I saw nothing of me in his face. I inched closer, and closer still when he asked a question. I hesitated before answering, for in his eyes — not the luminous optimistic multicolors of Alchemy’s eyes, but ominous hazy gun-smoke gray — I sensated his innards crumbling as the vision of my assignation with Teumer and my relief at his unbirth unfurled within him. His palpable pain flustered me. Again, I tried to commune with him. He fled the museum.
The morning of the official opening I awoke at sunrise. Haunted by my failure to carry out my Margarita mission, I’d slept little. As Alchemy began his cooldown walk after his morning jog around the compound, I joined him. I asked him about the man quizzing me about the Baddist Boys.
“An acquaintance. Collector. Why?”
“I got a whiff of a familiar, unholy fragrance. Pig meat sweat.” I lied to gauge his reaction. He frowned but didn’t take the bait.
“He’s a very smart guy. History professor. I think he and Nathaniel would get along.”
“How did you meet him?”
“His wife used to work with Kasbah. I met her first.” His answer turned out to be perfectly true and perfectly untrue.
“I didn’t see him with anyone.”
“I guess she had other plans.”
He wiped his forehead with his T-shirt and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I have to shower before you impugn me with having an unholy fragrance.”
I sniffed the air. “No, just man sweat. Go. I have to help Nathaniel get ready.”
The opening completed the reversal of my art world reputation from the misogynistic imprecation as hysterical woman artist who fucked her way through the world to what became, in Scoggins’s validation, “an underappreciated, often misunderstood visionary worthy of our veneration and awe.” I attempted graciousness and welcomed his plaudits, as my atoms attempted to flee my corporeal body. I hid behind Nathaniel and his wheelchair, which he needed for longer outings, most of the night. I only insulted a few people. During the four-month run of the exhibition, other opportunities to move the show presented themselves. I committed to nothing.
When it was over, with the Insatiables preparing to tour again, despite my embracing by the L.A. art community, Nathaniel and I preferred to return to New York. I never sensated how foolish that move would turn out to be.
58 MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’
Going, Going, Gone, 2003 — 2006
Back in L.A. after the tour, I’m hanging at Kasbah. I see Alchemy in a face-off with a slinky familiar-looking lady in the corner by one of the fake oases. I intrude. He introduces her as “Jay, my brother Mose’s wife. We’re discussing his long-term follow-up treatment.” His way of telling me to get lost. I was about to bounce when Randy shouts, “My brother needs more art!” Whoa! I remember her. Me and her never talked much ’cause we had nuthin’ to offer each other.
Later, when me and him is relaxing in Buddy’s office, I says, “Man, that is wazoo wild shit. Your bro know youse two did the shimmy an’ shake?” I ain’t sure they did, but it’s a good bet.
He rubs his fist under his nose and he says, dead cold, “There is nothing to know. L.A., within its various circles, is a small town. They’re both in the art circle.”
“What the fuck’s that got to do with anything? I bet she got into artfully circling her limbs around all things Alchemous.”
“Don’t be a jerk. I’m telling you we were friends. She was more interested in my mom’s art than me.”
I’m thinking he is protesting too much, and being his “friend” didn’t mean shit. Soon, I find out why I’m right about them and why he don’t want me to meet Mose. I was at the Key Club jammin’ with some local L.A. guys. After the show, some scumsucker paparazzo tracks me down in the bathroom. He says he’s pitchin’ a piece to the Enquirer on “The Insatiable Sexual Appetite of Alchemy Savant.” I says, “So?”
He says, “I need you to ID some of the women in these pics and tell me if he had sex with them.” He shows them to me and one of them is Mrs. Mose and Alchemy all lovebirdy-like back in the ’90s. I tell the fucker to get very lost. Fast. Not that I care much about Mose or his wife. I just hate them paparatzi.
Then the pap threatens me: “If you don’t help me, I’m going for a story that you’re a no-show cheapo father.”
I should’ve told you this already. I got a son from a trampoline break in St. Louis about six years before. I don’t even remember the girl’s name when she contacts me, which she does after the kid, Ricky Jr., is already born. The test proves he’s mine and I pay child support but, I dunno, I never seen him.
I clench my fists so the pap sees, and I say to the ratfuck, “Run the damn article. ’Cause I will never, ever help you.”
Sue and Andrew have already heard about this guy trying to dirty me if he can’t get to Alchy. They advise me to see Ricky Jr., who lives with his mom, a nurse. It turns out to be a great thing. Thankfully, he’s a cute kid. Nuthin’ like me. His mom married a decent guy. I spend lots of time with Ricky Jr. over the years and we are now pretty close. He’s getting ready to go to law school next year. Ain’t that a sweet switch.
I tell Bryn about Ricky Jr. and she is cool, until I say maybe we should have a kid. She is so not into that. I propose that she quit her job, come on the Euro tour, and we get married. She don’t say nuthin’, just scrunches her nose. I fucking offer to quit the band. She not only smacks me down, she breaks up with me. I was her trampoline.
I dive into a drug and drink binge the second we land in London and don’t quit all through Scotland and Scandinavia. I don’t give a rat’s ass that everyone is “worried.” We go to Paris for a show at Parc du Catherine Deneuve or something like that. At the after-party, this actress, Camille Javal, who been in the film Paris by Night, says she is going to audition for the Friendsy for You video, which we are going to come back and do at end of the tour, ’cause Alchy wants this young French kid to direct it.
Camille has these juicy lips and a deep-throat voice that’s so sexy I got a hard-on listening to her coo my name. While we’re touring the rest of Europe, me and her talk all the time. I dunno why, but she’s the first person I feel okay to tell about the Madam Rosa’s shit. And how bad I feel about everything. It was a good choice ’cause she don’t condemn me or nuthin’. “It’s good to love so hard that it nearly breaks you,” she says.
I start staying at her flat when we get back to Paris. The Frenchy director rejects Camille for the main female part. I put it to Alchemy, “Since when do we, meanin’ you, let anyone else call these shots?” Alchemy says it was a mutual decision with him and the director. I say, “C’mon, give me this one.” He’s kinda embarrassed, but he tells me Lux, Silky, and Andrew don’t want her neither.
I figure I’ll talk to Lux on my own. Maybe I can change his mind. He says if Alchemy agrees, it’s okay by him.
A couple of nights later, Alchy plays me this new song “Mysteries and Enemies.”
Lying at the corner of suicide and loathing
when she slipped her hands down my clothing
smile as sweet as Judas’s gun moll
eyes glistenin’ like a midnight Manhattan snowfall