by Allen Zadoff
“Who is this lovely creature?” the guru says, referring to my sister.
“This is my youngest, Sweet Caroline,” Mom says.
“An apt name. I can feel the sweetness in your aura, little one,” the guru says.
Obviously, his powers of perception leave something to be desired.
Sweet Caroline smiles. I hope she’s not falling for it, but she’s been known to succumb to compliments, especially from men.
“What’s he doing in our house?” I say.
“He needed someplace to stay,” Mom says.
“Where did he sleep?” I say.
“Sanskrit. That’s rude,” Mom says.
“I understand why you would be concerned,” the guru says. “I slept right here.”
He points to the meditation area in our living room. He smiles at me. Which only makes me hate him more.
“He’s a visitor,” Mom says. “What does your religion say about visitors, Sanskrit?”
“You mean our religion,” I say.
“My point is he’s come a long way,” Mom says, “and it’s our responsibility to offer him hospitality.”
“That’s why they have hotels,” I say.
“He’s a guru,” Mom says.
“Gurus like hotels. When the Dalai Lama comes, he stays at a suite in the Ritz Carlton,” I say.
“No, he doesn’t,” Mom says.
“It’s true,” Sweet Caroline says. “I read it in the L.A. Times.”
“See that?” I say.
“I don’t think that’s the truth,” Mom says.
“Actually, his Holiness stays at the Montage,” the guru says. “He has a lot more money than I have.”
“I thought Buddhists took a vow of poverty,” I say.
“Individually, yes. But his organization raises money to spread the word of the dharma.”
I think about Rabbi Silberstein pushing High Holy Days tickets. Maybe Tibet and Brentwood aren’t so different.
“Why doesn’t your organization have money?” I say.
“We have nothing to spread. If people want what we have, they will find us. That’s what we believe. Therefore, money is not needed.”
“You can’t live without money,” I say. “Everyone knows that.”
“Dad lives without money,” Sweet Caroline says.
“Zadie had money,” I say. “You barely remember because you were so young.”
“I remember,” she says.
“I do not want to talk about your zadie,” Mom says. “Not when we have such interesting living people in the room.” She sits down at the table. “Let’s have breakfast and get to know each other.”
The three of us look at her.
“You can’t just push a guru on us at breakfast,” I say. “Right, Sweet Caroline?”
She sits down.
Traitor.
The guru and I stay standing, looking at each other.
“May I join you, Sanskrit?” the guru asks.
I can see what he’s doing. Trying to give me space, trying to win me over by being deferential. I’m not falling for it.
“You can eat, but then you have to go,” I say.
“Sanskrit!” Mom says.
“What? We don’t have enough space as it is. Much less enough food.”
Mom tenses like she’s about to get into it with me, then, just as quickly, she lets the anger drain from her. She makes one of those motions like she’s pulling an invisible string from her chest. She takes a deep breath, and her voice softens.
“It’s strange to have a new person here. I understand.”
“You don’t understand,” I say.
The guru and I are still standing, looking at each other.
“Can we just have breakfast like civilized people?” Mom says.
“Since when are we civilized?” I say.
I look to Sweet Caroline for support. I don’t get any.
“Please have breakfast with us,” Mom says. “I got you some organic breakfast bars. I know you like those.”
I look at the guru, all wrapped up in flowing orange robes. The man who believes in nothing, yet has followers wherever he goes.
He’s not going to add me to his list.
“I changed my mind,” I say. “I’m not hungry.”
I grab my backpack and storm out of the house.
“They will find us.”
That’s what the guru said earlier. The people who want what he has will find him. Is that what happened with Mom? She was looking for something, anything, and this is what she found?
The thought makes me sick inside. The idea that my mother is one of those people who jumps at any trend, believing she’s found the answer to life’s questions.
That gets me thinking about Herschel.
He’s at shul right now, sitting with everyone and praying. I consider going there to join him. I remember what that used to be like, the sound of voices in unison, calling out to God. The feeling of sitting in a group of believers. We would go as a family sometimes, drive to Zadie’s house, park the car, then walk from his place because he wouldn’t use the car on Shabbat. We’d show up at Zadie’s synagogue and everyone would greet him, pinch my cheeks, say how happy they were to see us and make space for us to sit down. Sometimes I’d even feel happy to be there.
I could go to shul with Herschel now, but it wouldn’t be the same. I’d just be taking up space because I don’t believe.
So I walk.
It’s a warm Saturday in April, and I walk down San Vicente west towards Santa Monica. The exercisers are out en masse. There are runners, bikers, speed walkers, uniformed teams of cyclists. It seems like when you turn forty in Brentwood you have to join a cycling team, put on one of those skin-tight colored uniforms, and wear funny shoes that click when you walk into the coffee shop.
I move in the same direction as the exercisers, west, towards the ocean. I read somewhere that there is a high rate of suicide in California because people who are trying to escape their lives head west, and when they get here and find that nothing has changed, that they’ve run out of choices, they jump into the ocean or drive off Pacific Coast Highway.
It’s an interesting theory, but what happens if your life starts here?
Where do you go?
“On your right!” a cyclist shouts, and goes flying by me, so close that I feel the wind blow the hairs on my arm.
“Watch it!” another one says.
I’ve wandered too close to the bike lane, and a riding team is shouting at me, territorial, ready to mow me down.
I jump to get out of one’s way, and I end up in front of another. I dodge that one and the next one comes. One cyclist after another shouts rude things at me. It’s like a hyena attack on one of those nature shows where they surround some defenseless animal and hound it until it collapses.
I’m that animal.
It seems to go on forever, the shouts and the wind and the rushing bikes. Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I gather my courage, let out a roar, and spin around to face the pack.
But they’re gone.
There are no bikes. They’ve all passed me by.
I’m alone on the median on San Vicente, ready to fight something that’s not there.
“You’re off balance, Sanskrit.”
That’s what Mom says when I walk back into the house an hour later.
“I’m not off balance,” I say. I look around. The guru is gone. His stuff is out of the living room. “In fact, I’m feeling very balanced right now.”
“What do you call your little outburst this morning?” Mom says.
“I’d say that was an appropriate reaction upon finding a strange man in your kitchen.”
“Not so strange. You’d met him before.”
“Not in my kitchen.”
“First of all, it’s not your kitchen. You don’t pay the bills in this family.”
A dead man pays the bills in this family. At least the tuition bills. But I don’t say that to Mom.
“Forget it,” Mom says. “I’m not having this fight again.”
Mom unfurls a yoga mat and lies on it on the living room floor.
Her answer to everything. Kundalini.
“Join me,” she says. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Please, Sanskrit.”
“It’s not a matter of please, Mom. I just don’t feel like it.”
“Why not?”
“I had a big breakfast. I don’t want to be upside down right now.”
“Where did you eat?”
“At Starbucks. I had a breakfast sandwich with extra bacon.”
Mom makes a face. I call it her meat wince. She pretends she doesn’t care that I eat meat, that it’s my own personal choice and her only job is to inform me so I can make a good decision. But if I dare to walk in the house with an In-N-Out Burger bag, she can’t control her reaction. It’s like a beefy form of Tourette’s.
“You can’t do one little posture with me?” Mom says.
“I cannot. I am incapable of it.”
Mom pushes up into a headstand. Now we’re looking at each other eye to ankle. It’s like a docking maneuver on the space shuttle. I imagine Mom and me lost in space together. I wonder what it would be like to be alone with Mom, nobody to interrupt us.
“Are you on drugs?” Mom says out of the blue.
“Are you kidding?”
“You’re not addicted to bath salts?”
“What are bath salts?”
“My yoga blog talked about it in their Parent Corner. All the kids are doing it now.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“Well, everyone else is.”
“Something else I can feel bad about. I’m not on drugs, Mom. They’re not even popular in our school. Kids are more worried about Israeli politics than getting high.”
Mom examines me upside down, trying to determine if I’m lying. “I made an appointment for you with Dr. Prem,” she says.
Dr. Prem is not really a doctor. He’s Mom’s chiropractor.
“No!” I say, even though I like Dr. Prem. He’s just weird like everyone else Mom knows.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“How does getting my back cracked help me?” Mom pinches her fingers together and gestures from her toes to her head. “Flow,” she says. “I don’t want to flow.”
“It’s already done. Two o’clock today. Your father is going to take you.”
“Why aren’t you taking me?” I say.
“I’m giving the guru a tour of the city,” Mom says.
“Like you gave him a tour of your bedroom?”
Mom opens her mouth to respond, then takes a calming breath instead.
“You don’t think I’m doing a good job as a parent?” she says.
I feel a drop of sweat pooling on my forehead. It hangs there for a moment before rolling down the side of my face.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’ve brought it up,” Mom says. “A few times now.”
I wipe my forehead with my sleeve.
“Don’t wipe your head like that,” Mom says. “It stains the fabric.”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t appreciate what I do for you. I bought you that shirt.”
“I know you did.”
“Dr. Prem is expensive. So is your sister’s doctor.”
“I know.”
“I’m trying to keep this family’s head above water. I’m killing myself to build up the Center. I’m working all the time. You think I like being away from my children so much?”
“No,” I say, even though I think the answer is yes.
“I even invited you to teach a class with me.”
I stare at the floor.
“I’m doing my best, and you have the nerve to stand here and criticize me when I’m trying to help you. And maybe have a life of my own at the same time.”
“Sorry,” I say.
Mom drops out of her headstand and her feet whack the floor hard.
“Now you’ve got me disturbed, Sanskrit. I have to find my center again.”
Mom breathes deeply, stretches, breathes again. She rubs her forehead, upset. I hate it when she’s upset.
“I’ll go to Dr. Prem and get adjusted,” I say.
“You will?” Mom says.
“Anything you want.”
“Anything?”
“Of course.”
“Give me a kiss,” Mom says.
“Gross.”
“Not gross. I’m your mother.”
She takes my head in her hands and plants a big, wet kiss on my cheek.
“My son,” she says. “I’m feeling better now.”
“I’m glad,” I say.
Mom always feels better when she gets her way. And honestly, it’s easier for everybody involved.
“Busy. Always very busy.”
That’s what Dad says when I climb into the car later and ask him how he’s doing. I have to clear a foot of junk off the passenger seat before I can even sit down.
“Busy with what?” I say.
“I could tell you,” he says. “But then I’d have to kill you.”
He chuckles like this is funny.
It’s not. Child Protective Services would not take kindly to jokes like this. It’s not like I would call them, but we’re on their radar after Sweet Caroline got sick of Mom’s tempeh stew a few years ago and told her teacher Mom was serving us dog food. The teacher took her seriously and called the hotline, and when the social workers showed up one night during dinner, they took a look at our plates and thought she might be telling the truth. Mom’s tempeh stew was brought to a lab for testing, and we spent the night at juvenile hall eating bologna sandwiches and spicy Fritos.
The next day the test came back negative for meat products. Sweet Caroline got in big trouble for lying and we were returned to the house. Mom spent the next six months on a mission to prove how delicious vegetarian food can be.
As far as I’m concerned, the mission failed.
“What has you so busy?” I ask Dad. “In general terms.”
“Dad’s working on important things,” Sweet Caroline says as she climbs into the back of the car. “Daddy, it’s disgusting back here.”
“I didn’t get a chance to straighten up.”
“That’s okay,” Sweet Caroline says as she pushes stacks of books and papers out of the way to make a space.
The car door doesn’t close correctly in back, so she has to slam it, then pull it hard three times until it clicks.
“You’re inventing things for the government, right, Daddy?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Dad says. “I only know I had to interrupt important work to be with you here today. To escort you on this critical mission, Sweet McGeet.”
Dad has, like, fourteen pet names for Sweet Caroline. He only has two names for me. Sanskrit most of the time, and Aaron when he’s angry at Mom and doesn’t want to say the name she chose for me.
“Remind me. What is this important mission?” Dad says.
“See’s Candies, Daddy,” Sweet Caroline says.
“I sees a chocolate truffle in your future,” Dad says with a smile.
I’ve heard that stupid joke fifty thousand times, but Sweet Caroline laughs like it’s brilliant. She loves See’s Candies. I wish the stuff would make her pudgy. It’s hard to be arrogant when you’re pudgy.
“Sound like we have a road trip on our hands!” Dad says, getting excited. “We had some crazy road trips in college. Back in the day, boy, the gearheads and I knew how to do it right.”
Gearheads. That’s what they called the engineers at Cal Tech when Dad went to school there.
“I have to go to Dr. Prem,” I say. “That’s why you’re here, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Dad says, depressed by the sudden appearance of responsibility. “And you have to be there at—”
He looks at the clock. It’s 1:30.
“We’re lat
e!” he says.
“We have to be there by two,” I say.
“But your mother said—”
“She gave you the wrong time because you’re always late.”
“Your mother is a real case, let me tell you.”
“The psychologist said you’re not supposed to say bad things about Mom,” Sweet Caroline says. “Even if you hate her.”
“I don’t hate her,” Dad says.
“Resent her then,” Sweet Caroline says.
“Where did you learn a word like that?”
“From the psychologist, Daddy. Plus, I read. Unlike some people.”
She kicks the back of my seat, but I ignore her.
Dad throws the car in reverse and shoots out of the driveway, narrowly missing an oncoming SUV.
“Watch out!” I say.
“That guy can watch out,” Dad says. “I’m trying to back out of my own driveway.”
It’s not Dad’s driveway anymore, but I don’t need to remind him of that. Instead I say, “That’s not how it works, Dad. The oncoming driver has the right of way.”
“In what universe?” Dad says.
“In our universe,” I say.
“I don’t like our universe,” Dad says. “That’s why I’m inventing a new one.”
“Can I be in your universe, Daddy?” Sweet Caroline says.
“You are the queen of the new universe,” Dad says.
“If anyone smells throw up, it’s mine,” I say.
“That’s disgusting,” Sweet Caroline says.
“Where is Attack of the Mummy’s office again?” Dad says.
Dr. Prem is a Sikh, so he wears all white. Dad calls him Attack of the Mummy.
“In Beverly Hills. Remember?” I say.
“Oh, that’s right,” Dad says. “Poop bird.”
He presses the brakes too hard and pulls an illegal U-turn in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard. A bunch of plastic water bottles slide by my feet.
“Why do you need so much water?” I ask Dad.
“What if the big one happens while we’re driving?”
The big one. The great Los Angeles earthquake.
Dad taps his head. “Water. It’s the key to life.”
“Better safe than sorry,” I say.
