Imagine: the day has already been auspicious, and there’s still a show to attend.
28
People started to gather on the sidewalk as soon as the bus stopped. But for the fact that they weren’t carrying signs, they resembled the sort of folks one might see protesting a nuclear reactor or genetically modified foods. The women, Peter noticed, preened as though the bus were a full-length mirror. They tilted their heads so that their necks appeared elongated, vulnerable. The men leaned against the building, as remote as cowboys.
A woman wearing a gray linen dress walked over to the bus, kissed her fingers, and touched them to the window, leaving a damp smudge on the glass.
Albert appeared next to Peter. “Watch this,” the drummer said, pressing the palm of his hand against the glass.
The crowd surged forward, phones waving like cilia. Peter recalled reading that in medieval times, a castle only raised its flag when the king was present.
“My hand is all over the Internet.”
Bluto said, “That’s something you can tell your grandkids.” A line of text bounced inside the border of his laptop’s screen. Rendered in fuchsia, the screen saver read, “Why Are You Looking at This?”
“Should we sally forth?” Albert asked.
The obvious answer was no.
But when they stepped off the bus, the crowd parted to let the men through. Peter could sense that people scanned his face, but his face didn’t hold their attention. What surprised him was that they didn’t seem to give much notice to Albert either.
Once they’d cleared the block, Peter said, “The fans don’t bother you.”
“Most can’t even see me,” the drummer said, tapping a new pack of cigarettes against the palm of his hand. “They figure I’m delivering pizzas. I’ll take indifference over the stickheads who want to know what brand of stool I ride.”
They turned a corner, ducked under a strand of yellow caution tape, and squeezed between an eighteen-wheeler and another custom motor coach.
Albert nodded toward the bus. “This is the Trojan Horse. Late tonight, while you and I are catching Zs in our hotel, the roadies will crate things up and head off to the next stop.”
“What do you call the bus we were on?”
“I think it’s just the bus.”
They came to a wide steel door set in a featureless brick wall. Albert tried to pull it open, but it was locked. He pushed a buzzer.
A damp wind funneled past the building; Peter, in a thin corduroy jacket, dress shirt, and khakis, shivered. He hoped someone would answer so they could get inside.
“They might be taking lunch,” the drummer said.
“Should we try another door?”
Albert shook his head. He plugged a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. “I tried quitting,” he said, “but my girlfriend smokes and if I stop I can’t stand the way she smells. Now I have one a day, like a vitamin.”
“Bluto said she’s Polish.”
With the same hand that held the burning cigarette, Albert reached out and straightened the lapels of the doctor’s jacket. “Is there a part of the body you favor?”
It took Peter a moment to untangle the question. “I’m not a specialist, if that’s what you mean.”
The kid turned and beat his fist against the door. “So what’s wrong with him?”
“I can’t discuss a patient’s health. It’s against the law.”
Albert dropped his cigarette and ground it under the sole of his shoe. “So he’s your patient.”
Peter heard a bolt slam, then the door swung outward.
A doughy guy, dressed in filthy black clothes and dark aviator sunglasses, smiled at Albert. Except for his forehead and two semicircles beneath his eyes, the man’s whole head was covered uniformly with salt and pepper stubble. “Who’s your boyfriend?”
“This is the Big Man’s doctor,” the drummer said. “Bluto’s paying me to show him around.”
The man raised a pink, tender-looking hand in greeting. “Welcome to our corner of the quotidian. I’m the Blister.”
Peter introduced himself.
“Is there a name for the band’s bus?” Albert asked.
“You guys stay in the Toolshed, the gear rides in the Attic, and the Big Man rides in the Taj.”
“Where is the Taj?” Albert asked.
“It’s being converting to run on fry-oil,” said the Blister, “because of all the carbon-footprint Bolsheviks.”
“We fly most of the time,” added Albert.
“That’s what they call the royal we,” the Blister said. “Now, if you gentlemen don’t mind, I have to get back to work.”
PETER FOLLOWED ALBERT across a cement-floored staging area. They pushed through a curtain of heavy translucent plastic, past crates and boxes, and onto a black-planked stage. The houselights were off. Peter could make out only the first few rows of seats, but the sound of their echoing footsteps gave him a sense of the space. On a battered plywood riser, tilted cymbals, tom-toms, and a bass drum crowded around a yellow leather stool; the arrangement reminded Peter of a device his middle-school science teacher had used to demonstrate the orbits of the planets. Albert picked a yardstick off the stage and went about measuring the height of the leading edge of the drumheads, the separation between the hi-hats, the distance between the pedals on the floor. Then, after making some minute adjustments to the setup, he mounted the stool and measured everything again, this time with a pair of drumsticks in his hands.
At any moment, Peter expected the kid to uncork a little flourish, but he didn’t play.
“I imagine this is a dream job, playing with Jimmy.”
Albert squinted. “You see my name on the tickets?”
“Point taken,” said the Rochester Memorial/Tony Ogata Ambassador for Wellness.
Albert pointed his toe at a metal-reinforced box sitting on the corner of the riser. “Take a peek in there.”
Peter was reminded of those black-box data recorders designed to survive plane crashes. He flipped a pair of chrome latches and lifted the lid.
“It’s like seeing Dorothy’s ruby slippers, huh?”
Peter activated his phone’s camera. Clasping his wrist with his free hand, like a pistol marksman, he took a picture and forwarded it to Martin.
A moment later, Peter’s phone rang.
“I’m with a patient,” Martin said.
“You called me.”
“She has a question for you.”
A woman’s voice came over the line. “Are those Jimmy Cross’s harmonicas?”
“They are.”
“That’s so cool.”
Martin got back on the line. “If you didn’t need this so bad, I’d probably be jealous.”
Peter thanked his friend before hanging up. He felt as though someone had breathed on a coal inside his chest, as though some dull and ashy part of himself suddenly gave off light.
His phone vibrated as a text came in: Asshole.
29
Some people kill time, but I prefer to fill time. That’s why, instead of reading the newspaper or ducking into a bar, I choose to head over to Buffalo Airfield.
Before 9/11,23 a person could drive right onto the runway at most executive airports. Airstrips were tranquil, dreamy places; I never had any trouble getting copies of flight plans or manifests. I’d eat my lunch and watch a local orthodontist practice touch-and-goes in a kit plane he’d assembled in his garage.
Now there are gates and guardhouses. If I park outside the perimeter fence, sooner or later someone will come by to make sure I’m not part of a sleeper cell.