Salome stripped off her sweatshirt to uncover a sheer purple blouse. She shook out her shoulder-length dyed light-brown hair and wrapped a red scarf around her neck. Her eyes sparkled and her voice became filled with an almost youthful brio as she began to elucidate her work. “I could’ve done a few score more of my Baddist Boys, but I chose these lovely cads. I used photos of myself that Xtine had taken and photos that I’d taken or found that I then reconfigured.”
Moses, nodding to the third print, squeaked out, “Who is the man in that piece?”
“His name was Malcolm Teumer.” Salome paused, glancing at Alchemy, who slung his arm over Moses’s shoulders. “I met him when I was a clueless teenager who loved to fuck. I still love to fuck, but I am no longer clueless. Twenty or so years ago in Berlin, I got the clues on Teumer. If you look closely at the piece, you’ll see a fetus in the bag.” As a group, they stared at the faded fetus. “We had a child who died in childbirth. When I discovered Teumer’s past as a Nazi killer, I understood why our son needed to die.”
The crowd hushed, waiting for Salome to say more. It became apparent she was done explaining. Soozie Daye, a local arts writer who often acted more like a groupie, asked the follow-up question: “Do you really believe it was better that the child died?”
“He died and I was given my son, Alchemy.”
Moses didn’t hear Salome’s answer. He’d fled the museum. He called Jay on the way to his car. She didn’t pick up. He left a message on her voice mail. “Please. I have to talk to you. It was worse than I could’ve imagined. I’m leaving now. I love you.”
As he drove down the block to their home, he saw that Jay’s Honda was gone from the driveway.
40 MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’
Totem and Taboo Hoo, 1999
The day of the intervention I meander downstairs, after being out ’til dawn, minorly hungover. Alchy’s sitting alone on a green wooden folding chair in front of a bridge table with three empty beer bottles, a three-quarter-filled one, two empty Cokes, an ashtray full of butts, and three chessboards. One was a computer game, one was a game he had going with Nathaniel, and the other was a “classic” game he was studying. The room had twenty-five-foot ceilings and skylights and this white marble floor that looked like a hockey rink with a bus-size couch in front of a monster-screen TV. A chair by some artist friend of Salome’s named Longago, which hurt your damn butt when you sit down. A great sound system, of course. The Seeburg Select-o-matic jukebox from the ’50s for those thousands of forty-fives.
I grab a beer and a pack of chocolate Hostess cupcakes and a pack of Twinkies from the kitchen and stumble into the living room, stuffing a cupcake in my mouth. Alchy yells, “Hey, Mr. Met, think fast,” and he flings a baseball glove at my chest. I drop the Twinkies but hold on to the beer and catch the glove. “What the fuckaya doin’?”
He hands me a baseball. “Look at them.”
They both was signed by Lenny Dykstra, who was on the ’86 Mets World Series team, and Alchy knows I love the guy, who was nicknamed Nails.
“Whoa. Shit. Thanks.” I pick up the Twinkies and plop down in a folding chair, down my beer and the Twinkies, put on the glove, and am throwing the ball into it.
“I was going to get you a bat, too. Thought you might find an unhealthy use for it.”
He wasn’t looking at me but at the chessboard.
“That game is so freakin’ bor-ing.”
“My mom claims it’s a legacy from my grandfather. It’s cathartic. Relaxing. It teaches me to be unemotional.”
“You cheat? My grandfather taught me checkers. And how to cheat.”
“Cheating defeats the purpose. You cheat when you play video games for hours?”
“When I get bored.”
Nathaniel clomps in from the guest cottage and shoots me a glance that says I am messing with the order of the house, as if it’s his, ’cause of my empty beer bottle and cupcake wrappers. As if Alchemy’s mess and magazines was sacred. For a hippie dude, his life posture was never slouchy but grouchy-bouncy, except when he got drunk and he meowed about how life with Salome came crashing down on him.
He sits his lumpy ass in a folding chair. “It’s the pinup boy for his de-generation. Always a pleasure to see your impudent leer.”
“You head to the kitchen and earn your keep and cook me a omelet, and you won’t have to see me.”
“You two.” Alchemy shakes his head at us. “Muzzle your stellar banter tonight. We have business.” He spoke directly to Nathaniel. “Lure my mom back to your place before we get started.” Nathaniel nodded. “It’s your move.”
Andrew, Sue, and the shrink arrive together and a few minutes later Lux comes with Randy Sheik. The Sheiks was always protecting their “franchise.”
Everyone is there but the guest of honor. She finally shows up with Silky Trespass, who at the time is the guitarist for the Come Queens. They and Dress Shields, calling themselves the Mendietas, jam together off and on for years.
Around nine a cook serves up dinner, which is laid out buffet style on the dining room table. It’s the only furniture except this giant Christmassy glass chandelier that Salome says was made special by some famous guy who also got one eye.
Most of us pull out the folding chairs or sit on the couch and eat in the other room. Alchemy has put on Blue Velvet with the sound off. Absurda’s put on Jane’s Addiction’s Ritual, which I admit is one fine fuckin’ piece of music. While we’re eating, Salome and a chick Alchemy met maybe ten hours before parade in from the hot tub. Back in Flushin’ we call those hookups “tramp-oline time,” something to jump on all night and jump off of in the morning. Alchy frowned on me using that phrase.
The trampoline has covered up in jeans, sweatshirt, and flip-flops. Salome is slinking, still slightly wet, wearing a green T-shirt, no bra, orange sarong, with a towel slung over her shoulder. Barefoot. She was some kinda female Dorian Gray who must’ve had one of her paintings in the closet that looked four hundred fuckin’ years old, ’cause her body is like a ticking sex bomb ready to explode. (Alchemy gave me that book after the Irving Plaza gig.)
When she’s done eating, Salome puts on the Stones’ “Miss You.” She starts snake-dancing alone under the skylights in the living room. She forefinger wags at Alchemy and waves the towel like a toreador. He gets up and they are both shimmying their butts. I see where he gets some of his moves. They drift in and out in circles from six inches to six feet from each other. They are both mouthing the lyrics. Sick shit, man. Nathaniel, I peek at him, and even he is squirming and dripping in sweat. Lux and me give each other a look that says “I don’t wanna see this.” Absurda and Silky are whispering in each other’s ears. They start dancing with each other, you know, how babes do to get guys hot. The trampoline is looking con-freaking-fused so she gets up and tries to butt in between Alchemy and Salome. They give her the homicidal Savant stare. She backs off. Everyone, even Nathaniel and me, is always an outsider when it comes to Alchemy and Salome. The two of them is swaying to the “oooh-oooh-aaah-aaah” and Mick’s strung-out voice and with Isabella Rossellini on the screen and there’s some very sexy vibrations in the atmosphere. Salome is singing really low, “… I miss ya, chile …” I am getting eroticized by all of this when my brand-new cell phone rings.
“McFinn. Nova.”