SINCE THE LAST time Peter peeked in on him, Brand had added two lines to his c.v. In 2008, the Western Apicultural Society certified him a Master Beekeeper; he’d also attached a link to a locked thread from a beekeeping board where a moderator identified as LarryBee, in one huge, blocky paragraph, debunked the myth of a connection between Colony Collapse Disorder and the proliferation of microwave transmission towers. The tone of Larry’s post, a paternalistic lecture, left Peter feeling condescended to.
Using Google Earth, Peter spied on Parallax’s headquarters, a gray-white rectangle marooned in a pink sandscape dotted with sagebrush. In a dirt parking lot, three pickups and a white sedan crouched over their shadows; Peter wondered if one of the cars might belong to his father. With a few mouse clicks, he found himself staring at a glass door set in a taupe building. A figure in white appeared to stare back from the glass — a person in a lab coat? When Peter zoomed in, any sense of form disintegrated.
Outlaws and mystics escaped to the desert, artists in search of a particular strain of nothing. It certainly wasn’t where a person went if he wanted to be found.
Peter searched his father’s name again, this time putting Lawrence Brand, PhD, in quotes. The search engine returned three hits, two from the Parallax website and the third an apparent misspelling of a Lawrence Band, PhD. Then Peter searched Peter Silver and tried to comprehend the rather unmanageable number of 38,000; the total was, in part, due to what Wikipedia called “disambiguation.” But even if only a thirtieth of those hits referred to him, he was a thousand times more renowned than his father. This quantitative superiority felt like a bloodless patricide. No matter if he felt timid or retiring, he was not his father; he hadn’t buried his head in the sand.
On a whim, Peter executed another search. He typed “Jimmy Cross,” then hit Enter. What did 65 million hits even mean? There was a sponsored link: Funniest Jimmy Cross Jokes. Peter clicked it.
Q: What’s the difference between Jimmy Cross’s band and the band on the Titanic?
A: One band played on a sinking ship. The other drowned in the North Atlantic.
And on the following page:
Jimmy Cross walks into a bar. He’s wearing a bowler hat and he’s got a pair of shih tzus on leashes. He orders a bottle of champagne, pours the champagne into his hat, places the hat on the floor. The dogs drink the champagne. Then Jimmy orders a hamburger. “The kitchen’s closed,” says the bartender. “That’s okay,” says Jimmy, “I don’t need it cooked.” The bartender heads out to the kitchen and comes back with a raw hamburger on a plate. Jimmy sets the hamburger on the floor and the two dogs leave the hat and eat the burger. Next, he asks the bartender to make “the world’s biggest Shirley Temple.” The bartender fills a pitcher with ice, mixes in grenadine, 7Up, pours a bottle of maraschino cherries on top. Jimmy picks up the pitcher, leans over the bar, and dumps the drink into the sink. “Is there a problem?” the bartender asks. “No, I just wanted to see it.” The bartender then writes out a check and sets it down in front of Jimmy. “What’s that supposed to be?” Jimmy asks. “It’s your bill.” Jimmy stands up, ties the dogs to the stool, says, “I dispute it.” “Is this some sort of a joke?” asks the bartender. Turning to head out the door, Jimmy says, “How would I know?”
(Buffalo Bar, Riverhead, NY, August 6, 1974. A true story.)
For perspective, Peter did a search on Bill Clinton. Despite the blue dress and troopergate, despite the impeachment and “what the meaning of ‘is’ is,” Clinton returned only half as many hits.
“Sorry about the confusion last night.”
Turning away from the computer, Peter found Wayne standing in the doorway.
“I got here okay.”
Wayne unzipped a nylon folder, retrieved a sheet of paper, and handed it to the doctor: Peter’s itinerary. “I saw you looking up Clinton. Someone tell you about the Kennedy Center fracas?”
Peter shook his head.
“Clinton’s people let it be known that he wanted to play with Jimmy. Well, Cross got word to Clinton’s people that the president could play his horn if Leonard Peltier played tambourine.” Wayne raised his fist.
“Peltier isn’t a Black Panther.”
“You sure?”
“He’s American Indian Movement.” A Peltier bumper sticker featured prominently on Judith and Rolf’s refrigerator.
Wayne opened his hand. “How!”
“That’s not the preferred greeting.”
“It’s a postracial world, doc.” No, Peter thought, it was a hybrid world. Someone named Wayne Shiga ought to realize that. Analog faces on digital watches. Gas-electric cars. Casual business attire. Jimmy was folk rock or western blues, a throwback and the avant-garde. For crying out loud, “cross” was a synonym for hybrid.
“Do you know where I can find Bluto?”
“He and I are meeting on the bus at five. It’s on your sheet.”
“What if I need to see him before then?”
“I could call him, but that would piss him off.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re meeting at five.”
“Well, I need to talk to him now.”
“Two minutes ago you were googling Bill Clinton. What’s changed since then?”
55
As we drive into Columbus the patchy clouds that dogged the morning have vanished; instead, we have one of those perfect fall days that outshine anything summer can offer. The sky is as deep and blue as the Caribbean.
“Do you know what a wedding costs?”
“You’re not thinking about getting married again, are you?”
“I was thinking about Gabby.”
She punches me lightly on the arm. “I realize that.”
“It would be nice if I could help out. She wouldn’t expect that.”
“Make sure you like the guy.”
“I haven’t even met him.”
“You told me.”
The streets are crowded with people basking in the weather.
I spot the sign for a DoubleTree hotel. Whenever I see the logo I can’t help but see an endorsement of lesbianism (they’re supposed to be trees, I realize):
What would the McDonald’s manager say about that?
“Look, it’s my hotel,” Rosalyn says.
It turns out she booked a room last night; she had Hilton points, or whatever they’re called, because of her job. That I’d driven us right to the place, Rosalyn believes, is further evidence of our fated journey. After parking, I carry her bag in.
At the desk, Rosalyn turns to me and asks, “Arthur, do you need to use the bathroom, or the Ethernet connection?”
In fact I could use both — but my most pressing need is for a little bit of space. She probably feels the same. So, after making dinner plans, I drive around the corner to a café that offers decaf and free Internet.
Last night’s show has the online world in a tizzy. On CrossTracks someone started a thread: Pittsburgh: Best. Set. Ever. A guy claiming to have a recording from the soundboard is soliciting bids: he’s been offered a case of Burgundy as well as the right to choose the middle name of a girl due in November. LapisAzuli complains that ever since the show she hasn’t been able to tolerate any sort of noise — her cat’s purring, cars driving past her house, her husband’s voice.
But was it an extraordinary show? ActuaryGary insists that the setlist was only one deviation from standard mean. That leads Gumbosian, a consumer-habits pollster, to take issue with Gary’s methodology — ActuaryGary computed the frequency of the various songs, but failed to factor in the likelihood that they’d be played together. By Gumbosian’s calculations, Pittsburgh represented a 1 in 16,238 event — Gary then concedes that he might have oversimplified the math, possibly to take the sting out of the fact that he wouldn’t be seeing Cross until Chicago and he didn’t want disappointment to be a foregone conclusion.