“For now, keep in mind what Shelley wrote about poets being the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Your way will be the hardest challenge, but you can do it, the third-party way. Too many American artists have surrendered their ideals in favor of fame or esteem. All art is political, whether they want it to be or not, and by accepting these rules of the game, their art will suffer.” He stood up, pretty whomped. “Anyone who says there is no relationship between art and politics is selfish. Or cowardly.”
All of that bull, that’s what led to Alchy getting involved with the Nightingale Foundation, which led to the Nightingale Party and him dressing up in his save-the-freakin’-world costume. It all goes back to Sir Brockton. Nah, that’s not fair. It was Mose. And Salome. And Laluna. And me, too. And the masses. Truth is, he loved talking politics to anyone. Used to drive me up the fuckin’ wall when we was on the road. Still, that don’t matter either, ’cause in the end, it came down to all of us, what we wanted and what we put on him.
Alchemy glides into the living room, which is cluttered with magazines and books and record covers, and sits at this Steinway. He swings into Porter and Gershwin, which my grandparents loved, before he slides into this strange riff I don’t know.
He catches my eye. “What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s ‘Blue Monk.’ Man, we’re gonna have to teach you about music.”
Brockton growls, meaning “good fucking luck.” I was blown away by Alchy’s playing and how he was like some music encyclopedia. I learnt a whole fuck of a lot from him and later Absurda and Lux — no bull, they was the bestest teachers anyone could’ve had.
Alchemy then slides into a smoother but complex set of chords. I see Brockton don’t know it either and asks, “What’s that?”
“Just something I’m working on.” Years later, we record it as “No Master, No Messiah” for the Multiple Coming sessions.
Brockton tilts his head back, and I swear he looks like he’s ready to bawl his fuckin’ eyes out. When he recovers, he says to me, “Hey, kid, I’m sorry I went at you. Bad form. No class.”
“No sweat. That was nuthin’. My dad would’ve popped me one for mouthing off to him.” He shook his head at me like some holy-guru-y guy, but I still wasn’t buying his Papa Bear act.
“Ambitious, you ready?” I nod. “Nathaniel, we’re going to the Magnolia Patch.”
Brockton, shaking his head, just blows air from his cheeks, “Alchemy, please make sure they’re legal …”
All three babes showed at the Patch, and them girls, they wouldn’t go all out, but they sure liked to gobble the rod. Alchy wakes me at like 6 A.M. and we light out for L.A. without bidding Brockton goodbye.
15 THE SONGS OF SALOME
Let’s Do Naked Lunch
Last night I drifted back in time through my DNA; the power comes with being a sensate morphologist. I am descended from Greta, but we possess the mitochondrial genomes of our personal mystagogue, Salome. Not the Salome who served Herod and danced with the head of John the Baptist. The Salome who witnessed the Crucifixion, the beloved disciple who, according to Mark, sought out Jesus at the tomb to anoint him with spices. I engaged first with Big Mama Salome just after I gave birth to Alchemy, during an evening walk on the beach at Gardiners Bay under the half-moon. I stepped on a cracked shell. My heel began to bleed. From my blood flowed the stigma of my ancestor Salome. Not in bodily form but in the infinitesimal sparks of energy that forever live inside and outside of us. She communicated with me in words that were not spoken but heard. She introduced herself, before asking if I knew the Bible.
“Dad and Hilda read it to me as a child.”
“Good. Young disciple Mark purposely misinformed the masses. Those male disciples are the most unreliable narrators in all history.” She laughed. “Jesus was alive then, as he had been when they helped him off the cross. The Romans did crucify him. We announced his death at the time not because we wanted to start a religion but to fool the Romans so we could slip him out of Jerusalem to a safe haven. I helped him escape to Galilee. He hadn’t arisen anywhere.”
She didn’t tell me that night, but later, that she slept with Jesus. There are intimations to all that in the Apocrypha and the Gnostic texts. Jesus was one carnal man. And he was a man — just closer to perfection than most.
Memory is planted in our genes for those who have the ability to commune with themselves. It will be proved that we can transcend our corporeal bodies and through our DNA traverse what you call time. I might or might not be “alive” when genetic historians prove that I am right, but I can and I have transcended “time.”
When Alchemy was about seven months old, I decided he needed to be exposed to the only other living link to our lineage. He, his grandmother, and I needed to have a nice little group hug.
Greta had become more of a legend in some circles, and those who realized she wasn’t yet dead proclaimed her the world’s most famous recluse. I’d been splitting my time between Orient and Xtine’s. When in the city I rewatched as many movies of hers as I could find, and I saw that the camera understood that she could never love or be loved, that her heart was broken — truly broken. All of those doomed soap-opera screen romances fit her so perfectly. Her eyes, her voice, her leaden walk belied by the erect posture that refused to fall under the burden of so much emptiness. I went on reconnaissance missions, tracking Greta’s walking regimen. She often walked alone. Sometimes with a friend. If she saw me, she never let on. She would drift into the upscale antiques and thrift shops and then lunch at Aquavit, a Scandinavian restaurant, or Raul’s, an unimposing bistro on Madison and 66th.
On an overcast late October morning, I said to myself, “Okay, today.” I dressed casually in a longish black skirt, boots, a turtleneck sweater, and green poncho, and tucked Alchemy into his papoose. I followed her from her apartment to Raul’s. I tried three phone booths — someone had stuck chewing gum in the first two coin slots — before I found one that worked. I wanted Bicks Sr. to accompany me, so I called his office on Park and 56th. I begged him to scurry touty sweety to 59th and Lex. I’d never done that before, so he felt compelled to come. I loved/hated New York in the late autumn. Still do. That’s why I wanted to meet her then. More than winter, the dim fall light shrivels my insides.
I stood in front of Bloomingdale’s window with the mannequins in perfect winter wear. The acrid perfumes from the lobby mixed with the Sabrett hot dog stand. The steamy smut wafting up from the subway station, the sobbing rubber from the gnashing wheels of the buses and taxis, the masses of jockeying bodies whizzing by all sounded like a thirty-three record playing at forty-five speed, which is how everyone walks in New York when it feels like rain but it hasn’t yet come. The swirling cacophony made me want to strip and do an antimodern noise dance while balancing Alchemy on my shoulders.
I spotted Bicks Sr. — the man in the Brooks Brothers suit up the street.
“What is so urgent? Is something wrong with the child?”
“He is perfect.” I took his hand and pulled him down the block. “C’mon, Bicks, earn your money.”
The second we turned onto Madison, he slowed down and clasped my shoulder. “Salome, stop. I think I see. Why now? Why this way? This is a serious breach of protocol.”
“Since when do I fucking care about protocol? If I asked, I doubt she’d deign to meet me. And if she did, she’d pick the time and place on her terms. If you catch someone off guard you get to their essence. If you accompany me, it’ll be less awkward for all of us.”