The Forgiven

by Mike Shepherd

  “I think I can handle that.”

  But I couldn’t handle the news we got three days later that Bruce had been killed at Khe Sanh. It hit me hard. I rocked back from the shock of it, and fell into a chair. I couldn’t fathom Bruce being dead. Only yesterday we sat together at the club, discussing King’s assassination. I put my face in my hands. I expected to cry, but I didn’t; I was just too numb. Joe, the boss of Combat News stood there in silence, shaking his head, disbelieving what he had heard.

  We closed up shop and went to Joe’s villa downtown. We drank of course, and listened to some jazz albums in honor of Bruce, and to a tape we had recorded on New Year’s Eve on which he introduced records as a D.J. in Chicago.

  “From high atop the Windy City on a crystal clear mid-winter’s night, this is Bruce Samuels, your host, as always, wishing you blue birds in the spring. But until then nestle with your baby near the fire and listen to Nat King Cole singing Stardust.”

  Writing that sad chapter reminded me of Bruce’s mellow FM style of broadcasting, which had influenced my style as a D.J. at the local university’s radio station. Although my voice wasn’t as deep and sultry as his, mine attracted a number of women to my listening audience. Among them, unfortunately was the crazy woman who had enticed me to smoke a pipe of marijuana laced with poison ivy. I’d vowed I’d get even with her someday, and as fate would have it the opportunity arose one night, when I happened to see her in a tavern. It had been a while since I last saw her; I assumed she wouldn’t recognize me. My hair was shorter and I had no beard.

  She was drinking alone at the bar, perhaps waiting for an unsuspecting man to hit on her, and I did, but I wasn’t so unsuspecting.

  “May I buy you a drink?” I asked.

  “Sure. I’m drinking Harvey Wallbangers,” she said.

  “Bartender! A Harvey Wallbanger for the lady, and a beer for me.”

  “Thanks. You look a little familiar.”

  “So do you,” I said.

  “Lots of people say that. I’ve got a common face.”

  “It’s a nice face.”

  I was making inroads quickly, perhaps because she seemed a little drunk. It would make it easier to persuade her to come to my place for a drink, and maybe a snort of what I would present as a line of cocaine. That was what she did the night she fed me poison ivy. The only problem was that I didn’t have any cocaine – what a shame. I’d have to come up with a substitute -- something white and powdery, like baking soda, or laundry detergent -- anything that would cause her as much discomfort as possible as payback for what she had done to me. Even though I was a believer in forgiveness, an eye for eye took precedence in this particular instance. Laundry detergent – that would do the trick. It would certainly clean out her sinuses.

  For the first time in my life, I welcomed “last call.” It would open the door to the next step: getting her to come home with me, “… for a nightcap.”

  She consented to my suggestion without hesitation, and she followed me to my house in her car.

  When we arrived I opened two bottles of beer, and we sat at the kitchen table. I looked out the window. It was snowing.

  “Nothing like a little snow to make the night brighter,” I said with a grin. “Care to snort some?”

  “Sure.” She grinned in return.

  With her back to me I went to a cabinet, got two saucers and sprinkled laundry detergent on one, and some baking soda on the other. I placed them on the table, being careful to place the detergent in front of her. I cut a line of it with a razor blade, and presented her with a tightly rolled dollar bill to snort it with. She did, and I snorted a line of the baking soda.

  “Oh my God, what is this shit!” she shouted, and she guzzled the beer flooding her sinuses, and soapy bubbles spewed from her mouth and nose. She jumped up and ran out of the house, snorting and coughing and choking and cursing. She poured what was left of her beer on my head, but it didn’t dampen the delight I felt in exacting revenge.

  CHAPTER 14

  In March my unemployment benefits ran out, so I had to go back to work. With the onset of spring, landscaping jobs would be plentiful. I hadn’t worked as a landscaper since I lived in Austin, when I was forced to give it up because of a broken ankle. That was quite a while ago. Since then my ankle had healed enough to return to landscaping work. I didn’t want to go back to bartending because it would lead to too much drinking. As of now, I had cut back considerably. I thought about spinning records again, but it paid so poorly in the Springfield market that it wouldn’t be worth my time, whereas landscaping paid fairly well. Landscaping was a noble profession of antiquity, as I learned while reading some Buddhist literature David Balmer had given me during our magic mushroom trip. In ancient Japan, landscaping was considered an esoteric, Zen-like art form at least a thousand years before it was introduced to the West. It incorporated the contrasting concepts of Taoism in its creativity and practicality, sunlight and shadows, contrast of color and textures, size and shape, and contrasts in the contour of the land, all of which contribute to the totality of the beauty of the garden.

  One day when I was scanning the help wanted ads in the paper, one in particular caught my eye. It was for a landscaping position at a nursery called Shinto Gardens. When I applied, the owner, a Mr. Yu Kubota explained to me that Shinto is a Japanese religion in which nature is sacred.

  “Close contact with nature,” he said, “is close contact with the gods, especially the sun goddess Amaterasu.”

  He said natural objects like rocks and plants, and even water, are worshiped for their spiritual essence, called kami.

  When I told him I’d read about the ancient Japanese art of landscaping and its religious implications, he hired me on the spot.

  Landscaping was hard work, as I knew from past experience. At times I was exhausted at the end of the day, but I didn’t let that keep me from working on my book at night. After a hard day’s work a cold beer tasted good, but if I wanted to write coherently I limited myself to just one, thereby striking a balance between indulgence and discipline in the spirit of Zen. It seemed I’d become somewhat of a Buddhist, but I was still a Christian, too, perhaps a Pantheist. I saw commonalities of many religions that worshiped an omnipotent deity: be it Buddhism, Christianity, Islam or Hinduism. The exception was devil worship – there was no room in my heart for evil. I saw enough of that in the war, leading me to ask why the benevolent, omnipotent gods of many religions would allow their followers to commit mass homicide. I addressed that in the next chapter I wrote, about a Chistmas party in Saigon to which my co-workers and I invited our Vietnamese friends for some international cultural exchange.

  The party began early at the Combat News office when Sgt. Joe, the boss, passed around shots of peppermint schnapps. Then we took a lambretta taxi to the villa, where a well-stocked bar and a fridge full of beer awaited us. On the way, we stopped at the neighborhood bakery on the corner from the villa to buy some fresh French bread for fondue, and to invite Pham, the baker and his wife Nam Nhu to join us for some yuletide cheer, though they were Buddhists.

  Although our ostensible excuse for excessive drinking was to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, we managed to keep our revelry secular, at least at first, in deference to our friends’ religion. Trip played his guitar and sang a medley of songs about good ole St. Nick, snow, sleigh bells and such, which delighted Nam Nhu, an educated woman who spoke English, albeit broken. Her face lit up like…well, like a Christmas tree.

  “This Santa Claus, in sleigh, with reindeer, flies?” Pham, who also spoke English, asked incredulously.

  “That’s right.” Joe laughed.

  “And he lands on roof of house and goes down chimney with big bag of toys, says Ho Chi Minh name three times and puts toys under tree all cover with lights?”

  “Ten four.” Joe affirmed.

  “What this got to do with Jesus Chris
t?”

  Joe was stumped, but Steve, the new guy, had an answer.

  “It’s all about the spirit of giving, Pham. God gave to this world his son Jesus, who was crucified as atonement for man’s sins. And Santa, well, he gives gifts to the children just to make them happy.”

  “This why ’tis the season to be jolly, fala-lala-la,’ like Trip sing in song? And deck halls with bows of holly, don gay apparel, rock round Christmas tree while mama-san kiss this Santa Claus?”

  “Yes,” Steve said. “But essentially Christmas is all about the birth of Christ nearly two thousand year ago.”

  “Ah, then he just baby-san compare to Buddha, who is beacoup thousand years old. Who Jesus papa-san, mama-san?” Nam Nhu asked.

  “Joseph and the Virgin Mary.”

  “Virgin give birth to baby-san? How so?” Apparently Nam Nhu knew the meaning of the word “virgin.”

  “Miracle.”

  “Oh, like reindeer fly?” She twisted her face into a frown, then smiled.

  “I know, Nam Nhu. I find it hard to believe too,” Trip said.

  “You’re not a believer, Trip” Steve asked with some surprise.

  Trip thought it over for a moment. “I don’t know, sometimes I am I guess. But explain this to me, Steve: If Christ was given to the world by God to save us all from sin, how come we still have war, especially religious ones like in Northern Ireland and the Middle East? I mean shit, man, that’s about as sinful as you can get, killing in the name of God just because your neighbor chooses to worship him in a different way.”

  Without waiting for an answer, for which Steve looking puzzled seemed to be at a loss, Trip picked up his guitar again and began to strum and sing.

  “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before…,” but then he took some liberty with the lyrics, “…and in the name of God they slay those Muslim heathens, who will surely burn in hell, because heaven is for Christians.”

  “Okay, enough blasphemy, Trip,” Joe said. “Let’s get back to the Santa stuff, and snow and mistletoe. It’s less controversial.

  “All right, how’s this then?” Trip cut loose with a rocking rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Run, Rudolph, Run,” and the party rolled on well past midnight, until about two in the morning, when Pham and Nam Nhu, who had been drinking the rice wine they brought to the party, went home giddy and rosy-cheeked with a new appreciation of Christmas.

  After a nightcap, I settled into my bed for a late December’s nap, but I couldn’t get something Trip said out of my dizzy little head. If Christ was given by God to atone for the sins of man, then why was there still war? Good question, Trip.

  When the sun rose again, I still didn’t have an answer, and I wondered if I ever would.

  CHAPTER 15

  While working at Shinto Gardens, I attended landscape design and horticulture classes twice a week in the evenings at the local junior college. I intended to go into business for myself someday. For now I was content to work for Yu. He enlightened me about the intrinsic aspects of landscaping through Shintoism. I came to appreciate the fruits of my hard labor as something spiritual in nature, which made the work more enjoyable.

  I also enjoyed Friday afternoons, and not just because that was when we were paid. Nikki, Yu’s beautiful sister worked in the office and distributed the paychecks. When she handed me mine I got the impression she was flirting with me. Perhaps she was simply returning the favor, because to be honest about it, I usually initiated the flirting.

  We seemed to share mutual admiration. To follow up on it, one Friday when she brought my check, I asked her if she wanted to join me for a pizza and a pitcher of beer at DiLello’s. She consented, and I suggested that we meet there at seven the following night. She agreed.

  On Saturday evening, I dressed casually. I was surprised to see her dressed flamboyantly – in a black skirt with red flowers, and a red blouse. Her long, silky black hair reflected the red light of the beer sign on the wall above our table. She didn’t wear much makeup, just a touch of lipstick and blush. Perhaps she was a bit overdressed, but she certainly turned a lot of heads.

  I was probably underdressed in comparison – I wore jeans, a faded purple t-shirt and leather sandals. But we had plenty in common to talk about. Although she worked in the office, I learned that she had a degree in landscape architecture. She expressed interest in how my courses at the junior college were progressing.

  “My brother is impressed that you’re taking the courses. He says you have a natural eye for design, and if you get a degree he’d hire you as an architect.”

  “Well what about your degree. Don’t you want to do some designing too?”

  “I have – the garden around the house at Shinto. I designed that. Have you been in it?”

  “No. I thought it was private.”

  “Not if I give a tour. Would you like to see it?”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. The moon is full. It will lend to the garden’s enchantment.”

  “Okay. Eat the last slice of pizza, then we’ll go.”

  “No, you eat it,” she insisted.

  “No, you,” I said, continuing with the usual back and forth people eating pizza engaged in over the last slice.

  “No, you.”

  “Alright, if you insist.” I snatched it up and wolfed it down.

  We met at Shinto Gardens, and parked our cars, and Nikki unlocked the gate. We walked down the driveway to the house at the back of the property, where she lived. At the entrance to the garden Nikki suggested that we take off our shoes to feel the coolness of the flagstones on the bottoms of our feet.

  “Invigorating to the soul,” she giggled. Her pun wasn’t lost on me. We entered through a grove of blooming cherry trees resplendent with multitudes of pink blossoms glowing in the moonlight. She led me along a stone path, and across a bamboo footbridge that spanned a fern-fringed stream flowing slowly over round rocks. We continued down the phlox-lined path that meandered alongside the stream until we came to a pool bubbling like a spring. Reflected moonbeams rippled on the water. Nikki dipped her toes in it while holding my arm to maintain her balance, but the other foot slipped on the moist stone and she fell onto a mossy patch of turf, pulling me down on top of her. We lay there for a moment, looked into each others eyes and smiled. She giggled from the embarrassment of her awkward position. I was tempted to kiss her, but before I could, she squirmed out from beneath me. We got to our feet.

  “Sorry I’m so clumsy, Mick. Maybe I had too much to drink. Better call it a night.”

  We went back to the entrance and picked up our shoes, and hugged each other good night.

  “Thanks for the tour,” I said.

  “Thanks for the pizza, even though you ate the last slice,” Nikki joked.

  CHAPTER 16

  Monday morning when I got to work I poked my head into the office to say hello to Nikki. She nodded, smiled and waved, indicating perhaps that she had a good time Saturday night – an encouraging sign that perhaps we’d have another date in the near future. I had gotten kind of sweet on the woman, and while I was working, I couldn’t stop thinking about her -- nor did I want to. When payday came around again at the end of the week, and she handed me my check, I invited her to come to my place Sunday afternoon for a cookout. My hibachi grill was just big enough for two steaks. When she accepted the invitation she volunteered to bring a side dish of rice and mixed vegetables.

  This time she dressed casually in a halter top and shorts, and sandals that accentuated her shapely legs and attractive feet. I asked her if she would like a glass of wine.

  “Sure would,” she replied.

  “It’s red to go with the steaks. How do you like yours?”

  “Medium rare.”

  I placed the steaks on the grill outside on the balcony and came back in. While waiting
for the steaks to cook. I put on a Wes Montgomery record: cool guitar jazz. The music and the wine put me in a mellow mood, and it seemed to do the same for Nikki.

  I went back outside to check on the steaks. They were ready to eat. The juicy red meat was delicious with the wine. I poured more after we ate, and our dinner party continued late into the night.

  Because I had gotten drunk, I boldly asked Nikki, a Japanese Buddhist, if she had ever engaged in tantric yoga.

  “No, I don’t do it! What you think I am, some kind of geisha girl?” She sounded angry.

  “Sorry, I was just curious.”

  “Curious about what? To see how far I go? I don’t go far, not tonight. I’ve had too much to drink; better go now.”

  She stood, kissed me on the cheek and said goodbye, leaving me to wonder if our relationship would ever go beyond that level of affection.

  Continuing a relationship with Nikki on a daily basis at Shinto Gardens, even if it were casual, would not be so convenient anymore, because after getting my associate’s degree in landscape architecture and horticulture, I decided to go into business for myself. I had saved enough money to buy a truck and some tools and I had a few years of practical experience in landscaping. I was confident that I’d succeed.

  I called the business Johnny Appleseed Landscaping and had that emblazoned in red on the doors of my green truck. I placed ads in the local papers and phone book and Yu was kind enough to steer my way any business he didn’t have time for. At first I was able to keep up, working alone, but as the business grew I needed help. I advertised for an employee, and ended up hiring a couple of young Mexican brothers, Pepe and Jose Gonzalez who had green cards. They spoke just enough English for us to understand each other. I quickly found out they were hard working and conscientious, and accepted each task with enthusiasm. They had cheerful dispositions that lightened the physically demanding work, yet they took the job seriously when necessary. Pepe, the older brother, reminded me of Ramon, my boss in Austin. I expected that he, too, would become the boss of a landscaping crew, or the owner of a landscaping business, achieving the American dream of improving one’s circumstances through hard work. And, like my friend Ramon, Pepe and Jose played hard, too. After work, especially on Fridays they’d grab a case of beer at a nearby liquor store, and take it to the campground where they lived in a small trailer during the season. Sometimes I’d get a six-pack and join them, and we’d build a camp fire around which we sat, drinking, cooking food and telling stories.