Vexation Lullaby Read Free

was holding the man’s business card:
    BLUTO GILHOOLEY
    Logisticals
    â€œMr. Cross knows your mom,” Cyril said, heading down the hall. He didn’t turn around; he might as well have been talking to the fire sprinklers in the ceiling.
    Peter meant to say, “There’s been a misunderstanding.” Instead, he said, “I think there might be a misunderstanding.” “Might” was the strongest resistance he could muster.
    Cyril stopped and tapped a key card against a door frame. A lock clunked open. Pushing the door in, Cyril said, “Wait in the back bedroom. The Big Man will find you.”
    Peter ducked beneath the arbor of Cyril’s arm.

3
    I have an ex-wife in California and a daughter in Tennessee, but for more than twenty years I’ve been without a home. In that time I’ve traveled to thirty-nine countries. I’ve slept in five-star hotels and on park benches. I’ve squandered two fortunes and I’ve let myself go. I’m not a great man, but I possess a greatness of determination. My name is Arthur Pennyman and what sets me apart from the other seven billion souls on this earth is this: since July 27, 1988, I’ve attended every one of Jim Cross’s public performances.
    Dominick Moretti, Jimmy’s bassist, has been with the tour since it started in 1986, but I’ve seen more shows than he has, thanks to two protracted leaves of absence. No one else has even lasted a decade. Dwight Sutliff and Albert Blunt, Jimmy’s current instrumentalist and percussionist, have only been around for a couple of years.
    Some fans consider the shifting shape of the band to be the central narrative of the tour. 2 To that end, distinct periods have been identified and ranked. Among the cognoscenti, the hard-driving guitar work of the late C. L. Boyd is held in the highest esteem; meanwhile, defending Junior Pearl’s dirty southern twang only invites ridicule. The significance of March 7, 1996, the date Frederick Tate replaced Gracie Dean on drums, has been debated exhaustively. While I have been fonder of certain players than others (good riddance, Gary Woodman), on balance I find the band to be a tolerable distraction. I’d much prefer Jimmy appear on stage alone.

4
    Peter turned a corner and found himself in a sitting room. A man with a shaved head reclined on a sectional sofa, Celtic green basket ball sneakers peeking out from beneath the hem of a mustard- colored robe. Beside him, a pasty dude in a leather biker jacket, eyes hidden behind a zebra-striped mask, snored with his arms folded over his gut. SportsCenter flashed on a muted TV. On the other side of a half-wall, a grizzled roadie in headphones sat at a black lacquer table; the man wrote in a ledger, ignoring the fruit salad that overflowed from a watermelon carved to resemble a swan.
    The monk aimed a remote at the TV and Peter saw the serial killer unzip the front of her wet suit.
    â€œSuch big breasts for an athlete,” the monk said.
    The biker lifted the corner of his sleep mask.
    Peter continued down a dim hallway, past an inflated balance ball, a coiled jump rope, two sets of dumbbells, and a tangle of giant elastic bands. Half a dozen identical black roller bags lined up like dominoes.
    At the end of the hall he found a bedroom. A middle-aged woman, her long gray hair spun into a cotton-candy tower, sat at the edge of the mattress reading a magazine. Beside her, a black cowboy hat sat on a pillow.
    â€œYou’re the doctor,” the woman announced, her face hidden behind the phone-book-thick fashion magazine.
    Peter introduced himself.
    With an index finger, she folded down a corner of the magazine, made eye contact. “I’m Kiki Beals.”
    Peter knew the name was supposed to mean something to him. He said, “Ah.”
    â€œThe photographer. I did the Abu Ghraib re-creations in McDonald’s bathrooms.”
    That was it. He’d read about her in Time .
    On