The back tires skidded on the shoulder gravel.
“Don’t drive off the cliff just because I mentioned God. You’re going to come to your senses one day. There are no atheists in the foxholes.”
George groaned. “I didn’t say I was an atheist.”
Tanned and relaxed men and women wandered the serene sprawling grounds. George parked in front of one of several large, ramshackle wooden buildings. On a lawn, a young blonde-haired woman, athletic, husky, was performing Tai Chi. Her movements were graceful and mysterious. Her hands seemed to be weaving a spell. A massage workshop was also in progress. A woman was having her back walked on by a bald-headed man wearing a robe. Two teenagers were playing hacky-sack. A man with a dog on his shoulders was riding a unicycle. Mrs. Brady took a long pull on her inhaler.
Along with other weekend visitors who had come to enjoy the baths, they checked into the motel. Gerald had left a message that he would join them shortly before supper.
The check-in clerk, a friendly elderly man with a Rip Van Winkle beard, cheerfully informed Mrs. Brady that swimsuits were optional in the communal baths. “Relax and enjoy,” he said. “Mi casa, su casa.” Mrs. Brady thanked him. With a wary look she followed him up the stairs.
They were placed in adjoining rooms on the second floor. George stepped into his mother’s room. It was a monk’s retreat, small and sparse with bare boards, a narrow bed, and a rickety desk with a vase of water on top. There was no plumbing. The bathrooms were down the hall.
“I wonder if they’ve made a mistake,” Mrs. Brady said. She looked a bit mournful. “I don’t mind . . . but seventy-five dollars a night.”
“That’s with meals, Mom. And the hot springs. All the soaking you want. In the buff, no less.” George flexed his back. “That will work out the old kinks.”
Mrs. Brady’s laughter rose a pitch in hysteria. She fell against George. “Oh my God, George, what have we gotten into?”
George patted her back. “Try to be open-minded about this, Mother.”
“I am open-minded!”
George liked the sparseness of his room. The floor creaked under his feet. He parted the curtain. The bald-headed man was still walking on the woman’s back, but the blonde who’d been doing the Tai Chi had disappeared.
He took some books out of his suitcase, hoping to do some work during their visit. He was on Christmas vacation after teaching his very first semester of eighth grade social studies. He tried to be understanding towards his hyperactive charges, but by the holiday break he’d wished he could have the loudmouths bound and gagged.
He was tired from the trip west. He lay down and read, but soon his eyes grew heavy. When he woke, the sun was low in the sky, and the room had grown chilly. He was hungry. He knocked on his mother’s door. When she answered, her eyes looked puffy.
“This place really is relaxing,” George said. “I hardly ever fall asleep during the day.”
“I slept, too.” She frowned at the vase on her desk. “You don’t think they drug the water, do you?”
“Don’t get paranoid, Mother.”
“I’m not making this up, George. I’ve heard of this sort of thing.”
“They don’t drug the water. Now stop it.”
“Well, I didn’t say they did, did I? I was joking. So you don’t need to get so huffy. But it does happen. They drug you and get you to sign over your house.”
There was a knock. Gerald was half in, half out of the door, and a tall, robust man with sandy hair was nudging him forward. George noticed that Gerald’s short frame had grown plumper. His cheeks were rounder; the lines around his eyes were more relaxed. His belly looked buoyant under his baggy sweater. The ends of Gerald’s bushy moustache lifted in a tremulous smile.
Mrs. Brady wiped her palms on her skirt. “Oh, Gerald.” She held her arms out. “Give me a hug.”
Gerald wrapped his arms around his mother and squeezed. He held her at arm’s length then and smiled softly at her, nodding his head to convince her he was well and happy and justified. He embraced George. George put his arms around him. Gerald felt soft and warm and smelled of minerals.
The sandy haired man clapped his hands together. “Bra-vo,” he said. “I knew you’d be supportive, Mrs. Brady.”
Mrs. Brady brushed at her hair, disheveling it, so that a lock of grey hair fell into her eyes. She looked as if she might have just wandered in from gardening to find strangers in her home.
The tall man stooped and took both her hands in his. “My name is Richard, Mrs. Brady. I’m a healer.”
Mrs. Brady’s eyes clouded over.
Richard boomed with laughter. “Actually, I don’t know what to call myself any more. I’ve been a heart surgeon, a psychiatrist, a podiatrist, and a proctologist. I lived with the Cherokees and studied herbs. I spent two years in China with the finest acupuncturist in the world. Dr. Ling. He cured brain tumors with his hands.” Richard tapped his head. “Sickness isn’t here.” He tapped his heart. “It’s here. Gerald didn’t come here a minute too soon. I would have given him three months.”
Fearfully, Mrs. Brady looked at her son. “What’s wrong?”
Richard clucked his tongue and chuckled. “Cigarettes. Booze. Hypertension. Three months. Another stockbroker bites the dust.” He turned his palm down. “Su wa ho,” Richard said. “Dr. Ling. The heart is empty. Su wa ho. The heart is empty, so we die.”
Mrs. Brady stepped past Richard to confront Gerald. “Gerald, have you had tests for all this?”
Gerald’s smile was tolerant, as if he knew she’d ask him this.
“He doesn’t need tests,” Richard said. “This is the best medicine.” He waved his hands about to encompass the resort. “This air, these mountains, this light, this sun, the baths . . . the spirit of our community, the consciousness. Su lo wa. The heart is full. Fu lo. Fu lo. Full life, full life.” He clapped George on the shoulder, knocking him off balance. “How was the flight? How does it feel to be in California?”
“Fine,” George said. “Fine.”
Richard laughed and smacked George’s shoulder again. “I was born in Waterloo.”
“Gerald,” Mrs. Brady said, “if you’re not well, we’ll take you to a hospital. You can’t stay here. Think of your family.”
Gerald pushed his tongue against his cheek and looked past her. He did not look repentant for having left home. George thought he looked too unrepentant, as if he’d been practicing.
Mrs. Brady held Gerald’s bicep in a pinch and gave his arm a playful shake. “Sharon told us you wouldn’t talk. But I said, I bet he will. I’ll bet he’ll gab and gab and gab. You were always a gabber, and I know you can’t keep from talking for long. Oh, I remember when you were mad your cheeks would puff up you’d try so hard not to talk. But if I kept bugging you, you’d give up and shout at me to shut up. Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep bugging you until you come to your senses.”
Gerald’s lips pursed and his cheeks puffed up. But he didn’t speak.
Richard frowned. “Mrs. Brady, if I may take the liberty of interfering for just a moment. Gerald has lost the desire to talk because he feels that most conversations are a form of lying. Perhaps that will help put things in the proper perspective.”
Mrs. Brady looked from Richard to Gerald, and finding no support there she turned to George. George nodded his head and moved his lips to show that he was on her side.
“I’m your mother, Gerald. I don’t lie to you. Now you knock off this nonsense and you talk to me. Gerald? You talk to me, Gerald?” She jiggled his arm. “Are you going to talk to me?”
He gave an upward, prayerful look, lips sealed. No. No, he wasn’t going to talk to her.
Mrs. Brady wearily patted his arm and backed away. She touched her hair. Another lock fell forward. As he witnessed his mother turning listless and disheartened, Geor
ge cast about in his mind for something to say. He gave a chuckle and said brightly, “Well, I guess the cat’s really got Gerald’s tongue.” He followed with a high-pitched laugh as the others stared at him. George swallowed and shifted from foot to foot and was saved by the clanging of a bell.
“Ah, Pavlov, I’m salivating already,” Richard said, laughing, as he took Mrs. Brady by the elbow. “You’ll love the food here.”
“Shouldn’t I change?” Mrs. Brady asked.
“Come as you are. People do, straight from the baths.”
Mrs. Brady groped in her purse and then took a wheezy pull on her inhaler.
Richard laughed exuberantly. “Oh, we make them put on a towel or something,” he assured her.
The sun had already set as Richard led them across the grounds. Bands of red light lingered on the horizon, and shapes moved through the twilight and converged upon the dining hall. The bell clanged again. George whispered to his mother, “Let’s be very casual. Don’t get uptight.”
“I’m not uptight. Why do you say I’m uptight? I’m not uptight.”
The four sat at a small table to themselves as people with glistening wet hair and sparkling eyes chatted amiably nearby at their communal tables. Mrs. Brady poked her fork in and out of her rice. “I would like to hear more about this Consciousness Church that Gerald has joined.”
Her reasonable, calm tone worried George, but Richard looked eager to reply. Gerald sat silent, as if they were going to discuss someone he didn’t know.
“Well, we’re not a religion in the way most people think of religion,” Richard said. “What some people have problems with is that we don’t have any beliefs.”
“A religion without beliefs?” George asked.
“Exactly. There are no rules, no do’s, no don’ts. You just have to be committed to raising your consciousness. You see, everyone is filled with a spiritual essence, but that essence is blocked up in most of us. Our community here provides a time to allow that spiritual essence to unfold. The unfolding will take a different form for everyone. Some people will end up totally changing their lives. Others will return to their careers, to their families, but with a greater level of awareness and appreciation. We had a sumo wrestler here once who became a beekeeper. He didn’t want to knock people down. He wanted to raise bees. It was quite a sight, a four-hundred-pound man in his underwear harvesting honey. But what if he had never discovered that? Can you imagine his loss? Our loss?” Richard smiled at George. “A lot of people come here just for a visit and end up changing their lives.” His smile was being transformed now into a serious mien. “The world tries to deaden us, you know. We pursue money and success, and we’re surrounded by so much electricity—television, washing machines, toasters—Su hi wo. The soul grows old.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with owning a toaster,” Mrs. Brady said. “I do think a positive attitude is important.”
“Exactly!”
“I’ve always said: Have a positive attitude and say a Hail Mary every day and you won’t go wrong.”
“That’s beautiful,” Richard said. “That’s incredibly beautiful. Mrs. Brady, I respect your religion, but all those rules, all that guilt. Religion should be a celebration, shouldn’t it?”
“Well, it is a celebration.” Her voice rose to a near shout. “But religions need a few rules. We’re not smart enough to figure it out for ourselves so God helps us by giving us a few rules. He knows we’ll break them. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect. That’s why He gave us confession. We need more than . . . more than just some sort of spiritual essence. What Gerald needs to do . . . what Gerald needs to do . . .” She leaned across the table and poked her face into Gerald’s. “What Gerald needs to do is to go home to the people who love him. That’s what God wants Gerald to do.”
As she finished, her face was red with intensity. Gerald’s jaw tightened, and he breathed heavily through his nose. George felt his own heart beating rapidly. He feared his mother’s explosions. He knew that if she did not calm down, she would begin to throw things. She had once attacked his father with a ladle. Gerald, too, was given to violence. On a golfing outing, when George was quite young, Gerald had threatened him with a putter.
“Let’s all calm down,” George said.
“Spiritual essence,” Mrs. Brady snarled. “Spiritual essence, my foot. How much is Gerald paying for this unfolding business?”
Richard had been sitting back, finger to his chin. He now leaned forward and held Mrs. Brady’s hand in both of his. “I think if you took a bath with us, you’d understand just how meaningful our religion is. It defies logical explanation. It’s organic. Mysterious. Just like your religion. Come take a bath with us,” he urged. “After you’ve experienced it you’ll know what I’m talking about. After we’ve all had a nice hot bath together and maybe a glass of brandy or two, then let’s talk.” He patted her hands. “I have a feeling that you’re not as uptight as you sound.” He smiled. “I think that underneath that uniform there’s a warm, free spirit. How old do you think I am, Mrs. Brady? Well, I’ll tell you this. You’re not that much older than me, fifteen years maybe, so I went through the same kind of conditioning and emotional repression as you. And what I’m saying is this: you can still have sex.”
His mother looked so frozen as she stared at Richard’s hands on top of hers that George thought she might never move again. “Mother?”
Richard lifted his hands off Mrs. Brady’s and waved his water glass. “You can still do anything. There’s an eighty-three-year-old woman here who hunts with a bow and arrow and makes luncheon meat out of wild boars. I don’t necessarily approve of hunting, but there you go. She’s unfolding. You don’t have to be a lonely old widow, Mrs. Brady.”
His mother rose, staring into space. She looked dizzy. “Mother?” George asked.
With her chin tilted upward, she walked unsteadily to the door. A draft of cold air blew across the table as she exited. George tossed down his napkin. “I’d better check on her.”
As Richard pushed up from the table, his good spirits seemed undaunted. He nudged Gerald, whose lips were quivering as he stared at the door through which his mother had left. “Time for a bath,” Richard said firmly. “I’m sure she’s all right, George. This is just a bit new for her. After you check on her, why don’t you join us?” Richard chuckled. “Wear a suit if you like. Oh, there is one small rule. In the very hottest bath—we call it the temple—there’s no talking. We obey the rule of Total Silence.”
In the dressing room, men and women mingled about in various stages of dressing and undressing. George slipped off his sweat pants, but kept on his bright blue swimming suit. He wished he were not so pale. Across the room, the blonde-haired woman who had been performing Tai Chi was stepping out of her panties. George wrapped his towel around his neck and followed her bronzed, muscular body out into the cool night air. Her hair fell in golden ringlets to her shoulders. As they moved away from the lights of the dressing room, her shape became fainter. He followed her up a short flight of steps and stubbed his toe. Holding in a cry of pain, he hopped along beside other shadowy shapes. George was the only one wearing clothes.
He eased himself into the quiet pool. The night was clear and chilly, but the water felt warm and silky. George looked up into a vast, starry sky, and his heart beat with the sudden quickness one feels upon entering an alien territory. He heard whispers. He began to make out shapes in the water. He saw couples, locked in embraces, heads on each other’s shoulders, turning together in slow, harmonious motion, intently sharing a dance of beginning or dying love.
George slipped out of his suit and laid it on the tile beside the pool. He felt lighter, his movements freer.
His eyes adjusted. He made out Richard’s tall figure. Richard appeared to be teaching Gerald how to float. Gerald lay atop the water with Richard’s hands supporting his back. George waded through the water a
nd drew nearer. Now he could tell that Richard was chanting. It sounded like, “Ka-po-ha-ka-wi, ka-po-ha-ka-wi.” Richard looked toward the stars. “Spirit master, allow the cleansing to occur,” he intoned and dunked Gerald under the water. He held him there. George could tell his brother was struggling. He started toward his defense, but Gerald surfaced, sputtering and rubbing at his eyes.
“Ah, George,” Richard said. He reached with his long arm and held and kneaded George’s shoulder. “You’re just in time. I’m performing an Arapaho cleansing.”
“I thought it was the Cherokees you lived with.”
Richard chuckled and wagged a finger at him. “You Iowans are always so skeptical. The cleansing ritual is over three thousand years old and is very well documented. I’m only one of eleven white men currently authorized to perform it. If you care to do any research, you’ll find my name mentioned on page seventy-three of the book, The Hidden Rituals of the North American Indian.”
George shrugged. He felt hollow, out of his element.
“God, I’m glad you both came here,” Richard said. “Isn’t this a fantastic place?”
Gerald’s moustache crinkled above his lip. He reminded George of a fat, shy walrus. Gerald seemed more vulnerable now. He looked at George with friendliness and curiosity, almost as if he might like to talk.
“Let’s take George to the temple,” Richard said.
“Oh no. I don’t think so,” George said. The thought of entering a temple, naked, seemed the height of absurdity.
Richard laughed. “Oh, come on. It’s just a bath. A very hot bath. All we ask is that you remain totally silent during the experience.”
George did not like the sound of “during the experience.” But he could not resist Richard’s determination. They walked and bounced their way through the water to the far end of the pool and mounted some steps. Leaving the bath, George felt chilled by the windy night air. But they walked only a few feet before passing through a narrow doorway into a small, dark, cavern-like room with stone walls. Clouds of vapor rose from a small, oval pool. No one was bathing, but the blonde whom George had noticed lay alongside the pool. She was on her back, her knees bent. Her breasts, the slope of her belly, her thighs, glistened with sweat. She seemed to be concentrating on her navel.
A Night at the Y Page 4
