Bruce Bauman: Broken Sleep

“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.”

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.

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.

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.