Broken Sleep (41 page)

We cancel the rest of the tour and Absurda reenters rehab. Me and Lux go home to L.A. Alchemy goes to New York to hang with Salome and Nathaniel. He comes back just before
Absurda gets out of rehab again. This time, her sister Heather comes to babysit. In early 2000 we start recording most of
Noncommittal
, which we’re gonna do in three months. Faster than anything we done since
More
.

After an all-night session, Marty is driving me and Alchy to this seventeen-acre spread, fifteen of which is woods, that Alchy is buying in Topanga for under $2 million cash. Once you turn off Topanga Canyon, you gotta be Davy Crockett to find the place. It’s a mile or so drive up this twisty road through the forest ’til you get to the very cool three-story, five-bedroom main house built back in the ’20s. He shows me “my” room on the second floor. On the grounds is an ancient two-story dance hall, which is a fancy name for whorehouse that he is refurbishing into a guest house for Salome and Nathaniel. We walk down this path to what was once a stable, which he is converting into a recording studio. I’m looking out for snakes when Alchy decides to stick his dick in my business again.

“This may not be the optimum opportunity—”

I cut him off. “Don’t futz around. What’s on your mind?”

“That’s why I love you.”

“Why I love me, too. So what?”

“I sense there’s something still unfinished between you and Absurda.”

I been percolating on that idea myself, only every time I think about making some move, or even talking to her about us, I hear, “Oh, thank you, Alchemy,” and I get that pukey feeling.

“No, we done our thing. Besides”—I’m thinking I need to come clean with Absurda before I finally tell him what I seen—“I’m enjoying the fruits of being an Insatiable.” He
can’t retort nuthin’ to that. I hear him rolling the saliva in his mouth like he wants to spit, but he only nods.

We do some gigs on the West Coast just to try out the new songs, then come back to L.A. for some remixing and maybe rerecording for
Noncommittal
. We plan the release to coincide with a world tour starting in fall 2001. We ain’t back two days when Alchemy gets a hysterical call from Salome. Brockton had a stroke and is in bad shape. He jets back east before his mom flies off to biddy-bip land.

We decide it’s hiatus time. Me and Brewer finally team up for “The American Van” spot, which was an absolute gas. One afternoon at the Malibu Market, I eye this very young-looking preppie girl wearing a skirt and V-neck yellow sweater. I shoot her a half smile. She don’t react, so I’m moseying back to my car when I hear her razzing me. “Hey, you.” I turn around. “Yes, you, creep! You some kinda freak? You want to
kill
me?” I been aggressed on by plenty of drunks. That PLEASE LET ME KILL YOU T-shirt caused me shitloads of problems, but mostly I handle it without muscling up. This girl gives me the shivers. I hadn’t done nuthin’ squirrelly. I can’t fight her. She sure don’t want no autograph. Then she is laughing so loud everyone is gawking at us. “Mr. Tough New Yawker, Ambitious Mindswallow, never figured you to have such small balls.”

“You figured right the first time. You can check for yourself anytime you want.”

“I think that’s
premature
. That another of your specialties?”

My brain locked. I’m back to being a Queens dork.

“C’mon, tough guy, think you can handle me drink-for-drink at Moonshadows?”

I give her the Miranda Wrights. Her name’s Bryn Smithson and she’s just turned twenty-two and her address says Lincoln, Nebraska. She seen us when we played the university in Lincoln when she was seventeen. She went to Pepperdine and now works for Pfizer pushing legal drugs all over SoCal and Arizona. We start hanging out. Over Christmas, Bryn heads home to Nebraska. She don’t ask me to join her. I wished she had so I could say no. I’m not thrilled about meeting anyone’s family, especially hers, who is religious Christians.

The idea of seeing my own family gives me a rash. Absurda don’t want to see hers neither. Lux is off on a trip to Europe and South Africa. I find out Heather is gone, so I invite Absurda, Marty, and Falstaffa to hang at the Topanga compound. I clean out any sign of Bryn ’cause I want to keep it from Absurda that I am an “article” for the first time since her.

On Christmas Eve we order up food from Gelson’s market. Absurda is not indulging in any substances. Later, the two of us are sitting on outdoor chaise longues in front of the living room fireplace when she zings me.

“So, I heard you’re dating a teenager.”

“What?” I fake ignorance.

“C’mon. Sue saw you trying to impress her at the Ivy. Flea saw you at the Lakers game. Ricky, stop Nadling. You afraid I might tell her how you acted like an A-one asshole when you broke up with me?”

I’m thinking it’s finally time to get a few things straight. “I been meaning to tell ya, that night outside Madam Rosa’s, I saw—”

“Stop. Ricky, there’s nothing to discuss.” I’m too familiar with her Fond du Lac frigid face that says I ain’t getting nowhere. “You got drunk and high and you messed up.”

“What about you and—”

“I said stop. Yes, I was high, but don’t you dare put this on me. I did nothing to cause you to act like such an asshole.”

“I want to explain what happened, ya know.”

“I know what happened and you already explained plenty. You didn’t love me anymore. You wanted to fuck other women. That hurt. I waited and waited for you to realize it was
your
loss. You didn’t. I did what I had to and moved on.”

I sit back and finish my beer. I tap the empty bottle against my forehead.

“Ricky, don’t. I’m long over you.”

“That’s good. Maybe.” I decide it’s best I say no more.

“No maybe about it. This is going to sound mawkish, but despite what people say, you’re a softie underneath that coconut shell who acted like a shit because you didn’t know how to break up with me. I know you love me.”

She’s never gonna admit, or maybe she was too high to remember, what she done. If I start something, then it’s gonna lead to a shitstorm with her and Alchemy, and I end up the big-time loser in every way possible: no Absurda and no band.

The next night, as she’s preparing to leave, I’m dying to ask her to stay. I walk her out to the lot, and she tosses her bag into her rebuilt ruby red Spyder. She comes up to me, puts her hand on my cheek. “Ricky, we said goodbye last

night. I think I better … go now.” I don’t say nothing. I just watch her drive off.

Bryn comes back for New Year’s. We go to a dinner party for thirty or so people at our lawyer Kim Dooley and her boyfriend’s, who is chief counsel for Kasbah, Hollywood Hills place. Absurda shows up on the arm of Fred A. Stare, the lead singer of the Vegan Junkies. I am not pleased. Fred A. is a real junkie. The three of us is making small talk and Fred hands me a card from the Church of Cosmological Kinetics. “You should come to a meeting. Getting kinetically purified helped me. Absurda came to her first meeting just yesterday.” I look at her like,
Are you kidding me?
I can’t believe she’d spend one second in the Church of Cockamamie Ideas and buy that bullshit from their slimy leader, Godfrey Barker. He sucks on young wannabes and celebs with drug or other problems.

Three nights later, the phone rings around 2
A.M
. This is gonna sound hookie-dookie Alchy-like, but before I even answer, I
know
Absurda OD’d. Silky Trespass found her. They were supposed to be guesting with the Pussycat Dolls at the Viper Room. Before Silky’s finished talking, I am cursing and shaking—I punch a fucking hole in the bedroom door. I am so freaking pissed that I didn’t see this coming. And cursing myself out ’cause I didn’t ask her to stay at Christmas.

From her little druggie-rep case, Bryn pulls out some tranqs. I take a couple and down a few beers. It’s on me to call the guys. I never heard Alchemy so without nuthin’ smart to say.

Lux arrives in Topanga by 4 A.M. He calls Mr. Akin, who goes ballistic. Lux listened coolly for about twenty minutes before he says, “Mr. Akin, I’m sorry but it’s time to hang up.” Her mom sobs and sobs, “Mandy, my baby. Mandy, my
baby
.” She wants her to be buried in Fond du Lac.

Later, me and Lux are drinking and sorta reminiscing, and I says, “Lux, I feel like a piece a garbage for dumpin’ her. I feel like I shoulda been able to stop this.”

“We tried, man. We all tried.”

“I never asked you, if like any time, Absurda and Alchy ever did it or anything?”

His big hands wiped his forehead. “The answer is not as far as I know. And, Ambitious, Absurda’s gone and you’re worried about who she dated?”

“Yeah, it’s screwed up. Only, well, I seen things that tell me Alchemy was happy when we broke up.”

“Just the opposite. And let’s stop this shit right now. She didn’t OD because of you. Or Alchemy. It happened and we all have to live with it.”

Alchy meets me, Lux, Andrew, and Sue—we didn’t let anyone else come—in the hotel in Fond du Lac where he stayed years before. I catch that his eyes is spinning from the netherworld, which means he ain’t been sleeping, which is worse for him than when he has a screamer, ’cause whatever is “gestating” is fixing to come out. I give him a few Percs so he can get through the night.

The funeral’s at the church, which was ridiculous ’cause she don’t believe in no religion. Alchemy and her brothers give the eulogies. Her girlfriends from the Big Gulp Girls show up. Mr. Akin is bugging Andrew about who gets her royalties and who is in her will. Her mom starts shrieking at me and Alchemy. “You did this to her! You pretended to be a good boyfriend! And you”—she slapped Alchemy across his cheek—“you promised me you’d take care of her. I hope you both rot in hell!” Mr. Akin comes running over and gives us a stare like you best not touch her, which neither of us would’ve ever done. Mrs. Akin turns to her ex-husband. “Now you want to play hero? You’re the reason she ran away in the first place!” She grabs Heather’s hand. “Let’s go home. The rest of you—all of you—just stay away.”

At the hotel, I drink ’til I pass out. In the middle of the night, I hear Alchemy having one of his screamers. I fly down the hall and bang on his door, because we got a long-standing pact that I’m the one who checks on him.

I hear some whispering before he lets me in. A pair of woman’s shoes, dress, bra, and panties is on the floor. I close the door behind me and a head peeks out from under the covers.

“Alchemy, don’t say nuthin’!” I don’t want to hear him finesse his way outta his one. “Heather, get dressed. This ain’t never happened.” Me and him—he’s still got no clothes on—glare silently. Heather comes out of the bathroom and I
open the door. I point. She scurries down the hall. I slam the fucking door on my way out.

No one says nuthin’ at breakfast. Absurda’s brothers drop by. I expect trouble. Nope. They want to drink with us. After four double schnapps a piece and a lotta mealy-mouthed ass kissing all around, they leave. I follow Alchemy to his room. He thinks I’m going to bust his balls about Heather. He starts packing his suitcase. “Get it over with. Say your worst.”

“You just gotta fuck every chick no matter who gets hurt, don’t you? Didn’t you do enough damage by screwing Absurda?”

He stops packing. “Nothing ever happened between us.”

“Bullshit. I heard her and you outside Madam Rosa’s that night.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s a motherfucking lie.”

“No, Ambitious, it’s not. Whatever you think happened, didn’t—” He seems so totally cool. I’m kinda half crying, half got the crazy blood-rushing shivers, and it just happens—I flatten my fist against his face. He stumbles back and lands on his ass. “You’re such a schmuck. I heard Absurda thanking you while you was twirling your half-nig—” I don’t finish.

“Well, I asked for your worst.” He don’t look pissed or surprised.

The Burning Bushel and a Peck

The tangible allergen of my ghost-child contaminated the Los Angeles air, and my psychic dyspepsia worsened. After years of beating myself up over the youthful betrayal by my body, followed by the acceptance of my body’s justifiable killing of our child, I lost my ability to sensate the truth. Was this person, who Teumer claimed to be our son, real or fake, dead or alive? Lively had left his phone number at Lily Fairmont’s gallery. I called. It rang into oblivion.

I couldn’t voice my unrelief of the child’s possible existence to Nathaniel or Alchemy. Both of them, anxious at my brittleness, assumed it came from Lively’s visit. Each time I tried to speak of it, the words choked me into silence.

Alchemy offered to buy us a home back east. We chose a two-story 1930s stone house on Cove Road on Shelter Island, a more pristine and isolated midpoint between the two forks at the end of the Sound. With his partners, Alchemy bought a three-story building on West 26th Street and Eleventh Avenue. They converted the basement and two floors into a women’s shelter and made the top floor an apartment for Nathaniel and me. Ruggles grudgingly agreed that I could forgo
twenty-four-hour supervision for now. An aide came to check on me three times a week, and she and Nathaniel signed off on me taking my “normal” pills.

While he watched over me, an unforeseen bout of Gravity Disease infected Nathaniel, caused not by politics or my behavior but by the recognition of his dependence upon Alchemy’s generosity. Alchemy placed the deed to the Shelter Island house in Nathaniel’s name, and it highlighted his near pauperism. In thirty years of railing against the rampant selfishness of the wealthy, whenever Nathaniel had extra money he gave it away. He had donated the proceeds from the sale of the family home to a defense fund for death row inmates. Because they supplied a free house and other perks, Magnolia didn’t pay a grand sum, and he left before he could accumulate a pension. The advance he hoped to get for writing his memoir never materialized. He never made a dime when subletting his New York apartment, which we let go. Nathaniel supplemented our “Alchemy income” with adjunct teaching jobs at Stony Brook and Suffolk Community and occasional speaking gigs, but it was his self-esteem that needed supplementing.