“The sand and salty air sanitized me after the filthy exhalations of Lively and his friend who came to the gallery. I’d like to move closer to the ocean.”
“What did Lively want? Maybe I can help.”
“His friend’s a collector and wanted to buy some pieces. I don’t need your help.”
“Okay. Dinner sometime later this week?”
“Yes. Go back to making music.”
So, you see, my seeming bratty ingratitude has warrant. Instead of gaining me my freedom, Alchemy’s fame tightened the noose of dependency around my neck. When a child becomes father to the mother, the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
51 THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2008)
I Prefer Not To
Moses got up before 6 A.M. and took a taxi back to Bergamot to retrieve his car. When he got home, he turned on his computer hoping for an e-mail from Jay, but no. To his surprise there was an e-mail from Evie. She’d sent it at 5 A.M., probably when she was first getting to bed. She asked if they could meet the following night. Moses answered from his private e-mail. They met at the Marina Hotel, a somewhat run-down and inexpensive hotel used mainly by flight crews because of its proximity to the airport, and where there was scant chance of being noticed. They ordered room service, had sex, and watched To Have and Have Not, which Evie had never heard of, much less seen. Moses told her how the forty-five-year-old Bogart and the nineteen-year-old Bacall had met while making the film.
“That why you picked this one?”
“Partly.”
“I’m twenty-six, not nineteen. Guess she had daddy issues, too?”
“I don’t know.”
“Professor T”—she didn’t like calling him Moses—“you’re like an old guy, but I wouldn’t be with you if you were a clown.” Moses looked confused.
“You haven’t heard that?” Moses shook his head. “C–L-O-W-N. Creepy Lecherous Old White Nympho. It’s what we call some of the teachers.”
“Well, I’m flattered, I think.”
Thus their afternoon encounter turned into an affair. He’d wait for her to contact him — which she sometimes did two days in a row and then not for four or five days. Still incapable of embracing any notion that life has a bottom, Moses allowed himself a dollop of hope that Evie’s arrival, however dubious their “relationship,” signaled at least a lull in his descent.
Things continued in this way — erratic, guilt-laden, yet invigorating. The attention of such a young and attractive woman began the repair of his frayed ego. Moses spent much of his time reading and going to the movies alone. One of his old college friends, who taught at Columbia, encouraged him to start writing down his ideas comparing the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1968. He never got past jotting a few notes and listing the books he’d need for research. He perused a long proposal that Alchemy had sent him outlining ideas for the Nightingale Foundation, which he envisioned as both beneficial for society and as the jumping-off point for entering the political arena. He wanted Moses’s input.
At the end of July, Evie and Moses met at the Marina Hotel — he still didn’t dare see Evie at his home or hers. They watched The Palm Beach Story from bed while Moses rhapsodized about Preston Sturges (he relished the role of cultural mentor). Then Evie nonchalantly put forth a question Moses had expected for some weeks: “You told your ex-wife about me?”
“I’m not officially divorced. Very soon, though. And no, not yet.”
“Hey, no prob. I’ve told none of my friends or other lovers about you.”
“Best way to go for now.” He was relieved not only by her circumspection but also that she had other lovers.
“How about your brother?”
“Who?”
“Isn’t Alchemy Savant your brother? Figured you might exchange, you know, stuff. Guys being guys.”
“My half brother and I are not exactly on a ‘guys being guys’ terms. I haven’t seen him in months.”
“Be a playa. Show me off to him! Show off my music! You got more PILF points than you know.”
“PILF?”
“Professor I’d like to fuck.”
He laughed silently, but with some pride, at the idea of Moses the Lothario. “Let me think about it.”
“If it’s so upsetting, forget it.”
AlchemyAlchemyAlchemy, his name compressed and shrank Moses’s balls. “Maybe I’ll send him a download of your music.”
“Great. Great.”
“No promises.”
Asking Alchemy for any favor was anathema to Moses. Instead he called Andrew Pullham-Large, who said to send it over. He also informed him that the Enquirer had “agreed” to leave him and Jay out of the story. They couldn’t substantiate the innuendos about Alchemy and Jay. Alchemy had threatened a prolonged lawsuit regardless of the cost. This earned more of Moses’s gratitude.
Pullham-Large e-mailed within two days. “Not for us. Tell her to keep at it. Too much Bikini Kill/Sleater-Kinney, not enough Evie-Anne Baxter. If you have any other suggestions, always looking for exceptional new talent.” He forwarded the e-mail to Evie.
Later that night he checked his in-box and there was a reply from Evie. “Cum on, intro me to your brother. They’ll listen to HIM.” Just below it was an e-mail from Alchemy. He wanted to meet the following week to pick Moses’s brain about the Nightingale Foundation.
Moses didn’t answer either e-mail that night.
In the morning he found another e-mail from Evie. “C’mon, Moses. What’s wrong? Are we still good?”
Moses, despite his desire to help, couldn’t explain the situation to Evie. He had decided that when he and Alchemy met, he’d see if the proper moment came for him to slip her into the conversation. He didn’t want to tell her because it might unduly raise her hopes.
Evie, there are complexities in my relationship with my brother that preclude me from pursuing this with him right now. I want to support you, only in this specific request it is not possible. Please understand. I love your music and your company.
Her peevish response: “If you really love my music, what’s so complicated you can’t send him a cd?” Moses answered with a brief e-mail saying he’d give her more details (although he wasn’t sure what he would say) when next they saw each other. She answered “OK” without setting a date for “when next” they’d see each other.
Unlike previous years, without Jay and now not hearing from Evie, Moses relished the start of classes, so he was not displeased when he received a call in mid-August — a week since hearing from Evie — from the secretary to Robert Slocum, dean of the Humanities Department. The dean requested a meeting without giving a reason.
Immediately after hanging up, Moses’s regret over Evie’s recent silence escalated into runaway paranoia. He imagined that Evie had lodged an official complaint. He pored over and deconstructed all of the correspondences between them: no way to deny a relationship, yet nothing tawdry or disrespectful. They’d begun sexual relations after she had completed his course and fulfilled her BFA requirements in compliance with SCCAM’s notoriously lax faculty-student relationship policy. Moses supposed she felt betrayed and that his behavior would lead to dismissal, suspension or, at best, probation. The hope that his life’s descent would have a long lull was a gross miscalculation.
52 MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’
Freudian Slipper, 1999 — 2001
In 1999, we were at the top of our game as a live band and Blues was on the way to becoming triple platinum. We skip the group intervention, and Alchemy accompanies Absurda to a recovery tank in Minnesota. We postpone the video and the tour. I go to Queens for a few days for Nova’s funeral. When Alchemy gets back, me, him, and Lux do some recording and jamming in the studio while waiting for Absurda.