Coattail Karma

by Verlin Darrow

  Map in hand, I nonetheless felt completely lost on a variety of deeper levels. I simply couldn’t swap perspectives fast enough to keep up with the shifting sand under my feet. Who was I? Who was Sam? And what was the deal with my not-dead parents? Some of the recent craziness was conceptual—weird ideas I had to either accept or reject. But my father had sat right across from me. I couldn’t pretend he hadn’t been there.

  So apparently, Marco definitely was Bompiani. This was another disorienting factor. I’d gone back and forth so many times on this one, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. But not-mattering on that scale felt scary. I was in unfamiliar territory. Could I accommodate the temporary nature of everything I thought I knew? One minute, any given fact was there in front of me and I was grasping onto it for dear life. Then it morphed into something else. Or it oscillated back and forth. Or somebody else knew the score but wouldn’t tell me what it was. It was as if none of what happened to me was ever real—just an aspect of a process that was always en route to the next thing it seemed to be. I was forced to immerse myself in a quagmire of meaning and identity. I didn’t like it.

  Fortunately, Sam was willing to chat and answer questions as she drove. The nearest big city that was likely to have an airport was Aurangabad, a three-hour drive. As time passed and we talked, I began to feel marginally better. I could also feel my energy regenerating, continuing to heal and transform me. I could rest in the warm, loving buzz.

  According to Sam, that energy was the main reason that RGP had allowed Marco to recruit and control me. “He embodies extraordinary energy,” she said. “The drugs he took could’ve revolutionized the world if they hadn’t generated such dangerous side effects on his personality. And of course, if Marco hadn’t run off with them. Did you know your mother began the drug trial alongside him? Just as the benefits started to kick in, off he went with the rest of the trial meds. But that’s one reason she is who she is—her having tried the drug for several weeks.”

  “I had no idea,” I said.

  “Marco has never expressed an interest in sharing or transmitting his energy before—until now.”

  “Until me?”

  “Until you,” Sam agreed. “And unless he did, no one could possibly stand up to him. But whoever he shared it with could become his first real peer—the only person capable of successfully opposing him.”

  “That’s more ironic than usual, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes, it certainly is. So we made sure people like Bhante knew all about you. You weren’t effective bait unless an organization that Marco respected validated your status.” She downshifted and passed a minivan.

  “Bait?”

  “A poor choice of words. I’m tired. Let me put it this way. We helped Marco decide to send you the energy. Any regrets about that, Sid?”

  “No. But let me point out that your methods, Kasriti’s methods, and Marco’s methods are all pretty much the same. Tommy T.’s may be more violent, but at least he never tried to con me.” I thought things over for a while. “Even with all my energy and new insights about the world,” I finally said, “Marco has always been a dozen steps ahead of me. I’ll never be a match for him.”

  Sam nodded. “He understands people. He always has. That’s what made him such an outstanding martial arts instructor.”

  “Was he a professor back then—when you knew him?” I asked.

  “He must’ve been, but we just knew him as Sensei Marco. It’s his middle name, actually.”

  “So RGP wanted him to give me his energy so I’d be rearranged by it and have it on tap to use against him?”

  “Not necessarily to attack him, Sid. Just to be able to hold out against him as necessary. Suppose he decided to use energy to wipe out my brain? Wouldn’t you want to be able to push back with your own?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “A major component of the plan was your buying into Marco’s story—becoming truly convinced. If you weren’t—if you were privy to what we knew—then he might read your mind and know that. For him to proceed with his plan for you—including the full energy transfer—he had to be sure that he had you under his thumb. You can see why I couldn’t tell you much.”

  “Yes. You set him up to create Buddha 2.0, and now you’re stealing me back.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.” Sam also told me my mother had developed a psychic-blocking technique so Marco couldn’t read their minds. He couldn’t read everyone’s mind, anyway, so this didn’t arouse his suspicion.

  As we continued to drive—I took a turn at the wheel—I filled her in on the events she’d missed since we’d parted in Mumbai, including the recent scenarios in the tomb and the temple.

  “What they told you in the tomb isn’t true,” Sam said. “They may think they’re running things and that they could train you to, but that’s not so. And Marco rented a laser light show from a disco in Pune to generate the light show.”

  “You’re kidding. That’s what the purple light was? But I could feel the energy, too.”

  “Marco can split his energy off and implant it—do all kinds of tricks—like an energy ventriloquist.”

  “So all that stuff about Baba’s reincarnation and spiritual office-holding is just bullshit?” I asked.

  “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. It may be a religious belief of theirs, and who am I to call someone else’s beliefs bullshit? But although Meher Baba announced at one point that he was an Avatar—a Buddha, if you will—this wasn’t the case. I suspect Marco is using Baba’s benign legacy, as well as Ram and Rinpoche’s beliefs, for his own purposes. He likes to usurp existing infrastructure. Why invent something when there’s already something in place that he could just subvert?”

  “Are there other people in charge of the spiritual realm—just not them?” I asked.

  “No, it doesn’t work that way. The system is profoundly impersonal. We’re all tiny cogs in a vast karmic machine. There’s no hierarchy. Just teachers. Great teachers show up periodically. Energy workers show up. That’s it. These are just jobs that need doing—the same as bricklayers or doctors or hockey players. Nobody is more important than anyone else.”

  “But some people are more directly involved, right? More aware? Don’t they have a greater responsibility to get things to work out?” I gasped as a car nearly rammed us as it turned from a side road.

  “What’s ‘working out?’ That’s just an idea you have about how things should be.” Sam was unfazed by the other driver. “Look at it this way,” she said. “At any given moment, there are people of all different ages in the world.”

  “So?” I had no idea what she was driving at.

  “So is an eight-year-old less evolved then a thirty-year-old? No. He’s doing developmentally appropriate things—eight-year-old things—just the way he’s supposed to. Comparing and ranking them is ridiculous.”

  “Ah, I think I see,” I said. “So if you accept the idea of multiple lifetimes, then we’re all at various stages—various levels of development in various lifetimes—and that’s like being at different chronological ages.”

  “Exactly.” Sam glanced at me and smiled.

  “How can you say all this so authoritatively? How can anyone know things like this for sure?”

  “RGP is the keeper of lost Buddhist truths, including what is possibly the biggest secret in the world,” Sam said.

  “And?”

  “And I think your mother would want to tell you about it,” Sam said.

  “How about a hint?” I asked. “A clue? You can’t tease me this way.” I tried to look adorable to ensure her cooperation.

  She pursed her lips. “All right,” she said after a bit. “We owe you that, don’t we?”

  “And?”

  “Who says Buddha was a man?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  That was all she would say. So apparently, RGP was privy to some insider knowledge about Buddha having been a woman. I tried to remember what the letters RGP stood f
or. It was composed of Pali words that meant something like “the organization that keeps secrets about what’s under dresses.”

  This was a revolutionary idea that no one would accept without incontrovertible proof. And how could there be any after thousands of years? It was like saying that Jesus was…what? A midget? From Mars? I really couldn’t think of anything equivalent. Could an entire religion be built on an overt deception?

  After some time, as we continued driving, I realized I had failed to express ordinary concern about my mother, and worse yet, I didn’t feel particularly worried. I asked Sam to tell me more about her situation to assuage the mild guilt I felt.

  Sam told me that Tommy T. and whoever was bankrolling him wanted to swap her for me. “They haven’t threatened to harm her, though. It’s not an ‘or else’ situation, as far as we can tell.”

  “Why do they want me so badly? What’s your take on that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It might be about the relics, or it could be a bounty from an extremist religious group that found out about you.”

  We rode in silence for a while, then I finally asked her if she had a plan, and if it included rescuing Chris from Marco’s clutches.

  “One thing at a time,” Sam replied. “Chris is safe for now.” She turned and looked me in the eye. “Truly.” In a moment, she spoke again. “We’ll fly to RGP headquarters—well, it’s like a headquarters.”

  “Where’s that?”

  She turned to me again and smiled. “Santa Cruz, actually.”

  It began to rain. Hard. Sam pulled over, and we tried to put the top up on the convertible, but it got stuck partway and wouldn’t budge in either direction. The passing cars and trucks seemed unsympathetic to our plight. No one stopped to offer us rain gear, a nice hot cup of tea, or any comforting words. Perhaps they suspected us of being upscale bandits trying to prey on good Samaritans—or whatever ancient ethnic group had demonstrated altruism in India.

  “Whose car is this, anyway?” I asked. “What’s a BMW doing here?”

  “I have no idea. Your father just gave me the keys and told me where to find it.”

  We were getting drenched as we stood beside the car, which Sam had parked next to a rock-strewn field. Her very wet green top was becoming transparent, and I could see the outline of her nipples. It was raining so hard, only seconds later I could see the nipples themselves, stiff and straining against the thin fabric that was plastered against them.

  “So it’s his, then?” I asked, returning my gaze to her eyes.

  “Oh no. How could it be his?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, of course your father doesn’t drive, Sid.”

  “Why not?”

  She stared at me. I took the opportunity to scan her breasts again. They were lovely.

  “He’s blind,” Sam said. “You didn’t notice he’s blind?” She saw the shocked expression on my face. “I’m sorry, Sid. It’s macular degeneration. He’s been completely blind for about two years. But he’s got the dogs.”

  “The black and white hounds? Those are his?”

  “Yes. They’re not trained seeing-eye dogs, but somehow all three of them manage to get the job done. They’re remarkable creatures—not like any other dogs I’ve ever known. They were given to him by some mystery woman who showed up one day in a pickup truck.”

  “There are five of them,” I said.

  “No—three.”

  I was much too tired to argue. Maybe the five dogs rotated duties so only three were on the job at any given time. Still, the whole thing seemed extremely unlikely. The dogs hadn’t even worn collars, let alone guide-dog harnesses.

  “You’re saying my father is using untrained dogs to help him get around—that he maneuvered around the temple with their help? Really?”

  “Your father and the dogs—Manny, Moe, and Jack—have some sort of special relationship,” she said. “They’re his eyes.”

  Water streamed down my face. “On a more mundane level,” I said, “I’m very wet. And the leather seats are getting soaked, too. Do you think there’s a BMW mechanic nearby?”

  “Do you?” she responded with an edge to her voice.

  I’d been joking, of course. I think her wherewithal had about run out. “Why don’t we try driving the car anyway, even with the top stuck partway up,” I suggested. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? We’re talking about German craftsmanship here.”

  “The top could fly off.”

  We were getting wetter by the second. “Oh, I don’t think that’s too likely,” I said.

  She paused and gathered herself. After a few deep breaths—her wet breasts rising and falling—she nodded her assent, and we climbed back into the car.

  When she started driving again, the top promptly fell off, clattering on the pavement behind us. We both started laughing and couldn’t stop. Sam pulled over to the side of the road again.

  “So much for craftsmanship,” I finally managed to say.

  “The world’s going to hell in a handbasket,” Sam added between peals of laughter.

  “I like the last time you lost your top better,” I told her. “I mean on the cliff.”

  “I want you to know I don’t do that all the time. It just seemed to be called for under the circumstances.”

  “So what percentage of the time do you take your shirt off if it’s not all the time?”

  “Oh, only about 92.4 percent. You know, whenever any problem needs solving.”

  I laughed. I was relieved that the tension that had been there two minutes ago had morphed into comedy. We were exhausted and soaked, our future was wildly uncertain, and we were in the process of trashing someone’s expensive sports car. But I, for one, felt extremely happy.

  “Come here,” I said. “Give Daddy some sugar.”

  Sam laughed, scooted over the gear shift, and climbed onto my wet lap. The rain was lighter now. We held a passionate kiss. Our energies danced, and my heart soared. Her essence was pure light like Faroud’s, strong and fiery like Marco’s, and as sweet as anything I’d ever tasted. It was sublime. I loved this woman.

  Sam’s lips were soft and hot, and she simply held them against mine and let the energy build. In a minute, our hands began roaming. Mine held her exquisite breasts, and hers stroked my back. Neither of us was in a rush. The longer we waited for the fireworks, the better they’d be.

  Her right hand reached down into my pants and tickled my erect cock with a callused finger. I slid a hand down and pressed it flat against Sam’s belly, pushing her down onto the gearshift. I’d forgotten we were in a car.

  Sam laughed. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  “No, I guess not. We’d probably get arrested even if you survived being impaled by the shifter.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The domestic airport in Aurangabad didn’t inspire confidence, but the airline employee who helped us plan our trip did. She booked us from Aurangabad to Calcutta—Kolkata now—to Singapore to Honolulu to San Francisco. Sam charged the tickets to an RGP credit card, which I found amusing. It was a beautiful card, though, with a silver logo incorporating the organization’s three letters superimposed over a photo of a gold, reclining statue of Buddha—a very indeterminately gendered Buddha.

  We left the car in the airport parking lot, and God knew what happened to it.

  The trip seemed interminable. Halfway through, I felt utterly depleted and indescribably uncomfortable. My aches and pains and each airline seat were incompatible bedfellows. Even Sam’s company couldn’t make the trip fun. Fortunately, I was able to sleep on the Singapore to Honolulu leg, laying my head on Sam’s lap and my feet on an empty seat. When I was falling asleep, I had a feeling that I’d have a big dream, but if I did, I didn’t remember it.

  Before the final leg, during a three-hour layover in Honolulu, I bought—once again—a change of clothes, a bag of toiletries, and a backpack to put them in. It wouldn’t be safe to stop at my apa
rtment in Santa Cruz to pick up my own things. For the hell of it, I added a red Hawaiian shirt that displayed African-American hula girls dancing on surfboards. Who in their right mind would make such a shirt? Chris would be jealous.

  After shopping, I sat in the airport while Sam stretched her legs outside in the sun. I would’ve enjoyed walking, but returning to California was starting to feel real, and I needed to think about that prospect on my own.

  On a bench in a large atrium in the airport, I wondered what it would be like to be in my hometown after everything that had happened. How were my clients faring? What had my suitemates made of the wreckage in the waiting room? Were all my houseplants dead—well, the three that had survived my last breakup?

  How long had I been gone? It felt like three months. I counted the days; it had only been twelve. Could anyone have been through more in less time?

  Then another thought bubbled up. Like everyone else I knew, I’d been outright delusional most of my life. The things I’d believed to be the most real were actually the least. I had consistently, willfully ignored or misinterpreted my own experience in order to hang onto culturally sanctioned ideas about the world. Any clear-eyed eight-year-old could see that these were a crock. I was so grateful I’d been pummeled by all the recent confounding, paradigm-busting experiences.

  The flight to San Francisco was uneventful, unless you counted a very fat man falling over a crouched air hostess as an event.

  Sam had made a series of phone calls from various airports. We were met in the baggage claim area by a hefty African-American woman who warily eyed the Hawaiian shirt I was wearing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She wore a plain brown dress and red running shoes. She had freckles on her cheeks, which I’ve always liked on African-Americans. Otherwise, there was nothing particularly attractive about her. She could’ve been a character actor in a ’70s sitcom.

  She handed me a business card. It read “I’m resting my voice.”

  “Is this a spiritual thing?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  I nodded back and felt energy fall out of the top of my head. It was a very odd sensation which only lasted for a few seconds.