Bruce Bauman: Broken Sleep

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.

Re-Greta all or nothing. Sing. To auld angst synecdoche be. Forgot. Forget me. Not.

Can you see the real me? Doctor. Awopbopalopbopa-bigbang-messy-eye-complex. Pfft. With a simper.

My last chants. Dies Irae. Deus Vult. Oy gevalt. Sing. Forsaken. I go. All fail down. Madness over method. Style over song. So it began. So it ends. Dead is art. It is finished.

I am. Dying to love. My child. Child of love. Love child. Persehoney — live my. Dream. Sing. They know not what. I do. Do you? Ricky. Mose. Mom. LaLoon! Bang, zoom. Go boom.

Still. Dead. Arise. Arise And sing.

For me.

Jay dressed and went to wash her face in the bathroom. On the floor she noticed a folded piece of paper that wasn’t there before. She picked it up and unfolded it — across the top it read “Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.” She scanned the blood test results and Moses’s highlighted platelet count: forty-eight thousand. It had dropped by seventy-five thousand, WBC count 17.1. She didn’t know exactly what those numbers meant, except that it wasn’t good. Not good at all. I’m such a fool , she thought. Too paralyzed to ask, Jay had denied the message of his bruises, his increased night sweats.

Clasping the note, she sped back into the bedroom, grabbed the beret, and tiptoed as fast as she could downstairs. Finding it deserted, she checked their car. Still there. She tossed Salome’s beret in the backseat.

She spotted a guard and asked, “Moses?”

“Think they’re all at the music studio.”

She steeled herself. Be strong for Moses, no matter what the—

An echoing crack.

She took off down the path.

A piercing cry.

Legs churning now faster and faster, until Moses, splashed with blood, bowed over Laluna, who cradled Alchemy’s half skull in her hands, pleading, moaning, “Oh, my God, oh, my God, please, oh, God, don’t die, you can’t, I didn’t, I won’t, couldn’t …” Mindswallow was pinning the thrashing Salome to the ground.

Jay crumbled. Moses went to her and raised her up.

“Take Persephone to your apartment. Get her to bed. No TV, phone, or computer tonight. Don’t call anyone but me.” She yearned to hold him so tightly that they would spin back to a time before he ever met Alchemy. Trembling, she murmured, “Oh, Moses.”

He embraced her. His blood-drenched body staining hers. He gently pushed her away, held her by her arms. “Jay, someday, maybe in a few months, maybe next week, maybe, who knows, after I’m gone — Perse must know everything . No more lies.”

And so it was promised.

For seconds after the shot, it’s like time stops. I hear nothing and I’m standing there paralyzed. Then I yell at myself, You ain’t been hit. Fucking do something! I empty the damn gun so, what the fuck, ya know.

Salome is muttering manically in her private lingo and swinging her limbs every which way. For the only time in my life, I hit a lady. The first slap does nothing. She spits at me. I knock her out. Mrs. Mose swoops in and out in an instant. Laluna is hysterical.

Mose says to me, “This was an accident. Salome flipped …” I finish for him, “… because she is Salome.”

“Can you?” He stretches out his arms. Together we lift Salome up, and he holds her in his arms. “Call nine one one. It was an accident ,” he says again, but in such a way that I wonder if he seen what I think maybe I seen … who pulled the fucking trigger.

Persephone gripped the staircase banister. Shivering. “Auntie Jay, I had a bad dream. Daddy didn’t kiss me good night, he kissed me goodbye.”

“Oh, honey, it was just a dream. You’re awake now. I’m here.”

She whisked Perse back into her room. The nanny, in her robe, stumbled up the stairs. “Please throw some clothes into Persephone’s backpack. Fast.” Jay bundled Persephone in her blanket.

“Where are we going? Where’s my mommy and daddy?”

“They’re together. They’ll be busy for a little while. Your daddy asked me to take you to our house tonight.” Jay enveloped Persephone in her arms and chest, trying to empty the fear coursing through both their bodies.

Holding the backpack in one arm and Persephone in the other, she dashed to her car and buckled Persephone into the backseat. Persephone reached for the red hat beside her. “Granmamma’s.”

“Yes, it was a present from her to … Uncle Mose. He wants you to have it.” Jay shut the door and hopped into the car. She started the engine, took two heavy breaths — in and out — then pressed on the gas pedal and carefully drove down the private road. She turned onto Topanga Canyon Boulevard, cautiously taking the tight curves, until she’d made it a quarter mile down the road. Then she pulled to the side and waited as police cars and ambulances roared past her and up the mountain.

His mother felt weightless in his arms. Moses felt weightless, too, as if her body had evaporated into the ether and transported them to the cottage. Moses gently laid his mother in her bed. She opened her eyes, blinked. Her lips moved. No sound. Her eyes shut again. He waited.