Broken Sleep (43 page)

“Mose, I’m going to
need
your knowledge and smarts when we go political.”

“There are many people smarter and way more experienced than me in working the political game.”

“I’ll hire them when the time comes. None of them is my brother.” Alchemy took a few purposeful gulps of his drink. “Tell me if I’m right about this, during the revolution, Washington used as his motto ‘Victory or Death.’ ”

“I’m not sure if it was his motto. He did use that phrase as the password during the crossing of the Delaware River. One would have to say ‘victory’ and the other had to answer with ‘or death’ to get by.”

“Good enough. Now, what I’m going to say, I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. I’m not. My mom was taken from me when she flipped out at the gallery and stabbed Lively and herself. When I was thirteen and living in Berlin, she tried to jump off a balcony so she could climb the Wall. Both times I stood by helpless. When I turned twenty-one, the Bickleys maneuvered to take away the small money in the trust earmarked for me and I couldn’t get my mom out of Collier Layne. I had no prospects. No backup plan when we started the Insatiables. It was all or nothing. If we made it, I promised myself two things. First, I would take care of Salome and Nathaniel.”

He took a few gulps of his vodka.

“Now, I’ve kept that promise as best I could. I made a second promise to Nathaniel and myself—to find a third way politically. It’s now time to start that process. I only know how to do things all the way—victory or death.”

With that, Alchemy laid out his offer. He would set aside money in a trust for lifetime health insurance, a $100K salary, and if Moses’s cancer returned, or if it just didn’t work out, he’d still get paid until he recovered or found another job. But more than the money, it was an opportunity to be part of history, not just teach it. “Think about any questions. I got to take a leak.”

When Alchemy returned, Moses posed a more immediate question. “Where’s Salome living?”

“Here some, and Shelter Island. Nathaniel is not doing so well.”

“Sorry to hear that. There’s more to evaluate, and if I take this, it’ll be time to end that charade.”

“Agreed … Mose, should we talk about Jay?”

“No need. Lot of divorces after cancer. And our failure had nothing to do with you. End of story.”

Alchemy nodded.

Moses continued, “Alchemy, there
is
something we need to discuss. If we’re going to do this, and continue our relationship on any serious level, you can never again lie to me in words or by silence. If I sign on, and I find out any more subterfuge, I walk.”

“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.”

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.

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.