Parnell Palmer and I, with Bellows by my side in her office, held a computer TV chat because he still has more questions and I had more answers. Screens are hindrances to any sensate morphologist, but I acceded when Palmer agreed that Persephone could soon visit with me. There is a not so minor catch. She is somewhere in Eastern Europe. I tried to wheedle Perse’s exact whereabouts and the time of her expected return. He stonewalled.
Palmer began this cross-examination by asking if I’d heard Alchemy and Laluna arguing about her consorting with Godfrey Barker and Jack Crouse. I hadn’t. Crouse was so bland and inarticulate—worth maybe one fuck.
Through the screen, I recounted to Palmer what transpired on the day when, a few days before their football party, Laluna brought Crouse and Barker to my studio for a second time.
Barker began by apologizing for the collector he thought might want a Baddist Boy collage, who had passed. This was news to me and gave me a taste of his entitlement, since I’d told him I wouldn’t sell it. He suggested I do a commission for their new church in Hollywood. I said thanks but no thanks, which provoked an attack from Godfrey the Enlightened. He said the antipsycho drugs “stulted” my artistic growth and caused me to become even more “unstable.” “Truthfully,” he said, “I offered the commission as a favor to Laluna.” He smiled arrogantly. “You haven’t done anything exceptional in years.”
Laluna blanched.
“Barker, I don’t need favors from her or from you, and I take insults from vulgarians like you as compliments.”
Too self-absorbed to notice Laluna’s discomfort, he lectured me on the benefits of Cosmological Kinetic therapy, which would “purify” my demons and “open” me up to create “monumental” art again.
Crouse chimed in too enthusiastically, “It’s great! Really great! You should try it!”
I paid no attention to him and addressed Barker. “Exorcisms of any kind do not intrigue me. I am my demons.”
“It’s not an exorcism. Purification puts you in touch with those demons and then you’ll embrace and control them. Ask Laluna. You two would become much more simpatico and mutually supportive of each other, and of Alchemy, instead of jousting rivals.”
The only impediment to improving my relations with Laluna was her imposing upon my relations with Perse. If she’d stopped that, we’d have been just groovy.
Palmer had listened through the screen without much comment. I heard his muffled voice speaking to someone off-screen. Then he swung his axe.
“So you didn’t say to Barker that you’d burn his church before you’d ever create art for it?”
“No. Why would I? I might’ve implied that cavemen had superior aesthetics.”
“Salome, no need for me to delve more deeply into your memory lapses and actual past pyrotechnics. I’m more interested in a conversation between you and Laluna that took place the evening before the party. You threatened to use whatever sway you had over Alchemy to tell him that you sniffed that she and Crouse were having an affair, to stop her from surrendering Persephone to Moses Teumer’s care for a month.”
I explained to Palmer that it wasn’t a conversation. I didn’t threaten her. I asked her about Crouse. She didn’t hold her fire. She spit out, “Unlike you, I would never fuck someone behind the back of the man I love.” Explaining myself to her was futile. I tried a new tactic. She’d written a few maudlin songs to accompany some new Petra Sansluv drawings. Initially, I was reluctant to partner with her. Still, I suggested we plan an exhibition/concert together. I begged her to let Persephone stay with me and the nannies when they went on vacation. She just bobbed her head from side to side. That meant “Drop dead.”