Bruce Bauman - Broken Sleep

Teumer sneered at me. “This is how you welcome your old friend and lover?”

“Malcolm, if I could undo only one night of fucking, I’d undo the night alone with you.”

“Oh, it was more than one night. And our offspring lives here in Los Angeles. Would you undo that, too? Perhaps we should go visit him.”

The repressed vision of our son alive arose from the foggy years I was under Ruggles’s drugs. I almost believed him. I stared at Lively. “He’s lying.”

“ ’Fraid not.”

“Mr. Mindswallow?”

“Yo.”

“Do you understand the piety-filled corrupt language of liars? It’s the language of those who reek of pig meat sweat.” I heard my voice nibbling at the edges of hysteria. So did Teumer. Expecting me to hit, spit, or tackle, he slid back next to Lively. I edged toward them. Teumer raised his right arm. In a flash, Mindswallow snatched his wrists and arched his arms behind his back. “Not a smart move.”

Teumer whined, “Let me go!”

“I ain’t into hurting an old man, but I let you go and you try something, I’ll hit you so hard it’ll knock your gonads into your mouth.”

Lively pacified the situation. “No need, son. Let go of my friend, and we’ll be on our way.” Mindswallow released his grip. I stood between Lively and Teumer, put one hand on each of their arms, and walked them to the glass doors. “Never a pleasure doing business with you two.” I turned and smooched Mindswallow on the lips. “Absurda, you’re a lucky woman to have such a chivalrous killah bee by your side.” Mindswallow yawned.

Nurse-nanny drove me to the ocean. After a stroll on Venice Beach, on the way back to Silver Lake we detoured to the Sunset Boulevard recording studio. Pullham-Large paced nervously outside the control room. Without my asking, he fetched Alchemy.

Alchemy, smoking, looking displeased, slowed his walk from harried musician to concerned-and-in-control son as he approached me. “Mom, you all right?”

“The sand and salty air sanitized me after the filthy exhalations of Lively and his friend who came to the gallery. I’d like to move closer to the ocean.”

“What did Lively want? Maybe I can help.”

“His friend’s a collector and wanted to buy some pieces. I don’t need your help.”

“Okay. Dinner sometime later this week?”

“Yes. Go back to making music.”

So, you see, my seeming bratty ingratitude has warrant. Instead of gaining me my freedom, Alchemy’s fame tightened the noose of dependency around my neck. When a child becomes father to the mother, the ceremony of innocence is drowned.

Moses got up before 6 A.M. and took a taxi back to Bergamot to retrieve his car. When he got home, he turned on his computer hoping for an e-mail from Jay, but no. To his surprise there was an e-mail from Evie. She’d sent it at 5 A.M., probably when she was first getting to bed. She asked if they could meet the following night. Moses answered from his private e-mail. They met at the Marina Hotel, a somewhat run-down and inexpensive hotel used mainly by flight crews because of its proximity to the airport, and where there was scant chance of being noticed. They ordered room service, had sex, and watched To Have and Have Not , which Evie had never heard of, much less seen. Moses told her how the forty-five-year-old Bogart and the nineteen-year-old Bacall had met while making the film.

“That why you picked this one?”

“Partly.”

“I’m twenty-six, not nineteen. Guess she had daddy issues, too?”

“I don’t know.”

“Professor T”—she didn’t like calling him Moses—“you’re like an old guy, but I wouldn’t be with you if you were a clown.” Moses looked confused.

“You haven’t heard that?” Moses shook his head. “C–L-O-W-N. Creepy Lecherous Old White Nympho. It’s what we call some of the teachers.”

“Well, I’m flattered, I think.”

Thus their afternoon encounter turned into an affair. He’d wait for her to contact him — which she sometimes did two days in a row and then not for four or five days. Still incapable of embracing any notion that life has a bottom, Moses allowed himself a dollop of hope that Evie’s arrival, however dubious their “relationship,” signaled at least a lull in his descent.

Things continued in this way — erratic, guilt-laden, yet invigorating. The attention of such a young and attractive woman began the repair of his frayed ego. Moses spent much of his time reading and going to the movies alone. One of his old college friends, who taught at Columbia, encouraged him to start writing down his ideas comparing the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1968. He never got past jotting a few notes and listing the books he’d need for research. He perused a long proposal that Alchemy had sent him outlining ideas for the Nightingale Foundation, which he envisioned as both beneficial for society and as the jumping-off point for entering the political arena. He wanted Moses’s input.

At the end of July, Evie and Moses met at the Marina Hotel — he still didn’t dare see Evie at his home or hers. They watched The Palm Beach Story from bed while Moses rhapsodized about Preston Sturges (he relished the role of cultural mentor). Then Evie nonchalantly put forth a question Moses had expected for some weeks: “You told your ex-wife about me?”

“I’m not officially divorced. Very soon, though. And no, not yet.”

“Hey, no prob. I’ve told none of my friends or other lovers about you.”

“Best way to go for now.” He was relieved not only by her circumspection but also that she had other lovers.

“How about your brother?”

“Who?”

“Isn’t Alchemy Savant your brother? Figured you might exchange, you know, stuff. Guys being guys.”

“My half brother and I are not exactly on a ‘guys being guys’ terms. I haven’t seen him in months.”

“Be a playa. Show me off to him! Show off my music! You got more PILF points than you know.”

“PILF?”

“Professor I’d like to fuck.”

He laughed silently, but with some pride, at the idea of Moses the Lothario. “Let me think about it.”

“If it’s so upsetting, forget it.”

AlchemyAlchemyAlchemy, his name compressed and shrank Moses’s balls. “Maybe I’ll send him a download of your music.”

“Great. Great.”

“No promises.”

Asking Alchemy for any favor was anathema to Moses. Instead he called Andrew Pullham-Large, who said to send it over. He also informed him that the Enquirer had “agreed” to leave him and Jay out of the story. They couldn’t substantiate the innuendos about Alchemy and Jay. Alchemy had threatened a prolonged lawsuit regardless of the cost. This earned more of Moses’s gratitude.

Pullham-Large e-mailed within two days. “Not for us. Tell her to keep at it. Too much Bikini Kill/Sleater-Kinney, not enough Evie-Anne Baxter. If you have any other suggestions, always looking for exceptional new talent.” He forwarded the e-mail to Evie.

Later that night he checked his in-box and there was a reply from Evie. “Cum on, intro me to your brother. They’ll listen to HIM.” Just below it was an e-mail from Alchemy. He wanted to meet the following week to pick Moses’s brain about the Nightingale Foundation.

Moses didn’t answer either e-mail that night.

In the morning he found another e-mail from Evie. “C’mon, Moses. What’s wrong? Are we still good?”

Moses, despite his desire to help, couldn’t explain the situation to Evie. He had decided that when he and Alchemy met, he’d see if the proper moment came for him to slip her into the conversation. He didn’t want to tell her because it might unduly raise her hopes.