I went out to the porch to drink my coffee and sit with him one morning. The pitter-patter of the spring drizzle seemed to fall in rhythm to the sound of Coltrane’s Ballads, which played on the small cassette player he’d never abandoned. Normally, he’d either be reading or waiting for our nanny to deliver the newspapers. Eyes closed, he swayed in his rocking chair. On the table beside him was a shoe box full of letters. A separate bunch held in a rubber band from his protest pal and mentor, Dave Dellinger, who had died earlier that week, sat on his lap.
I grabbed a cushion from a nearby chair, placed it on the wood floor, and knelt beside him. With my open mouth I tasted his still pure soulsmell, tinged now with the odor of promise lost, like the yellowing, fraying pages of an old paperback book.
I, too, was bereft of inspiration. I took down the mirrors in the house because I couldn’t bear to look at my withering beauty. When I did go out, I suffered the indignity of the younger hotties stealing the carnivorous grins that were once mine. Like my mother before me, I was slipping into reclusiveness. Even worse, my powers as a sensate morphologist, worth more than physical beauty or youthful vigor, were blocked.
When the tape ended, I got up to turn it over. Nathaniel began speaking mournfully, though not bitterly, of the pernicious calories of junk food, junk culture, and junk news that had hastened his slide into irrelevance and impotence. His once grandiose plans had become less grandiose with each defeat, and he now had only two plans — one to live out his days and one to die.
“Don’t do this to yourself,” I pleaded. “You’ve contributed more than anyone could ask. Let’s take a trip. No political or art agenda. Let’s take off like two young kids with nothing to do but loaf around.”
“I’ve never been a very good loafer.”
“I’ve always been a great high heel.”
His smile said he understood my message better than I did.
“Salome, if you need to go, please go. I’ve never wanted to constrain you and I don’t want to start now.”
I did feel constrained. No matter, I couldn’t desert him. Yet, high heel that I am, I could heal neither him nor myself.
Nathaniel found the perfect way to halt our breaking apart. He invited Frank Peters, a critic I’d met years before through Greta’s old friend Betty Parsons and who’d reviewed My Head IS Different for LA Weekly, to visit us when he came for the Hamptons Art Fair. Nathaniel suggested it was time for a Salome Savant career retrospective. Peters agreed. He put the wheels in motion by getting in touch with Curt Scoggins at the Hammer Museum. With all the meetings, conference calls, and e-mails, I was becoming overwhelmed. Nathaniel came to the rescue by acting as my go-between. He took over the logistical arrangements — he’d adapted to e-mail and texting. I carefully went about choosing what I wanted to show and making new work.
While assembling a catalogue raisonné and a list of my major collectors, Scoggins discovered that Teumer and/or Lively owned seven of my pieces. Nathaniel, none too cheerily, relayed this news. I cursed Gibbon for not getting them back when I’d asked him to in Germany.
Nathaniel told Scoggins that Teumer was an old flame who’d remained obsessed with me and it served everyone’s best interest not to contact him. We didn’t need his pieces.
Truly, though, I hated that my creations were in Teumer’s unclean hands. I got in touch with young Bicks III. Unlike his father, he possessed a warmth that he must have inherited from his mother. Bicks III spoke to Lively. He and Teumer had bought the pieces through their import-export company, and when they dissolved their partnership the year before, Teumer took outright ownership of the art. Not two hours after speaking to Bicks III, Teumer called from Brazil. He’d lend the pieces for the Hammer show but would never sell them back. My answer: Forget it. About to hang up, he took the conversation in another direction.
“We’re quite fortunate to have a son so worthy of us.”
“If he exists, I’ve never met him.”
“I don’t mean our son. Your son Alchemy and my third son.”
He bragged how Alchemy visited him in Rio and he’d given him “a letter for Moses.” He sounded so smug when he guessed Alchemy hid that news from me. He magnanimously volunteered to travel to L.A., not easy considering his age, but he’d do it so we could introduce ourselves to “our son.”
“Fuck you, Malcolm.”
“Anytime, my dear.”
Soon after, Teumer sent me a copy of the letter he’d given to Alchemy. And it was then, when Nathaniel found me preparing to burn the damn letter, that we had a huge fight. I finally admitted to Nathaniel that I’d known about Alchemy and his newfound brother since my last stay in Collier Layne when I read the People article. It astounded him that I was able to keep mum. But my admission exposed Nathaniel’s lack of loyalty to me. While I was locked away in Collier Layne, he, Alchemy, and Ruggles decided against telling me this new truth. Despite his conflicts, ethically Nathaniel had to respect Alchemy’s wishes — or so he said. I gave him hell followed by days of silence. When he finally apologized, I demanded he show me the same ethical rectitude and keep my awareness a secret from Alchemy. And Nathaniel also said, whether to appease me or out of sincere belief I don’t know, that if this son were alive and happy in his life, that not seeking him out sounded reasonable.
It’s been over sixty years and I can still feel the tincture of evil sweat and scum that infiltrated my soulsmell when his seed impregnated his beastly odor into me. And I was foolishly naïve to think our conversations were secret. After the interrogations by the CAA’s Parnell Palmer, I’ve assumed the government was always wiretapping me, Teumer, or anyone connected with Nathaniel. Palmer wants to talk to me again. I will be prepared this time. I shouldn’t have ever considered believing that he wants to quiet the rumors — no, he wants to smear the memory of Alchemy. I asked Bellows to set it up with this caveat: I insist on a visit with my granddaughter, Persephone.
56 MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’
Lost in Space, 2001 — 2003
On the plane ride back to L.A. from Fond du Lac — one of the few times Alchy booked us a private jet — I sit in the back by myself. And I get fucking drunk. I can’t believe what has happened. I never felt crappier in my life. I lost Absurda, and now I feel like I lost the best friend I ever had — even if he swore he ain’t done what I know he done. I don’t know where I’d be without him. I am so fucking confused.
Falstaffa comes to pick us up at the Santa Monica Airport. I just trail behind everyone. Alchemy stops and waits for me. “C’mon, man. You coming home?”
“I’m, well, you know. You sure?”
“Your room will always be your room.”
I go, but I’m still feeling not right. Salome and Nathaniel are living in the guest house, and Nathaniel, who is getting worse and some days he can’t walk without help, he still razzes me about being “the Estragon who came to dinner.” I tell him he’s the washed-up Rev who’s gonna be extragone off a cliff if he don’t shaddup. I ain’t fond of staying in Bryn’s condo ’cause the lip flappers tip off the paparazzi. We spend some nights in Absurda’s Rampart place, which she left to me. Only me. The hood is still too dicey for the paparazzi to hang out.