Bruce Bauman - Broken Sleep

I want to investigate my former room, so I start up the staircase when one of the ex-con security guards puts his up hand, “Sorry, off-limits.” There’s a photo of us on the wall from about ’98. “See that? Not off-limits for me.” He steps aside. For years, “my room” hardly been touched, but now I guess Laluna fumigated me out of there with a paint job. There’s nuthin’ in there but one double bed and a coupla dressers.

I’m heading down the hallway when I hear Mose and Laluna coming up the stairs. They’re laughing and all buddy-buddy. Mose is saying, “I agree we have to act together, and do what is best for Perse.” They clam up the second they see me. Laluna gives me a hug. Me and Mose shake hands.

Persephone rushes out of her room and jumps in Mose’s arms and kisses him. “Unc Mose, come in here, I want to show you my crayon box and crinkly paper Granmamma gave me.”

“Okay, honey, but I only have a few minutes. Your daddy and I are working today.” He nods to me and they go into her room.

I says to Laluna, “You hiding out from the do-gooder I’m-better’n-you brigade?”

“Not my kind of peeps.”

“Mine either.”

“I do have to make a brief appearance.” She sticks a finger in her mouth like she wants to gag.

“How you dealing with all this shit?”

“Mostly, I don’t. I do what I want. He’s always bouncing ideas off me. That’s fun.”

“Yeah, he always wanted my ‘perspective.’ I knew he always wanted this but I still don’t get it.”

“Like he says, if someone with his money and influence won’t do it, only the assholes will.”

I prefer not to opine on that one, so I says I’m gonna go hang out in the studio.

“Ambitious, give me thirty minutes and I’ll meet you. We can kick around some tunes. Figure out our choices for the promo.”

On the way to the music studio I see Salome in the space between her cottage and her art studio. She’s relaxing on a lounge chair under an umbrella, reading a book. Her hair is gray streaked and not as long as it used to be. Her face got some old-age lines, but she’s looking pretty good.

“Is that the still-infantile-but-no-longer-an-infant known as Ambitious Mindswallow? Sit down,” she orders and places the book under her chair next to her flashlight. I pull up a lounge chair. “What brings you up to our cozy hideaway?” I explain that I’m early for an Insatiables meeting, and ritzy politicos ain’t my type.

“You know the only place to spit in a ‘ritzy’ man’s home?”

I let loose on the ground.

“No, you silly boy — in his face. Only this ritzy man is my son.”

“What I hear, he may not be so ritzy after tossing his fortune into this political Dumpster.”

“I commend him for it. It’s what he and Nathaniel always planned, had he stayed with us.” I know better than to talk politics with Salome, so I don’t say nuthin’.

“I am upset with you, you know why?”

“I thought you was always upset with me, so, nope.”

“Specifically because I never heard from you after Nathaniel moved on. For all the teasing, he was quite fond of you.”

I did feel shitty, only I’m not sure how to handle those things. “Alchemy said the funeral was private. And, Salome, Nathaniel died years ago and you seen me since.”

“I could explain to you that there is no such thing as time.” She let out her loony tunes laugh goin’ up the scale. “There is no statute of limitations on expressing sorrow.”

“Why is there no such thing as time? I’m starting to feel old.”

“Tell me, how often do you think about Absurda?”

I says, “How do you mean ‘think’?”

She pats me on the head. “Nice to hear how you remember her, but that kind of fantasizing has nothing to do with time. I can’t divulge anything of such import to you .” She laughs loud. Salome is still as biddy-bip as the day I met her. And I still feel old, and Absurda is still dead.

“Speaking of the once dead and still alive, is my son’s so-called brother here?”

I’m perplexed for a second. “You mean Mose? Yeah, just seen him before I come over. Was with Persephone and Laluna.”

“Damn it. I may have to go and put a stop to that.” She stops. Looks up. “Beware, we have an intruder.”

Standing about ten feet away is a woman who looks like Salma Hayek. “Hi, I’m Carlotta, I planned today’s event and I’ll be supervising the annual Super Bowl party.”

I wonder if she can get us a serious football pool, instead of Alchemy’s usual pools on the over/under on how many times the announcers call the players “heroes,” coaches “geniuses,” and compare football to war.

“Laluna asked if there is anything special you would like to eat or drink today or on Super Bowl Sunday.”

Salome waves her toward us. “First, my son should ask me, not you or Laluna. I don’t blame you. You don’t know better. I’m good today, thank you. I will not be partaking in the Super Bull festivities. You like football, don’t you, Ambitious?” Before I answer, Salome says, “What about you, Carlotta?”

“It’s not my favorite sport. I have to get back, but if you change your mind anytime between now and the day of the party, I can bring you what you want.” She hands Salome a card and starts back down the path.

“Cute, yes? Good smell, too. Hello, Ms. Solano!”

“Shhh.” I’m shaking my head. Yeah, that worked.

“Please come back!” A little startled, Carlotta turns around. “I want you to formally meet Ambitious Mindswallow. You know who he is?”

“Of course.” She shoots me a party-planner smile.

“I’ve known him since he was a teenage killah, and I can sense he’s got, to use his oft-stated phrase, ‘a hard-on’ for you.”

I’m mumbling, “Oh, shit, Salome, shaddup.”

“It’s no coincidence you arrived while he was visiting with me. Please, give him a chance.” She’s pushing me out of the chair. “Get up. Go with her.”

I know better than to rile up Salome, so we start walking back to the house. I says, “I’m sorry. Salome is … different …”

“Is she right?”

“About what?”

“Don’t play stupid.”

“Well, yeah. I’d love to ask you out.”

“It’s not proper to socialize while I’m working. Take my card.” She swallows me with her big brown eyes and big breasts, and I am a goner.

Securely reunited, Moses joked to Jay that he hadn’t been, well, less unhappy in years. They laughed at his reluctance to say the word “happy” without the prefix “un.” Whatever the reason, the passage of time or repression, the Jay-Alchemy affair no longer ignited his jealousy or feelings of inadequacy. When Jay attended a Nightingale function, she and Alchemy exchanged pleasantries and that was it. Mostly, Jay and Laluna sat together or hid in a corner. The two of them got along well, actually liked each other, but their differences in age and basic interests kept them from reaching out for a closer relationship.

Moses threw himself full force into expressing the Nightingale Party’s philosophical and political goals as talking points for the press, or young candidates they hoped would vie for local positions, laying the groundwork for Alchemy’s 2020 presidential run. Professorially speaking, “philosophy” and “talking points” remained incompatible, and some of his former colleagues at SCCAM reproached him for crossing enemy lines from academic to political operative. He countered, or maybe rationalized, by saying they’re just different forms of educating.