Nathaniel clasped my hand. I pulled it away. “Future! What future is that? Do you want to kill yourself to hurt me? To sacrifice, waste years shooting at people! This isn’t the fucking best way to rebel against us.”
“Mom, stop shrieking. Do you think every decision I make is because of you? You are so narcissistic. I’m making my own choices now.”
Nathaniel tried to be reasonable. “Alchemy, the way to protest a war is not to fight in it. It’s—”
“Nathaniel,” I cut him off. “Alchemy”—I lowered the volume of my voice—“I haven’t dedicated my life to you so you can die in a war started by two egomaniacs with penis problems.”
“Mom, don’t make this about anyone else, you’re still making this about yourself. You always make it about you. Whether it’s ten minutes of almost great sex in a Porta-Potty or—”
“Stop. Stop. My son cannot be this cruel.” I got down on my knees and begged him not to punish himself — to punish me, in some other way. Whatever detours I made, how foolish my actions seem, the greatest accomplishment of my life was having him as my son. Still on my knees, my voice a beaten whisper, I said, “Someday you will ache like I ache right now.” Alchemy’s face implacable, I pleaded with Nathaniel, “Please. Please don’t let him do this. Stop him.”
Nothing could sway him. In July, Alchemy left for Fort Bragg.
Then came the fire. Bellows told me that, according to Dr. Ruggles’s records, I set the Let’s Fuck Time pieces afire in the pit outside and then set some of the older Pearl Diver drawings afire in the hallway. Nathaniel and I suffered smoke inhalation and his hands suffered minor burns. Guilty and ashamed, Nathaniel agreed with Ruggles to send me back here. And I became forever unfree to walk the streets on my own.
49 THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2008)
The Social Medium Is Not the Message
Sctfree1: mose, you there?
Moses wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk now. Since returning from Rio, he’d sent only one e-mail to Alchemy, detailing his meeting with Malcolm. Though he did miss their talks, messaging, and e-mail exchanges.
Sctfree1: ok, call me later.
Moses did not want to speak on the phone.
MThead23: Yes, I’m here now. What’s up?
Sctfree1: last night the chameleon mom took the form of a grand inquisitor. she asked who was that masked man at the hammer who left during my talk? meaning you.
MThead23: Geez. It’s been months.
Sctfree1: months, years, they mean nothing to her. i said you’re a collector whose parents were holocaust survivors. she sniffed like maybe she didn’t believe me. i didn’t push it. she’s a freak.
MThead23: Freaks me out. You think she knows?
Sctfree1: don’t think so. she’s never given one clue she knows any more than what she’s always believed happened.
MThead23: OK. Tell me what form she next takes.
Sctfree1: maybe now is the right time for you to meet her? you and jay come up here?
Moses took a long drink from the bottle of water on his desk.
Sctfree1:???
MThead23: Thinking. Still absorbing all the changes. The good, the less good, and the awful. I don’t think Teumer can do me any more damage. Salome … she feels, very present.
Sctfree1: get that. when you’re ready, say the word.
Again Moses hesitated before typing.
MThead23: The word is if I do see her, it will be without Jay.
Sctfree1: whatever works best.
MThead23: Jay and I, we’re not working so well anymore. It’s been hard on her with all of my shit. We’re taking a break.
Sctfree1: wow. i’m sorry. you wanna talk? in person?
MThead23: Not now.
Sctfree1: soon. i’m in need of your eminence grise expertise.
lotta questions about the nonanswers blowin’ in wind.
MThead23: Send an e-mail. I have to go.
Go where? he thought.
The tunnel of love, as Moses and Jay had once affectionately nicknamed their home, now suggested a dank, abandoned subway tunnel. His and Jay’s bed was as welcoming as a water-soaked electrified third rail. Divorce papers he didn’t want to sign and decisions whether he could afford to buy Jay’s half of the house or sell and move awaited him after finishing his day at SCCAM and making the enervating drive from Pasadena to Venice. He spent hours reliving his meeting with his father. With each passing day, he felt better about how it had gone. He did not feel better about how he’d behaved with Jay. As a child, he’d sworn never to desert Hannah and that promise was kept. But he had failed miserably with his wife. He hadn’t physically abandoned her, but she was right — emotionally he had sealed himself off. He began to see that somehow his fear of his father had translated into behavior that helped ruin his marriage. He blamed no one but himself. Moses understood that free-floating fear and hate caused only self-destructive reactions. He could never attain peace of mind by hating, by being afraid. His least-troubled hours were spent in the classroom, re-creating the triumphs and tragedies of histories past, or gabbing in the cafeteria with his students while marveling at their youthful optimism. He often procrastinated in his windowless basement office in the humanities department. All signs of his married life erased as efficiently as Malcolm Teumer’s war crimes past. Gifts from Jay no longer hung on the walls. Photographs of Jay with her head resting on his shoulder, which he’d featured prominently on his desk, now removed. He wondered if anyone had noticed.
The answer arrived one April evening when Moses, lying on the chocolate-brown office couch, was interrupted by a tapping on the closed door. He pushed himself up, rubbed his eyes, and opened the door to find Evie-Anne Baxter, an MFA music student who needed to pass his class to fulfill unfinished BFA requirements, flashing her evanescent smile. “Saw the light on under the crack. You mind?” Evie wore a white midriff T-shirt that left her belly and tattooed shoulders exposed. She closed the door and plopped down onto the sofa. She dangled her sandaled feet over the sofa’s arm, wiggling her toes. Moses propped open the door, his standard policy, before sitting upright in his swivel chair behind his desk across from the sofa.
“You’re here late.” Evie yawned as she spoke. “I could use a nap. Or a beer.”
“I’m still marking midterms.”
“Yeah? When my parents divorced, it was like, hell on my dad. He stayed late in his office, too.”
Taken aback, Moses paused before issuing a flat-voiced, “I’m sorry to hear that.” Clearly, his impending divorce was common knowledge.
Evie sighed histrionically. “I’m not doing great in your class, am I?”
“Great … No.” Moses turned around in his chair and pulled out Evie’s test paper from the stack. He reached to hand it to her but she didn’t move, so he placed it back on the desk. “You received a C-plus on your midterm.”
“Evie and tests, like bad combo. I need to get at least a B to keep my scholarship. What can I do?”
Moses issued his stock answer: participate more in class, study harder. Unable to veer his eyes away from her exposed skin, he asked, “If not that, what do you propose?”
She answered eagerly, “I propose you and I go for a drink and talk about it someplace less stuffy and more fun.”
“Evie, that’s not appropriate. Besides, I’m not a fun guy these days.”
Evie sat up, jutted her lower lip like a sulky child, and then sang, ad-libbing the last words, “How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they seen Paree … or spent some time with me … ee?” He had begun his lecture on the Jazz Age by playing that song. “Not appropriate? Maybe for you, but for the other profs here, this is like the Harvard of horndogism. What’re you gonna do tonight? Like, watch the History Channel? C’mon.” She waved her hand to say, Let’s go.