Coattail Karma

by Verlin Darrow

  “It’s about time,” Chris said. “What did the guy want? Did he offer you a job as the beverage cart girl?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “It took a while to fill out all the paperwork and sign up for the gender reassignment surgery.”

  The table hugged a railing overlooking a two-tiered golf green, with three golfers just walking off it. Two of them swore; the third one shook his head.

  My mother caught my eye as I sat down between Sam and Jason. She obviously knew what Charles had been planning to tell me.

  “I’m fine,” I told her.

  “Oh, good,” she responded. “I thought you would be.”

  I heard a loud cracking sound, and I glanced to my right. A huge oak tree on the edge of the course split in two just above its base. My first thought was, “Here we go—karma’s coming after Jason.” But I could see that both halves would fall at angles that would spare us. One headed for a small herd of golf carts by the back door of the building. The other would end up on the course itself, alongside the green.

  As we all watched the slow-motion tree suicide, Spot suddenly jumped up on the table in front of me and began silent, frantic barking. Almost simultaneously, I heard a golf ball being struck on the fairway below us. I dove at Jason, and as we tumbled forward, the ball headed to our right.

  False alarm, again.

  But the hard-hit ball caromed off a branch of the falling tree with a solid thunk and then whizzed through the space where Jason’s head had been a moment earlier. We lay sprawled on the wooden deck as the ball rocketed into the shingled wall behind us, bounced off, and then hit Jason on the temple where he lay.

  “Shit,” he said, and then he passed out.

  Karma had found its target anyway, co-opting me to help get the job done.

  “What’s going on?” my father asked.

  “Jason’s been hit on the temple by a golf ball,” Sam told him.

  “Call 911,” he said. “That’s the one place you can die from.”

  ****

  I rode in the ambulance with Jason. By now he was awake, but groggy.

  The male EMT, a surfer type, told us that Jason’s vital signs were good and he’d probably be fine.

  “Shut up,” the female EMT told him. “You know we’re not supposed to say things like that.”

  “Lighten up, Monica,” he said.

  Monica looked like a weight lifter, which was handy, given how much Jason weighed.

  She looked at me. “I can tell you this. So far, no individual has ever died from a collision between a sports ball and a cranium on my watch.”

  I found both of these commentaries to be only marginally reassuring. I had tried to send Jason healing energy back at the golf course, but nothing had happened. I found this disturbing. Could the universe have the power—and inclination—to shut me down when it had revenge on its mind?

  The emergency room at St. Domnio’s Hospital was remarkably unchaotic, given the number of people crammed into it. Every seat was either taken by someone in pain or by a suitably anxious companion.

  They parked Jason’s gurney in a hallway by a row of scary-looking medical equipment. A beautiful, overweight RN told us that he’d be given “top-of-the-line priority” due to his “as-yet-untreated head trauma,” but even this “privilege” “might entail a distressful waiting period.” We were to “remain quite calm” and “report any new, untoward symptomatology.”

  “Were you an English major in college?” I asked.

  “No. And I’m a busy nurse now, so please excuse me.”

  As I stood next to Jason, who remained quite calm, I was finally able to send him a steady stream of low-level energy.

  “That feels great, Sid,” he said. Jason brightened considerably, and after a minute or two, when the energy subsided, he once again told me that he loved me.

  “I think you just love what I can do,” I said. “You’re a bliss hound.”

  “Can I help?” a melodious woman’s voice said from behind me. I turned around, ready to smile and say no thanks.

  A very short and very slight fiftyish Asian woman with a gray buzz cut and a chaplain’s collar smiled at me. She may have had the most radiant, loving smile I’d ever seen. I could immediately sense this was not an ordinary person. Her energy was incredibly smooth and intoxicating—like a single malt whiskey taken intravenously. I felt drunk—well, more than drunk. Energy drunk. I struggled to maintain my poise.

  Her badge said her name was Lanai Tu. Perhaps she was a Vietnamese-American whose parents had liked Hawaiian porches.

  “Hi,” I managed to say. “I’m Sid, and this is Jason. And you seem to be love and joy and beauty all rolled into one.”

  “Does that line work on many women, Sid?” Before I could answer, she spoke again. “I’m sorry. Force of habit. Let me start over: right back at you, Sid. Who are you? I’ve never felt energy like yours before.”

  “He’s my spiritual teacher,” Jason told her. “He just healed me. I’m fine now.”

  He sat up and swung his massive legs off the side of the gurney.

  “Let’s let the doctor decide that,” she suggested. “I understand you probably have a concussion, and there can be a variety of complications from that.”

  “Are you a priest?” Jason asked. “We don’t have a lot of women priests in New Zealand.”

  “Where are my manners?” she said. “My name is Lanai. I’m an interfaith chaplain here at the hospital.”

  “You’re really a Buddhist, though, aren’t you?” Jason asked, swinging his legs and stretching his muscular arms.

  “How did you know that?” she asked.

  “Your haircut. That’s a Buddhist haircut.” He jumped down onto the floor, which shook.

  “Goodness,” Lanai said. “Are you a professional football player?”

  “Rugby. Retired. Now I help Sid save the world.”

  “Good for you,” she said.

  Since Lanai had arrived, I’d been feeling my energy gathering itself. Now I felt a major maelstrom ramping up. It was going to be epic. I only hoped that Lanai could safely handle it.

  Before mine could send itself out, the chaplain’s energy shot forward and penetrated me, flooding my heart. It joined with my own revved-up chi, and this potent combination spread throughout me. It was as if an energy bomb had been detonated in my chest, and now energy shrapnel was shooting everywhere. I couldn’t have stood it long, but I didn’t have to. I was immediately launched into samadhi again.

  The black void wasn’t as black this time. And it wasn’t exactly a void, either. It was undifferentiated possibility. There was a hint of everything in it, although there was also nothing.

  My samadhi self was also subtly different now. I wasn’t me. I wasn’t an individual. But I also didn’t lose awareness and simply disappear into the void that wasn’t a void. As the pure awareness that I’d become, I remained an intact entity of sorts—just not anything like before.

  As I had the first time I visited this realm, I had the strong sense that I could conjure up reality, but this time I didn’t try. It didn’t feel right. What did feel right was to just be present—to just hang out and let Spirit do whatever it wanted. I was in complete surrender. If I never returned to being Sid, so be it.

  I had no idea how long I was in that state or what spiritual work I might be accomplishing. I woke up in a hospital bed in a well-lit white room. The first thing I saw was the faded outline where a large cross had once hung on the wall facing me. Perhaps St. Domnio’s Hospital had decided to become less aggressively Catholic.

  I felt alert. I wondered if you could get the spiritual bends from shooting to the surface too fast.

  Jason lay on the bed next to me. His eyes were closed. Sam was asleep in a black armchair. She wore a white tunic over turquoise pants and looked more beautiful than ever. Chris was asleep on a yellow, egg-crate pad on the floor next to her.

  I wished Chris were awake to explain what had happened. And then suddenl
y he was. That was interesting.

  “Yo, bro,” he said. “You’re back. They said you might not make it.”

  I wished the others would stay asleep. They stayed asleep.

  “Why not?” I asked. “I’m fine.”

  He got up, ambled over, and perched on the side of my bed. I sat up and stretched. Everything hurt. A lot. Maybe I was less fine than I thought. I also noticed a series of punctures and bruises on my arms. Had the hospital been working me over with injections and IVs?

  “Well,” Chris said, “your heart rate was down to twenty-eight beats a minute, and you had virtually no brain activity. For some reason, people who work in a place like this get concerned about that kind of thing.”

  “So your point is I should’ve become comatose somewhere else?”

  “Well, first of all, they said it wasn’t a coma, even though they didn’t know what it was instead. But otherwise, yeah, you could’ve picked somewhere else more convenient—where people wouldn’t kick up such a fuss over you. Do you know how hard it was for Sam and Andrea to get you out of intensive care—off all those machines?”

  I looked at the massive figure on the other bed. “Did Jason have a bad concussion after all?” I asked. “Is that why he’s here?”

  “Yeah, but he’s fine. He just commandeered the other bed because he’s selfish.”

  “Then why is he wearing a hospital gown?”

  “Well, a bunch of weird shit keeps happening to him. It’s like he’s cursed,” Chris said.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “How long have I been here?”

  “Three days.”

  I was taken aback. Three days?

  “Hey,” Chris continued. “How come we haven’t woken anyone up? Sam always goes to full alert whenever a nurse even walks by the door. She thinks she’s your bodyguard since Jason got all cut up.”

  “What do you mean, ‘all cut up’?”

  “Well, the latest thing was when he was standing over there.” He gestured to the corner of the room by the window. “That’s not safety glass.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “A crazed pigeon flew in after it got drunk because a meteor knocked over a wine bottle.”

  “Meteorite,” Chris said.

  “Otherwise I nailed it?”

  “I’m just saying it’s a meteor up in space and a meteorite if it gets all the way here. And yes, it was a bird—good guess. A big-ass pelican, actually, even though we’re a mile or two inland. If the bird hadn’t died after it flew through the window and speared Jason in the shoulder, we could have asked it for its full back story. As it is, we’ll never know if it was drunk.”

  I paused and thought for a moment. “I’ve been in samadhi,” I told Chris. “Do you know what that is?”

  “Sure. The beyond-beyond deal—like Marco and Sam.”

  “Sam goes into samadhi, too?” I asked.

  “Geez, bro. She’s your girlfriend.” Chris carefully studied Sam and Jason. “You’re doing something to them, aren’t you? Some energy thing that’s keeping them zonked out?”

  “I think so.”

  “You don’t even know what you’re doing?” His tone was incredulous.

  “No. Every time I visit samadhi, I come back a little different. I’m always more in some ways and a whole lot less in some others.”

  “In other words,” Chris said, “you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing. At best, you’re a subconscious shaman.”

  “That’s about right,” I said. “Isn’t it lucky I have you around to keep me humble?”

  “Damned straight.”

  A young Filipina nurse scuttled in. “You’re awake!” she chirped. She was very happy. “I’ll just check your vitals.”

  I wished she would leave.

  “On second thought,” she said, “I’ll go and tell your doctor the good news.” She turned on her heels and ran off.

  “Nice butt,” Chris said. “Hey, that was you, wasn’t it—getting her to take off like that?”

  I nodded.

  “Are you going to become power-mad and enslave all the regular people except for me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “That sounds good, except for the ‘except me’ part.”

  Chris was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, it was with an uncharacteristically sober tone. “Seriously, bro, what are you going to do? It’s tremendous overkill if all you ever do is zap people, boss them around with your mind, and then maybe space out for days on end—you know, your current repertoire.”

  “I agree, but I’m still not sure what’s going on—what I need to do,” I told him. “Everyone I meet has a plan for me, and I’ve heard all these crazy ideas about who I’m supposed to be. So far, though, all I’ve managed to do is narrow down who I can trust. That doesn’t tell me much. Just because someone’s trustworthy doesn’t mean they know what’s going on.”

  “That’s true.” He pursed his lips while he paused. “So what’s common to all the feedback you’ve gotten? Where do the ideas overlap?”

  “Have you heard about the insomnia disease?” I asked. “That’s one thing I’ve heard from several sources.”

  “Yeah, I did some research on that after your mom mentioned it,” Chris said. “By the way, I really like her—you know, as far as moms go—but it’s hard to see her as some big-time spiritual leader.”

  “I agree. So what did you find out about the disease?”

  “It turns out it’s bullshit,” Chris said. “As of last week, that is. Before that, it seemed for real.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. The insomnia is actually an early symptom of something that messes up your blood sugar for a while. It’s not a big deal. At first, they thought it would be because it was something new that was coming out of Africa. Let’s face it, white people are still scared of us.”

  “You Africans?”

  “That’s right.” He smirked.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s brainstorm a little. If I’m not here to head off a metaphysical disaster due to an epidemic, and we’re no longer buying into Marco and Bhante’s agendas, then what’s left? Should I be doing what famous gurus do—write books, give talks, lead meditations at the UN?”

  “Dude, you have to actually know something to do that shit. You don’t know your ass from your elbow—we’ve already established that. And for that matter, you don’t know how to teach anything, either.”

  “Let’s not get carried away with the humbling thing, Chris.” I wagged my finger at him, and he wagged his back, mocking me.

  “You know I’m right,” he said. “Anyway, those famous gurus are the uncool guys that still have tons of ego left. They’re ambitious, right? They want to be on TV. They want to control people. That’s not for you, even if you could pull it off, which you can’t.”

  “Do you think the most evolved people stay undercover—work anonymously?”

  Chris shrugged. “Probably.”

  “How’s the patient?” A man’s voice boomed from the doorway. The voice was familiar. I turned my head to see who was striding toward us. It was Marco.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “I thought we could continue our conversation, Sid,” he said.

  Marco stood at the foot of the bed. He wore a white medical coat and his badge identified him as Dr. Sid’s Friend, Department of Mind, Body, and Spirit.

  “A badge doesn’t make you a friend, dude,” Chris said.

  “Maybe it would be better if we met alone,” Marcus said to me. “Why don’t you wake up the others and ask everyone to give us a few minutes?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “In fact…” I wished he would leave.

  Marco turned, took a step toward the door, and then stopped. With an effort, he pivoted and came back. “A new power,” he said, surprise on his face. “Fascinating. But it won’t work on me.”

  “You’re not so tough,” Chris said.

  “Yes, I am,” Marco said.

  “Well, okay, maybe you are, but my point is w
e’re not intimidated. Sid has superpowers up the wazoo now.”

  Marco laughed. “That’s a good place for them, isn’t it? Who would look there?”

  “Good point,” Chris said. “You can be such a fun guy, Marco. Why do you act like a dick so much? What’s the point, really?” He stared at him with defiance.

  Marco ignored him and addressed me. “Your energy is remarkable now, Sid. I don’t know where it came from—samadhi alone doesn’t explain it. And it’s beyond the scope of my own in several respects. I want to acknowledge that. But you haven’t outgrown your need for a mentor. Without guidance from someone more experienced at managing energy, you will perish. And there will be collateral damage.”

  While he was talking, I did more wishing. I directed Jason’s cuts and bruises to heal. I wished that, when I snapped my fingers, both Sam and Jason would become fully alert, ready to fight if necessary. I also tried to radiate a general stay-away vibe to keep any real doctors or nurses from wandering in.

  “I appreciate your concern,” I said. I could sense that whatever other motives Marco had, he also did care about my welfare, and he sincerely believed he could help me. Of course, Marco’s version of sincere was more complex than Joe Q. Average’s. When I continued to scan him, pushing past whatever defenses had shielded him in the past, I was startled to see how conflicted he was. There was no aspect of his psyche that didn’t embody a healthy percentage of its opposite. And all of it was relatively extreme. He was very compassionate, for example. This was an authentic, hard-earned aspect of his outlook and behavior. But simultaneously—they didn’t take turns—Marco was also incredibly angry. The two elements didn’t mix, temper one another, or interact in any way that I could sense. They were just both there.

  My rational mind couldn’t make any more sense of it than that. It didn’t feel wrong, though—as though he were broken and needed fixing. Marco was exactly who he should be—like everyone else.

  I also understood now who Marco was in a more global sense. He wasn’t the monster that others had depicted—he wasn’t a sociopath. But he certainly wasn’t fully enlightened. His energy and knowledge base were on a par with that status, but his inner chaos bespoke the work that still lay ahead of him. Psychologically and emotionally, he was a well-managed mess. Much of what he said or did was for effect—a performance designed to manipulate people. Even now, in the hospital room, he was posturing and choosing his words with a cunning that undermined his purported spiritual evolution.