Vexation Lullaby (19 page)

The stewardess handed him something, “For you, sir.”

It was Bluto's rubber-banded phone. The screen tallied the seconds on an active call.

“Hello?”

“Why was your phone off?” It was Tony Ogata.

“We're on a plane.” Peter turned in his chair; Alistair stared at him, chewing on another Snickers bar.

“That explains it. Speak up then.”

“Maybe I should call you back.”

“I can hardly hear you.”

Peter could feel his throat tighten. He unlatched his seat belt and stood up. At the back of the plane, the stewardess squared her shoulders to him, assessed his intention, then looked away.

With five quick steps, Peter slipped into the lavatory and closed the door behind him. “I didn't realize you'd be checking up on me.”

“Who's checking up on you? I'm calling to offer my assistance.”

The bathroom had a granite-topped sink and a vanity. Did Peter need assistance?

“I expect something from you,” Ogata said. “Do you know what it is?”

Peter had no idea, but the other doctor seemed to be waiting for an answer. He almost said “Updates,” but he thought some more and a better answer came to him: “Transparency.”

And now he heard Ogata's squeaky laugh, the sort of laugh that announced the laugher's whole philosophy on how important laughter was and how there was no such thing as a terrible laugh, because . . . Ogata said, “I expect greatness.”

Right, Peter thought,
Expect greatness
. It was one of Ogata's maxims.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. Peter said, “I'm afraid I have to go.”

“You don't need my permission,” Ogata said.

There was another knock.

Peter ended the call. As he opened the bathroom door, something caught his eye.

“There's a shower in here.”

Alistair looked over Peter's shoulder. “What about it?”

Could this be what Ogata meant when he said “Expect greatness”? “Nothing.”

“Listen,” Alistair said, his body still blocking the doorway, “when we were first talking, I hope I didn't come across as brusque.”

Peter said he hadn't noticed.

Alistair flashed his uncanny eyes. “I don't like meeting people if I'm in that sort of state. I can feel vulnerable.”

“Of course.”

“Put yourself in my shoes. I was jetlagged. My back was in knots and my father marches this skinny doctor in like his prize pig. You're not drunk or high. You're not even hungry, and I'm supposed to let you cure me? No thanks.”

Peter felt disarmed. He said, “It was my fault. I guess I let your father steer me.”

“We have to work together,” said Alistair.

“Sure,” Peter said, though he was not sure how or why he needed to work with Cross's son.

Alistair didn't move his body, but he turned his head to check out the rest of the cabin. “What do you think of Maya?”

She was smart and attractive. He could probably fall in love with her. “She seems great.”

“You want me to put a word in for you?”

“I get it,” Peter said. “You're trying to do to me what I did to you, or something.”

Dom, whose seat was closest to the bathroom, said, “Allie, how about you let the doctor out of the john?”

“Was I talking to you?”

Beneath the bassist's eyes, deltas of busted capillaries. “Let the guy go back to his seat.”

When Peter moved to exit the bathroom, Alistair stepped aside.

“See, I wasn't blocking him.” Alistair said, “Dom, how'd that solo album do?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“The next time you're in your basement, do me a favor and grab one of those CDs for me. I want to be able to say I heard it.”

•••

T
HE WHINE OF
the jets changed and a moment later the angle of the aircraft shifted. The stewardess came around to inform them that the pilot had begun their descent.

“Hey, Albert,” Alistair called across the cabin, “what are a couple of swinging dicks like us supposed to do in Pittsburgh?”

The drummer held a finger up: Wait. He only brought the hand down to turn the page of his book.

“I've got a zombie dragon in my pants,” Alistair said.

41

If St. Louis is the Gateway to the West, then Pittsburgh is the Gateway to the Midwest. It's the westernmost Eastern City. Old families with old money have left their mark all over town. Once you come off the bluffs, you're on the ground floor. Heading west, the landscape doesn't have any tricks to play until Colorado.

I used to know the city, but developers have been tearing down postwar buildings and replacing them with facsimiles of prewar architecture—as a result, everyday Pittsburgh looks more like a fantasy of the past.

On the edge of the Carnegie Mellon campus, I duck into a café. Inside, young people are sprawled out over the furniture as though they'd been gassed. I'm older than any three of them combined.

A plump girl with short blue hair—it's styled in a severe manner that no one of my generation could look at without thinking of Adolf Hitler—says, “What do you want?” Reading the written-in-chalk menu on the wall, I realize that they don't sell food. It's all juices! I ask for their most substantial juice. “You want meat and potatoes, huh?” She calls something to a skinny boy wearing what looks like a woman's blouse, who mashes a bunch of things into a howling contraption. He hands me a pint glass full of bruised liquid that's the consistency of cream of wheat.

“What's in here?”

“Beets, carrots, potatoes, spirulina, kale . . . and red grapes.”

Exactly what I deserve for trying to revisit the past. I fork over nine dollars, pinch my nose, and drink it down.

T
HE GARAGE NEXT
to the Peabody Center wants ten dollars. Since I know my way around, I drive until I find a free place on the street. Walking to the venue, the clouds spit rain, but I stay dry from my neck to my ankles. A lot of people believe you have to coddle leather goods, but nothing could be further from the truth. When properly treated (with waxes and plant oils), leather excels in inclement weather.

When I get to Will Call I shake my jacket and the raindrops fly away! But my smile disappears when the high school kid manning the booth says he has no record of my ticket. I tell him to look again, so he turns around and spends ten seconds pretending to check other places.

“I'm not finding a ticket,” he says, not looking me in the eyes.

I see a hundred and fifty dates a year, I see shows in Panama, I see shows in Moscow, in Oakland, in Latvia. In each of those places I'm able to walk up to Will Call and collect my ticket, but in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, there's a problem. If I went back to my car, I'd be able find a copy of my receipt in the plastic accordion file where I keep my expenses, but it wouldn't do me any good. I know exactly where my ticket is: it's in Cyril's pocket—this is how he punishes me for me shooting Alistair at the airport.

42

The jet sat parked on an empty corner of the runway. Cross had slept through the landing, through the cabin door being opened and the brisk Pittsburgh air rushing in. He'd slept while the rest of the band, Bluto, Wayne, and Alistair deplaned, cramming into a passenger van en route to the Warhol Museum for a VIP tour. The musician snored through his overlong nose, while someone from the ground crew snapped plastic covers over the engine intakes and exhausts. He slept while Cyril ducked outside to take advantage of a break in the clouds to stretch his legs.

Though Peter had been curious about the museum, he was happy to be on the plane. He finally had a job to do. Even if babysitting underutilized his skill set, Peter liked having expectations that he could meet.

To entertain himself, he sent two picture messages to Martin. The first shot, a fish-eye portrait of the plane's interior, failed to illicit a response from Vinoray. Upping the stakes, Peter sent a close-up of the singer's monogrammed kangaroo-leather cowboy boots.

Bring me those boots
, Martin replied,
and I'll make you the hospital's liaison to Rochester's Junior League.

Peter lifted his phone to capture the
coup de grâce
, a photo of the sleeping singer. But, though Cross still snored, his eyes had opened.

The singer wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Were you taking a picture?”

Peter waved the phone around. “I was checking my reception.”

“People used to say hi. Now they just shove a phone in my face. When I have to piss, I make Cyril clear the place out first.” Cross swiveled his head. “Where'd everyone vanish to?”

Peter explained about the Warhol Museum.

“Maybe thirty years ago I got invited to this party in a warehouse on the East River. The warehouse didn't have rats because the rats expected the place to fall into the water. But the place was infested with artists. The owner was a Getty and he had ten million reasons to hate his family.

“This woman and I were dropping hot dogs through a hole in the floor, trying to get a seal to eat them. Someone came over and told me Andy wanted to say hi. I'd met him a couple of times, so I said, Send him over. Andy was pink in real life, not gray like his estate would have you believe. He came over accompanied by this cosmonaut—his friend's wearing the full getup, boots, gloves, helmet, those crazy Cyrillic letters on everything. The guy inside the suit is sweating so much it looks like he's having an attack of malaria. There's condensation on the inside of the face mask. I said, Andy, who's your friend? You know who it was?”

Peter couldn't have imagined a name that wouldn't sound ridiculous.

“It was Rocky! Sylvester Stallone.” Cross kicked off the blanket, walked to the back of the plane, and ducked into the restroom.

Peter checked his phone. Martin hadn't texted back.

When Cross returned, he said, “How does Allie seem to you?”

The singer wanted a first impression? A diagnosis? The truth: Alistair looked like a candidate for coronary artery disease. In another ten years he might give himself a heart attack by shoveling snow, or sleeping with a twenty-year-old. “I offered to look at his back, but he seemed a little suspicious of me.”

“He's suspicious of people in general and you in particular.” Cross pressed his hands up against the ceiling of the plane, stretched. “Of all my kids, Allie's the only one I worry about. His sisters call him ‘Baby Allie,' even though he's the oldest. And he's the only one who calls me Dad; everyone else calls me Gramps.”

Peter said, “He's made it this far.”

“That's what I tell myself. At some point the numbers start to mean something. Maybe he'll read a book, or get his heart broken by a dog, and everything will start to click.” Cross scratched the loose skin under his neck.

“I heard he's been away for a while.”

Cross turned his head snake-fast. “Who told you that?”

Peter had been under the impression that it was something of an open secret. Ogata had said something the first time they'd spoken. “Is that not the case?”

“I see all my kids. We talk on the phone, do the video thing, get together for holidays. I guess Allie hasn't been on the tour for a little while, but he's been holed up overseas. He's got his own life to lead.”

“That must be it.”

“That must be what?”

“I guess I'd heard he'd been overseas.”

“Well, he's here now.”

Peter had waited for a plane to get clearance and he'd waited while a plane got de-iced, but he'd never waited like this. All Cross needed to do was snap his fingers and they could be off for Toronto or Rome. It wasn't the freedom that appealed to Peter as much as the sense of exclusivity, being inside this little bubble. Judith had raised her son to be suspicious of privilege. She believed in waiting in line, in being part of the multitude. Just beyond the jet's wing a town car waited to take Cross wherever he wanted to go. That idling car would have sent Judith around the bend—something like that would be enough to trigger one of her spontaneous migraines.

Cross opened a bulkhead and retrieved a coat. “Allie wanted to see you for himself.”

“He wanted to see your doctor?”

“Do you feel like you're my doctor?” The singer still had his back to Peter.

Their conversation had reached a level place. They could leave things as they were and trust that they wouldn't shift. Cross turned around. He'd wrapped a scarf around his throat.

“The other night, when you mentioned Judith, I assumed she owed you money. Then, after I realized who you were, it seemed funny that I'd mistaken you for a collection agent.” Peter glanced out at the idling car. “It's weird that she does kind of owe you money.”

Cross's face became serious. “Look around. Do you really believe I'm owed anything?”

The jet shifted.

“That's going to be Cyril hurrying us along.”

The bodyguard ducked into the cabin. One of his pant legs had gotten bunched up on the shaft of his boot. “Bluto called to tell you the people of Pittsburgh don't deserve any mercy.”

Cross smiled.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Peter asked.

The bodyguard bent over and dressed his pant cuff. “It means the people of Pittsburgh don't deserve any mercy.”

43

Fuck Cyril Coleman. Fuck his Brioni suits and his calfskin gloves. Fuck his nineteen-inch neck and his sweet voice announcing “Big man coming through.”
³¹
He didn't take my ticket in order to keep me out of the show. If that had been his goal there'd be attorneys involved and court orders, the folks scanning tickets would have a color-copy photograph of my driver's license taped to the backs of their stations and in the break rooms.