Bruce Bauman - Broken Sleep

Evie, there are complexities in my relationship with my brother that preclude me from pursuing this with him right now. I want to support you, only in this specific request it is not possible. Please understand. I love your music and your company .

Her peevish response: “If you really love my music, what’s so complicated you can’t send him a cd?” Moses answered with a brief e-mail saying he’d give her more details (although he wasn’t sure what he would say) when next they saw each other. She answered “OK” without setting a date for “when next” they’d see each other.

Unlike previous years, without Jay and now not hearing from Evie, Moses relished the start of classes, so he was not displeased when he received a call in mid-August — a week since hearing from Evie — from the secretary to Robert Slocum, dean of the Humanities Department. The dean requested a meeting without giving a reason.

Immediately after hanging up, Moses’s regret over Evie’s recent silence escalated into runaway paranoia. He imagined that Evie had lodged an official complaint. He pored over and deconstructed all of the correspondences between them: no way to deny a relationship, yet nothing tawdry or disrespectful. They’d begun sexual relations after she had completed his course and fulfilled her BFA requirements in compliance with SCCAM’s notoriously lax faculty-student relationship policy. Moses supposed she felt betrayed and that his behavior would lead to dismissal, suspension or, at best, probation. The hope that his life’s descent would have a long lull was a gross miscalculation.

In 1999, we were at the top of our game as a live band and Blues was on the way to becoming triple platinum. We skip the group intervention, and Alchemy accompanies Absurda to a recovery tank in Minnesota. We postpone the video and the tour. I go to Queens for a few days for Nova’s funeral. When Alchemy gets back, me, him, and Lux do some recording and jamming in the studio while waiting for Absurda.

After ninety days, Absurda prances up to Beverly Hills beaming like a farmer’s daughter in a “Got Milk?” commercial. Her hair is growing out and her skin’s all peachy. Holding her hand is a guy who she hooked up with while he was rehabbing for Oxy, Perc, and booze. Claims he is a surfer. He hands me an embossed card that says “Hugo Bollatanski, Esquire,” which Alchy says is a fancy way of saying lawyer. He breezes around all tan and wearing a white suit. Dude surfs about as often as I climb Everest.

Absurda is raring to play, so we shoot The Ruling Class video and all but finish Multiple Coming . In the summer we head out for more months on the road supporting Blues .

Hugo buckles his belt to Absurda and hops on the tour bus. He and Alchy is always yack-yack-yacking about the upcoming election. I despise all the smarmy fuckers. Even though we play a benefit for Gore, I don’t tell them if I voted it would’ve been for Bush Jr.

In the middle of the tour, Hugo decides he needs to be Hu-Gone and will relocate to D.C. to work with some political types. Absurda acts like it’s cool. I know she’s bleeding, so I warn Hugo not to dirty-deal Absurda. The next day, Absurda, during the preconcert meal, pulls me over so no one can hear us. “Ricky, you surrendered your right to intrude into my personal life when you broke up with me. I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”

For the next few months, Hugo flies in and out regularly and Absurda seems good. When we arrive in D.C. for two shows at the Cap Center, Mr. Suavola is in the dressing room with flowers and chocolates. I’m thinking I may have to do some reevaluating. Then Absurda don’t show for the sound check for the second night. Can’t reach her nowhere, so we head back to the hotel and the chambermaid lets us into her room. The two of them is in bed and they ain’t moving. Towels laid out on the floor that stink of crack smoke, a few Percs on the bathroom sink, and empty bottles of bourbon and Tylenol PM. Alchy dials 911. Lux is trying to slap Hugo out of his stupor. I kneel by the bed. I feel Absurda breathing. I lift her and carry her to the shower. The paramedics show up and zip ’em off to the hospital.

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?”