Bruce Bauman - Broken Sleep

“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.

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.

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.

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 .

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 …