Broken Sleep (29 page)

“Not at all. I won’t desert you. I want you two to come.”

“And I want you to take it.”

Over the following weeks, Nathaniel never mustered the courage to say: I am going to France with or without you. Our relationship became laden with recriminatory jibes and plaintive facial tics. I finally erupted.

“Stop looking at me as if I’m your ball and chain!” I stomped off and locked myself in the bathroom. Facing the door, I shrieked, “I love you, but if I marry you, you’ll share power over me with the Bickleys. I can’t give you that!”

His bare feet thumped on the wood floor toward the bathroom and he bellowed in his self-righteous/aggressive/injured Nathaniel-Brockton-on-the-podium tone that he rarely used with me, “Is that so terrible? You can’t possibly trust them more than me!”

I tempered my voice. “You love me and they don’t. You’ll act with your heart. You’ll feel guilty. I don’t want to hate you if you put me back in Collier Layne. And you will.” I opened the door a few inches and peeked out. “You’re scared, right? Afraid that I was in here hurting myself?” He grimaced as if I’d clawed his cheek. “Answer me, Nathaniel!”

“Yes,” he said dejectedly. “Yes, you scare me. Are you proud of it?”

Perhaps it was better for all if he left without me.

The Big Enchilada

Almost four years after they first met, Alchemy insisted they have dinner at the Don’s, a local Mexican restaurant in Culver City. Moses was already seated in a booth and reading a book when Alchemy slid into the seat across from him. “Sorry to interrupt. You look engrossed. What is it?” Moses held up the cover that read
The Disinherited Mind
and then placed it down on the table.

With the exception of a few goo-goo-eyed glances or thumbs-ups, the customers couldn’t have cared less about the famous guy lounging in the crusty booth in the darkest corner of the room.

Alchemy ordered a large guacamole, three tacos, a shrimp fajita dinner, a beer, and a margarita all for himself. Moses was always impressed with his gargantuan appetite and his ability to remain damn near skeletal. Alchemy finished crunching down a chip with hot salsa and guac. “I do my best to keep Salome and Nathaniel away from L.A. because I don’t want to tempt you without knowing what you want to do.”

“Still nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Butterworth says I have to do what feels right for me. I’m still healing, and then the real battle will begin. Ruggles has no idea how Salome will react. And I have no idea how I will react to her reaction.”

“Sounds right. How’s it going with Ben?”

“Eking along. The middle-of-the-night calls freak Jay out, and then she’s cranky in the morning. I’ve started frequently sleeping on the futon in my room.” Moses, thinking that might sound suspicious, quickly added, “Not that often. I mean we’re … you know.” He wasn’t about to admit that their sex life had diminished considerably, a fact he skirted around even with Butterworth. “She supports the therapy. He and I are doing some traditional in-office work, too.”

“You look healthy. Not so fragile.”

“Doing some yoga. I’m lousy at it, but overall, doing okay. Blood tests have been good.”

“Excellent … Any chance I’m going to be an uncle?”

Moses looked up and stared at the seaside painting on the wall. He was sorry he even hinted at the possibility during their talks while he was in the hospital.

“Sorry, Mose, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“We reconsidered it but …” He didn’t finish his sentence. If he had, it would’ve gone like this:
I’m still afraid I’m going to die soon and I don’t want my kid to be fatherless at three years old and I don’t think Jay wants that responsibility and we’re cold-shoulder arguing over nothing, which is not a good atmosphere and I’m going to be fifty and she forty
 … Instead, Moses changed the subject. “What is so urgent about meeting up?”

“We’re embarking on a world tour to promote
Noncommittal
. I’m leaving in October and I’ll be gone off and on for about two years. It’s the Around the World in 800 Days tour.”

For the past two years, Alchemy and the band, with Absurda’s replacement Silky Trespass, former guitarist of the Come Queens, had been touring the States. Moses and Jay did not mention seeing them when they played L.A.

“Have you discussed seeing your father with Ben?”

Moses didn’t understand what seeing his father had to do with the Insatiables going on tour. “Yes, and according to Sidonna Cherry, this guy Lively said he is still willing to allow an audience,” Moses said sarcastically.

“Laban Lively?”

“You know Lively?” Neither of them had mentioned Lively to the other before.

“Yessiree. We first met when I was a kid and I bit his ankle just before Salome stabbed him with box cutters.”

Moses had read about this incident, but it had omitted Lively’s name and Alchemy’s biting Lively. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning. “And you wonder why I’m afraid to see her.”

“Oh, no, I don’t wonder at all.” Alchemy scrunched his eyebrows and shook his head. “She also managed to slice her hands before Lively slapped her unconscious and they took her away to Collier Layne.”

“You saw all this?”

“Most vivid memory of my childhood. When they took her away was the last time I cried, until Absurda died.”

“Alchemy, I’m so sorry.”

“So it goes.”

Moses rolled his lips together, pressed them against his teeth, and lowered his eyes. Each time he peered into the carnage of Salome’s madness and the burdens her affliction cast upon Alchemy, he felt more deeply bonded to his brother than he could have ever imagined.

“So Lively is friends with your father?”

“Seems so. Lively insinuated that he was WWII military intelligence and they met during the war and continued a business affiliation ever since.”

“Salome says Lively is CIA. What? Mose, you look distressed.”

“I’ve been more obsessed about my father than anything else in my life. And now when all I must do is act and ask … I can’t …” Moses halted, his words stuck in this throat. “Every time I seriously consider making plans to meet either one of them … I think about my mom, Hannah, I really miss her … and I become almost cataleptic.”

“Shit, Mose. What I’m going to say might help you. Might make it worse.”

“Wh-at?” A tremor crept into Moses’s voice.

Alchemy gulped down his beer. “Mose, this is tough. Salome is going to have a major exhibition at the Hammer Museum. Some new work. Some old. Not happening for maybe two, three years. She’ll be visiting often. I wanted to give you enough time to absorb it. Mull it over. Or get out of town.”

Moses cupped both of his hands around his glass of lemonade. “Thanks. I think. Jay would’ve probably found out. I wonder if she’s already heard rumors.”

“It’s bound to get around the art world.”

“I’ve searched Salome on the Net and cross-examined Jay about her art. I wish Salome’s parents were alive. Maybe I could have asked them about my ‘death.’ ”

“Me, too. For lots of reasons.”

“I’m still terrified of confronting her.”

“Wish I could say your fear is unwarranted.” Alchemy stood up. “I gotta use the facilities and get another beer and taco. You want something?”

Moses shook his head, overcome by a daymare:

Slipping and sliding along a jagged cliff, I walk into the sky, but instead of falling, I float-crash along. Suddenly, I begin to plunge through the atmosphere. I’m screaming but no words come out. I smash into the ground and my body, like a rocket, burrows deeper until I crash in a dark mine. Everything in my life is being sucked into the mine on top of me—Jay, our house, cars, clothes, books, and CDs. Someone is sealing the mine and burying me alive. From aboveground I hear the laughter of the dybbuk Shalom,—Don’t miss your last chance
.

Gasping for air, I yell,—To do what?

“Yo, Mose. Mose?”

Moses looked at Alchemy vacantly.

—
I warned you …

“Whew. I’m surmising you’ve inherited the Savant dream-state gene.”

“Suppose so.”

Alchemy didn’t inquire further, and Moses didn’t want to hear any more about his inheritance. “Bro, brought you a beer. Sorry if I upset the balance.”

“No worries. I appreciate the heads-up. So, can I ask a question about your father?

“Shoot.”

“You think I should see her and Teumer, but you never want to see Phillip Bent again?”

Alchemy scarfed down another taco. “It’s not the same. Salome is your mother. It might be good for her, since no one seems to know what really went down. She wanted you. And your other mom is gone. With Teumer, shit, I get that. It’s hard for me to admit, but yeah, I wanted to meet my father. When I did, like I told you, he was a prick who has never changed. Fuck it, Mose, no one understands your hesitation more than I do. I know what it’s like to be unwanted. I also understand that what I’m going to say is no fun to hear.” Alchemy took his time and took two more gulps of his beer. “Salome never got over your death.”

“I guessed that, only I’m trapped between guilt, curiosity, and fear of a rejection that will crush me. Let me cogitate.”

“Sure.” Alchemy lifted his beer bottle. Moses lifted his. Alchemy began, “To …” His eyes shifted toward the book still on the table. In a brotherly epiphany, they simultaneously said, “… the disinherited.”

Pleased to Meet You

Malcolm Teumer took pride in his ability to outwit and outlive the tormentors who had desired his death for nearly sixty years. If he were to die now, approaching his eighty-fourth birthday, his final word would be: victory. Still, he had been agitated when Laban announced that the second son of Salome Savant sought an audience.
Better him than Moses
, he thought.

The night before, he had watched the Insatiables’ live Globo TV concert broadcast with three of his thirteen grandchildren. Such noise. Not music. He left them for another room, where he muted the sound on the TV. He examined this Alchemy who roused and exploited the primitive needs of the masses with an admirable élan. Now Malcolm looked forward to their encounter.

He relaxed in the courtyard on his white cushioned chair centered amid the landscaped greenery. To his left, a fountain with seven naiads spraying blue water surrounded a statue of the spear-carrying Ares.

A guard notified Malcolm as Alchemy’s limo passed through gate and made its way to his driveway. A servant
escorted Alchemy to the courtyard. This vaunted buck with his pococurante gait, prominent chin, and frosty blue eyes was imbued with a magisterial assurance reminiscent of his mother. His muscular arms and taut upper body were highlighted by a tightly fitting soccer jersey given to him during the televised concert by Ronaldo, the Brazilian football star.

Malcolm stood up and the two men shook hands, taking each other’s measure. Malcolm crossed his sturdy forearms across the chest of his short-sleeved, button-down green shirt. His frame was more roundish than trim, his white hair closely cut around the sides and back of his bald, freckled crown.

“Sit, please.”

Malcolm offered him a cognac. Alchemy assented. They did not toast.

Malcolm asked, “What do you hope to achieve with this meeting?” His accent lilted lightly Germanic, and his words resounded with the bellicose syncopation of a chopping knife against a wooden cutting board.

Alchemy replied, “To see if there is any benefit in Mose meeting you.”

“Acting as his savior was insufficient? Now you have anointed yourself the family unifier.” Malcolm dismissed any pretense of politesse.

Alchemy’s expression turned to one of slight amusement.

“You’re implying what? That I’m upset because you screwed my mom? You grossly overestimate your importance in her life. You’re just another slug in a very long line of unmemorable slugs she fucked and discarded.” Alchemy paused, barely repressing a rueful smile. “I imagine a man
of your instincts would be curious to hear how she remembers you.”

“Your imagination reflects your ego’s need, not mine.”

Undeterred, Alchemy continued, “After I met Mose, I asked her about your relationship. She’d never mentioned you.” Alchemy chose his words with precision. “She said she wished you were her best friend Kyle when you fucked. She called you a ‘fiendish little man with the soulsmell of sour pickle juice.’ ”

Malcolm laughed jovially, as if he’d been complimented. “You should have been my son. You are hard. But he, he behaves like a weakling.”

“Mose is not weak.”

“If he were not so cowardly, he would be here instead of you.”

“That is where you are wrong. It takes great fortitude to accept your emotional deficiencies rather than pander for love and recognition.”

“Are you sure you are not speaking of your own situation?”

“Perhaps.” Alchemy conceded the point and shook his head solemnly. He relaxed his elbows on the chair’s armrests and clasped his fingers together in front of his chest. “Perhaps your ego is still smarting over the way Salome tossed you out because you loved her?”

“That assumes you believe I am capable of love.”

“I’ve made only one assumption about you.” Alchemy leaned forward, picked up his drink, swished it around his mouth, and then, like a Clint Eastwood avenging hero, spit it on the grass a foot to the right of Teumer’s chair. “Nothing
you’ve said so far leads me to believe you have any remorse for how you treated Mose or Hannah.”

Malcolm stood up and grinned eerily. “Follow me.” This insolent child needed a lesson in humility. They entered the house and walked into a room dominated by one of the untorn canvases from Salome’s
Flowers, Feminism, Fornication
exhibit. “Wait here.” He turned and left the room.

Malcolm returned in less than two minutes. He handed Alchemy a medal—a silver iron cross with a red, silver, and black ribbon. “For you.”

“Why? Why do you have this? I don’t want this.”

“Give it to him, if you prefer. And these.” He placed a slim sheaf of stapled and typewritten pages on the table. “Take them. Show them to your half brother. Or destroy them. The choice is yours. It seems you are now his keeper. It has been my pleasure to entertain you.”