by Bruce Bauman
I tell Lux I’ll catch him later ’cause I need to talk to Salome. I’m not ten feet down the path when Laluna races up. “Don’t bother her today.” She says Salome’s been behaving extra biddy-bip, even for her, and they’re moving her to her own place. “We’ll all meet in the studio after everyone clears out. Come by then.” Laluna ain’t her usual unflappable superhip chick self. As pissed as I am, I try to be a good guy. “It’ll work out. Ya know Alchy, he can fix anything. He’ll fix this.”
Most people are only half watching the game. Mrs. Mose is so drunk that Mose has to hold her up as they stumble over to the house. All the shit that’s gone down with them, I’d start drinking, too. Well, drinking even more. I call Carlotta, who don’t answer. Must be working. I leave a message I might be home late. I’d bet five grand on the over/under, so I watch the game with some guys who is also actual football fans. And wait.
83
THE SONGS OF SALOME
Before a Cock Crows
Parnell Palmer and I, with Bellows by my side in her office, held a computer TV chat because he still has more questions and I had more answers. Screens are hindrances to any sensate morphologist, but I acceded when Palmer agreed that Persephone could soon visit with me. There is a not so minor catch. She is somewhere in Eastern Europe. I tried to wheedle Perse’s exact whereabouts and the time of her expected return. He stonewalled.
Palmer began this cross-examination by asking if I’d heard Alchemy and Laluna arguing about her consorting with Godfrey Barker and Jack Crouse. I hadn’t. Crouse was so bland and inarticulate—worth maybe one fuck.
Through the screen, I recounted to Palmer what transpired on the day when, a few days before their football party, Laluna brought Crouse and Barker to my studio for a second time.
Barker began by apologizing for the collector he thought might want a Baddist Boy collage, who had passed. This was news to me and gave me a taste of his entitlement, since I’d told him I wouldn’t sell it. He suggested I do a commission for their new church in Hollywood. I said thanks but no thanks, which provoked an attack from Godfrey the Enlightened. He said the antipsycho drugs “stulted” my artistic growth and caused me to become even more “unstable.” “Truthfully,” he said, “I offered the commission as a favor to Laluna.” He smiled arrogantly. “You haven’t done anything exceptional in years.”
Laluna blanched.
“Barker, I don’t need favors from her or from you, and I take insults from vulgarians like you as compliments.”
Too self-absorbed to notice Laluna’s discomfort, he lectured me on the benefits of Cosmological Kinetic therapy, which would “purify” my demons and “open” me up to create “monumental” art again.
Crouse chimed in too enthusiastically, “It’s great! Really great! You should try it!”
I paid no attention to him and addressed Barker. “Exorcisms of any kind do not intrigue me. I am my demons.”
“It’s not an exorcism. Purification puts you in touch with those demons and then you’ll embrace and control them. Ask Laluna. You two would become much more simpatico and mutually supportive of each other, and of Alchemy, instead of jousting rivals.”
The only impediment to improving my relations with Laluna was her imposing upon my relations with Perse. If she’d stopped that, we’d have been just groovy.
Palmer had listened through the screen without much comment. I heard his muffled voice speaking to someone off-screen. Then he swung his axe.
“So you didn’t say to Barker that you’d burn his church before you’d ever create art for it?”
“No. Why would I? I might’ve implied that cavemen had superior aesthetics.”
“Salome, no need for me to delve more deeply into your memory lapses and actual past pyrotechnics. I’m more interested in a conversation between you and Laluna that took place the evening before the party. You threatened to use whatever sway you had over Alchemy to tell him that you sniffed that she and Crouse were having an affair, to stop her from surrendering Persephone to Moses Teumer’s care for a month.”
I explained to Palmer that it wasn’t a conversation. I didn’t threaten her. I asked her about Crouse. She didn’t hold her fire. She spit out, “Unlike you, I would never fuck someone behind the back of the man I love.” Explaining myself to her was futile. I tried a new tactic. She’d written a few maudlin songs to accompany some new Petra Sansluv drawings. Initially, I was reluctant to partner with her. Still, I suggested we plan an exhibition/concert together. I begged her to let Persephone stay with me and the nannies when they went on vacation. She just bobbed her head from side to side. That meant “Drop dead.”
84
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2018)
Hat Trick
Unsettled by the machinations of Winslow and Barker, Moses, vodka in hand, returned to his former seat at the now empty table. He need not be an ace deducer of silences to read trouble in Jay’s herky-jerky walk as she returned to the table holding two glasses of wine. With some difficulty, she managed to sit down. She drank down one of the glasses. “You’ll have to drive. Oh, Moses …” She blew her nose in a napkin. She picked up his icy-cold vodka glass and held it against her forehead as she talked. “Salome is trying to stop you from seeing Persephone. And she went off on Laluna, saying she isn’t fit to raise Perse. They’re at war and I’m not sure who is going to win.”
Moses let out an overly loud, “Fuck that.” He took the vodka glass from her and downed it in three gulps and stood up. Jay, almost relieved, thought Moses meant to speak to Laluna to find out more. Jay could only hope that Laluna would ask Moses about Persephone and save her from confessing her breach.
Moses marched down the path leading to the cottage, composing the first words he’d ever speak to his mother. He heard muffled music. He knocked on the door. Ten seconds later he knocked again. Harder. The music lowered, and she appeared in the doorway as he’d never seen her in photos: in a paint-splattered orange T-shirt—her arms, bony thin—white cotton pants, a pink kerchief around her neck, complexion translucent, skin almost scaly. Her spirit, though, showed no loss of vigor, no signs of surrender to aging or fatigue. “At last, you made the pilgrimage. Sorry, it’s too late, my overture expired.”
“What overture? You did everything in your power to deny me. And you’re trying to deny me Persephone.”
Salome deliberated before taking a step toward him and shutting the door behind her. “I tried to reach you through our DNA. When you didn’t respond, I determined you are not truly my son.”
Undeterred, Moses countered, “I am your son. I’ll never figure out why you hate me because I didn’t die. If my father was that evil … This is not about him. It’s not even about you and me. I’m not foolish enough to doubt you can make me bleed again. I accept, finally, that there will be no happy or even sorrowful sunset moment of reunion. We share only this—an unhealable rift.”
Salome touched Moses’s left cheek with the crinkled skin of her fingers. For the first time since his birth, her flesh met his flesh. It did not burn. Nor did it heal.
“I am sorry and also I am not sorry,” she said. “More often than anyone likes to believe, our choices are made for, not by, us.”
Moses refused to rebut her excuses. “Laluna is Persephone’s mother, not you. You don’t have the power to deprive me of seeing her.”
“Teumer was wrong. You do have balls. Oh, yes, ever beneficent, he sent me a copy of the letter he gave Alchemy for you.”
Moses’s head bowed. Eyes closed. Mouth parched. Tongue thickened. So much of his life remained lost in a miasma of obfuscations and misconceptions. Salome reached out and tilted his chin upward. “For the good of all, for all you believe in, release yourself from Alchemy and let him fulfill his destiny.” Then she clapped her hands at the air between them. “Moses …”—she said his name, her son’s name, not with derision but compassion—“stay.” She disappeared into the studio. She returned holding a tattered red beret. “I only met my mother one
time. She gave me this. I bequeath it to you. Now please, please leave us.” She placed it delicately on his head, turned, and retreated, locking the door behind her.
85
THE SONGS OF SALOME
Sweet Savor
The explanation of my meeting with Laluna and Barker did not cause Palmer to temper his inquisition. Thinking always of my Persephone, I continued my account.
After his morning run on the day of the party, Alchemy stopped at my cottage and plaintively explained again that he and Laluna needed time alone and away. While they were gone, I might not be able to stay in my cottage or in the main house. He said Persephone would be staying elsewhere. I asked with who. He acted as if he hadn’t heard that Laluna and I had already argued about it. He did make it clear that when they returned, he and Laluna preferred if we’d all talk civilly about a possible alternative living situation for me.
“And you passively agreed to that?” Palmer asked.
“Laluna owned his balls. That trumps all other weapons.”
Through the screen, I felt Palmer’s condemnation. “When we first talked, you admitted that you gave Moses a hat when he came to your studio. Why’d you do that?”
“A lot about that day is hazy.” I’d made a mistake with that admission. Too late.
“It seems so. Why’d you give it to him?”
“An impulsive act.”
“So we agree that you are susceptible to impulsive acts. Given that your fingerprints and DNA were found on the weapon, perhaps shooting your son was another of your impulsive and hazily remembered acts.”
He didn’t pose that as a question.
“I didn’t shoot my son. I didn’t. Lots of people’s fingerprints and DNA must’ve been on it. Moses. Laluna. Alchemy. Mindswallow. Fuck you, Palmer, that’s it. Until I see Persephone, we are done.”
“Yes, now about Persephone and Moses—”
“There is nothing to say about them. Nothing.”
I couldn’t tell Palmer that I gifted Moses Greta’s hat as an act of mourning, and also relief, because I sensated cancer cells growing inside him. Yes, cancer has a very particular smell. I sensated that Moses would soon die and Alchemy would be saved.
86
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2018)
Enormous Changes
With both Moses and Jay too drunk to drive, and Jay feeling queasy, they climbed the stairs to the second floor. They passed Persephone’s room and headed toward an open door at the far end of the hall. The lone double bed was untouched. No suitcases from possible overnight visitors. They entered. Jay used the adjoining bathroom. Moses checked his phone, which had been vibrating. He opened an e-mail marked “Urgent” from a Nightingale media watcher. Moses pressed the link and the screen opened to TMZ. One of their “correspondents” had staked out the Topanga Canyon Boulevard entrance to the Alchemy compound and posted a video “interview” with Crouse. He stuck his head out the window of the Mercedes to answer questions.
“Jack, Jack, how was the party?”
“The Super Bowl party is super. The Nightingale Party is a disaster. Alchemy is a brilliant rock star and a lousy politician. He asked me to join him in supporting the California secession movement. How silly is that? Love the guy, but he should stay out of politics and stick to music and … very young girls.”
“Stay tuned.”
Moses forwarded it to Alchemy with a note: “You were right.”
“Please put that away.” Jay parachuted onto the bed. Moses lifted one leg to the edge of the bed and balanced himself with the other against the floor. Jay rubbed his back. “There was more,” she said, her words slurring slightly. “I screwed up. Laluna, I think, I’m not sure, but maybe, somehow she didn’t know about you and Persephone. Now she knows.”
Too dispirited and anxious to react beyond frustration, he simply sighed. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m pretty sure that Alchemy lied to her, and to you. What’s this?” Jay pulled the beret from his back pocket.
His phone rang. Laluna’s name flashed on the screen. “No, Moses. Please.” Jay patted down her hair and pulled the beret onto her head. “Fits.”
He didn’t want to talk about his mother. Not yet.
“Let me”—glassy-eyed and grinning, she snatched his phone, turned it off, dropped it on the floor, lay back, and reached to tug him down on top of her—“satiate … you …”
Years before, Jay’s jesting words could have spurred jealousy or despair. No more. Moses thought, Sure, why the hell not?
87
THE SONGS OF SALOME
The Not So Long Goodbye
After my reborn son’s intrusion, the eviscerating, unseen light was drawing me to the dark matter. I dug a small fire pit behind my cottage. I lit some scrap paper and twigs. I gathered up photos of Art Is Dead and the Teumer Baddist Boys collages and carried them outside. I didn’t hear Alchemy until he stood beside me.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
“I had a visitor.”
“I saw.” The belated rampaging of Gravity Disease had transformed his effervescent blue orbs into wary slits encumbered by sadness. His delicate, unblemished skin turned blotchy and rough-hewn. “Mom, you don’t have to burn them.”
“You never conveyed my offer for a family get-to-know-you session? How can you let Persephone stay with him instead of me? Why, Alchemy why?”
“It doesn’t matter now. After tonight, you won’t have to worry about him staying here while we’re away or his coming here to visit.”
“Is he sick again? I inhaled a serious case of Gravity Disease.”
He didn’t answer. “Mom, don’t fret. It’s all taken care of.” Alchemy picked up the pieces and placed them in the studio. He returned and scooped some dirt, and we watched the fire die before it really got started. “I love you, Mom.”
I thought, In the end, he couldn’t betray me. I was so pleased.
“Got to say goodbye to the last people cleaning up and then tuck Persephone into bed.” He turned to leave.
“Kiss her good night for me. Tell her I’ll come to see her in the morning.”
88
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2018)
Strange Interlude
After their twilight frolic, Moses and Jay both conked out. Down the hall, Alchemy finished reading Persephone a bedtime story. He clasped her tiny hand tightly in his. “Perse, honey, Mommy and I are going on a trip very soon. Uncle Mose and Auntie Jay will take care of you. Would you like that?”
“Yes.”
“Mommy and I will call you every day.”
“What about Granmamma? Is she going?”
“No, just Mommy and I. Granmamma is going on her own vacation.”
Perse’s bottom lip drooped sulkily. Alchemy tickled it with his pointer finger. “Daddy, d-on-on’t …”
“We’ll be back sooner than you can sing, ‘Petra Sansluv found her pearls.’ ”
“More.”
“ ‘At the bottom of the Black Sea / if you climb the Black Pearl tree / you can make a wish / to the Pearl Tree fish …’ ”
Persephone’s eyelids shut. Her lips formed into a smile, her breathing soft and peaceful.
Moses’s head snapped forward. He sat up. Head between pillows, Jay snored away. Grabbing his clothes, he dressed in the bathroom and turned on his phone. There were two missed calls from Laluna, an e-mail from Sidonna Cherry to him and Alchemy, and a follow-up from Alchemy, which now included Lux, Dooley, Warfield, and Pullham-Large with the subject: Defcon 1. This will drop at midnight unless we can stop it.
“Oh, fuck, what now?” He read the section that Alchemy had copy/pasted into his e-mail.
SpeedFeed can report that the Senate Committee on Anti-American Activities has issued subpoenas for Alchemy Savant and his brother, Moses Teumer. Among other things, the senators want to speak to the brothers regarding their ties to the deceased, unrepentant Nazi war criminal and father of Moses, Malcolm Teumer. Our sources, who requested ano
nymity, report that the brothers constructed an intricate maze with the singular purpose of confusing anyone seeking to understand the family relationships. We can state that the brothers visited the Sr. Teumer separately in Brazil. Salome Savant, mother of Moses, maintained relations with her lover until his death. Moses Teumer, a former professor of history at SCCAM, was well known among his students and colleagues for his profoundly anti-American lectures. Alchemy also has ties to the IFC, which has at least one member affiliated with white supremacist groups in its hierarchy.
Although not yet officially part of the CAA investigation, SpeedFeed’s independent sources allege sexual swapping among Alchemy Savant, his live-in partner, Maria Lopez Appelian aka Laluna, Moses Teumer, and his ex-wife, Jay Bernes.
Moses cursed under his breath. “Oh fuck fuck fucking bastards. LBJ pig-fucking hell.” He read Alchemy’s response, which was underneath the SpeedFeed report.
If they pub we go full force. High road denial/attack strategy? Get me booked on the morning shows. Mose, we need target points. Think about appearing w/me on at least one show. We only have a few hours. Know you guys only just got home, but we may need a midnite meet. More soon.
89
MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’
Sins You Been Gone, 2018
I never cared less about winning a bet. Stragglers are dragging their butts getting out. Laluna is hiding in the kitchen with the cleanup crew. Alchemy has disappeared. Lux, who’s been hanging with me, gotta take off. I’m so tense I ain’t feeling no buzz from the booze. I pass by Salome’s cottage and studio. No lights. It’s getting chilly so I go wait in the recording studio. I grab a beer from the fridge and open the skylight and keep the ceiling lights low. Strum a few chords on an acoustic. I’m not feeling it, so I sit at the board and tinker. I see something labeled 33 Visitations. Sounds like what Alchy gave me in the bar the night we kissed and made up. I see the two of ’em coming. They look like the Titanic and the iceberg steaming at each other, only I don’t know who is which one.