Broken Sleep

by Bruce Bauman

  “Mea culpa. I shouldn’t have seen Teumer behind your back. And I should’ve given you the letter. I fucked up.”

  “No more BS?”

  “My word. Mose, it may not seem that way, but I’ll be indebted to you. I need you. We will do great things together.”

  Could either of them live with that debt? Alchemy had given Moses a new life. Now he was offering him a new life. Again.

  “I’ll ruminate. We’ll talk again.”

  Two days later, on Friday afternoon, Moses met with chipmunk-faced Dean Slocum in his office. They sat opposite each other, separated by a black coffee table covered by academic journals.

  “Moses, doubtless you’ve suffered through years of trauma. You look healthy. How are you feeling physically?”

  “Pretty good.”

  Slocum nodded. “I asked you here because Charles is stepping down as chair of the Humanities Department on Monday.” Before Moses could ask why, Slocum stopped him. “I’ll explain another time. The chair is yours. I need your answer by Sunday night.”

  Moses pretended to cough and covered his mouth, repressing a giant-size hee-haw of relief.

  “This is gratifying. Only my brother, who is extraordinarily persuasive, wants me to work with him.”

  “You know serving as chair comes with a bump in pay and benefits.”

  “It’s not about money. Sure, it matters. But this is more about how I want to spend the rest of my life.”

  “I understand that. Only Moses, a tenured position is one of the most secure jobs in the world. Family businesses are notorious for their contentiousness.”

  “I’ll mull it over and get back to you by Sunday.”

  Slocum was no fool, and he made his appeal to Moses’s insecurities. Moses didn’t want to make the decision out of fear. After his illness, divorce, and skirting career suicide with what he now considered the foolish misstep of Evie, he desired—no, needed—to change his life.

  On Saturday he called Alchemy, who answered, his voice impatient, “Mose, what’s up?”

  “Bad time?” Moses asked.

  “Yep. This’ll be what’ll it’ll be like to work with me. This is also why I want you. Most people don’t listen. Don’t hear anything in my voice. You did.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Fucking excellent. Better than excellent. I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll get the damn thing started.”

  Faster than Moses could have imagined, Alchemy pushed him into action. Moses met with heads of other foundations before setting up the nonprofit with the help of Alchemy’s lawyers and accountants. They raised the initial endowment with contributions from the Insatiables and their business partners. Alchemy pledged a good share of his net worth of $300-plus million, including his shares in Winsum Realty and Audition Enterprizes, which were invested wisely in new technology and media, as the bedrock of the endowment. Unlike in many nonprofits, he and Alchemy were determined that the vast majority of the money would be spent on needs, not frills or waste.

  They chose an abandoned motel building that Alchemy had bought and refurbished on the corner of Inglewood’s La Brea Avenue and Regent Street for the Nightingale office. Moses handpicked the small staff, taking to his role with a natural aplomb. His gait transformed from a bedraggled slouch to one of, if not quite preening, a man sure in his position. But he showed no arrogance. Quite the contrary, his elasticity in dealing with different personalities made him a compassionate boss.

  The night of their first fund-raising gala at the new offices, Alchemy slid up beside Moses. “From the time we took our little trip from the monastery to L.A., I felt like we’d do great things together someday. And now, this is just the beginning.”

  55

  THE SONGS OF SALOME

  If I Had a Hammer

  After returning from the monastery, Alchemy brought Nathaniel east, fetched me from Collier Layne, and tucked us away in Shelter Island, assuaging his guilt by offering the spoils of his wealth, before scurrying back to L.A. for “urgent business.”

  Gravity Disease had robbed Nathaniel of his zest for fulminating and denied him his role as my protector. Our relationship worked because he reasoned to me in spoken words and I translated his words into sensations. I unreasoned to him in emotions and he put them into the logic of his spoken language. His stroke left his mind lucid, but even after therapy, he had slightly impaired speech and he often needed a cane. His reliance on me for everyday needs strained the unspoken expectations of how we balanced our us-ness as nothing had before.

  I went out to the porch to drink my coffee and sit with him one morning. The pitter-patter of the spring drizzle seemed to fall in rhythm to the sound of Coltrane’s Ballads, which played on the small cassette player he’d never abandoned. Normally, he’d either be reading or waiting for our nanny to deliver the newspapers. Eyes closed, he swayed in his rocking chair. On the table beside him was a shoe box full of letters. A separate bunch held in a rubber band from his protest pal and mentor, Dave Dellinger, who had died earlier that week, sat on his lap.

  I grabbed a cushion from a nearby chair, placed it on the wood floor, and knelt beside him. With my open mouth I tasted his still pure soulsmell, tinged now with the odor of promise lost, like the yellowing, fraying pages of an old paperback book.

  I, too, was bereft of inspiration. I took down the mirrors in the house because I couldn’t bear to look at my withering beauty. When I did go out, I suffered the indignity of the younger hotties stealing the carnivorous grins that were once mine. Like my mother before me, I was slipping into reclusiveness. Even worse, my powers as a sensate morphologist, worth more than physical beauty or youthful vigor, were blocked.

  When the tape ended, I got up to turn it over. Nathaniel began speaking mournfully, though not bitterly, of the pernicious calories of junk food, junk culture, and junk news that had hastened his slide into irrelevance and impotence. His once grandiose plans had become less grandiose with each defeat, and he now had only two plans—one to live out his days and one to die.

  “Don’t do this to yourself,” I pleaded. “You’ve contributed more than anyone could ask. Let’s take a trip. No political or art agenda. Let’s take off like two young kids with nothing to do but loaf around.”

  “I’ve never been a very good loafer.”

  “I’ve always been a great high heel.”

  His smile said he understood my message better than I did.

  “Salome, if you need to go, please go. I’ve never wanted to constrain you and I don’t want to start now.”

  I did feel constrained. No matter, I couldn’t desert him. Yet, high heel that I am, I could heal neither him nor myself.

  Nathaniel found the perfect way to halt our breaking apart. He invited Frank Peters, a critic I’d met years before through Greta’s old friend Betty Parsons and who’d reviewed My Head IS Different for LA Weekly, to visit us when he came for the Hamptons Art Fair. Nathaniel suggested it was time for a Salome Savant career retrospective. Peters agreed. He put the wheels in motion by getting in touch with Curt Scoggins at the Hammer Museum. With all the meetings, conference calls, and e-mails, I was becoming overwhelmed. Nathaniel came to the rescue by acting as my go-between. He took over the logistical arrangements—he’d adapted to e-mail and texting. I carefully went about choosing what I wanted to show and making new work.

  While assembling a catalogue raisonné and a list of my major collectors, Scoggins discovered that Teumer and/or Lively owned seven of my pieces. Nathaniel, none too cheerily, relayed this news. I cursed Gibbon for not getting them back when I’d asked him to in Germany.

  Nathaniel told Scoggins that Teumer was an old flame who’d remained obsessed with me and it served everyone’s best interest not to contact him. We didn’t need his pieces.

  Truly, though, I hated that my creations were in Teumer’s unclean hands. I got in touch with young Bicks III. Unlike his father, he possessed a warmth that he must have inherited from his mother. Bicks III spoke
to Lively. He and Teumer had bought the pieces through their import-export company, and when they dissolved their partnership the year before, Teumer took outright ownership of the art. Not two hours after speaking to Bicks III, Teumer called from Brazil. He’d lend the pieces for the Hammer show but would never sell them back. My answer: Forget it. About to hang up, he took the conversation in another direction.

  “We’re quite fortunate to have a son so worthy of us.”

  “If he exists, I’ve never met him.”

  “I don’t mean our son. Your son Alchemy and my third son.”

  He bragged how Alchemy visited him in Rio and he’d given him “a letter for Moses.” He sounded so smug when he guessed Alchemy hid that news from me. He magnanimously volunteered to travel to L.A., not easy considering his age, but he’d do it so we could introduce ourselves to “our son.”

  “Fuck you, Malcolm.”

  “Anytime, my dear.”

  Soon after, Teumer sent me a copy of the letter he’d given to Alchemy. And it was then, when Nathaniel found me preparing to burn the damn letter, that we had a huge fight. I finally admitted to Nathaniel that I’d known about Alchemy and his newfound brother since my last stay in Collier Layne when I read the People article. It astounded him that I was able to keep mum. But my admission exposed Nathaniel’s lack of loyalty to me. While I was locked away in Collier Layne, he, Alchemy, and Ruggles decided against telling me this new truth. Despite his conflicts, ethically Nathaniel had to respect Alchemy’s wishes—or so he said. I gave him hell followed by days of silence. When he finally apologized, I demanded he show me the same ethical rectitude and keep my awareness a secret from Alchemy. And Nathaniel also said, whether to appease me or out of sincere belief I don’t know, that if this son were alive and happy in his life, that not seeking him out sounded reasonable.

  It’s been over sixty years and I can still feel the tincture of evil sweat and scum that infiltrated my soulsmell when his seed impregnated his beastly odor into me. And I was foolishly naïve to think our conversations were secret. After the interrogations by the CAA’s Parnell Palmer, I’ve assumed the government was always wiretapping me, Teumer, or anyone connected with Nathaniel. Palmer wants to talk to me again. I will be prepared this time. I shouldn’t have ever considered believing that he wants to quiet the rumors—no, he wants to smear the memory of Alchemy. I asked Bellows to set it up with this caveat: I insist on a visit with my granddaughter, Persephone.

  56

  MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’

  Lost in Space, 2001 – 2003

  On the plane ride back to L.A. from Fond du Lac—one of the few times Alchy booked us a private jet—I sit in the back by myself. And I get fucking drunk. I can’t believe what has happened. I never felt crappier in my life. I lost Absurda, and now I feel like I lost the best friend I ever had—even if he swore he ain’t done what I know he done. I don’t know where I’d be without him. I am so fucking confused.

  Falstaffa comes to pick us up at the Santa Monica Airport. I just trail behind everyone. Alchemy stops and waits for me. “C’mon, man. You coming home?”

  “I’m, well, you know. You sure?”

  “Your room will always be your room.”

  I go, but I’m still feeling not right. Salome and Nathaniel are living in the guest house, and Nathaniel, who is getting worse and some days he can’t walk without help, he still razzes me about being “the Estragon who came to dinner.” I tell him he’s the washed-up Rev who’s gonna be extragone off a cliff if he don’t shaddup. I ain’t fond of staying in Bryn’s condo ’cause the lip flappers tip off the paparazzi. We spend some nights in Absurda’s Rampart place, which she left to me. Only me. The hood is still too dicey for the paparazzi to hang out.

  About a month after Absurda’s funeral, we hold a memorial concert at the Troubadour. I’m reeling like someone stabbed me in my good eye. I get high. It don’t help my ornery mood and I get in an argument with Salome. Hugo Bollatanski shows up, and I’m on my way to throw him out when Alchemy steps in. “Let it go. He’s trying to make amends. We all have to let the bad blood go.” He means me and him, too. But his speechifying during the show—he makes her drug use and dying into a reason to legalize all drugs so the government can tax and control it—fuckin’ pisses me off.

  After the show, me and Alchy get in a stare-down duel. I wait, and then I says, “You making Absurda a poster child for drugheads wasn’t right. Not tonight.” He lights up an American Spirit and the match flashes and it’s like it lit his eyes on fire, a voodoo doll gold and brown. Lux pulls me away. Me, Lux, and Bryn walk to my car. I’m wondering if Alchy told him anything. I ain’t said zip. Not even to Bryn. Lux asks Bryn to get in the car while me and him talk. He says, “Ambitious, you and Alchemy, man, I don’t know what went down in Fond du Lac, but whatever it was, you guys need to make peace.”

  “Yeah, it’s on him, too.”

  “No doubt. But Absurda wouldn’t want the two people she loved most in the world to stop talking because of her.”

  I mumble, “Lux, I need some time. Me and Bryn are going to Cancún.”

  “Take whatever time you need.” He opens his arms and bear-hugs me.

  The trip away was a good escape, but I still ain’t sure what my next move is gonna be. The Topanga place is near deserted when I return. Salome is back in Collier Layne after getting caught leaving the compound with Alchemy’s Beretta to do who the fuck knows what. Nathaniel is confined to the guest house with his nurses. Alchemy’s disappeared into a freaking monastery. His version of a biddy-bip-bip farm.

  I feel jumpy staying in Topanga. The Rampart house is too fucking packed with boogeymen. I put it on the market and rent a place in Hollywood Hills for a few months. Bryn kinda moves in with me but also keeps her condo ’cause she don’t want to stay alone in my new place after we hit the road.

  When Alchemy reappears in L.A., he tries to keep under the radar ’cause of the shit with his new brother, Mose. But the media catches on and makes Alchemy a bigger hero for saving Mose’s life. Alchemy plays it all modest in public. To me, he brags how “intelligent” his “professor brother” is. For months I keep asking to let me meet the mysterious Mose, and he keeps avoiding it. I figure he’s embarrassed by me.

  We’re also dealing with the Sheiks selling Kasbah to the Germans for gazillions. That kinda helps reunite us, ’cause we gotta decide if we are going to continue as a band, and if we are, how we deal with this takeover. Lux invites me and Alchemy to his parents’ place for dinner so no outsider will bother us. I’m kinda nervous about going there. Feeling ashamed, but I got no choice.

  We eat dinner with the Bradshaws in their dining room. It’s kinda tense. I ain’t saying much. On the wall across from me is two pictures. One of MLK and one of a sorta black, dark-eyed Jesus. Made me think of the pictures of JFK and a white blue-eyed Jesus that Granny McFinn kept on her dining room wall. Lux was about as religious as me, but he was trying to be the peacemaker.

  After dinner, Big Lionel and Mrs. Bradshaw go to their bedroom.

  Lux steps up. “Straight out, I want us to continue. Not for the money or the women. For the music. For what we’ve done and can do. It’s not going to be the same without Absurda. I’ll never stop missing her. But you two need to stop acting like bratty teenagers.” Lux was never afraid to call out Alchemy (or me, for that matter), and Alchy always took it from him. “I love being an Insatiable. Or we can all go do our thing elsewhere.”

  I realize Alchy has said nothing to Lux. Still, I want him to speak first.

  “We have to continue as a band. I have to continue now.” He turns to me. “Ambitious, what I did with Heather was flat-out wrong. I wish I could undo it. And maybe you wish you could undo some things, too. But we both did what we did because we hurt so damn much and acted in ways destructive to each other and to ourselves.”

  That don’t get to the heart of it, but if I start in again about Madam Rosa’s and what happened in the hotel in Fon
d du Lac—I can’t live with Lux hearing any of that—that’s a road with only one way out. I don’t answer them directly. “Okay, guys, what’s our strategy on this merger bullshit?”

  For what feels like forever, we have all these dumb-ass meetings about our new deal. The chill between me and Alchy has warmed, especially after we start jamming. We’re looking for a new guitar player after I decide to stay on the bass.

  After the German takeover is done, we all have our gourds full of lawyer bullshit. It takes us a while to get going, but I’m excited to hit the road for a U.S. tour, which will bank millions. We settle on Silky Trespass as guitarist. Everything is first class. We’re as popular as ever, only we don’t hang out that much. Me and Alchy get into it big time one night in front of Lux and Silky, ’cause he wants to add a bunch of lefty antiwar songs to the set list. I am one hundred percent against it. We don’t agree about the war in Iraq or even Afghanistan. I says, “What the fuck? They blew up the Trade Center, and you ain’t no pacifist, so what’s your problem?”

  He gives me some spiel about war is not the way to make peace and because they kill innocent people doesn’t mean we should. He wants the world to love us. I don’t give a damn what the world thinks as long as they keep their bombs to themselves. Suddenly, he gives me this condescending smile. “Sometimes, we have to think about how things affect more than just ourselves.”

  “Just because you think you doing good for others, don’t mean you ain’t doing it for yourself.”

  He sighs overloud and says, “Okay, say that I’m doing for myself. I’m also doing it for others.”

  He writes “Dyin’ to Be Your Hero,” which is a good song. We play that one the rest of the tour. Only I’m feeling it ain’t really settled between us.