Coattail Karma

by Verlin Darrow

  “Get out of my head,” Marco said tersely.

  I nodded and stopped probing.

  “I am who I am,” he said, looking at me intently. “Whether you knew what this was before or you know it now or you wonder about it, I’m still this. Whether we call me Marco or Bruno or a dick”—he nodded to Chris—“I’m this—that which stands before you. Like you and everyone else, I’m ever-changing, but right now, as always, I’m this. Good or bad. Like it or not. All I can be is this.”

  “That’s a load of self-serving crap,” Chris said.

  Marco glared at him and lost his poise. Perhaps my intrusion into his psyche had been destabilizing.

  Energy shot from Marco’s right hand. I could actually see it now as a dark, surging ray in the air. I didn’t wait to see what effect it would have on my best friend. My own energy burst out of me and met Marco’s—blocking and disrupting the visible wave pattern. His energy dissipated harmlessly after a second or two.

  “Don’t do that again,” I told Marco.

  “What? What do you think I did?”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t conscious,” I said. “But you’d better keep your energy under control.”

  “Or?” His face was tight and his eyes were fierce.

  “Or we’ll end up in some kind of energy war,” I said. “And I don’t think we want that.”

  “I might,” Marco said. “If you’re determined to be my enemy, why should I let you continue to develop and perhaps become my equal—or superior?”

  “I have no ill will toward you, Marco. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your help. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” he said. “But you have no idea what it’s going to be like to hold so much power. Power really does corrupt. It would be irresponsible of me to allow someone I’ve imbued with this much spiritual energy to administer it without supervision. Would you train a young therapist for a week and then step away and let him screw up clients on his own?”

  “Of course not. But that’s an invalid comparison. In your case, we’re talking about involuntary supervision, while my trainees have asked for help. And when I’m working with interns, I don’t sit in the therapy room with them and direct their actions. They approach me for anything they think they need. They set the agenda. Unsolicited help is interference. Give me your cell phone number, and I’ll call you with any questions I have.”

  Marco waved his arm in the air. “Words. It’s all just words,” he said. “You talk for a living, Sid. Of course you have words for everything.”

  I softened my voice. “I listen for a living,” I said. “And I’m hearing your concerns. What do you need from me to keep this from getting ugly?”

  “Uglier,” Chris said.

  “Let me in,” Marco said. “Open up and let me in your head the way you were in mine. I’ll take it from there.”

  “I can’t do that,” I told him.

  He shook his head slowly and then raised his hands in front of his chest. “I’m sorry, Sid,” he said. Then he blasted me with an intense wave of high-pitched energy. I was rocked.

  I felt a burning sensation in my chest, and all the muscles in my torso and neck tightened painfully. My head felt as though someone were sticking needles in it. I didn’t know what to do.

  “What’s going on?” I heard Chris ask. It sounded as if he were a hundred yards away.

  The energy took me over. A frenzied buzzing spun in my gut. Marco’s attack was activating a resonance, and my own energy was being co-opted—used against me. I could barely think or act.

  I held up a hand, hoping that something would happen—that my energy would know how to defend itself.

  White light shot from my fingertips toward Marco. As it met the dark waves he was directing my way, the two energies merged and morphed into a supercharged field that filled the room with pinpoints of sparkling gold light.

  “Hey!” Chris said. “What the fuck!”

  Marco switched to another wavelength with a tighter, faster pattern. Despite my best efforts to protect myself, the new energy blasted me again. It was an assault on every level—energetic, of course, but also physical, emotional, and mental. The intense, grinding pain drained my defenses.

  Marco knew how to fight this way. I didn’t.

  I improvised, radiating a force field of sorts around me. It seemed to help for a time—only a muted version of Marco’s energy penetrated it. But his battering gradually wore me down. I tried to counterattack, but all I could send at that point was intense love.

  “That feels great,” Marco said. “Send me more love, Sid.”

  I checked on Chris. He was asleep or passed out beside me.

  I redoubled my efforts to hold off Marco, and it worked for a while. But I could sense that he expended far less effort generating and sending his energy than I used to defend myself against it. Sooner or later, this equation would tip in his favor.

  I snapped my fingers to activate the others. To do so, I had to relinquish my first line of defense—the energy in my hands. An almost unbearable vibration blitzed me—an oscillating, destructive wave. It was going to tear me apart.

  Then I heard a shriek, and I refocused on the scene in front of me. The awful energy relented as Sam kicked Marco in the side of the head. Jason rushed the older man from the other side. Marco blocked a follow-up punch from Sam and slid sideways. Just as the Maori began a backhand fist strike, Marco leapt in the air and kicked both of them simultaneously. It was an impossible move—especially in the close quarters of the hospital room.

  Sam sprawled onto the floor after taking a blow to the solar plexus. Jason staggered back, having been kicked in the upper thigh, but kept his feet. If Marco had been aiming for his groin, he’d just missed.

  I crawled out of bed as Marco came at Jason. The big man surprised him by initiating a quick leg sweep. I don’t think Marco was reading his mind. But he backed away from Jason in time, and a millisecond later, he lashed out a leg of his own to topple him. Jason managed to fall onto the other bed instead of the floor. He was unhurt. Unbelievably quick for someone his size, he scrambled back up.

  I looked around for some sort of weapon. All this kung fu was wonderfully cinematic, but a stainless steel bedpan to the back of Marco’s head seemed like a more practical solution.

  The fight raged on behind me as I scavenged. God, I was stiff and sore. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam rush Marco with a series of punches, each of which he blocked with his forearm. As Jason engaged him simultaneously from the other side, Marco casually flicked away the Maori’s powerful fists with the side of his own. It all looked so effortless. It was hard to imagine Marco could lose this fight.

  I couldn’t find anything that would serve as an effective weapon—not even a bed pan. I stood in the corner of the room under the TV and tried to send energy. If I could time it just right, maybe I could throw Marco off-balance and give Sam or Jason an opening. But my energy was weak and diffuse now. I couldn’t target it at all, and as I tried, I felt myself becoming dangerously depleted.

  Then I remembered my new ability to influence people—to alter reality, perhaps. Surely I could use that in some way that would influence the outcome of the fight. Suppose I told the TV to jump off its mount and land on Marco’s head? I reached out my will and tested those waters. The TV didn’t budge. Then I thought of something else; I could call in the cavalry.

  Sam and Jason held their own for another minute or two, and then I heard footsteps pounding in the hallway outside the room. Three burly security guards burst in. One even held a gun—well, a stun gun.

  “All right!” the gun wielder called. “That’s enough!”

  Everyone froze, except Chris, who decided to wake up at that point.

  “What the fuck?” he said, sitting up.

  The spokesperson, flanked by his two colleagues, swiveled and aimed his weapon at Chris.

  “Shut up,” he said. “Who’s the perp?”


  We all pointed at Marco.

  “He impersonated a doctor and broke into our room,” I said. “Be careful. He’s a martial arts master.”

  The guard waved his stun gun. “Don’t worry. I’ve got Suzie here, and she doesn’t take any shit from anybody. I don’t care if he’s Mohammed Fucking Ali.”

  Marco immediately kicked the gun out of the man’s hand and launched himself in the air. As the guard stood there wondering what had just happened, Marco planted his hands on the man’s shoulders and vaulted over him. He tucked his body into a graceful somersault, landed on his feet, and sprinted away.

  After a moment’s hesitation, the three men turned and ran after him. I had no doubt he would escape their clutches.

  “Well,” Chris said, “he really stuck the landing. I’m giving him a 9.6.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Once Jason and I found our clothes, the four of us took off before the police arrived. My interview with the customs official back in Auckland had convinced me no one in a position of authority was likely to believe any of my story. And the current saga was about a hundred times crazier than the one I’d unsuccessfully told two weeks before.

  I had to use my “wishing” several times for us to get past nurses and orderlies as we negotiated the maze of the hospital’s hallways.

  “The building’s on lockdown,” a uniformed man told us when we reached the front door. I wished he’d make an exception for us.

  “But of course I’ll make an exception for the four of you,” he said. “Out of the way, people,” he told the other would-be exiters. “We’ve got exceptions coming through.”

  In the parking lot, as police sirens wailed, we headed for Chris’s car, which he’d parked at the far end of the lot under a stand of trees.

  “What’s up, Sid?” Sam asked. “Are you controlling these people somehow? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”

  “Yeah, I know. It turns out that since I woke up, everything I wish for comes true—at least in terms of other people’s behaviors. Oh, and I think I healed Jason, too.”

  The big man confirmed this. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, though,” Jason added. “Did you want to stay there, Sam, and talk to the police for the next few hours?”

  “It’s definitely practical,” Chris said. “I’m sure we can all agree on that. But let’s face it, if this weren’t Sid, I for one would be totally freaking out. I mean, some other guy might make me bark like a chicken.”

  “Chickens don’t bark,” Jason pointed out.

  “Just ignore him when he says things like that,” I advised.

  “Hey, that’s why it would be so freaky,” Chris protested. “Anyone can bark like a dog.”

  At the car—Chris drove a hybrid—Sam called my mother to let her know I was okay. She listened for a while as well and then answered yes several times.

  Chris pulled out of the parking lot onto Soquel Avenue—one of the only continuous north-south thoroughfares in town.

  Sam hung up and spoke to me. “Your parents would like us to meet them at the boardwalk. They’re on an outing with some of our newer acolytes. Is that okay with you?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “I love the boardwalk,” Chris said. “They have deep-fried everything.”

  “Do they have carnival games?” Jason asked. “I always win at carnival games.”

  “What are you, twelve?” Chris said. “It’s all about the crap food, bro. That, and all the trashy women in tank tops and halter tops and bikini tops and—”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “We get it. You like tops.”

  “And bottoms,” Chris said.

  I was conscious of Jason’s unacknowledged gayness—according to Paul, anyway. Is he comfortable with this sort of talk?

  A long strip of old-fashioned rides, games, souvenir shops, and fast-food kiosks that hugged the main beach, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk was tourist central in the summer. All the roads leading to it would soon be hopelessly clogged with families from San Jose, Salinas, and points north. This time of year, though—early May—it was only open on the weekends.

  “What day is it?” I asked.

  “Saturday,” Sam answered.

  “Tops galore!” Chris proclaimed.

  “Are you really all sorted, Sid?” Jason asked. “It didn’t look good back there. The doctor said you might be a vegetable.”

  “I was rooting for a rutabaga,” Chris said.

  “Is he always like this?” Sam asked.

  “Pretty much,” I told her. “Sometimes he’s worse.”

  “If you really loved me,” Chris said, “you wouldn’t say shit like that. I bring peppy, irreverent sunshine to your dreary life, Sid. At least, it used to be dreary back when all you did was sit in a room all day with crazy people.”

  It was only a few miles to the boardwalk parking lot, which was in the middle of the worst neighborhood in town. Chris and Jason argued about a variety of inane topics on the way there. I got the feeling this was how they’d passed the time in the hospital while I was in samadhi.

  The lot was about two-thirds full, with a disproportionate number of minivans, SUVs, and RVs. As we climbed out and began walking toward the boardwalk, I felt a childlike excitement. This always happened to me—ever since my first visit as a kid.

  Sam held my hand as we led the others across the street, over the tourist train tracks, and under a colorful archway. We entered the amusement park through a small plaza next to a historic carousel. The boardwalk proper was just ahead.

  “So where are we meeting?” I asked.

  A sea of people stopped and stared at Jason. I don’t think they were rugby fans. He was just a spectacularly well-put-together, giant man. For that matter, Sam was drawing her share of attention too.

  “By the log flume ride,” Sam told me. “Wherever that is.”

  “To our left,” I said. “Past the big roller coaster.”

  The carousel blared a calliope tune, tattooed parents shouted at their hyperactive kids, and I could hear crashing waves from the contiguous beach. The aromas of suntan lotion, popcorn, hot dogs, pizza, and the tang of the salty bay water sickened me a bit.

  I’d seen it much more crowded, but as we tried to make our way down the long, asphalt concourse, we still had to dodge packs of attention-seeking teenage girls (wearing Chris-pleasing tops), families with baby strollers, and squads of self-absorbed college students. After a block or two, we also encountered an oncoming gang of young Hispanic men, although gangs were supposedly barred by the boardwalk. Usually I saw quite a few security guards when I was there, as well as an occasional police officer. But there were none in sight.

  The gang—if they were a gang—walked four abreast. There were two rows of them. Their heads were shaved down to black stubble, and they all wore black jeans and white dress shirts buttoned up at the neck.

  Ahead of us, everyone sidled to the edges of the wooden promenade to let them pass. Several of the men walked with their elbows extended, picking off whoever hadn’t yielded thoroughly enough.

  As Sam and I stepped to the side, by a chocolate-covered frozen banana stand, Chris headed to the counter.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” he told us.

  I turned to see where Jason was. He stood in the middle of the walkway, his feet planted. He smiled at the oncoming squad of young men. He’d decided not to yield.

  “Jason!” I called. “No.”

  Grudgingly, he sidled over to where we stood. “I have no patience with that,” Jason said. “In New Zealand, I lost too many friends to that bullshit.”

  My parents sat at a wooden picnic table just shy of the flume ride. They were surrounded by women in white dresses. Four sat at the table with them, and another dozen congregated behind them. They were all sizes, shapes, ages, and ethnicities. They seem to be very alert—even excited.

  “RGP novices!” my mother called. “Meet Sid!”

  The women that were sitting stood, and then
all of them bowed in unison. I could see down most of their dresses, which was distracting. Several of them were quite busty.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Perhaps you could give us all a blessing,” my father said.

  “Sure.”

  I held up my hand and stopped thinking. Energy surged out, and all the women staggered. I enlisted my mind again and wished that everyone could handle the energy gracefully. Then they were standing at ease again. I wished that they were happy and healed and as awake as they needed to be to navigate their lives effectively. Everyone smiled.

  “My goodness,” my mother said. “That was far more than a blessing, Sid. Where did you learn to do that? That was an extraordinary transmission.”

  “It’s an artifact from wherever I was when my body was lying in the hospital. A chaplain sent me energy in the emergency room and got it started.”

  “They don’t have chaplains at St. Domnio’s anymore,” my mother told me.

  “Well, Lanai was one—right, Jason?”

  “I’m sorry, Sid. I don’t remember a chaplain.”

  Chris tried out his stage cough at that point.

  “I’m sorry,” my mother said. “Where are my manners? RGP, this is Sid’s friend Chris on my right and Jason Patariki on my left, and of course you all know Sam.”

  They all bowed again. I swear that one of them—a young African-American woman with tight cornrows—shimmied a little as Chris ogled her breasts.

  My mother gestured to the empty seats on the benches, and the four of us replaced the women who’d been sitting there.

  “Would anyone like any food or drink?” my mother asked.

  “Yes,” Chris and Jason answered simultaneously.

  “Anything crappy,” Chris added, with a half-eaten frozen banana in his hand. My father laughed.

  The white-dressed women drifted away, breaking into pairs as they moved down the boardwalk.