Hello?
Richie?
Who is this?
Billy Crosswaithe.
Crosswaithe? Goddamn. Where are you, are you here in town?
I’m in Tennessee.
What are you doing in Tennessee?
Freezing my butt off and thinking about warmer climates, Crosswaithe said. What’s going on?
You mean in the six or seven years it’s been since you called? I don’t know if there’s time enough to tell you all that.
Just in the few minutes before you answered the phone, Crosswaithe said.
I was working. Are you in Nashville, is that what you’re doing in Tennessee? Are you famous yet?
Not yet.
I keep waiting to see you on the cover of Rolling Stone or to read a record review somewhere.
Any day now.
There was a quickening of interest in Richie’s voice so that Crosswaithe wondered for a cynical moment what he had ever done to make Richie think that something entertaining was going to happen just because he had called. Things happen around you, Richie had said once long ago. You never know what’s going to happen next. As if Crosswaithe’s life was a story Richie read a chapter of every few years.
What’s going on in your life, Richie?
Crosswaithe listened awhile. Richie had a computer company, he had started on a shoestring but things were beginning to boom. Crosswaithe glanced at his watch. He stared out the glass into the world of night. All the world there was a black vacuum sucking whirling snow up into it.
When Richie fell silent Crosswaithe said, I called Robin a few minutes ago but nobody answered. Has she moved?
For the first time Crosswaithe’s radar detected caution, hesitation. Robin’s in Tupelo, Richie said.
In Tupelo, Mississippi? What’s she doing there?
Well, Father’s there. He’s old. He’s a lot older than he was the last time you called. He’s not able to care for himself and Robin moved in with him. She is a nurse, you know.
I know. Do you have the number there?
There was silence for a time. Finally Richie said, Of course I have it, but I don’t think I’m going to give it to you.
Why not?
Why not? I don’t think you’re good for her. I know damn well you’re not good for her. She has problems and you make them worse. You turn up every few years and knock her off balance. We’ve been through a lot and I love you like a brother but frankly I think you ruined her life a long time ago. I think she expects things from you that you’re not capable of doing. She was just a kid, for Christ’s sake, what, sixteen years old?
I just wanted to talk to her.
Come on out and talk to me. We’ll go out on the town like we used to. Set em up and knock em down. It’s warm out here.
Hey, Crosswaithe said. I’ve been meaning to call and tell you this. You remember that time we went up to Woodstock looking for that place Dylan lived after the motorcycle accident?
Yeah. Then we made a pilgrimage to Big Pink.
I saw him.
You saw Dylan? What, in concert? So did I, several times.
No, not in concert. In New Orleans. He was coming out of a bar on Bourbon Street. I was drunk and he was drunk or on something and I bumped into him.
You actually bumped into him? What did he say?
He said, Hey, man, watch where you’re going, or something like that.
Hey, man, watch where you’re going, Richie said, laughing. That’s real profound. How would you interpret that, what do you suppose it means? Did you ask him anything?
No. He had his, whatever, entourage. He was with that Byrd, Roger or Jim McGuinn. His eyes looked stoned, out there.
I’d have asked him something.
He wouldn’t have known.
The hell he wouldn’t.
You know how we always thought he had a handle on things? How he knew where the answers were in the back of the book? He doesn’t. He’s just wandering around this sideshow like everybody else. Trying to make it through to daylight the best way he can.
The hell he is. He knows.
He doesn’t know, Crosswaithe said. And you can take that to the bank.
Listen, about Robin, she’s been through some rough times. The messy divorce, and then a messier custody trial for her son because of her drinking problem. She’s got everything under control now, but I don’t know if you ought to talk to her.
Divorce, Crosswaithe thought. Child, custody fight. Drinking problem. How time flies.
I don’t see how talking to me could make it any worse.
Just don’t promise a bunch of shit you can’t deliver, all right? Do you have a pen?
I can remember it.
He hung up and dialed the number. He wondered what time it was in Mississippi. Early, late, ten years ago, twenty years ago. He suddenly noticed that his knuckles clutching the phone were bloodless and white and he loosened his grip. When the voice came on he felt it like a physical shock, a palpable and three-dimensional remnant from his past.
She recognized his voice immediately. I don’t think I want to talk to you, she said. Anyway I don’t have time. I was up with Father, he’s frail and sick.
Crosswaithe thought of Father, frail and sick, remembering the violent weight of him, the strong carpenter’s arms closed on him in a headlock, remembering the smell of him, Old Spice and Red Man chewing tobacco and the smell of violence, like the smell of an enraged animal.
I just woke up this morning wanting to see you, Crosswaithe said, hearing his voice but not the words, Crosswaithe on automatic pilot, hearing the buzz of his voice but seeing a Mexican hotel room with panic spreading, blood spreading in the center of a white sheet like a malignant flower blooming, her abortion turning into a car crash. Today just seemed different, Crosswaithe went on. I knew I’d have to call you before the day was over. Why do you suppose that is?
I don’t know, unless it’s because you’ve used up all the people wherever you are and need to move on. Maybe it’s because you’re a cold-blooded bastard who uses people then flushes them like toilet paper. Could that be it?
Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think I just want to see you.
There was silence for a time. What’s the matter with you? she finally asked, and this time there was a different tone to her voice, perhaps imperceptible to one less attuned than Crosswaithe: here was malleable clay to sculpt, a slate upon which to write.
I don’t know exactly, he said, and a part of him seemed to split off from the whole and watch cynically, a tiny Crosswaithe standing with head cocked sidewise and a look of sardonic amusement on his face, a look that said, there he goes again, where does he get this stuff? can you believe this guy?
It’s no one thing, Crosswaithe said. I just can’t seem to get my life together. Things were running along pretty good and then it all just blew apart. My wife divorced me but I could handle that, the worst thing was my son. I’ve got this six-year-old the sun rises and sets on and I just lost a bloody custody battle. I’m not even certain about any kind of visitation rights. I guess I just don’t know where to turn.
Crosswaithe recounting this tale felt his vision blur, felt real pain for the fictional son he had lost, for a dizzy moment lost control over which emotions were real and which manufactured, what events were true and what dreamed.
Don’t bullshit me, you can’t manipulate me, he imagined her screaming. But she said quite calmly, This doesn’t sound at all like you, Billy. Are you leveling with me?