Chapter 3
Chapter Three
O f course the Ohio gig was pure fire.
Like angry sex and makeup sex, all rolled into one. The heat and pulse of the crowd fueling the band to peak performance, even though they were barely hanging by a thread. Barely speaking to one another, except for polite logistics.
They were keeping the peace for now…but it was keeping Avi awake.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…
He fumbled with the light switch by his ear. Years ago, his Aunt Miri had taught him a calming countdown when sleep eluded him.
“Start with five things you can see, Velvel,” she’d say. Always with that nickname for him — little wolf in Yiddish.
Lamp. Curtain. Blanket. He looked around for two more things he could identify by sight. Air Vent. Phone.
Four things you can touch.
Avi stretched his six-foot frame until his toes came in contact with the carpeted wall of his bunk. Touched the ring on the chain at his throat. Rested his palm on his heart, which was slowing its rapid pace. And grabbed his phone.
His iPhone screen read 4:33am. And there was a new text waiting.
Sylvie
I think we need to talk when you get to NY.
He listened for the usual tour bus sounds. The road humming under its wheels, the distant laughter from the back lounge TV someone had left on. Vic snoring somewhere. That’s three.
Avi’s nostrils flared. One normally wouldn’t seek out scents on a tour bus full of men at any given time, but he was nothing if not ritualistic. Above the baseline funk of farts and feet, he could smell coffee and the woodsy tang of his own deodorant. Two.
They had left the venue less than three hours ago. He’d climbed into his bunk, freshly showered from backstage and hoping to wake up well-rested in Buffalo.
Until Sylvie had shown up in his texts.
One thing you can taste.
He bit a hangnail until there was blood.
The bus swayed gently, and Avi rolled onto his side, staring at the lone photo tacked to his bunk wall: his crew, younger and grinning, with the Giza pyramids in the distance.
Jay, in dorky neon shades, holding Nora piggyback. She grinned over his shoulder, middle finger to the camera. Jonah mimed “moving” a pyramid while Talia and Libby conga-lined behind him for a push. Avi remembered singing that old Bangles tune “Walk Like an Egyptian” all day; he and Sylvie strutting in a way that probably didn’t age well.
And there was Eli. Holding Nora’s threadbare sock monkey Jocko aloft, as if offering a sacrifice to the sun god Ra.
Avi tried to remember the last time all eight of the Year Course friends were in the same place at the same time to pose for a photo together. Too long ago.
There was always the chance during Hanukkah, when Jay threw the mother of all parties aboard the USS Matzo Baller. Nora’s “three more sleeps” text from earlier felt ironic, given Avi’s chronic insomnia.
The tour bus canted heavily to one side, slowing as the hiss of the air brakes signaled its stop.
Sighing, Avi sat up. He slipped into the Adidas slides he kept handy for roaming out of bunk alley, zipped his hoodie, and slid quietly into the aisle. To his left and his right, his band of brothers slept soundly. Enviously.
Tea will help. Joe, their driver, stocked a killer herbal section. Valerian Organic Nighty Night wasn’t very rock and roll, but some secrets stayed on the bus.
As he stealthily made his way up the aisle toward the kitchen, a hand shot out of the last bottom bunk on the left, Zombie-from-the-grave style.
“Gah! Tobin! What the fuck, man?”
Painted Doors’ guitar tech loosened his death grip on Avi’s ankle. “Dude. I need Pepto. Alka-Seltzer. All the things.” Tobin groaned. “I never would’ve started partying if Buck had told us we had a 2 am bus call.”
Oh hell. Their tour manager had been so busy keeping the band in line, no doubt it had slipped his mind. “Last minute decision, due to the storm coming. Sorry.”
Tobin’s head fell back onto his pillow. “Do me a solid? Hit the rest stop?”
“I’ll check the first aid kit,” Avi offered. Although by the second-to-last show of the tour, supplies like that had no doubt been plundered and pillaged. “Not going out into the cold for your sorry ass.”
If they were even at a rest stop. For all he knew, the bus driver had stopped to take an emergency dump at the side of the road.
Sure enough, he didn’t find anything stronger than a cough drop among the rations in the front of the bus. And 24/7 florescent and neon signage beyond the foggy bus windows winked promises of salvation.
Avi swore under his breath.
Back in bunk alley, Tobin dangled his wallet. Avi stalked back, swiping it from his crew member’s limp grasp. “You owe me.”
The world felt frozen, soundless but for snow crunching under his slides and the highway’s faint hum behind him. Out of the silent planet, Avi mused, trudging toward the glowing rest stop.
Inside was an explosion of sound and color by comparison. Mariah claimed she didn’t want a lot for Christmas over the tinny speakers as Avi hit the convenience store, pulling all the essential over-the-counter meds he could find and juggling them to the counter.
Tobin’s wallet had a lone fifty in its billfold, so Avi added a chocolate Santa, a Monster Meat beef jerky stick (certified Kosher according to its packaging) and a LiquiDoze sleep shot drink to the pile as his finder’s fee.
“Take one to two hours before bedtime for maximum restful effect,” he murmured, reading the small print on the label. Melatonin, Vitamin B-6, and something else he couldn’t pronounce? Hell, I’d take a horse tranquilizer if the reststop store sold them. He downed the 2.5 oz bottle right there at the cash register.
“$34.85.” The cashier didn’t question his choices. Nor did she give him a second glance as she slowly made change for her sole customer. Avi realized it was the first time in a long time he had walked, unescorted and unrecognized, anywhere. 4:40 am for the win.
“Merry Christmas.” The cashier’s mumble was on autopilot, something she no doubt said a hundred times per day during December. Avi never begrudged anyone for assuming, especially in middle America.
But he was looking forward to New York, the Matzo Baller, and shedding his public persona. Oh, and a plateful of Talia’s bomb-ass latkes.
“Yeah, you too.”
“Avi? Avi Wolfson! Omigod!”
Avi had just stashed things into his hoodie pockets, ready to brave the cold when a woman intercepted him. She was navigating a groggy boy in footy pajamas from the restrooms.
“It’s really you, isn’t it?” She laughed breathlessly. “My husband’s going to kick himself for staying in the car. Can I get a picture? Danny, wake up and take Mommy’s picture.”
Avi hid the Pepto Bismol bottle behind his back and leaned in, throwing a peace sign for the camera. Best not to touch the ladies, although they never hesitated putting hands on him.
Sure enough, the woman giggled, sliding her arms around his waist. Her son, still half-asleep, expertly aimed and captured the moment. Generation Alpha in full effect.
Avi fished a couple of custom guitar picks from the pocket of his track pants. “Happy holidays, little dude.”
The kid yawned, turning them over in his palm as his mom steered him toward the parking lot. “Happy Hanukkah, Avi Wolfson!” She called, waving.
Avi pulled his hood up against the wind as he exited toward the truck lot and the waiting bus.
Except. There was no bus waiting.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
As he tried not to panic, five more things flashed that he could see with his mind’s eye:
His phone on its charger in his bunk.
His own wallet, stowed in his winter coat onboard.
Two band laminates, sitting on the vacated bus driver’s seat. Protocol indicating that two other people had gotten off the bus and the driver was not to depart until all passes were collected by their owners.
And something he could touch?
His laminated pass, still in his track pants pocket.
“No refunds, just exchanges.”
“I was here five minutes ago. And I have an emergency.”
The cashier side-eyed the pile of digestive aids Avi dumped onto the counter. “Clearly.”
“No, you don’t understand. I bought these for a friend, but…miscommunication. He…they — my ride — left. I need that fifty dollars back. And a phone. Can I borrow a phone?”
Avi knew exactly three numbers by heart. Sylvie’s, of course – no matter how many times she’d changed it over the year. Eli’s private line, reserved for the eight of them only. And his childhood landline.
Sylvie. She’d drive all night to get to him if he asked her.
Before Vegas. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
Eli? Not likely to pick up an unknown number in whatever time zone he currently was in.
Calling his father was out of the question.
The cashier gestured at a rack of pre-paid phone cards. “Payphone in the arcade.” She began scanning his items.
Arcade? Payphone? Had he entered a portal to an earlier decade?
“$27.50 in credit. Unless you’re returning the foodstuff.”
Avi had already decapitated Santa’s chocolate head in frustration when he went to book an Uber…and realized he had no smartphone. And the beef jerky was non-negotiable – survival mode. He grabbed a $25 phone card, muttering his thanks as she activated it.
“You’ve got $2.50 left,” she called after him.
“What’s your favorite?” He gestured at the candy display.
“Strawberry Twizzlers.”
Same as Aunt Miri. A sign. Or maybe an omen .
“My treat,” he said, plunking them down. “Merry Christmas. Now, where the hell am I?”
She peeled one sticky licorice twist from the pack. “You’re in Kismet, Ohio.”
Kismet? God must’ve been just about as pissed at him as Sylvie was.
He ripped the phone card from its cardboard and found the neglected pay phone in the even more neglected arcade.
Who to call? Did 411 still exist? Telephone operators? He felt like a loser as he contemplated the zero button on the phone. He could call a cab to take him…where? All the way to Buffalo? With what cash? He couldn’t exactly pay the fare in beef jerky.
Who do I know in Ohio?
They had just played to twenty thousand people, and he hadn’t known a goddamned soul there.
How pathetic he could memorize the names and seating capacities of pretty much every venue across the country but not his bandmates’ numbers.
A wave of indignation hit him. Tobin had probably passed out. But how did no one else realize he was missing from the bus? Surely, someone had gotten up to take a leak by now and noticed his empty bunk. It was practically sunrise. Misheyakir.
It was a word he hadn’t thought of in years. And a time he hadn’t been awake since Israel. After dawn, but before the sunrise. The earliest time for tefillin he no longer wrapped, for tallit he no longer wore. For prayers he no longer said aloud, just in his head. With those who had taught him –
Cantor Joel.
The name struck like lightning. His mentor, the man who first sparked Avi’s interest in making music his life and livelihood. He used to think about him whenever they toured through Ohio, but had never known – or remembered – what city his mentor had moved to or the name of the congregation he’d joined. Avi tried to remember the last time he’d thought of Cantor lately…let alone thought of contacting him. Well, no time like the present.
How many people with the name Gellman could there be in Ohio?
If this wasn’t kismet, Avi didn’t know what was.