by Bruce Bauman
“You have called yourself ‘a homicider’?”
“What are you insinuating?”
“Well, first there was the ‘performance’ with Art Lemczek, then the incident where you stabbed Laban Lively with box cutters. And isn’t it true you tried to burn Nathaniel by setting the house in Charlottesville on fire?”
“Exactly the opposite. A well-trained Pavlovian mind like yours is conditioned to bite only your enemies. I bite my loved ones—to save them. With his blessing, I saved Art from an arduous, painful death. That wasn’t homicide. And I acted to save Nathaniel from himself.”
“By setting a fire outside his locked room? Unique concept. Killing or trying to kill friends and loved ones. Perhaps you thought you were saving your son the nigh—”
I chomped at his hand. He flinched. “I also bite my enemies.”
“And Moses was your enemy. Isn’t that why you told Malcolm Teumer you wished your son Moses had died?”
“How do you know that? Malcolm Teumer was a liar. That’s not what I meant.”
“Maybe, but”—he pointed to Bellows’s computer—“I can arrange it so you can listen to yourself anytime.”
“You were taping my conversations? Or Teumer’s? No matter what you want to believe, I did not kill my son. I’m done.” I stood up and showed him the drawing—his eyebrows as tiny leeches eating away his face.
“Is that me?”
“Oh, yes. I need you to sign it.”
“Why?”
“When you awaken tonight, you’ll know why.”
He mumbled “nutcase” and started packing his things.
Bellows knew me well enough to see I was joking, but not well enough to understand my motivation. Once Palmer left, I said to her that he was trying to intimidate me. People like him are afraid of anything that smacks of the extraordinary. I did what I could to intimidate him back. I admitted to her that I only vaguely remembered the fire. She answered, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
So many memories are etched on my brain like ineradicable ancient pictographs, and others, so soluble, have been washed away by the waterfall of human aging and Collier Layne cocktails.
Too clear in my memory is the hollowness of the Harlottesville house. The shadow of my Somersby diddle-daddle ended the pretense of my adaptability to a southern belle jar domestic life. I hoped for a change in the slavish air when Alchemy returned at Thanksgiving. A vicious migraine struck me and ruined the dinner. After hours in my lightless room, I woke up feeling worn-out and unmoored. I stepped gingerly downstairs. Deep into their drinks, Alchemy and Nathaniel were talking intensely while listening to the Louis and Ella sessions. I halted in the hallway and overheard Alchemy ask Nathaniel, “Why do you put up with her antics?”
Antics? I jammed my jaw shut.
“A question I have asked myself, oh, a thousand times. I think she’s as beautiful as the day I first saw her in Max’s. She’s an artistic genius and, at the same time, a child who needs me to take care of her. Her moral compass may seem askew, but she’s never been a phony. She is exactly who she presents herself to be. And she may not see it, and you may not see it, but I need her.”
“I see it but I don’t totally get it.”
“So much of what I struggled to achieve is being trampled by the forces of regression. If it weren’t for Salome, I might’ve fallen into my cups and given up. When she is her best self, she acts with absolute faith in her abilities, in mine, in yours. When she is in a red or blue period …” His voice trailed off. “The year in Paris, when you two stayed in New York, I was miserable without her. I took this teaching gig because I thought it would help us. Ruggles thought so, too. We were both wrong. What can I say? She drives me almost as batty as she is”—he laughed—“yet I always love her madly.”
“I can’t imagine life with my mom and what it would’ve been like without you. I won’t ever forget.”
How could he not understand how much I’d done for both of them by being with Nathaniel?
I eagerly returned to New York after the New Year while Nathaniel stayed in Virginia. It turned out disastrously. AIDS had denatured the city of so much vitality. Many friends had moved. Or died. The art market had crashed in ’87, Gibbon closed his gallery and now relaxed in style in the Hamptons. The Whitney Biennial curators, who I’d previously brushed aside, now rebuffed me. Leslie Tallent penned a piece on the younger artists I’d influenced, which made me feel like a has-been. I spent some nights with old friends like Xtine and some new ones. And too many alone. My nonstop movable feast of the ’60s and early ’70s seemed to have settled into an antiquated garden party with cocaine on a cracker as an hors d’oeuvre. Instead of burning down the castle, these kids lined up around the block to get inside.
My son’s busy life didn’t include me and my “antics.” Absurda, or Amanda, as we called her then, and I adopted each other as surrogate mother and daughter. When I received the invite to Blind Lemon Socrates’s imminent-death-from-colon-cancer requiem/extravaganza at Alexander Holencraft’s new apartment in the Dakota, I asked Absurda to be my date.
Mostly, I enjoyed the night. I dressed accordingly in ankle-high, rust-red boots, a short but not too short maroon dress, and a half-length silver faux-fur jacket with a pink boa around my neck. I did not enjoy the questions: “Where have you been?” and “How are you?” I asked instead, “How do I look?” The answer was fucking fantastic.
Socrates, with two teenage boys on either side of him, leaned on his cane. The poet Noma Moma Dada read a tribute, and the French filmmaker Matsa Brie announced the upcoming premiere of a documentary on Socrates’s life, before introducing the icon of honor. Socrates dropped his cigarette into his scotch glass and listened to it fizzle out. “I have spent my life attempting to halt the urbane decay that many of you represent,” he said, inching his long neck tauntingly toward a gaggle of young admirers. “I leave you with one thought: If you care more about riches or material goods than about virtue … then I have failed you. And you will fail yourselves.” He shook his head indignantly, as if he foresaw his fate as the forgotten.
Holencraft yelled, “Thank you, Socrates!” and everyone began drinking again. I felt a pinch on my ass. I turned, ready to slap the offender. His body shriveled and colorless, I wouldn’t have recognized Raphael Urso, except for his Willem de Kooning eyes bulging out in flinty disgust at the world. He laughingly said, “Whoa, there, Salome. Where’s Brockton?”
“Virginia.”
“Let’s do what we shoulda done years ago.”
“Raphael …” I snapped my middle finger against his forehead. “That’s all I ever wanted to do to or with you.” Ever good-humored, he laughed. Alchemy, with a female friend, unexpectedly showed up. “I’m going to talk to my son.”
Absurda had seen him, too, and we arrived by Alchemy’s side at the same moment. Absurda and Holencraft were exiting stage left for a night of indoor sports at the Stanhope. I witnessed a furtive exchange of glances and pursed lips between Alchemy and Absurda. He hummed, twinkle-eyed, “Do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do …”
I’d never previously decoded the telegraphic signs of desire and denial tapping between them. I sensated the specter of Gravity Disease tainting her soulsmell of suede shoes and a champagne bottle’s cork. I wasn’t sure if the aura of Alchemy hindered or helped her. After a time, she left for California. No matter; she couldn’t truly escape her disease, or him.
New York and I seemed to be vibrating at different frequencies. I found it harder and harder to venture out alone. My immune system began to wilt from loneliness, and the psychic temblors of another bout of Gravity Disease sent me retreating to Harlottesville and Nathaniel’s (mostly) nonjudgmental empathy. I counted the days between Alchemy’s school breaks and waited for a stirring from my psychopomps.
During the Christmas break of Alchemy’s junior/senior year (he was graduating in three years rather than four), we traveled to New York and all decamped at the 3rd Street apartment. Nathaniel intende
d to talk to him about his postgraduation plans. I didn’t care what he did. Watching the evening news one night, Nathaniel flew off on a predictable tirade about the impending invasion of Iraq and the brainwashed public. Alchemy seized the opportunity he must’ve known would come.
“Nathaniel, you taught me that when Nixon abolished the draft he did more to undermine the antiwar movement than anything else because it removed the threat to the middle-class and rich kids and their parents.”
Nathaniel nodded.
“You used to quote some French guy, ‘To resist is to create. To create is to resist.’ I think it’s a good motto in art and in life.”
Again, Nathaniel nodded. I sensed something off, but he caught me completely by surprise with what he said next.
“I enlisted in the army. I’ll be going to boot camp in July. I will resist creatively and create with resistance. And it’ll look good in the future.”
Nathaniel clasped my hand. I pulled it away. “Future! What future is that? Do you want to kill yourself to hurt me? To sacrifice, waste years shooting at people! This isn’t the fucking best way to rebel against us.”
“Mom, stop shrieking. Do you think every decision I make is because of you? You are so narcissistic. I’m making my own choices now.”
Nathaniel tried to be reasonable. “Alchemy, the way to protest a war is not to fight in it. It’s—”
“Nathaniel,” I cut him off. “Alchemy”—I lowered the volume of my voice—“I haven’t dedicated my life to you so you can die in a war started by two egomaniacs with penis problems.”
“Mom, don’t make this about anyone else, you’re still making this about yourself. You always make it about you. Whether it’s ten minutes of almost great sex in a Porta-Potty or—”
“Stop. Stop. My son cannot be this cruel.” I got down on my knees and begged him not to punish himself—to punish me, in some other way. Whatever detours I made, how foolish my actions seem, the greatest accomplishment of my life was having him as my son. Still on my knees, my voice a beaten whisper, I said, “Someday you will ache like I ache right now.” Alchemy’s face implacable, I pleaded with Nathaniel, “Please. Please don’t let him do this. Stop him.”
Nothing could sway him. In July, Alchemy left for Fort Bragg.
Then came the fire. Bellows told me that, according to Dr. Ruggles’s records, I set the Let’s Fuck Time pieces afire in the pit outside and then set some of the older Pearl Diver drawings afire in the hallway. Nathaniel and I suffered smoke inhalation and his hands suffered minor burns. Guilty and ashamed, Nathaniel agreed with Ruggles to send me back here. And I became forever unfree to walk the streets on my own.
49
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2008)
The Social Medium Is Not the Message
Sctfree1: mose, you there?
Moses wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk now. Since returning from Rio, he’d sent only one e-mail to Alchemy, detailing his meeting with Malcolm. Though he did miss their talks, messaging, and e-mail exchanges.
Sctfree1: ok, call me later.
Moses did not want to speak on the phone.
MThead23: Yes, I’m here now. What’s up?
Sctfree1: last night the chameleon mom took the form of a grand inquisitor. she asked who was that masked man at the hammer who left during my talk? meaning you.
MThead23: Geez. It’s been months.
Sctfree1: months, years, they mean nothing to her. i said you’re a collector whose parents were holocaust survivors. she sniffed like maybe she didn’t believe me. i didn’t push it. she’s a freak.
MThead23: Freaks me out. You think she knows?
Sctfree1: don’t think so. she’s never given one clue she knows any more than what she’s always believed happened.
MThead23: OK. Tell me what form she next takes.
Sctfree1: maybe now is the right time for you to meet her? you and jay come up here?
Moses took a long drink from the bottle of water on his desk.
Sctfree1: ???
MThead23: Thinking. Still absorbing all the changes. The good, the less good, and the awful. I don’t think Teumer can do me any more damage. Salome … she feels, very present.
Sctfree1: get that. when you’re ready, say the word.
Again Moses hesitated before typing.
MThead23: The word is if I do see her, it will be without Jay.
Sctfree1: whatever works best.
MThead23: Jay and I, we’re not working so well anymore. It’s been hard on her with all of my shit. We’re taking a break.
Sctfree1: wow. i’m sorry. you wanna talk? in person?
MThead23: Not now.
Sctfree1: soon. i’m in need of your eminence grise expertise.
lotta questions about the nonanswers blowin’ in wind.
MThead23: Send an e-mail. I have to go.
Go where? he thought.
The tunnel of love, as Moses and Jay had once affectionately nicknamed their home, now suggested a dank, abandoned subway tunnel. His and Jay’s bed was as welcoming as a water-soaked electrified third rail. Divorce papers he didn’t want to sign and decisions whether he could afford to buy Jay’s half of the house or sell and move awaited him after finishing his day at SCCAM and making the enervating drive from Pasadena to Venice. He spent hours reliving his meeting with his father. With each passing day, he felt better about how it had gone. He did not feel better about how he’d behaved with Jay. As a child, he’d sworn never to desert Hannah and that promise was kept. But he had failed miserably with his wife. He hadn’t physically abandoned her, but she was right—emotionally he had sealed himself off. He began to see that somehow his fear of his father had translated into behavior that helped ruin his marriage. He blamed no one but himself. Moses understood that free-floating fear and hate caused only self-destructive reactions. He could never attain peace of mind by hating, by being afraid. His least-troubled hours were spent in the classroom, re-creating the triumphs and tragedies of histories past, or gabbing in the cafeteria with his students while marveling at their youthful optimism. He often procrastinated in his windowless basement office in the humanities department. All signs of his married life erased as efficiently as Malcolm Teumer’s war crimes past. Gifts from Jay no longer hung on the walls. Photographs of Jay with her head resting on his shoulder, which he’d featured prominently on his desk, now removed. He wondered if anyone had noticed.
The answer arrived one April evening when Moses, lying on the chocolate-brown office couch, was interrupted by a tapping on the closed door. He pushed himself up, rubbed his eyes, and opened the door to find Evie-Anne Baxter, an MFA music student who needed to pass his class to fulfill unfinished BFA requirements, flashing her evanescent smile. “Saw the light on under the crack. You mind?” Evie wore a white midriff T-shirt that left her belly and tattooed shoulders exposed. She closed the door and plopped down onto the sofa. She dangled her sandaled feet over the sofa’s arm, wiggling her toes. Moses propped open the door, his standard policy, before sitting upright in his swivel chair behind his desk across from the sofa.
“You’re here late.” Evie yawned as she spoke. “I could use a nap. Or a beer.”
“I’m still marking midterms.”
“Yeah? When my parents divorced, it was like, hell on my dad. He stayed late in his office, too.”
Taken aback, Moses paused before issuing a flat-voiced, “I’m sorry to hear that.” Clearly, his impending divorce was common knowledge.
Evie sighed histrionically. “I’m not doing great in your class, am I?”
“Great … No.” Moses turned around in his chair and pulled out Evie’s test paper from the stack. He reached to hand it to her but she didn’t move, so he placed it back on the desk. “You received a C-plus on your midterm.”
“Evie and tests, like bad combo. I need to get at least a B to keep my scholarship. What can I do?”
Moses issued his stock answer: participate more in class, study harder. Unable to veer his ey
es away from her exposed skin, he asked, “If not that, what do you propose?”
She answered eagerly, “I propose you and I go for a drink and talk about it someplace less stuffy and more fun.”
“Evie, that’s not appropriate. Besides, I’m not a fun guy these days.”
Evie sat up, jutted her lower lip like a sulky child, and then sang, ad-libbing the last words, “How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they seen Paree … or spent some time with me … ee?” He had begun his lecture on the Jazz Age by playing that song. “Not appropriate? Maybe for you, but for the other profs here, this is like the Harvard of horndogism. What’re you gonna do tonight? Like, watch the History Channel? C’mon.” She waved her hand to say, Let’s go.
“You’re obviously paying attention, so please participate more. That’ll help your grade.” He showed her to the door.
In the following weeks, Evie flitted in and out of class carefree as ever. Moses avoided prolonged eye contact or speaking to her alone in the halls. He realized he was acting as if something unseemly had actually passed between them.
In late May, the semester was officially over and all were preparing for the summer break. Moses was staring at a text from Jay asking him not to cancel the meeting with his divorce attorney again, when Evie knocked on Moses’s office door. “Hey, Professor T, you got a minute?”
“Sure.”
Leaving the door open, Evie sauntered in, stood in the middle of the room, and grinned. “Thanks for the grade.”
“You did extremely well on your final exam. Scholarship intact, I presume.”
“I studied hard. And I did really love your class. You’re the first guy that ever made history like fun. Hey, my band is playing at the Smell tonight. Evie and the Bralasses. I’d love it if you came. Some of my music profs are coming.”
Moses demurred. “Previous plans.” He did have a meeting with his divorce attorney.