Broken Sleep (58 page)
Authors: Bruce Bauman
“Kiss her good night for me. Tell her I’ll come to see her in the morning.”
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 anonymity, 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.
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.
Alchy don’t flinch when he sees me. He turns all loose limbed, using his I-can-solve-the-world’s-problems-just-’cause-I’m-me voice, and asks, “So, what is the crisis?”
Laluna hands him the paper from the clinic. “Tell Ambitious what you told me.”
He stares at me, shaking his head. “You won’t be happy.”
“I ain’t happy now, so stop bullshittin’ and start talking.”
“We were both taking a piss outside Madam Rosa’s. Absurda told me she was pregnant.” He’s standing to the left of me. Laluna jams her jaw tight and is letting him talk. “I told her we’d cancel the rest of the tour because you’d want to stay home with her … Although there was no reason, she was thanking me. She was pretty emotional.” His and Laluna’s unwavering eyes are X-raying me. I feel naked, like we’re all naked. “Yeah, Ambitious, it was yours.”
“Is this some Alchemy slick scheming?” I say all full of bravado. Only my bones know it’s truth.
“What could she do, after you ran off to the Plaza and ended it like you did?”
“That got nuthin’ to do with you not tellin’ me. Motherfucker, you shoulda told me. How the …” I hated the sound of my whiny voice.
“I gave my word to Absurda.”
Thinking he’s settled it with me, he slides next to Laluna. He is like six inches taller than her, only they feel the same height. She backs away and walks up the three steps behind the console, like she can’t stand to be near him.
I ain’t satisfied. “Alchemy, why the fuck—”
“Ambitious,” Laluna cuts me off, not raising her voice, her body shaking, full of quiet rage. “Ambitious, he’s telling you the truth. It’s impossible for him to have a kid of his own. He lied to me. To everyone. Persephone’s not his—she’s Moses’s.”
I’m so torched, and in my own head, what she says don’t sink in. “Why the fuck did Absurda tell
you
first?!” I smash my fucking beer bottle against the wall. The pieces fly everywhere.
“Ambitious.” He reaches for me. I spin around, still squeezing the bottle’s neck, ready to mince-meat his pretty face. Laluna bulls herself between us. “Go. Cool off. This is between Alchemy and me now.” I sense that it’s best I take a hike ’cause I never, not once, ever seen her even close to crying ’til that second.
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2018)
AU 79 1850F
Finding no one in the house, Moses frantically searched outside. He spotted the recording studio’s lights and headed down the path. While walking, he sent his response e-mail to everyone else. He heard Mindswallow cursing to no one outside Salome’s studio. He kept walking and typing.
Must somehow stall SpeedFeed for 48 hours. Get best lawyers. Dispelling lies postpub could prove fatal. Brazen act of pubbing w/o asking for reaction indicates suicide bomber job. Meeting Alchemy now. Call ASAP.
Orange-yellow lights streamed out of the open studio door. Voices crackled like sparking electric wires. Their fury quieted as he passed over the threshold and into the studio.
Laluna spoke first. “Mose, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me, too. Mose, tell her. Tell her Persephone’s
mine
.”
Moses was ready to do battle with political enemies over the SpeedFeed smears, not with Alchemy over Persephone’s paternity, Jay’s betrayal of his confidence, or the fact that Alchemy had broken his word again. Certainly not his own role in the whole mess.
“Go ahead, Mose, tell me. First, take a good look at your brother, the god of cool.” Her voice punched out with contempt. “America’s savior. The big man reduced to groveling so his brother covers for him.”
Moses, wobbly and uncertain how to answer, moved deeper inside, sidestepping strewn instruments. He halted between them. He sighed and bowed his head for a second, and regained enough composure to speak. “I can’t. Alchemy, I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“Laluna knows the truth.”
“Mose, how could you?”
Laluna answered for him. “He didn’t. Jay confirmed what I didn’t want to believe.”
Moses felt obligated to defend Jay. “She didn’t mean to, it just—”
“What? Mose? You told Jay? You lied to me?”
“You lied to me first. You swore you’d told Laluna.”
“
Boys
, it doesn’t matter who lied first. Or last. I’m taking my daughter away from
all
of you. Tonight. For good.” Through the skylight, a moonlit silhouette of Laluna’s face glistening from her silent tears.
Suddenly, the invulnerable edifice that was Alchemy began to topple. Not from the calumnies of his enemies; those he could repel and master. No, the dream-deniers of time and truth arose, leaving the invented past in ruins and annihilating Alchemy’s imagined future. Moses reached his right hand toward his brother, a sign he loved him, that they’d work it out somehow. Alchemy’s eyes—drained of their luminous energy, now dulled and static—closed.
MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’
Sealed with a Judas Kiss, 2018
I’m pounding on Salome’s door. “We gotta fucking talk!” She yaps back, “Give me a fucking minute. I’m coming!” She opens up, wearing only a nightgown, pointing her freakin’ flashlight in my eyes. I push it away. “Salome, no Savant slime-speak, whattaya know about Nathaniel and Absurda’s abortion?”
She leans against the doorway. “Oh, poor, poor Ricky.” She’s puts her fingers through my hair and pushes it off my forehead. “It certainly wasn’t Nathaniel’s abortion. Amanda needed our help and love, and we gave it to her.”
“I woulda helped her if she asked.”
“Why would she, after you tossed her away like a tattered hand-me-down doll?”
“Alchemy say it was his kid or mine?”
“I never asked. It didn’t matter.”
“Like it don’t matter if Laluna is tellin’ the truth and Persephone ain’t his but Mose’s, and that’s why they’re movin’ you outta here for good.”
“Not Alchemy’s?”
“No. Moses’s.”
She jumps to the obvious conclusion, which I’d blanked on before ’cause I was so whacked over my own shit. And like she’s thirty, not seventy-five, barefoot and in her nightgown, she takes off, flying down the path.
THE SONGS OF SALOME
Nonny, Nonny
Mindswallow’s fierce knocking invaded my sedative-induced state and, in his fury, he revealed the duplicity between Moses and the succubus. How could they do that to my son? How could Alchemy conspire with them to remove me not just from their home—but their lives? How? Running down the path, my bare feet began to bleed and I heard Margarita:
Now, Salome, now
.
MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’
Had to Cry Today, 2018
I chase Salome. I catch her and she says, “Don’t stop me.” Ain’t no point. I trot alongside her. It sounds sorta like it’s chilled in there, and I’m thinking Alchemy done worked his magic one more time, when fucking Salome, so freaking amped, bursts ahead of me and tackles Laluna and is clawing at her face. Me and Alchy dive in and pull her off. She tries to kick me in the nuts. I wrap her in my arms. Laluna, still on her knees, stares at Salome like she’s gonna rip her eyes out and feed ’em to the coyotes.
“Mom, Ambitious is going to let you go. You done?” She nods. I do. Carefully.
Alchemy extends his arms to Laluna and helps her up. Mose starts wiping her cheeks with his shirt.
Laluna asks for some water. I go get a bottle from the fridge.
Out of my good eye I see Salome’s tiptoed up to the console. “Salome, what the—?” The others turn. Too late. The Beretta is aimed at me.
She shifts her sights to Mose and starts singing,
“Say, hey, the mother not only rises / she also surprises …”
Mose, he dares her, dead cold, “Do it. Do it.” She cackles. Me and Alchy flash eye contact. Salome, she nuzzles the gun at her head, shrieks, “I can’t! I must!…” Alchemy takes off with a superhuman leap and soars up and over the console. Laluna, Mose, me—we charge at them. In midair, Alchemy clutches Salome’s hands in his—and fuck …
ALCHEMY OF THE WORD
Ach du Liebestod
One shot. Wonder.
Pop’s music make me. Sing. Do I wake? Ever. Never. More. I Savant to be. Alone. Full scream. Ahead! Row your row your boat gently down the sleep stream, verily, verily, verily life is but an American. Dream.
Laluna comin’ down, down. On you. In me. On we. Ennui. Woman, behold. Let yer Savant bluz people go. Go free. Go. Down Mose, go down. To the crossroads. Beg a ride. Promised Land. Denied.
Salomay, she say—Get Bent. I’m crying.
Owed to my Nightingale. Beautyless and truthless. All you need. Is. Had to run. Home. Home run. Take a loss. Do away with pity and party, party. Bacchanalian slide. ’Tis not the meat, ’tis the notion. Jump trope.
Persephone! You are not mine as I was yours. I die … for you. You be MTease. Mal Comes. Say Ha-nah nah nah nah, nah-anah nan-anah nana-anah-yaweh. I cry. Lalunabye.
Moseying down the stream merrily, merrily ’til. Hannah No Mo’ Ma and Pa Mal ain’t no faux pas nor no po’fa so la tee. Duh-oh.
Do you know how to lonely? The Mose knows.
I prez pro tempus fugit of the California Dreamin’ society. No fun. Sing. I am. Too largesse to be. Tell me. No lie. Dance!
Roll roll, up roll up to the American history mystery tour. To. Roll down. In paradise. Whoa! No rocks in the soul. Time to stroll. Blessed be the satiable man. J’ai faim. Je t’aime. I thirst.
I consum-ate myself. Oh, soul-o mea culpa runneth over my desire. My kingdom come. Pray. No way. To who? You voodoo to do Yahweh diddy derri-dum derri-do derri-dada. He say, who we baby, ’oo we? Won’t you let me take you on a See cruise? See the zeits. No zeit und sein. To sein or not to sein, sin?
Happiness is. Sing. That’s the same old song all nich nacht long. Don’t nail me down, for I stigmatter at heaven’s door. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Apparent. Apparent who? A parent who’s not there is a parent only in name. Apparently. A child with no name is.
Salomay I ask you a question? Momism? Ism-ism ism go schism miss’im, miss’im go gism, fee fi ego-ism. Cry. All God’s isms got no rhythm. Go get ’em and construct destruct. My spirit. Mama committed. Songless.
