“Really?”
“Yes, first by a Malayan witch-doctor who tapped into my power for use in her bomoh potions and thaumaturgical spells. And then by the wife of a naval captain who used me to adorn her dining table.”
“Oh, hey, no problem, man. So do I get three wishes or something?”
“No. But I will offer you two pieces of advice.”
“Lay it on me, baby.”
“Be wary of your dependence on chemical entheogens.”
“The LSD? Don’t know about that, but we’ll see. What’s number two?”
“They will love you for your music, but they’ll remember you for your fire.”
One of the djinn’s eyes closed as if in a wink, and then the cloud of smoke dissipated into the air, disappearing as completely as if it had never been. Jimi briefly wondered if he’d merely hallucinated the entire encounter, and found that it didn’t really matter one way or the other.
Later that month, Jimi played the London Astoria Club, and at the end of his set, to the great surprise of both the audience and his bandmates, lit his guitar on fire. He summoned the flames up with his fingers, as if drawing a primal spirit out of his instrument, and burned his hands when they got too close. At the hospital, Jeff Beck asked why he’d done it.
“Just freeing the smoke, man.”
“You going to do it again?”
“Shit, yeah. Practice makes perfect.”
Multifacet
We’d been married for three years when it happened. No warning, no build-up, just pow. One of those unexpected things that changes your life forever. Maybe Ruby had wished on the right star, or just wanted it bad enough. That happens sometimes, right? It certainly surprised the hell out of me, waking up one morning to find that my partner in life had split into five versions of herself, each with a different function, all of whom looked like the woman I’d said “I do” to. It certainly took some getting used to.
Ruby Number One was the programmer, hard-coding database apps for non-profit organizations. Ruby Number Two was the illustrator, painting in varied media for creative commissions that arrived via email. Ruby Number Three was the activist, scouring the Internet for political news, and blogging on events through her progressive viewpoint. Ruby Number Four was the master chef, creating culinary masterpieces for every single meal.
Ruby Number Five was an enigma. She was a permanent presence in our bed; it could be that she slept for all five of them, as they never seemed to stop working.
Our apartment had changed as well. It might have seemed that with all these Rubys, our small duplex would quickly devolve into a series of jostlings and bumpings and excuse-me’s and hey-watch-it’s, but it didn’t work that way. Dimensionality warped the physical space, in which six people could comfortably co-exist. When Ruby (the original Ruby, the one and only) and I had first moved into this apartment, its area contained only 625 square feet, but the strange geometries of our home now gave the impression of a space at least twice that size.
Every morning it was the same old routine, yawn stretch shit shave shower, then into my own front office to copyedit. The advantage of a three-bedroom, my own little refuge. Every so often I heard footsteps, but it was mostly quiet. I sometimes missed the whole Ruby, but she seemed to be getting much more done this way.
My current freelance project was a horribly dry PhD dissertation concerning the effect of traffic roundabouts on automobile and pedestrian patterns, and my eyes glazed over, my attention wandering. The author was not a native English speaker, and though his absence of the definite article or improper subject-verb agreement would normally be enough to hold my focus, I was distracted. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a decent conversation with my wife; we used to stay up until the wee hours discussing politics or philosophy or art. Her intellect was one of the features that had originally turned me on to her, but it was so internal now, so withdrawn.
I stood, walked to the hallway closet, extracted my jacket. “I’m going for a walk,” I said to the apartment. No response.
The air was just turning cold, the first kiss of autumn. Leaves breezed by on the sidewalk. My neighbor, the failed musician, fed himself to his Mustang, twisting this, ratcheting that, jeaned legs visible underneath the raised hood. The punk couple on the corner, still in college or fresh out, sat on their stoop, smoking dark cigarettes, tattoos peeking out from sleeves; one of them mentioned Derrida as I passed by. I didn’t know which one.
The neighborhood was mostly empty, folks at day jobs or other places, the succession of duplexes a graveyard of monotony. A khaki-colored Karmann Ghia rolled down Grant Avenue, its driver inexplicably tall, knees bunched up to his shoulders, a mystery as to why he would purchase such an uncomfortable conveyance. The smell of french fries in its wake, engine converted to biodiesel, a friend to the environment. I saluted the driver, but it was unclear whether he saw me in his rear view.
Several more minutes of walking, then I headed back to the duplex, resigned to time-wastage, aimless Web surfing, looking up my own name. Through the front doorway, over the threshold, and the world spun,
equilibrium unbalanced,
the walls on the floor and the floor on the ceiling and everything too big or too small or too adjectival or too there. The doorknob in my grip, holding me up, now I was hanging from it, now I was lying on it, and now the doorknob was inside and I was outside, the doorknob holding firm to me for support. Apartmental geometries whizzed through the air, slicing and separating and dismembering and reducing and redefining and then reassembling and reattaching and making whole, and then, with a slight fwump of displaced air that cleared my ears, I was upright again, and objects were once again their conventional selves, and the walls and the ceiling and the floor were in their proper places, and the interior of the duplex appeared smaller somehow.
I stepped inside, closed the door, slight headache. The air smelled fresh, as if the windows had been open all morning. From the back office stepped Ruby, but I couldn’t tell which one. She approached, radiant, sparkling, gripped me in a bear hug, kissed me on the tip of my nose.
“I’ve finished,” she said.
“Finished?”
“Yes. The project I’ve been working on. The design, the content, the artwork, front end, back end, all done. Didn’t think there would be enough hours in the day, but, well, you know.”
“So you’re really back? No more five? Just one?”
“Just one: all me, baby.” She stretched and popped and groaned. “Far too long since I’ve done that. Want to go out? I’m craving Vietnamese food like you wouldn’t believe.”
Night Off
The fat man turned to his wife and hocked up a gob of phlegm.
“No ho ho,” he said.
“You’re staying home tonight,” said the fat man’s wife. “I’m not letting you go out like this. Face it, you’re sick.”
The fat man groaned. When he coughed, his belly shook like a bowlful of jelly.
“We’re going to have to find someone to fill in for you,” she said.
“Whoa ho ho,” said the fat man, waving his fat hands in the air.
“Yes,” she said, “and it’ll have to be quick. Midnight’s only two hours away.”
The fat man coughed again and rolled over onto his side. He wheezed and his lungs rattled. A few thousand years of being overweight had caused innumerable cardiac and respiratory problems, but the job demanded it.
“Who can you think of to cover you?”
The fat man pondered for a moment, then said, “Lo ho ho?”
His wife frowned. “You know Loki would just cause a mess, and probably light some children on fire. Who else?”
“Pro ho ho?”
“No, Prometheus is on holiday, touring the Greek isles. Next.”
The fat man’s eyes abruptly lit up, and as he smiled, his wife could see the remains of a bag of Cheetos in his teeth and beard.
“Bo ho ho,” he said.
The fat man’s
wife straightened up and adjusted her spectacles. “Do you think he’d do it?”
The fat man nodded enthusiastically. “Go ho ho.”
His wife rushed from the room and into the voluminous kitchen. She picked up the telephone and made several complicated signs in the air. The connection rang seven hundred thirty-seven times before a tingly feeling traveled from her ear to her toes. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, completely serene.
“YES?” boomed a voice from the other end, so low that the floor vibrated under her feet.
When she was able to regain her breath, she said, “Nick needs a favor.”
~
Little Richie Spencer waited in his bed with his eyes closed, listening intently for the sounds of sleigh bells and reindeer on his roof. He had been lying there for three hours already, and was finding it increasingly difficult to stay awake. He sang camp songs loudly in his head, had imaginary arguments with his big brother, replayed his last Little League game. Luckily before he drifted off, his ears popped from a soft implosion of air near the foot of his bed, and he opened his eyes.
Floating two feet above his sheets in the lotus position was the Buddha, highest of all the bodhisattva. Richie recognized him from the small shrine at his friend Ravi’s house, and squeaked in surprise.
“Hello,” said the Buddha.
“Hello,” said Richie, “you’re not the fat man I was expecting.”
“I know,” said the Buddha. “Saint Nicholas has fallen ill tonight. I am filling in.”
Richie sat up and stared at the Buddha’s smiling face. “So, did you bring me presents?”
“No. Something better.” The Buddha leaned down and touched Richie lightly on the forehead with the tip of his finger. Richie stiffened, then instantly relaxed. He forgot about his conflicts with his older brother. His poor batting record no longer mattered. His need for material possessions bled away into vapor. A smile as grand and beatific as the Buddha’s grew on his face as Little Richie Spencer achieved enlightenment.
~
All over the world, children awoke to the Buddha’s touch. When they went downstairs in the morning, they politely refused their Christmas presents, announcing that they would be donating all their toys to charity. Those children’s parents were forced to return the gifts, creating in one day the worst holiday sales season in history. Stores went bankrupt, but the owners didn’t seem to mind.
Enlightenment spread quickly from the children to the adults, like the most communicable virus. As the need for a consumer-based economy plummeted, governments from democracies to imperialist dictatorships fell. Each person contributed to society enough to gain the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter, and spent the rest of their time meditating. A new world was born.
~
“Nicholas!” called the fat man’s wife. “Where are you?” She had been looking for him for nearly an hour, astonished he had managed to get off the couch. She found him in the attic, swinging from a noose, his face bloated and purple. She put her hands on her hips and exhaled loudly.
“You come down from there right now,” she said. “This can’t be helping your cold.”
The fat man opened his eyes and looked at his wife. His vitreous capillaries had burst, replacing the white in his eyes with red.
“Why did you even bother with this?” asked his wife. “You know you can’t die.”
The fat man burst into tears. “Woe ho ho.”
His wife looked him up and down and said, “Well, now that you’re out of a job, I can finally put you on that diet.”
The rope around his neck creaked softly.
“Shit,” he said.
Enlightenment
I pull my broken-down Dodge into the parking lot of my apartment complex around noon, and the scent that drifts into my car window immediately reminds me of a freshly mown baseball field. It’s one of those summer days that makes me wish I could play again, to feel the bat in my hands and the grass under my feet. Joaquin and Consuela stand on the sidewalk in front of my car, watching something behind me; their eight-year-old son Raoul sits on the curb nearby, his little league uniform dusty and his cap askew. I get out and see what they’re looking at, a U-Haul trailer being driven in reverse up the hill into the complex from the other side. Whoever is driving the trailer weaves back and forth, seeming to have very little experience attempting what he is doing. A group of Mexican men surround the truck, waving their arms and yelling in Spanish in an attempt to help.
“Hola, amigo,” I say to Joaquin, the patriarch of the family, who is smoking a sweet-smelling cigarillo. It’s a Sunday afternoon, so he’s in an undershirt and green slacks. Consuela wears a knee-length red dress which accentuates her voluptuous body; I’ve always had a bit of a crush on her, and she teases me about it every chance she gets. Raoul has his nose in a science fiction paperback; he’s constantly reading something, a habit I encourage with every trip I make to the used book stores on Hillsborough Street.
Joaquin shakes his head and smiles. “They never going to get it up that hill,” he says. “Idiots. Why they rent a trailer they no know how to drive it?”
It sounds like a rhetorical question, so I don’t reply. Joaquin Gonzalez and his family have been very good to me over the last few years. As the only white guy in an apartment complex that’s almost entirely Hispanic—nicknamed Little Mexico by some of the locals—I would normally feel a little out of place. The area of southeast Raleigh where we live is one of the poorer sections of the city, and the rent is dirt cheap. Perfect for a guy with a shitty night job and no wife or kids; it’s the only place around that I can afford. But from the day I moved in five years ago, Joaquin has treated me as part of his family, often having me downstairs for cerveza and dinners laden with spices. He also has a way with the other tenants in the complex, making sure they know I’m cool. After a while, it started feeling like home, much to the chagrin of my parents.
“Hey Ray,” Joaquin says, turning to me and stubbing out his cigarillo on the sole of his flip-flop. “Some men in robes asking for you today. I don’t think they from around here.”
“All of them bald,” Consuela pitches in, crossing her arms over her breasts, but not taking her eyes from the U-Haul. The breeze ripples the ruffles at the bottom of her dress. “Smell funny too.”
“Did they say what they wanted?” I ask.
“Nope,” Joaquin says. “But they be back later. Sound important.”
I grunt. “Well, I guess if it’s important, they’ll find me. Braves game tonight?”
“Yeah,” Joaquin says, “but we use your TV. My reception lousy this week. Hey, you think any more about Raoul little league team? They still need a coach.”
My kneecap twinges at the memory of the car accident ten years ago that ended my baseball career before it barely got started. “I’ll have to get back to you,” I say.
I wave good-bye, then walk up to my apartment, check the messages. One from Dad: an invitation for a couple of beers and a game of pool down at Babbineau’s. It’s funny, we’ve gotten together more over the past year than the previous twenty-seven put together. Our evenings consist mostly of reminiscing about Mom; how she supported us while Dad stayed home and raised me, how she always smelled of cappuccino, how she sang along to the radio, especially if she didn’t know the words. How hard she tried to hang on the last year of the cancer.
I stab delete on the answering machine, too tired to think about another exhausting night being Dad’s shoulder to cry on, and turn on the light in the kitchen. The appliances are all relics from 1970, painted this vomit green with big yellow buttons; it always reminds me of the shag carpet when we used to go visit my grandparents, that green and gold mix.
The inside of the fridge is stark, but some leftover vegetarian lasagne sits in a plastic container on the bottom shelf. I toss the lasagne in the microwave, set the timer for a minute and a half. The cupboards are empty, so I rinse out a dirty glass in the sink, then fill it with water. One clean fo
rk is left in the drawer, so I grab it, take the steaming lasagne and water over to the card table that serves as my dining room table, and before I can take a bite, someone knocks at the door.
A little old Asian man stands in front, with two younger guys about my age behind him. All their heads are shaved, and they wear these billowy red robes over one shoulder. None of them stand over five and a half feet, so at six-four I tower over them. The scent of exotic spices and faint body odor drifts into the apartment. Despite my knowledge that they were looking for me, the sight of these three Asian monks has struck me dumb. The younger monk on the left looks to his friend on the right and scuffs his sandal on the hallway carpet.
“Mr. Ray Heilig?” the old monk in front says, with only a trace of an accent.
I clear my throat and nod.
“May we come in?”
“Sure,” I blurt, and step aside. The trio enters and looks briefly around the apartment. Normally, I don’t just let strangers inside, but as the monks survey my surroundings, I realize that there really isn’t much to steal. Joaquin gave me the ugly purple couch, I found the armchair on the side of the road, and the ancient Zenith television—a gift from Dad—weighs roughly five thousand pounds. In the bedroom are the futon I sleep on and a week’s worth of clothes rescued from Goodwill and the Salvation Army. My old baseball bat from high school is hidden under the futon, its only function now as a scare tactic in case anyone is stupid enough to break in, since I’ll never use it again on a baseball field.
The old monk motions me to the couch and we both sit down, the young monks remaining standing. The springs gave way long ago, and the cushions are supported by a sheet of plywood.
“Mr. Heilig,” the monk says, “we have been on a long search. Our Master, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, died almost twenty-eight years ago, and a suitable replacement has never been found. Our higher-level lamas have been ruling by committee these long years since, and despite the values of democracy taught by His Holiness, in-fighting is leading us into ruin. Factions have formed; one insisting that we return to Tibet and live under Chinese rule, the other maintaining our exile in India where we can live safely and continue to explore non-violent ways of freeing Tibet from the Chinese. We need a uniting voice to lead us again, to bring all Buddhists together.”
Strange Mammals Page 12
