“So I gather you’re not a Hindu,” I said. “Are you a Buddhist?” That would explain why he knew so much about what Bhante was up to.
“No. I’m nothing. I graduated myself out of everything,” Marco replied.
I noticed my beer bottle sitting on the blue cooler beside me and took a sip. It was warm, and the alcohol in it tasted awful. I made a face.
“Go ahead and spit it out,” he suggested. “You won’t want to drink now.” His full bottle sat next to him.
I swallowed and wished I’d spit. “You’ve ruined my drinking? What else? Will I have to stop beating up old ladies and robbing banks?”
He laughed.
“What about sex?” I asked, thinking about Sam. “Seriously. Will I still enjoy it?”
“Probably more now,” Marco said.
I suddenly noticed that Lucy the beagle was gone and asked where she was.
“Lucy is aware that her ability to tolerate chi is limited, so when there’s energy flying around, she runs off and hides.”
He called her name, and she sprinted around the corner of the house, her big ears flopping wildly. Then she jumped up in my lap.
“I told you she’d like you,” Marco said.
“You also said she likes everybody.”
He smiled. When I tried a few more questions, he just kept smiling, so I sat quietly and watched the bay.
After a while, I scratched an itch on my cheek and was surprised to find I was still crying. Apparently, I’d never stopped.
Chapter Nine
We spent the entire day in our chairs on the patio, with only occasional visits to Marco’s outhouse. He brought food and water out twice, but he didn’t speak at all. Neither did I.
During the first few hours, I could feel the new energy moving around inside me. Apparently, there was a time lag to Marco’s handiwork. Now and then his hands formed odd positions again; I guess he was facilitating the assimilation process. The internal movements were spooky at first—like feeling a critter run up your spine or a Roman candle spitting sparks in your gut. But as the day wore on and the fruits of the energy manifested more strongly, I came to appreciate the software upgrade more and more.
By nightfall, my baseline mental state seemed to be alert, positive, and loving. I was naturally in the moment, but I could retrieve memories or ponder something if I chose to. I wasn’t bored for a second, even though all I’d done all day was sit there. I didn’t need to say or do anything to become fine. I didn’t need to escape or avoid any feelings or thoughts. They just arose, hung around, and then drifted off. Perhaps another one would bubble up, perhaps not. Either way was fine with me.
It was as if I’d made my peace with the entirety of my experience. My judgments about it all seemed meaningless; they were nothing more than self-interested impositions onto life. My role was to cooperate by doing—or refraining from doing—whatever was called for. I knew I didn’t have the wisdom to administer this perfectly. That was fine, too.
Finally, Marco announced it was time for bed. I was still ensconced in my brown comforter with Lucy on my lap. The red ski cap was perched on my head. In a lowbrow comedy movie, I’d have been the wacky ethnic neighbor who dropped by and told everyone in horrendous English about an upcoming party where the babes dug happening dudes wearing comforters, ski caps, and beagles.
“Thank you,” I told Marco as I rose, shedding Lucy in the process.
“Thank the universe,” he said, so I did.
I slept in the “guest shed” on an army cot amidst piles of kites, paint-by-number kits, and antique luggage. Marco told me that these were legacies from the previous owner. He’d bought the island five months earlier. When I asked him why, he said that Lucy liked it, and it was conveniently located to meet me.
I fell asleep immediately and woke up the next morning refreshed, with beagle slobber on my nose and beagle eyes locked on mine. It felt like a warmer day.
Lucy watched me closely as I washed my face in the corner sink—there was running water, at least. And I was able to shave using the toiletry kit that Marco had provided. Most dogs displayed an implicit demand in their eyes first thing in the morning—feed me, walk me, pet me—but Lucy just seemed interested in what I was up to.
Marco had bought “Buddha-sized clothes” some time ago in anticipation of my arrival. I tried on the clean jeans and purple turtleneck, and they fit me fairly well, although I didn’t think Buddha would’ve been caught dead in a turtleneck.
By the time I’d visited the outhouse again, Marco was back on the patio with a couple of omelets and a pile of toast. “Is there something special about this patio?” I asked. I’d wondered early on why he hadn’t invited me into his house.
“Yes. Have some breakfast.”
The food was either unusually delicious or my innards had continued to reconfigure during the night. Every bite was a complex and intense experience. The texture of the toast was exquisite. The hot tea was even more sublime than Bhante’s, although I could see that it had been brewed from ordinary teabags.
“You’ll get used to it,” Marco said, watching me chew. “You’ll get used to all of it.”
“Can I ask more questions?” While I’d been washing my face, I’d concocted some doozies.
“No. We’ve got to get moving,” Marco said. “There’s a water taxi coming to pick us up in forty minutes, and then we’ll get a car in Paihia and drive to the Auckland airport. We need to be in India by tomorrow.”
“Whoa. Hold it. I haven’t signed up for anything like that. I appreciate the chi, I appreciate the rescue—”
“Don’t forget those grilled cheese sandwiches I made yesterday. That was Dijon mustard on those.”
“But,” I continued, “I’m not ready to go to India with you. I don’t have my passport with me, anyway. I couldn’t go if I wanted to.”
“Chris is bringing it with him. He’ll meet us in Auckland,” Marco said.
“My Chris? From Santa Cruz?”
“Yes. He’s coming to India, too.”
I was speechless again for a moment. Who the fuck is this guy? Then my new calm settled back in again. Whatever. It was all part of the perfect whole, even my shock at hearing Marco’s words.
“I called him early yesterday and explained the situation,” Marco said. “He was very gracious.”
“Chris? Gracious?”
“Well, I needed to demonstrate what I could do first.”
“You read his mind?” I asked.
“Better.”
“Better?”
“I had his dog spell out ‘Help Sid’ with pieces of dog food on the carpet while he talked to me.”
I burst out laughing. “Oh, I wish I could’ve seen his face. He was probably right in the middle of giving you shit, wasn’t he?”
“Let’s just say he was less than gracious at first.”
I couldn’t stop laughing, and now my laugh sounded like a junior version of Marco’s. “Hey, I’ve got a new laugh,” I said.
He smiled.
“Can I ask why you want us to go to India? Or for that matter, what the hell is going on generally? Am I your student now? Are you my guru? Am I enlightened? What about my life—my clients back home? People are counting on me.”
“Chris called your answering service, and they’re contacting all your patients. You’re on an extended personal leave due to unforeseen circumstances.”
“They’re unforeseen, all right.” I paused and realized I was upset. My jaw tightened, and I felt lost in it, and I also watched myself be lost in it. As the undifferentiated feeling coalesced into anger, I found myself resenting this other, more reasonable guy that was now living in my head. I didn’t ask for an internal witness. I didn’t ask for any of this shit.
I experienced the anger as energy now, too. This was another uninvited alteration. It raced through me with a corrosive tang. It felt wrong. It was driving me to misbehave, but I couldn’t respond in the same old way. Had Marco ruined anger, too?
Would I always be like this now?
I finally spoke in a much more reasonable tone than I felt. “Isn’t this rather high-handed, Marco?”
“Yes.”
“You’re doing all this behind my back—without my permission. Even the weird hands…”
“Mudras,” he said.
“Okay, even the mudras and the chi aren’t anything I agreed to. There’s a lot of presumption here.” The angry energy still roiled around, but I found it easy to keep it in check.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s okay with me,” I said.
“Clearly, it isn’t,” he replied. “But we have to get ready to go now.”
“You already know I’m going, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Whatever.” I threw up my hands as though I were Italian, too.
“You’ll need this for our trip,” Marco said, handing me a wad of money, which I stuffed into my pocket.
How could I argue with the guy? And although I’d never been to India, I did have an affinity for the place. I’d grown up outside Palo Alto, California, a remarkably international community, due to Stanford University. My parents had befriended several Indians, and my father’s college roommate, Charles Singh, was from Kashmir. Growing up, he’d been like an uncle to me.
As I brushed my teeth back in the shed a few minutes later, it occurred to me that between my therapeutic skills and my new chi-enhanced operating system, I was now remarkably well equipped to handle whatever came my way. How many people could access the same rarified range of abilities that were available to me? I didn’t even know what I was capable of. Maybe I possessed minor-league superpowers now.
Or maybe my ego needs to calm the hell down.
I selected a brown vintage suitcase from the pile of luggage in the shed and placed a change of clothes and the guest toiletries in it. They looked rather pathetic lying there by themselves, and since they’d rattle around in transit, I filled up the space with several paint-by-number kits: a mountain scene, an antique car, and—my favorite—a kangaroo with a pouch full of socket wrenches.
The water taxi appeared on schedule. Apparently, Marco had summoned it to the island before, because the teenage driver moored the small launch where the rowboat had been. Perhaps Marco had moved it up onto the land while I’d slept that morning, although it had appeared to be too heavy for one person to manhandle.
Marco carried Lucy into the boat under one arm. Was she coming too? A white canvas duffel bag was tucked under his other arm.
“Good morning,” the teenaged boatman chirped. He was very white and good-looking in a generic sort of way. He had short, curly red hair which was mostly hidden under a huge, beige sunhat. He looked at me even more closely than I was examining him.
“Hey, you’re missing,” he said.
“What?”
“You’ve been missing since yesterday morning. They think you drowned. I need to call this in.” He reached into his pants pocket, fumbling in his haste.
Marco eased Lucy down onto the deck and placed his hand on the young man’s forearm. “Pat, I’d prefer if you’d wait on that.”
“Why’s that, Mr. Giocassini?”
“Sid here doesn’t want to be found just yet. There are people who wish him harm. And I think it was his brother you saw in that photo, anyway. Can you wait until you’ve dropped us off in Paihia?”
“Well, if you say so. I wouldn’t do that for just anyone, Mr. G.”
“I appreciate it,” Marco said, letting go of the young man’s arm. “And say hi to your mom for me.”
“Sure thing.” He smiled broadly and turned back to the wheel.
We sat behind Pat, Lucy at our feet, as he smoothly pulled out into the bay. During the early part of the trip, heading inland, he chatted with me. We had to speak up to cut through the noisy outboard motor.
“So how do you like the Bay of Islands?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful.” I liked having a name for where we were. “And it’s aptly named. Are you from here?”
“No, no. I came up from Napier. Are you from India? You have an American accent, but you aren’t American, are you?”
“I’m from California.”
“Oh. Is someone chasing you? Is that what Mr. G. meant about someone wanting to hurt you?” Pat swiveled his head back and forth from watching where he was going and watching me.
“I’m not sure,” I said, which I realized was true. If anything, I knew less about all that than I had before Marco rescued me. Who knew what Tommy T., Bhante, or Jackson were up to? On the other hand, it didn’t bother me to be so clueless. Hell, I don’t even know why I’m heading for India, yet here I am en route.
“How do you know Mr. G.?” Pat asked next. “He’s never let anyone else on his island before.”
Marco spoke up in his strong baritone voice. “He’s my spiritual teacher. He’s going to be very famous someday.”
“Really? Wow,” Pat said. “You know, Mr. G., you’re the most spiritual guy I ever met. So if this guy is your teacher, well…wow!”
“Ask him for a blessing,” Marco suggested.
“Sure. Great. Can I have a blessing? What’s your name anyway?” His guileless face reflected an innocence I didn’t see back home.
Marco answered before I could. “They call him Buddha 2.0.”
“Cool. Like an upgraded tech product, huh?”
Pat swiveled all the way and faced me—apparently the boat could steer itself for a while. I looked at Marco. He smiled his characteristic enigmatic smile.
So I pointed my right forefinger at Pat’s chest. “I hereby bless you,” I said. All of a sudden, energy shot out of my finger. Pat was jolted by it—it knocked him back into the steering wheel.
“Whoa!” he said, his eyes wide.
I retracted my finger before he passed out or something. The energy stopped immediately.
Pat seemed dazed. For a few moments, he was immobile, his eyes unfocused. Then he wriggled his torso like a dog flinging water off, nodded furiously several times, and turned excitedly toward Marco. His face was flushed. “I see what you mean about this guy,” he said. “That was really something.”
“Do you feel more awake?”
“Definitely. It’s like five cups of coffee.” Pat pivoted and grabbed the wheel again.
I spoke just loud enough for Marco to hear. “What was that all about?”
“Well, it’s up to you, Sid,” he said. “It could be about becoming a spiritual leader—doing things like that on a grander scale and saving the world. Or it could be a parlor trick you do at cocktail parties back home if you decide to pack it in.” His intense gaze bored into me.
“What do you mean, ‘save the world’? I thought you didn’t agree with Bhante about an apocalypse. Are you saying I need to save people because they’re full of sin? You know, like Jesus?”
“No,” he said. “There’s no such thing as sin. Everyone’s perfect just as they are—and there’s tremendous room for improvement, too. What I mean is the world’s literally going to end soon.” His casual tone had returned. This seemed to be his baseline.
“The whole world?” I would’ve been more alarmed, but it was all too weird to react to in an ordinary way.
“Pretty much. Bhante is right about that, but for the wrong reasons. We’ve got a few months to keep things going, though.” He smiled.
Maybe he doesn’t care. This time, the idea alarmed me. I couldn’t keep my voice down as I responded. “I’m just me!” I proclaimed. “I don’t know anything about all that.”
Pat looked back at us. His face was still much more alive than when we’d met.
“He’s so humble,” Marco said to the teen.
Pat nodded, turned around again, and steered the launch past a buoy.
“I need your help,” Marco told me. “We can change things together.” He shifted several times in his seat, either belying the calm he was projecting or as a response to physical dis
comfort—a sore hip? Usually, I could discriminate between two motives—I was a therapist, after all—but in Marco’s case, I had no clue.
“Why me? And what are the right reasons if Bhante’s are wrong?”
“Who wouldn’t listen to Buddha’s clone, especially when he’d been certified as being the reincarnated Buddha, too?”
“But you said that wasn’t true,” I protested.
“These days, who cares?” Marco shrugged. “We need someone who people will listen to. It doesn’t matter why or what’s true. Whatever works—that’s what we have to go with. It isn’t unscrupulous to do what’s called for in a true crisis, or to put it another way, we don’t have the luxury of personal integrity. The stakes are too high.”
“So we need to hook up with Bhante’s crowd? We need to let him work his scam? Is that what you mean?”
“More or less. But don’t worry. I’ll tell you what to do and say. And I’ll send energy through you—that’s what we set up yesterday. And that’s why Pat is a happier man today. Bhante can give you an audience. Together, you and I will transform that audience. If we can’t wake up a critical mass of the world’s population, the old deal here is doomed. Consciousness will need to build a new game from scratch.”
He’s got to be delusional. Despite all the phenomena that Marco had generated, this was classic delusional disorder material, grandiose type. Bhante had a religion backing him up, more or less. Marco had come up with this crap on his own. The end of the world. Being its savior. Validating the craziness by signing up helpers. Most systematic delusions are the product of errant biochemistry—schizophrenia or severe bipolar disorder, for example. But occasionally some people simply think their way into crazy.
“I’m not delusional,” Marco said. “Remember the ski cap? Remember the limits of logic?”
“You mean the ‘fuck sense’ teaching?”
He laughed. “Exactly.”
I nodded. What else could I do? You can’t reason with delusion.
After mulling it over for a while, though, I had to admit that I had yet to encounter some of the core features of a grandiose delusional disorder. Beyond the sheer outrageousness of the ideas Marco had just put forth, for example, there was nothing puffed up or egotistical about him. Perhaps my mind sought the familiarity of diagnosis instead of facing what Marco was telling me.
Coattail Karma Page 11
