Maya had practically begged him to come along, and he’d let her walk off with Alistair because of some sense of responsibility. Going forward, he would give a little more thought to the consequences of his principles.
Ten minutes passed, or an hour. Now he was sick with hunger. When Alistair returned, he’d say something about being considerate to others. Or, maybe, they’d bring him two hamburgers.
The Blister poked his head into the dressing room. He had an open can of beer in one hand, and bundled electrical cords hung on his shoulders like bandoliers. “You hot-boxing motherfucker.”
“Alistair went out to get some food.”
“We thought you were AWOL.”
Peter took his phone out — a message blinked across his screen: Searching for signal.
“They’re already at the airport.” The Blister shook his head, reached a phone toward Peter’s face. “Bluto wants to speak with you.”
He’d gotten a contact high, Peter realized. He was stoned. He held the phone to his ear.
“Marco?”
“This is Peter.”
“The response I’m looking for is ‘Polo.’ You want to try again?”
“There was a miscommunication.”
“Wayne says he texted you, but you didn’t get back to him. He feels bad, but not seppuku bad.”
“Alistair knew where I was.”
“Well, that’s all milk under the bridge. We’re already on the bird, which means you’re humping the dog tonight. That’s the situation. Pretend you’re Dian Fossey or something and we’ll see you in Columbus.”
The Blister finished his beer and dropped the empty can on the floor. Putting a hand on the wall, he bent over and retrieved another beer from a pocket near his knee. He cracked the top, sipping the foam from the mouth. “You enjoy medicine?”
“I do, Mr. Blister.”
“Mr. Blister was my father.” The man laughed at the ceiling; then he dropped his eyes to Peter’s. “Let me give you a little background: I was a guidance counselor with a mortgage and a Volks-wagen. However, due to social anxiety, I now carry a walkie-talkie and sleep in a berth. A few dozen Valium left in a paper sack would be a godsend, or we could forgo the whole cloak-and-dagger business and you could lay the stuff on me.”
“That’s a nice speech, but I’m not a pharmacy.”
The Blister rubbed his bristly head with a dirty hand, smiling, “You need me to walk you to the bus?”
Peter said he could find his way.
The driver, a walnut-skinned woman with a high forehead and a stud in her nose as big as a cuff link, introduced herself as Aisha Moon. She wore steel-toed engineer boots and denim overalls on top of a thermal undershirt, a style that the doctor thought of as rural butch.
He had spent some time on buses. As a boy, he and his mother used to take Greyhounds to see his grandparents on the gulf coast of Florida. Judith insisted they leave their car at home, because a woman traveling alone with a child made an easy mark.
Inside the crew’s bus, Peter was aware of scents on top of scents, lemon on sage on Lysol on bleach; it reminded him of the carnival game where you had to cover a larger yellow circle with five red disks. Beneath all of the clean smells lurked something fetid, something swampy, like a dead turtle.
Peter was getting settled in a seat at the front of the bus when a bearded dude in a kilt climbed aboard.
Aisha said, “Heads up, Lumpy, Bluto asked the doctor to grab a urine sample from you.”
The man stopped in his tracks. “If Bluto wants my pee, he can shake it out himself.”
“She’s joking,” Peter said.
Lumpy scraped a toe on the carpet. “Sorry if I escalated that.”
“Get some rest, sugar,” said Aisha.
“I need to take the edge off with some RollerCoaster Tycoon,” Lumpy said, pushing through the curtain.
Peter’s phone buzzed as the missed texts finally caught up with him.
Head 2 stage door when encore starts.
Paging Dr. Silver. STAT.
Enjoy Pittsburgh.
“Someone checking up on you?” Aisha asked.
“Sort of.”
“Wife or girlfriend?”
Peter turned his phone toward her. “Wayne.”
Fletcher boarded, followed by a guy dressed head to toe in brown tree-bark camouflage.
Cross’s soundman looked at Peter. “Shouldn’t you be on the plane?”
“I’m collecting urine samples.” Peter meant to be playful, but the way the guy flinched told him his aim was off. Then he remembered Bluto telling him Fletcher was in recovery.
“He’s messing with you,” said Aisha.
“An attempt at humor,” said Peter.
“I get it.” Fletcher turned to his companion. “Brucie, have you met the doctor yet?”
The man stuck a hand out. “Charmed.”
“Brucie’s got webbed toes,” Fletcher said. “You ever see that before?”
“It’s called syndactyly.”
Aisha spoke up. “So, while I’m driving, am I to assume you guys are giving each other pedicures?”
Brucie stooped and pulled a plastic pint of orange juice from a refrigerator mounted in a cabinet beneath the television. “It helps pass time between the handjobs.”
“The new Kevin is going to be a little late,” Fletcher said. “The intern wound up pulling all the tape off the floor, including the blocking cues for a Halloween pageant. Kev is trying to fix things.”
“Why would anyone bother pulling tape?” Aisha asked.
“Because he’s the worst intern ever,” said Brucie.
Fletcher said, “Let’s not fault the guy for showing initiative.”
“He’s lucky Kev is a fucking communalist,” Brucie said. “She’s okay.”
Aisha said, “Someday it’s going to dawn on that girl that she’s no longer surrounded by French-Canadian acrobats and she’s going to need a shoulder to cry on.”
“And then you’re going to scissor her raw,” said Brucie.
“Speaking of,” said Fletcher.
A stocky woman, the sides of her head shaved, her yellow hair in dreadlocks, climbed onboard. Tattooed along her carotid artery: Focus. She smiled at Peter. “You’re the doctor.” She leaned over and hugged him. “In the circus, I knew a juggler who was a doctor.”
Peter noted that she hadn’t said “a doctor who juggled.”
“Somebody fetch the doctor a clean blanket and a pillow,” instructed Aisha. “We want him to make himself comfortable.”
“Can’t he crash in your berth?” asked Kev.
“Indeed he cannot,” said Aisha.
AS SOON AS the intern boarded (despite the fact that he appeared to be in his middle forties, he wore cargo shorts and a Chicago Bulls game jersey), Aisha got them on the road.
Curled up on the bench seat, Peter’s mind hummed along with the tires. By his calculation, Cross and the band were already in their hotel rooms. He’d forfeited the comfort of the hospital, the comfort of his condo, of routine and habit, for what? To be forgotten in a basement. To be shoehorned on a bus.
Peter had assumed, as the only doctor, he’d have some power, but the only power he’d ever had was the power to practice medicine and no one seemed especially interested in medicine. What they wanted was medication.
He quit pretending to sleep and sat up.
In the opposite lane, the rising sun glared in the windshields of oncoming semis
“Are you some sort of hotshot?” Aisha flipped a switch and a map light illuminated half her face. “I mean, how come it’s you here and not somebody else?”
Peter found her eyes in a mirror mounted above the stairwell. “He and my mother used to be friends a long time ago.”
Aisha chewed on this for a second. “As a rule, his friends don’t usually end up on the bus.”