Bruce Bauman - Broken Sleep

“Okay, Mose.” He was standing now and circling around the room. “I’ll talk to Winslow about the tape and IFC when I’m back in L.A. Get me more info on IFC and who’s giving them money.”

“Sure. I’ll do some other research, too.”

“But Mose, follow my reasoning here. You’re the one who told me America is fracturing. That the three West Coast states have more common interests and beliefs than their neighbors in Arizona, Nevada, and Idaho. You’re the one who said the three coastal states are among the best options for ringing up good numbers. That’s fifty, sixty million people, and they have an economy that would rank among the largest in the world. Didn’t you say that somehow these rifts need to be repaired or it could lead to permanent fractures? If I’m gov when it cracks …”

“I said maybe in fifty or a hundred years, because all empires run their courses. Not in five or ten years. I believe you can begin the repair we need now.”

“Revolutionary change starts in the head, but it’s the feet that make it happen. One can look back a thousand years easier than forward fifty. Be futurific and march forward.”

Alchemy closed his eyes and seemed suddenly far away.

“Alchemy, what? Where are you? Say what you’re thinking.”

“That shit with Louise and the Muslims. Makes me crazy, too. But all this religious posturing has made the line separating church and state all but disappear. I’m going to make it reappear. Whether it’s for governor or prez, you know it’s going to come up again and again. I want to get out in front of it. And ‘spiritual but not religious’ is liberal bogusocity.”

Moses was beyond wanting to argue with his brother. He wanted to go to bed, but Alchemy was in the zone.

“Mose, you’re a progressive politically. But a true progressive has to make leaps in every direction. You still can’t extinguish that niggling belief. I said belief, not doubt. Ninety, ninety-five percent of the time you don’t believe in God, but a secret little piece of you still isn’t sure.”

“I doubt, therefore I am.” A slight deprecating smile crossed Moses’s face.

“I doubt, but still act, therefore I am. We’re forty, fifty years into the new world of the digital age, and with the right vision we are on the cusp of a new political and social order. It took Christianity two hundred and fifty, three hundred and fifty years to become the historical force that dominated the last seventeen hundred years. Within seventy-five years of Gutenberg’s invention, Luther and the Protestant Reformation took hold and undid the monolithic power of Catholicism in a timeframe that seemed, to them, unimaginably fast. The quantum revolution is not the future — it’s the present. We’re not in the Industrial Age anymore. It’s the Cyber Age, and ‘cyberplowshares’ can take us to a new era where religion and nationalism are as archaic as idol worship and the steam engine. A man or a woman working with a binary device, not some papyrus or Gutenberg Bible — a believer in humankind’s power and intelligence, will lead us to a Promised Land without God. Or to extinction.”

I send Salome flowers and a note that I am truly sorry about Nathaniel. I also thank her for being Salome, ’cause Carlotta Solano ain’t like most of the women I dated. She likes people and people like her, and she is as sweet as I am not sweet. She’s thirty-one and never been married. Not a rock ’n’ roll chick. Not even a fan of the Insatiables. We click in and out of bed, and she ain’t no honey trap counting my bankrolls.

Her parents are still married and live in the same house in Cucamonga they bought when she was born. Her father works in a local air conditioning/heating repair business and her mom worked part time at the local school so she could be home with the kids. Carlotta moved to Eagle Rock after goin’ to U.C. Riverside. Brother works in the AC business. They don’t treat me either special or like a scumbag who is boffin’ their daughter.

I feel like I swallowed a redbrick sandwich the day I propose. She jumps like ten feet in the air, which is the fucking answer I been waiting for. Carlotta don’t want some Entertainment Weekly —style shindig with a fire-eating mariachi band and parachuting mermaids as bridesmaids. We get hitched over the Memorial Day weekend in her folks’ backyard. Her dad won’t let me pay for zip. I nix a church ceremony but I find a priest who agrees to perform the service for a donation. I invite my sister and my mom. Carlotta talks me into inviting my dad. I do not invite my brother. I warn them all to behave, which is like asking a monkey not to shit in the jungle. Ricky Jr., Lux, and Alchy is my best men and witnesses.

After dinner, Carlotta’s pop makes a real nice toast. He asks if anyone else wants to make one, and Salome stands up. That gets me Nadling at super speed.

“I believe that the institution of marriage should be abolished, yet, as the matchmaker of this union, I accept the blame.”

My mother blurts out, “I’ll remind ya a that when Ricky fucks up.” Carlotta is sitting between me and her mom and I see her squeeze her mom’s hand.

“He won’t, but if he does, they met at my son’s house.”

Alchy raises his glass toward Salome. “I’m always the beast of your burden of blame.”

Salome sticks her tongue out at Alchy. “Many years ago I told a snarky little boy that he needed to grow some balls to become the Sancho Panza my son needed.”

“Of evil,” I yell. “Sancho Panzer of evil. I had to ask Alchemy who he was.”

“Yes, yes, I did say that. I was wrong. You were not evil, just splenetic and misguided. And you became a great Sancho. Alas, you have been replaced by another …” She gives a sideways twitch at Laluna and we’re all waiting for Salome to compliment her. Uh-uh. Alchemy looks like someone just barfed in his soup. “Ricky, you’re not society’s stereotypical ideal of a husband, but hell, I’m not society’s ideal of a mother, so … Carlotta, you are blessed with the good fortune to have found a courageous and loyal partner who will always watch over you.”

After the toasts and before dessert, my slobbering and soused dad starts poking Alchemy about Vulter. “She’s one smart lady. Make a damn good president.” He thinks this proves he ain’t no sexist even though he says, “I’d sure like to give her ‘a Real McFinn’ night.” Alchemy’s so slick at playing drunks, he treats their moronic postulations like no one ever uttered them before. “You’re right about her. Louise loves a good party, and she’s smart and warm underneath.”

Salome’s antennae goes berserk and it’s uh-oh time. She gets right in Alchemy’s face.

“Underneath what? You can’t trust her. She talks out of both sides of her mouth and she’s lying from each side.”

“How the hell would you know?” My dad is gearing up his nasty. Salome can match him nasty-for-nasty no problem.

“Nathaniel scouted behind enemy lines and listened to her radio program. I watched her on TV with Alchemy. Complex ideas confound her and her supporters.”

“We all can’t be a gen-ie-us and a crazy bitch like you. Or a millionaire commie like your son.”

“Your simple-minded insults prove my point. You’re a parasite who lives off your son, who Alchemy rescued from his misbegotten life, which, in effect, means you live off Alchemy the commie.”

Alchemy slings his arm over Salome’s shoulder and edges her away, which don’t stop Mr. Must Have the Last Word. “Ya gotta be dumber than a Flushing cockroach to spend a dollar on that crap you call art!” Me and Alchy exchange frustrated sighs. I say, “Dad, shut the fuck up or you’ll be on a plane in two hours.”