is a Cigar. A propeller plane is a Buddy Holly. If you want Cyril Coleman to dislocate your elbow, call him “Champ.” Jimmy stands five feet eight in his stocking feet, but he wears boots with stacked heels. The guys call him Hizzoner or Paycheck or the Big Man.

Peter headed back to the condo where he never expected to live alone, another story he didn’t quite understand. The facts were clear: Lucy left, despite seven years of shared history, despite his uncontested decency and a universally lauded tandoori chicken, and despite the fact that every three months he took home an amount equivalent to her annual salary (Lucy tutored special needs students at an elementary school).

They’d been together long enough that after she moved out he had to go to a box store to buy replacements for all the things she’d taken. When he returned with his brand-new coffeemaker, spatula, hair dryer, mixing bowls, and an unconscionably expensive vacuum, all he’d wanted was to show her those things.

For months a single thought echoed in his head: if he was ever going to have kids, it would have to be with a stranger.

•••

THE BREAKUP HAD triggered a flurry of social activities, the relationship’s postmortem tour. As a rule, when he explained the split to their friends, the women nodded while the men shook their heads. Nobody ever asked what had gone wrong, which caused Peter to suspect that Lucy had already disseminated her version of events. Her version, the best that he could tell, was that he wasn’t in love with her — one of the reasons he’d waited so long for her to change her mind was that he thought that his waiting weakened her argument.

When talking with their mutual friends, he made a point to never disparage Lucy. He wanted to appear positive. When a starfish loses an arm, the starfish grows a replacement, but the lost arm doesn’t regenerate a starfish. Their friends would determine who’d come out the wounded starfish and who’d come out the dismembered arm.

He conceded city blocks to her. He vowed not to visit Rochester’s art museum, because Lucy knew everyone there from the security guards to the head of acquisitions. He stopped buying the amazing, eggy challah from the bakery across the street, because he never would have discovered it if not for Lucy; his whole life, he’d been under the impression that challah was tasteless, like matzo or communion wafers. Judith Silver had grown up Jewish, but she’d raised Peter on a hybrid faith that borrowed equally from Carl Sagan and Chief Seattle.

When he shaved and especially when he didn’t shave, Peter stared at his face in the mirror and wondered if he wasn’t looking at a depressed person.

Lucy was the starfish.

THE ONLY SOUL who cared enough to keep him from going off the deep end was Martin Vinoray. The Friday after Lucy moved out, Martin showed up with a case of beer and a sausage calzone. “I’m here for the wake,” he said, walking into the condo.

“It’s not that bad.”

Martin handed Peter a beer. “Take a shower, then put on a suit.”

When Peter returned, there were two empty cans on the kitchen island.

“Who buys gray seersucker?”

“Lucy liked it.”

“Where do I start with that?”

“I’ll change.”

“Forget it. I can’t let you out of this place anyways, you’re a public health risk.”

“Why’d you make me get dressed up?”

“Trust me.”

They drank as though the beer was evidence they needed to destroy.

At some point Martin said, “She took all the art?”

Peter spun a finger in the air.

“I know a designer. He’ll take care of you.”

“I’m not worried about the art.”

“You’ll get laid again.”

“Thanks.”

“I promise.”

Tears were sort of happening.

“You’re a good doctor.”

“I’m okay.”

“Remember those arrowheads you made?”

Early in their acquaintance Peter had mentioned how, as a boy, he used to knap flint and obsidian arrowheads in front of the TV. Judith would sell them to tourists.

“Are you suggesting I’m methodical?”

“You’re self-sufficient. Like me, you didn’t grow up expecting too much from the world. If the UPS truck drives by my house without making a delivery, my kids are apoplectic.”

Peter had a long pull of his beer. “Your kids are fine.”

“They can’t grasp that I grew up sharing a mattress with my two sisters. They think I’m a savage. Sometimes, when we’re down at the lake house, I go poo in the woods. If they knew that they’d never talk to me again.”

“Wait, why would you poo in the woods?”

Martin finished off another beer. He tossed the empty into the sink. “Try it first, then we can talk.”

The setting sun filled the condo with champagne-colored light.

Late in the evening, Martin made a bed for himself on the sofa. “You’ve got enough abandonment issues.”

THE FOLLOWING DAY, while Martin played “Free Bird” on Guitar Hero , someone knocked at the door. Had Lucy returned to marvel at the mess Peter had become? No, it was a guy in a crossing guard’s vest carrying two bags of Indian takeout.

After the beer was gone, they moved on to the Malbec Lucy liked.

“We need to drink it now,” Martin said, “or it’ll get the upper hand.”

On Sunday, Martin announced that he was leaving. Peter sat still, reactionless — he’d managed to balance his hangover on a point above his left eye, but the slightest movement would send it crashing upon him. After calling a cab, Martin wandered into the master bathroom, yanked the shower curtain from the rod, and vomited into the tub.