Killing the Buddha

by Peter Manseau

  “The doctor doesn’t say anything. He howls like the wind, and she wonders, Well who are you?”

  Dina stopped. “That’s as far as I got,” she said. “I don’t know what happens next. I guess the wife gets angry, ’cuz her man has a mistress, this fuckin’ tornado.”

  “Maybe,” we said. “Or maybe the wife is really the mistress.”

  “Yes,” said Dina. “That is it exactly. The wife is the mistress and the tornado is the doctor’s real lover. Ooh, this is so hot, ’cuz, ’cuz, you know what happens next? The woman, she grabs her man by his shoulders and she says to him, she says this: ‘You, you, as long as you keep chasing her’—the storm, the sky, God, whatever—‘you’re gonna keep loving me because I’m your mistress, my flesh and bones are your secret. And you know what’s gonna happen? You keep chasing the storm, you’re gonna make me into a fucking hurricane.’ ”

  Dina sighed. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

  Yes, we said, scribbling the Book of Dina on cocktail napkins, A Heretic’s Bible’s Apocrypha: adultery redeemed, humanism made holy, big-tent polytheism, everyone a god by no grace of his or her own but through the love of another—

  “Put that crap away,” Dina said, slapping our hands. “The boss will think we’re trading phone numbers, and he says nothing that happens here goes out the door. Besides, it’s your turn to tell a story.”

  Dina hailed the bartender for a round of kamikazes. She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the air above us, her breath joining the ashy cloud that hung there. She pulled her chair in close and lowered her voice.

  “So that big trip you took,” she said. “What else did you see?”

  The sound system banged and pulsed, in the back a man grunted with pleasure, onstage the slap of flesh on the brass pole sounded like a congregation clapping in time. Hard to tell if she could really hear us over all that noise. But what did that matter? We told her everything.

  Acknowledgments

  This book grew out of a web magazine, KillingTheBuddha.com, launched in November 2000. Jeremy Brothers, a brilliant designer and a funny, funny man, built the site and continues to design it to this day. There would be no Killing the Buddha without him. Many others have contributed their editorial talents to the website and thus shaped the ideas in this book, among them Patton Dodd, Irina Reyn, and Jeff Wilson, and most of all Paul W. Morris, our adviser, fellow traveler, and friend.

  Our agent, Kathy Anderson, understood this book before we did. Not only did she open doors, she pushed us through them.

  Tess Bresnan; Fiona Burde; Clare Burson; Molly Chilson and John Kearley (and their son, Sam); Mark Chilson; Jessica Christensen; Ingrid Ducmanis; Betsy Frankenberger; Sara Jaye Hart; Sean Manseau; Alane Mason; the late David Miller; Fred Mogul; David, Don, and Jude Rabig; Jennifer Ruark; Gary Shapiro; Phil Shipman; Diane Simon; Kio Stark; and Paul Zakrzewski asked us tough questions. Ben Weiner was our rabbi.

  Jocelyn Sharlet and Baki Tezcan (and their son, Teoman) sold us the car that made it possible for one dollar, and felt bad for taking our money. Kathleen Manseau gave us a shiny Shiva sticker for the windshield and a travel pillow filled with beans.

  More people than we can name gave us shelter; following are some of those whose houses we consider holy: Victoria McKernan in Washington, D.C.; Ray and Brenda Hurst in Bridgewater, Virginia; Justin Faerber and Rachel Ingold in Durham; Jen Ashlock in Chapel Hill; Emily Missner in Nashville; Leah Hochman in Gainesville, Florida; Doug Hadley in Dallas; J. C. Conklin, also in Dallas; Judy Cayce in Breckinridge; Brandon Bonneville and Nina Montemarano in Crestone, Colorado; Lisa Anderson in Colorado Springs; Jason Nutile in Santa Monica; Jim and Rich Marnell in Venice Beach; Jordan Cushing in Toronto; Christina Stanton in Great Barrington, Massachusetts; the Seznec family in Annapolis; and Colleen Clancy and Elana Wertkin in our sometimes hometown of New York City. The Jazz Inn, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, gave us a great place to write at special Buddha-killing rate.

  In Chicago, where much of this book was written and compiled, Bridgette Buckley, Atakan Guven and Arielle Weinenger, and Tom Windish provided sanity-savinginterruptions to the work. In Hamilton, New York, where much of this book was written and compiled, Lesleigh Cushing endured too many overheard arguments and cooked too many wonderful meals to ever be thanked sufficiently.

  In our introduction, we write that this book has fifteen authors; even more people bear responsibility for its existence, and we intend to name names: Philip Rappaport, the brave editor who first took a chance on us; Amy Scheibe, the editor who took the leap of faith necessary to make the book a reality; Chris Litman, who guided us through the details; Dominick Anfuso, who laughed when we proposed the book (which we took as a good sign); Elizabeth Keenan and Carisa Hays, publicistcommandos; the designer, Karolina Harris; the production editor, Philip Metcalf; the copy editor, Susan Brown; and Stephanie Fairyington.

  The scholars Jose Lopez, Steve Prothero, Terry Rey, Mercedes Sandoval, and Diane Winston provided us with intellectual guidance, though they should not be held responsible for what we did with it. Early lessons in the flexibility of religious tradition and literary form came from Julius Lester at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Michael Lesy at Hampshire College.

  Shaiya Baer and Gary White at Vanderbilt University; Bar 13, in Manhattan; Chi Cha Lounge, in Washington; Halcyon, in Brooklyn; JCC of Manhattan; Sam Israel and Locus Gallery, in Manhattan; the McSweeney’s Store, in Brooklyn; Byron Nichols at Union College; and Joanna Yas of Open City and the KGB Bar, in Manhattan, provided us with the opportunity to test much of this book on a live audience. David Isay and David Miller of Sound Portraits lent us recording equipment.

  This book would not exist without all the people who shared their faiths and doubts with us, among them Rabbi Chaim Adelman; Reverend Oliver Barnes; Sister Connie Bielecki; Sheriff Thomas Breedlove; Daphne Bowe; Mel and Victor Chavez; Jonathon and Kendra Crossan Burroughs; Clarity; Larry Deutsch; Dina; Mary Dragon; Elowen Graywolf; Jim Evans; Reverend W. G. “Buddy” Faucette; Debra Floyd; Isis; Cat Johnson; Steve Johnson; Kal-el, his wife, Lumen, and their son, Logan; Dharma Kavr; Elizabeth Kay; Lady Keltic; Kennedy; Gail Scout Lopez; Tony Lowe; George and Stacy McVay; Midnight; Jacob Morris; Pablo; Dr. Jason Persoff; Reverend James E. Pettaway; Prem; Sparky T. Rabbit; Ramloti; Ani Rinchen; Robert K. Ritchie; Julie Schure; James Simpson; Sat Nam Singh; Sotantar Singh; Hanne Strong; Yesshe Thomasch; Geraldine and Desiderio Trujillo; Velvet; Greg West; Liz Wilcocks and her daughter, Zoë; Willowdancer; Crow Wolf; and everyone else we met along the way.

  Many religious and spiritual institutions opened their doors to us, including: Belmont Church, the Billy Graham Center, Capilla del Santo Niño de Atocha, the Carolina Miracle Shack, Circle of Love Ministries, Church of the Rising Daughter, Church of San Lazaro, Club Exotica, Confessions, Dick’s Last Resort, Dolores Mission Catholic Church, Dragon Mountain Zen Center, Faith Tabernacle Pentecostal United, Haidakhandi Universal Ashram, Ivanwald, Jacob’s Well Outreach Ministries, Kane Street Synagogue, Kunzang Palyul Choling, the Los Angeles Catholic Worker community, Meher Spiritual Center, the Manitou Foundation, Nashville Cowboy Church, Nashville Muslim Community Center, New Market Church of the Brethren, Prairie Station Cowboy Church, Santuario de Chimayó, Sanctuary House, Schenectady Hindu Temple, Shinji Shumeikai International, Shrine of Our Lady of Exile, Spirit Life Dome, Spiritual Life Institute, St. Luke-in-the-Fields, the Tennessee State Museum, Trinity Full Gospel Chuch of the Living God, the Twenty-First Amendment Liquor Store, the Twenty-third Psalm Café, and the Washington, D.C., Scientology Center.

  Our parents, William and Mary Manseau and Robert Sharlet, provided the logistical support and absurdly unwavering confidence that made our creedless crusade possible. Nancy Sharlet was always with us.

  Peter would like to thank especially Gwenann Seznec, who watched this book begin from the other side of the world, and saw it end from across the room.

  Jeff would like to thank most of all Julia Rabig, his wife, who let
him kill the Buddha, took him back when the Buddha kicked his ass, and made the attempt worthwhile.

  Contributors

  A. L. Kennedy was born in North East Scotland. She has written four collections of short fiction and three novels, along with two books of nonfiction and a variety of journalism, including a column for The Guardian. She has won a number of literary prizes. She also writes for the stage, radio, film, and TV. She has sold brushes door-todoor, but now lectures part-time in the Creative Writing program at St Andrew’s University School of English. In 1993, she was listed among Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. She is now ten years older and is listed again.

  Francine Prose is the author of ten novels, including Bigfoot Dreams, Primitive People, and Blue Angel, a National Book Award finalist in 2000, and the recent nonfiction work The Lives of the Muses. Her short fiction, which has appeared in such places as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review, has been gathered in two collections, Women and Children First and The Peaceable Kingdom.

  Michael Lesy is the author of eight books of literary journalism and photography, including the classic Wisconsin Death Trip, Visible Light, The Forbidden Zone, Dream-land, and Long Time Coming. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Aperture, and DoubleTake, for which he was a columnist. He is the recipient of two NEA grants, and his book Visible Light was nominated for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he is a professor of writing at Hampshire College.

  lê thi diem thúy is a writer and solo performance artist. Her performance works are Red Fiery Summer, the bodies between us, and Carte Postale. She is the author of The Gangster We Are All Looking For.

  April Reynolds, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, was born in Dallas, Texas, and moved to New York in 1997. She now teaches at the 92nd Street Y and Sarah Lawrence College. Her short story, “Alcestis,” appeared in The Bluelight Corner: Black Women Writing on Passion, Sex and Romantic Love. Her fiction will also appear in the anthology Mending the World. Her first novel, Knee Deep in Wonder, which won a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Award, was published in 2003.

  As the child of a Holocaust escapee and a grandchild of Holocaust victims, Peter Trachtenberg grew up suspecting that the world is unfair and its presiding spirit capricious if not actively malign: Hence his enduring interest in the story of Job. He is the author of the memoir 7 Tattoos: A Memoir in the Flesh (Crown, 1997) and of stories and essays published in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Salon, Chicago, TriQuarterly, and BOMB. He has been the recipient of the Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction and an Artist’s Fellowship from the New York Foundation of the Arts. He has performed as a monologist at Dixon Place, P.S. 122, Hallwalls, and the Museum of Natural History, as well as on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

  Darcey Steinke is the author of two novels, Jesus Saves and Suicide Blonde, and coeditor with Rick Moody of Joyful Noise. She frequently writes for Spin and The Village Voice. She lives in New York.

  Charles Bowden is the author of fourteen books, including Blues for Cannibals, Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America, Juarez: Laboratory for the Future, and Blue Desert. His essays have appeared in Best American Essays, 2001 and 1998. He is a contributing editor to Esquire, a frequent contributor to Harper’s and GQ, and a winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

  Melvin Jules Bukiet’s ninth and most recent book is A Faker’s Dozen. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Manhattan where nothing bad ever happens.

  Eileen Myles is a poet who lives in New York and a novelist who teaches fiction at UCSD. Currently she’s working on a novel called The Inferno and a libretto called Hell.

  Rick Moody is the author most recently of The Black Veil and Demonology, a collection of stories.

  Randall Kenan is the author of a novel, A Visitation of Spirits; a collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (nominated for a National Book Critics’ Circle Award); a biography of James Baldwin for young adults; and a book of nonfiction, Walking on Water: The Lives of Black Americans in the 21st Century. He lives in Hillsboro, North Carolina.

  Haven Kimmel is the author of two novels, The Solace of Leaving Early and Something Rising (Light & Swift), and a memoir, A Girl Named Zippy. She studied theology at the Earlham School of Religion, never imagining that she would one day wrangle the Book of Revelation.

  About the Authors

  Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet are the founding editors of the online magazine KillingTheBuddha.com, winner of the Utne Independent Press Award. They began working together at the National Yiddish Book Center, at which Peter designed exhibits and Jeff edited Pakn Treger, an award-winning magazine of Jewish culture. Peter studied religion and literature at the University of Massachusetts and Boston University. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Boston. Jeff has written about religion and culture for numerous publications, including Harper’s Magazine, The Washington Post Book World, Details, and Salon.com. He lives in New York. They can both be reached through www. KillingTheBuddha.com.