by Bruce Bauman
I’m more than a tiny bit distracted, and I says, “ ‘American Van’?” Nova and me, we look at each other and roll our eyes at this tool. The girls are giggling.
“Yes. Your song, ‘We’re an American Van, We’re an American Van, we’re coming to your town …’ The lyrics are perfect for our spot.”
“Sure. Sure.” I really can’t concentrate ’cause I’m discombobulated by Alchemy coming back into the club.
“Can I give you my card?” He sticks out his hand.
“No.” I slap his hand away. “You call Andrew Pullham-Large and talk to him first.”
Absurda is back and surrounded by her girlie fan club, the Nightingales. (They still exist. Only it’s creepy now.)
I feel like I gotta get out of there or I might have to kick some ass. Nova, the chicks we been talking up, and me, without saying goodbye to no one, hop a taxi uptown to party at the Plaza. We go up to my room and are just getting into it when my brother Lenny—fucking Andrew told him where we was staying—starts slamming his fist against the door and screaming, “Ricky, why are you treatin’ us like we’re some smelly ragheads?”
I open up, and he puts his tattooed mitt on my naked shoulder. I take his hand and snap it away like it’s pigeon shit. “Lenny, if I hadn’t made some dough, ya bastids woulda thought a me ’round about I dunno … never.”
“You think you’re so freakin’ special. A somebody. You ain’t shit. You just got lucky. I coulda been in your band and do the same bomp, bomp, bomp crap you do.”
“You coulda been … but you ain’t. Now take your fucked ’tude and get the fuck outta my sight.”
“Not ’til I let ya know how Ma was a fuckin’ wreck after you left. She didn’t leave her room for weeks.”
“Like that’s new? Lenny, Ma was doin’ half the dickwads on the block for a bottle a cheap wine. Christ, she even fucked Nova’s pop.” I look back at Nova and he turns his head away. We never done spoke about it, but I knew. “And Lenny, our dad is a wife-beatin’ prick. And you’re a loony met’ head. Choke on them facts, Mr. Tough Guy.”
He smacks me across my cheek. I jump him and we roll around like two retards in the hallway. Nova’s pounding Lenny’s head, and one of the chicks is all right and starts kicking him. The other was taking pictures with her little camera. Some guest called security. Lenny and me get arrested. Nova flushes the drugs down the toilet, gets dressed, and scrams ’cause he was on parole. I made the cover of the Post. MTV News loved me. Man, Kurt the Lode practically ran the nightly Mindswallow report for a few months.
A lawyer bails me and Lenny out. I don’t hear from Alchemy. Turns out no one else has either for like twenty-four hours. We all assume he is off sexing half the city. Nope. He’s with Salome at Collier Layne visiting her shrink. They’re driving back that night.
My emotions was all confused. I’m still pissed at what I seen and heard and want to pummel him. I’m also, I gotta admit, intimidated, well, fucking terrified, that he’s going to toss me out of the band. And I ain’t exactly thrilled about having to do time in a nonjuvee jail. Before we confab at the Chelsea, I meet Lux in the lobby of the Plaza and he is majorly PO’d. He noogies my forehead like I’m Curly and he’s Moe.
“Ambitious, what the hell were you doing? You shouldn’t be dissin’ Absurda, picking up other chicks in public. Or private.”
“Buck,” I says, itching to try to describe the shit goin’ down between them, “I expect this jive from Alchemy. Not from you.”
“Ambitious, this isn’t jive. This is your band. Absurda is your lady. Don’t blow it.”
Lux, he never come down on me before, and though I’m seething inside, I can’t bring myself to explain more fully so I take his abuse. I need to see Absurda and Alchemy first. “I wasn’t thinkin’. Let’s leave it at that. Me and Absurda, we’ll handle our private business privately. And you don’t know my family.”
“Right. And I don’t want to.”
We laugh, and that puts a lid on it. We go to Xtine’s place at the Chelsea. She’s this dyke friend of Salome’s who I heard about but never met. Only Alchemy ain’t there. Salome and Absurda are buddying up beside each other on a futon.
Salome yells out to Xtine, who is in the kitchen on the other end of the loft. “Meet Mis-ter Lux Deluxe, a fine representation of the human race. And Mr. Ambitious Mindswallow, he’s a former teenage killah.” Salome grinned kind of loopily at Absurda. Absurda gives me a soft smile but don’t defend me or nuthin’, like she would’ve done twenty-four hours before. I’m feeling shitty for her and thinking, Fuck you, I seen what you and him was up to.
Salome, strutting in tight blue jeans and leotard top, nuthin’ fancy but dick-busting sexy, sashays over to the kitchen table and holds up the picture of me in the Post. “Cute. Photogenic. Xtine should shoot you sometime. Not as cute as the photo of me when I was accused of murder.” She holds out that word like it’s glistening hot in her mouth. “You think you’re the only killah in the room?” No doubt in my mind, she’s a killah. “Someday I will tell you about how I was called a ‘murderer’ by some who I thought were my friends.” She cranes her neck in my direction. “You must take care. There are those who you think are your friends who aren’t real friends. Beware the schadenfreude! You know what that is, my killah bee?”
“Something to do with Singmut Freud and shocking people?”
“Not bad, not bad. In fact, I quite like that definition. It is when others take pleasure in your pain. I am sure you are most familiar with the concept from the side of the envious. The more you succeed, the more others will want you to fail. And when you fail, behind your back there will be an orgy of gloating.”
I figure my mother and father is having a damn good gloat right at that moment.
The front door opens and Salome announces, “Here is the man who can resuscitate your image.” Alchemy shows up with Andrew, Sue, and this cocky-looking dude in a black suit, shiny leather shoes, and hair that looks like he just left the car wash. Reminds me of some ’50s dandy. Or maybe Bryan Ferry. It’s Alexander Holencraft, a PR expert. I got to say, against my initial instincts, he ends up being a decent dude. Holencraft got me on Entertainment Tonight and angles the whole episode so I look like a stand-up guy who is real generous to his family.
Alchy ordered in about ten pizzas from Lombardi’s. After we eat, Alchemy signals we need to huddle up. So me and him head into the bedroom alone. I’m expecting a conflagration. Only he’s all Mr. Sunshine and Hippie Love and says that me gettin’ in some scrums with the law is more than predictable. He wished it hadn’t been with my brother. Then he takes his fist and rubs it against his nostrils, and I think, Uh-oh, here it fucking comes.
“Holencraft spoke to his protégé from AY&S, the one who talked to you about the GM commercial and ‘American Band.’ ” I nodded. “I advise against doing it. It’s up to you and, I guess, Don Brewer and Grand Funk Railroad. Count me out on that one. It’s bad enough I had to give in about Absolut and the tour. I, the band, we won’t ever do ads.”
I’m so stunned I’m practically choking on my tequila.
“I’ll see.” I’m still anticipating the death stare or some ultimatum.
“Look, it’s up to you and Absurda to work this out. How it plays out for the band.” That’s the threat I been expecting. He ain’t done. “It may not be possible”—he’s half smiling—“but try to be a little more cautious. If you and she are over, it upsets me but I get it. Don’t do anything rash—think before you punch—to make it worse for her. Or you.”
I’m really wondering if he spotted me the night before. I have no freaking idea how to handle what I seen. My compass of not caring was all upside down, and the two people I normally would’ve asked for advice I can’t, ’cause they is Alchemy and Absurda.
Back in the living room, Brockton has arrived and is priestifying on Clinton being a closet Republican. I stop listening. I’m feeling agitated with my own case of Nadling, and I got to talk to Absurda.
/> I sidle up to her and whisper, “Let’s go for a drink.”
“I guess we should.”
“Yep.”
We bid our goodbyes. In the hall I ask, “Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s just walk.” Which we do. Neither of us saying nuthin’. I let her lead the way. It’s about ten or eleven at night and freezing. We head west toward the river. Chelsea ain’t fully happened yet and 22nd Street is like “follow the crack vial road,” with whores and trannies playing the part of Munchkins. We head south toward the Florent restaurant on Gansevoort. She knows the Froggy owners and we get a table in the back. Finally, she murmurs, “Why’d you do it, Ricky? Why?”
I’m sitting there, my fists clenched, knowing I can’t hit her, trying to figure out how to say what I seen without screaming, “You lying two-timing fucking cunt,” when she just slumps down over the table, looking skinny and wasted instead of raunchy and slinky, and starts to sniff, holding back tears. It rips me up, and suddenly I feel like crying. I can’t say nuthin’. She says, sounding like a funeral march, “I guess we’re not a preposition anymore.”
“Guess not. I’m my own front-page article.” She don’t laugh.
“You don’t love me anymore?” She looks up, and for the first time all night she stares right into my eyes and doesn’t even blink until I answer.
“Not that way. Ya know.” I shook my head. “Four years. Long time, ya know.”
She gets up and scampers outside to the corner and I follow her. I grab her and she buries her head on my shoulder and I hold her while she is gasping for air and sobbing and sobbing.
I loved her like nobody I ever loved before. Truth, I love Carlotta, my wife, and I was wacky over Bryn, and then some other women for about ten minutes each, but I never loved no one like Absurda again. I didn’t care about all of them other guys she fucked or whatever she done. Only, after what I seen and heard, I couldn’t bear to stay with her no more. I just couldn’t.
After like fifteen minutes, she says, “You don’t know how sorry I am.”
What she don’t ever know and I wish to this day, to her dying damn day, I wish I had told her how fucking sorry I was.
I know you ain’t supposed to curse the dead, and the guy made me rich and famous and well fucked. Only sometimes it don’t matter one little rat turd ’cause I still think …
Damn that Alchemy.
30
THE CANTICLES OF HANNAH, IV (2002–2004)
The Dead See Scrolls
Hannah had begun spending more and more time in L.A. She fretted that she’d become a nuisance to Moses and Jay’s insular life, although Moses continually assured her the opposite was true. Jay welcomed Hannah’s company on “mother-daughter” outings she’d missed with her own mom, like shopping and getting their hair and nails done. During these outings they spoke about what being a woman meant in a business world still too dominated by men, and most important, they grew emotionally closer.
One day, while she and Jay shopped at the Venice farmers’ market, she caught Jay eyeing a group of mothers close to her age with young kids. “Cute, yes?” Hannah ventured.
“Cute for about an hour and then it’s work.”
Hannah suspected that Jay’s implacable expression and terse tone served as a defense to her desire to be among them. Hannah let it go.
A few days later, when Jay was at a client’s, Hannah broached the subject with Moses. “So, I know you two decided long ago not to have kids, but I wonder if you’ve ever reconsidered making me a grandmother.”
Moses answered in a voice tinged with annoyance, “We reconsidered. And came to the same conclusion.”
“You or Jay? Or both of you?”
“Ma, with my future so unpredictable, I think it’s more responsible not to.”
“And Jay?”
“Why? She say something to you?”
“No.”
“Mom, I’d love to make you happy. Only sometimes, I can’t. Okay?”
Not wanting to upset him further, Hannah changed the subject.
“Moses, you know I’m going to be sixty-seven soon, and this cross-country commute is getting harder and harder.”
“Jay and I have talked about that. We hope you’ll give up your New York place and move here permanently. You can continue to work from here. Or retire.”
“You want that?”
“Why wouldn’t we? I just never thought you’d leave New York. We could celebrate holidays together and drop around whenever we feel like, all without it becoming a major ordeal.”
“That would be wonderful. I’d like to do some pro bono work. Make my own hours.”
“I, we’d love it.”
Hannah, almost teary-eyed, decided right then to move to L.A. by the end of December.
A week before Christmas Eve, Hannah sat alone in her New York office. Suddenly feeling a bit light-headed, she took a gulp of water from the cup on her desk and scanned the place where she’d spent the majority of her waking hours for the past thirty years. All the small artifacts, the external architecture of her life, would soon be condensed into a few cardboard boxes.
From the top right drawer of her desk she pulled out a favorite picture, one she knew would have upset her parents: a six-year-old Moses wearing a white shirt and red vest, and sitting on Santa Claus’s lap at Gimbel’s. For some crazy reason she began to list, in no particular order, all the department stores she’d seen disappear over her lifetime: Loehmann’s, May, Stern’s, Abraham & Straus, Altman, Ohrbach’s, Korvettes, Best, Bonwit Teller, and Gimbel’s. Interrupting her memories of a lost New York, William III ambled into the office. “Last chance to change your mind.” William III smiled, knowing she was determined to go.
“I appreciate it, but as well as Moses is progressing,” she said with a sigh, “I want to spend some good years with them.”
“Hannah, you feel all right? You look a little flushed.”
“Tired and understandably anxious. I think I’ve chosen the right time to retire.”
“You think it’s the right time to ‘retire’ this?” He placed a manila folder with the name “Malcolm Teumer” typed in the top right-hand corner on her desk. She assumed William didn’t know that despite her desperate desire, never once inforty-five years had his father and grandfather allowed her access to the “Malcolm/Moses” dossier.
“Your father wouldn’t mind?” Hannah pressed her hands between her chair cushion and thighs so he wouldn’t see them shaking.
“He hasn’t looked at it in years. When you’re done, into the shredder.”
She tried to control the quavering in her voice. “Can you leave it? I want to finish packing first.”
“I’ll be heading home in an hour or so. Bring it by my office before then?”
“Of course. We’ll retire it together.”
Hannah waited until William was safely down the hall. She stood up, a bit dizzy. She steadied herself, circled her desk, closed the door, and sat back down. She shut her eyes and exhaled. She opened her eyes and put on her reading glasses. Finally, she beheld her holy grail. Her breath and pulse quaked as the ghost ship of the no-longer-obliterated past arose.
She relived that final morning: By the time she woke, Malcolm was already out of bed. His pajamas neatly folded on the chair and bathrobe hanging in his closet. She stepped into her slippers and shuffled down the hall to Moses’s bedroom. She smiled at seeing Malcolm leaning over his son’s crib. He tilted his head toward her, his now all-too-common gaze glacial, and announced matter-of-factly, “I was just saying goodbye.” He walked toward her, barely grazing her cheek with a dry kiss. His shoes rat-a-tatted down the steps and he grabbed his coat. “I will see you at dinner.”
She picked up Moses and clutched him to her chest. She yelled after her husband, “Pot roast tonight. Try not to be late.”
Back in her present, she cursed aloud. Late? Maybe better never. Her anger at allowing herself to become spellbound by such a transparent rainmaker had ne
ver subsided.
Her hands shook above the pages, as if they were the flickering candles of the Friday night prayer service that she was about to bless. She took a cigarette from the pack on her desk and reached for the “secret” ashtray that she’d already put in the carton on the floor. She lit the cigarette and inhaled. She blew out the smoke. She coughed and put out the cigarette in the ashtray. Her hands and forehead gushed sweat. “Calm yourself, Hannah, calm yourself,” she whispered, and wiped her forehead. From her pocketbook she pulled out a tiny pillbox filled with aspirin and Valium—she swallowed only the tranquilizer. She exhaled and opened the file. Her chest began to tighten. She felt a throbbing in her forearm as she gripped the glass and took another sip of water. She stared down at Laban Lively’s notes. “As a member of the OSS advance cadre, I was among the first men to enter Germany and it is then when I first encountered the man we now call Malcolm Teumer …” The enormous pressure in her chest intensifying, she gasped for air, feeling as if a massive fist had punched her in the jaw. She struggled to reopen the pillbox to take the aspirin. Teetering on the edge of her chair, Hannah collapsed to the floor.
Forty-five minutes later, tired of waiting, William swung by Hannah’s office and knocked on the closed door. “Hannah, I hate to rush you, but I have to get home.” When she didn’t answer, he opened the door. “I know it’s so hard to lea—Hannah!? Oh, my God. Somebody call nine one one!”
31
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2001–2005)
Kaddish
Not since he was a brooding teenager had Moses contemplated life without his mother for more than five minutes. Now, five excruciatingly long weeks later, when the thought entered his head, he banished it. The hemorrhage of sadness over her sudden death was suffocating him. One thought, underscored by his daymares, pounded away: That a Faustian bargain had been made and Hannah died so he could live to meet his biological parents. It was irrational, he knew. With whom was this bargain struck? Some god? Some karmic force? A vision of the Virgin Mary on a potato knish? No, we live in the quantum universe, answerable only to the emotionless laws of science. To assign the timing of Hannah’s death an ascertainable logic was to find a grand design where none existed. His mother, finishing her last days of work, had suffered a massive heart attack. Simple as that. Years of smoking, no exercise, a simultaneously aggressive yet bound-up personality, and pernicious heart genes finally caught up with her. Her death had nothing to do with his survival.
