Buddy, though, he was one smooth alligator. All greasy groomed and expensive clothes but could snap your neck and never think twice. His extra-boldfaced gold watch sparkled on his dark, hairy-gazairy wrist. His voice raspy like an overheated seltzer bottle.
In the dressing room, we were kiss-the-sky high. We’d slayed ’em. I was spraying everyone but Alchemy with champagne. Andrew’d ordered plastic glasses that didn’t shatter, so I was stomping them with my boot. (Hey, I was young and doing what I thought rock stars should do.)
Alchemy, though, none of us dared enter his space until he gives the signal. He’d find a corner and cover his head under a towel. After a show, it was like he was some giant Thanksgiving Day parade balloon with the air hissed out and shrunk down. The energy he let loose was so atomic, and he needed time to rev up to be Alchemy.
He had finally uncovered his head and was gulping a bottle a bubbly when Buddy Sheik rams backstage, flanked by Randy and Walter. Buddy gloms on to Alchemy and Sue. Randy talks to Absurda. Walter is on me, Lux, and Andrew. Then Buddy says real loud, “Deal?” and reaches to shake Alchemy’s hand. Alchemy nods and says, “Not yet.”
Buddy barked, “What? You don’t trust me?” We all turn to watch them.
“Why should I? Besides, all four of us have to agree.”
“Man, I could grow to love a boychick like you. You shouldn’t trust me. Yet. I’ll change that.”
Buddy paced around the space like a combo strip club pimp and used-car salesman. “Alchemy, you are like no one I’ve ever met — you’ve been kissed by God. And I’ll be blessed to have you as a member of the Kasbah family. The question you should be asking is: Why am I here? The answer: I want Thee Insatiables. I can feel how much I want you because it sickens my kishkes to think we won’t get you. We will give you ‘More’ than any other company …” He stops, waits, begins again, his voice calmer. “I know you’re thinking, Man, this schlemiel got nothing to say to me. Yeah, I’m a low-life schmateh peddler who never had a class act like you guys. You’ll see, you take risks. Me, too. If I didn’t, I’d still be selling rags. You got your dreams. I got mine.”
Buddy walks up to me and pinches my cheek. “Even you, you got class. Most of it low.” I slap his hand away and Randy inches up to me. Buddy keeps spieling. “Ambitious, here, I bet he thinks, and maybe the rest of you do, too, that we’re missing the boat on the ‘grunge scene’ and we need you. No! I want. I never need. Me and my brothers, we secretly been to see you twice. And we agree — you are it!”
Buddy keeps his focus on Alchemy and Andrew while slipping glances at the rest of us. Alchemy, who could keep a tractor beam stare on anyone, never takes his eyes off Buddy. They’re playing mind macho poker.
“Talent is not enough. Dedication is not sufficient.” His voice crackled now. “You need vision, need to see the lay of the land. Where the rat traps are and where the gold mines are. You sign with me and we’ll disarm the rat traps and find the gold mines.
“Anyone here know what schvartz gelt is?” He looks around. “No takers? Andrew, what’d they teach you at Cambridge?”
Andrew mumbles, “It means black and gold.”
“That’s kaiser-speak. In Yiddish it means …” He pauses ten seconds before whispering, “This never goes beyond this room. Schvartz gelt is Yiddish for T&E. The taxmen call it ‘Travel and Entertainment.’ Bull. It’s ‘Tits and Ego.’ Tastemakers make stars. Some need a massage. Every company will supply you with ‘party’ favors, but we best everyone in this business at giving the right people T&E. We’ll give you ten dollars less than anyone else … Less, because I want you to be able to tell every mother-effing person who asks that artistic freedom is what we gave you. This comes from my heart and my pocketbook. I will personally write in an extra $50,000 T&E to promote Thee Insatiables.”
Buddy looks around, pleased with himself.
Alchemy says, “Ten dollars won’t do it. We’ll take ten thousand less.” I wanna scream, What the fuck? Sue and Andrew don’t look over the moon either. We all kinda know Alchemy is testing them. “You give five K to the ACLU and five K to Bernie Sanders’s campaign in our name and Kasbah matches it.”
None of us in the room knows this Sanders dude is some commie congressman until Alchemy explains it later. I ain’t thrilled, but after listening to Alchy and Nathaniel, I ain’t surprised either.
“We can do that … And remember, you can call me or one of my brothers any time of the day or night. Can you do that with SONY? No damn way. We answer to no one but ourselves. Call me or any of us anytime.”
He walks up to me, stares at my shirt. “Don’t kill me just yet. Deal?”
“We gotta vote.”
He reaches for my neck and pulls out the chain with my eye. “Can I kiss it for luck?”
I nod. He does. “Decide soon.”
We sign with Kasbah. In no time, the tagline “When the Buzz Becomes a Scream” with pictures of us four, mouths open wide like we was screaming, is plastered all over L.A. In two years we zip from playing for free at family street fairs, beach parties, scuzzy unlicensed bars, and high schools to basketball arenas, to stadiums. When I think back how fast it happened, it’s like the genie granted me three hundred wishes that all came true.
23 THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2001)
What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding?
At the same moment Moses was in the throes of his reverie, Alchemy and his driver in his vintage 1963 Jaguar (refitted with an experimental biodiesel engine) rolled down Gracie Allen Drive. Alchemy caught sight of Jay’s long-legged, determined gait, with a slight hitch to her swaying shoulders. He asked the driver to pull over and he called to her as he stepped out of the car. Feeling ambushed, Jay took off her sunglasses and placed them in the breast pocket of her jean jacket, which gave her time to regain her bearings. “He’s still not ready. Call first.” She quickly added “please,” but there was no question that she was issuing an order.
Alchemy tapped the hood and signaled the driver to hang on. “Sure, of course. Call me later and let me know how he is doing and when I can come. But um …” He paused.
“Alchemy, what? Moses is waiting.”
“We should talk, about you know, I guess.” Mr. Savoirfaire sounded uncharacteristically maladroit. She nodded. “In here?” He pointed to the limo and they slid inside.
“So, talk.” Jay’s tone was brusque.
“When I walked into the doctor’s office and I saw you holding Mose’s hand. Whoa. Incredible coincidence.”
“I’d say incomprehensible karma trumps all other interpretations.”
“I’d say coincidence and karma are different words for the same thing.”
“I have no time for this.” Jay put her hand on the door handle, ready to get out.
“Hold on. It’s nothing like the path you have to negotiate, but it’s tricky for me, too. Besides, I was never proud of the way things ended with us.”
“Ended? With us? There was no ‘us.’ We had a few dates strung out over a few months until I met someone else.”