I’m surprised when, maybe a month after the meeting at Kasbah with Mose and Alchemy, at around 2 A.M. one summer night—me and Ricky Jr. are watching porn—Alchy calls. He says we must powwow. It’s more than a year since we seen each other one-on-one, the longest since we met. Week or so before I seen him on Larry King. He don’t apologize for his excesses. King asks if he is a “conflicted millionaire.” Alchemy quips, “more like hypocrite millionaire.” King busts out laughing and kisses his butt. “Why I love this guy. Why the world loves Alchemy Savant.” I don’t get how Alchemy pulls off that Regular Joe act. I go on TV for two minutes and come off like a jackass.
I head over to the upstairs private room at the Broadway Bar, which the owner keeps open for friends after the official closing time.
Alchemy’s eyes are high stepping to the biddy-bip-bip beat. He gets up from the couch and hugs me. I push him away. All-cuddly Alchemy gives me the creeps. “I missed you.” I don’t respond in kind. We get some beers and go out to the empty balcony that overlooks L.A.’s Broadway.
“You ever think back and wish we’d never made it so damn big?”
“Nope. Never.”
He laughed. “Of course you don’t. Once, when I was at Juilliard”—he stops for a minute taking his personal detour to Collidascope Land—“Absurda and I went to see Richard Thompson at the Ritz. We were standing in the back of a packed house while the first act was on, and Thompson slinks in and stands beside us. He’s so nondescript no one else recognizes him. An hour later he is blowing everyone away with his playing. I promised myself that that would not be me. Sometimes, I wonder if that wouldn’t’ve suited me better.”
I don’t think he regretted being him. Only he ain’t exactly lying neither. He always worried that whatever got Salome would get him, too. Maybe he didn’t have to be a rock star. Only him living a normal life was about as likely as me winning the Mr. Congenial award.
“You didn’t ask me here ta get my opinion on that.”
“Silky’s left the band. You hear Laluna’s joining?” I nod. “Lux and I want to do a free concert at the Grand Canyon. Then a farewell world tour. Call it quits after twenty years. We need you. We never found a permanent replacement for you.” This is true. They used session guys or friends in the studio and different hired hands on the road.
I don’t want to answer yet. “Whataya gonna do if you quit music?”
“I’ll always make music. No touring. Different stuff. I want to dedicate myself to the Nightingale Foundation.”
“C’mon, you’re going into politics.”
“Maybe.”
“Liar.”
“Yeah.”
“And you call me the ambitious one. Or maybe you was being sarcastic. Damn, taken me all these years to get it.” I’m wondering if the time is right for me to go back. He downs another beer in one go. From his pocket he takes out his iPod and hands it to me. “Put it on and listen.”
I do.
“Man, this ain’t saying enough, but that’s the most insane and beautiful three or four minutes a music I ever heard—fuck—I never heard nuthin’ like it before.”
“It came to me in my sleep and I woke up and just played it. Absurda gave it to me from out there …”
“I don’t buy that otherworldly shit.” I hand the iPod back to him. “When you are dead, you stay dead. No damn spirits is creepin’ around.”
“Probably. Only I don’t know what I don’t know … It’s eight years and I am still plagued by what we could’ve done for her.”
I keep it zipped. I learned that from him. Sometimes saying nuthin’ is as meaningful as saying something.
“Hey, look, I’m really sorry about what went down with us.”
I know he’s talking about the shit that went down at Madam Rosa’s. I just nod as if to say, so fucking what?
“Are you finally ready to listen and believe me instead of blowing up and punching me before I can finish talking?” He closes his eyes and opens them, expecting me to bust out all gooey.
“I never doubted what I seen and heard, and it means what I think it means.”
“Listen to me, Ambitious. Absurda and I were taking leaks outside. But you’re right, she was thanking me—she was grateful for all she believed I’d done for her. The band and all. And, well, for bringing you into her life.”
“This ain’t no Alchemy creation to make me feel like shit?”
“After all this time you don’t think I can come up with something better than that to make you feel like shit?” He’s trying to joke, but his eyes, his body got the look of helpless sadness that I seen that first day years ago when he had to leave Salome in Collier Layne. In all the time I know him, I seen that look maybe five times.
I finish my beer. “You and her?”
“Never.”
“What about, you know, what I …” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I done beat myself up plenty over that night. “I’m sorry. I dunno—”
“Look, I get it. And neither of us will ever forget it. But we all have ugly shit in our heads. The guy I love as Ambitious Mindswallow—and I felt this from the day we met—is one angry motherfucker fighting against himself, who screws up … a lot, but in the end, you do the right thing.”