Ray Vs the Meaning of Life

by Michael F Stewart

  “I’m wasting everyone’s time. Everyone’s money,” I whisper. And I don’t say, but think, Now I’m wasting yours, and you don’t have any left.

  “It’s an important question to ask yourself,” he says finally. “At any age.”

  “What’s the meaning of life?”

  “That’s the one.” Salminder chuckles. “I’ve found happiness in many, many things. I’ve lived all over the world. I’ve done many jobs. But here, I have peace.”

  We sit and listen to the night for a few minutes, and it’s almost as if he’s trying to share what it is he means. He watches me with a soft smile and liquid eyes.

  “I need to get out of here. I don’t see how my mom and Crystal can do this every summer. I won’t find the meaning of life, not here, not in an RV park,” I say.

  Salminder leans forward. “Do you think a Russian has a better chance of figuring out the meaning of life than an American?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Chinese then?”

  I shake my head.

  “What about a rich person versus a poor one? Or fat versus thin? Gay or straight? Does one gender have a better chance than another?”

  “No, I guess not. Shouldn’t.”

  “What about someone in a prison cell, do you think they could figure it out? On a boat, in space, on a ski hill?” He watches me in silence.

  “Okay, okay, I get it.”

  “So it if it doesn’t matter who you are, how rich you are, where you are or what you’re doing, then why can’t you find your meaning of life here in this very RV park?”

  I hesitate.

  Salminder has his finger up. “You know, I think the destitute have less of a chance. If you’re too hungry to think. Too cold for hope. That would make it more difficult. But that’s not you, is it? You have a roof. Food. Family. Friends. The path lies open to you.”

  I glance around as if I’ve missed that path, as if I’ve missed the riches of which he speaks, but Salminder doesn’t smile.

  “Family? Really?” I laugh. “And friends, I dunno about that either. I never see my buddies from town during the summer. I’ve got Deneze and Tina, but most my friends are online.”

  “The lucky kid is the one with one person who believes in them. One. That’s all it takes.”

  “No one thinks I can do this.”

  “Then you are not listening,” he says. “After a while you need to stop making excuses for yourself. Next year won’t be different. A different location won’t change things. Once you have the roof, food, security, more money changes nothing—if you use it right, it can make life easier, but it won’t give you meaning.”

  “What will then? Can my games?” My hands ache. I’m squeezing them blotchy red and white.

  “It’s all. All. I repeat, all of it is up here.” He taps his head in the same way that Dalen had. “And I’m dying, so you have to listen to me.”

  I almost pull off a smile, but it’s too soon to laugh at cancer.

  Chapter 23

  In my trailer, I wake to Dalen’s huge, hovering grin. The chin’s purple where my mother hit him. “Who can do it?” he demands.

  I shrink beneath my covers and remind myself to lock the trailer door at night.

  The covers are yanked off. “You can!” he shouts.

  “It’s still dark,” I cry.

  “What an opportunity!”

  “You’re psycho,” I accuse and shudder in the cold.

  “Everyone I work with has a list of work to do that’s pages long. You told me yours. Sleeping is overrated. Get better quality sleep, less quantity. By sleeping two hours less you gain a quarter more of your productive time. That’s ten years of life based on the average lifespan, and we’re not average, are we, Ray?”

  I’ve curled up with my knees to my chest, but I nod. “I’m so average. Below average. Above average sleeper.”

  “There are mystic monks in this world who have never slept. Now up!”

  “That doesn’t make sense, even monks need to sleep.” I groan. “I’m a teenager, I’m supposed to sleep—lots. I’m losing inches of height here.”

  “Fatigue is a creation of the mind. I need no sleep. An hour sometimes here and there. But people are wasting years with all this sleep stuff. You get sleepy in class? You do go to school, right?”

  “Yeah.” For now.

  “How about at recess? You sleepy then?”

  “No.”

  “See. The problem is that we surround ourselves with tasks that fail to engage us. Make your life a recess and you need never sleep again.”

  “Tell that to my teachers,” I say and cover my head with a pillow.

  He flips through my journal. “Good, you . . . uh . . . you have quite a lot here really . . . actually. Not sure anyone has ever filled out so many negative thoughts on their first day . . . ,” he trails off and then slams the covers closed. “Not to worry, the trick is to turn negative thoughts into positive ones! That’s today’s task. Mental alchemy. What happens when we have a negative thought?”

  I sigh. He’s obviously not about to leave. I flop about on my bed until I am at the edge of the mattress and then I swing my feet to the floor and rest my elbows on my knees, chin in hands.

  “Thoughts lead to actions, actions to habit, habit to destiny,” he says. “Bad thoughts start like little larvae under your skin, where they grow and mature and then lay a thousand eggs that flow about you until you are nothing more than a host of evil negativity.

  “What separates the positive from the negative is how we process stuff up here. Every setback, big or small, is a chance to learn. The glass isn’t half-full, or half-empty. It’s full. Unless you launch it into space and then I’ll give you empty, but even then there are neutrinos that shoot—”

  “It’s like you’re a big motivational poster of a sunrise,” I say and push myself out of bed and over to the Kraft Dinner pot. You can tell how dried out it is by the shade of orange. This pot’s noodles are dark. I have to scrape through the crunchy top layer to the lighter orange beneath.

  Dalen’s usually dusky skin color has paled.

  “Okay, okay, so you’ve heard that one about the glass. Did you know that the Chinese word for crisis is written with two characters, one that spells danger and the other opportunity?”

  I gag a little on a crunchy bit and then keep chewing.

  “There’s also some truth to the line you are what you eat, you know?” he says.

  “Then I am a stale noodle,” I say.

  “Aha!” He holds the journal aloft. “That’s your next step. What is your mantra?”

  “Om?”

  “You joke, but ‘om’ is designed to clear your mind. We’ll work on meditation later. Only in silence can we find truth. Om is a good mantra. Tell me, though—do you have a password for your computer? Social media accounts?” I nod. “Is it the same one for them all? Probably, right? What is it?”

  I have to take a swig of milk to force the congealed mass of cheesy starch down. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “I’m going to want you to change it anyway.”

  The noodles reach my stomach, where they join panic-berg. “KDman,” I say and flush.

  “KD?” He holds up the box of Kraft Dinner. “How many times do you enter KDman a day?”

  “About a dozen.”

  “So, twelve times a day you actually call yourself, in secret, ‘KDman’? And then you describe yourself to me as a stale noodle.”

  “It was a joke.”

  “What you need to understand is that there are no jokes, that you are what you think you are, what you say you are. Do you know what happens to kids whose parents tell them that they’re no good, that they’ll never amount to anything?”

  My hands tighten around the pot.

  “Usually they start believing it.” He’s dropped his voice to a whisper and stepped in even closer. This is so early for this conversation. “You can trick your brain. Laugh, even fake laugh, and you will be ha
ppier. Think positively and your brain will physically begin to change. What would happen if you changed your password to something you actually want yourself to be? What would that be? After we’re all done here and you have your million bucks, you have your meaning of life, what will Ray look like? Shut your eyes and tell me. Visualize.”

  He’s waiting, so I try. I imagine the expression on my mom’s face when Sam Peregrine says I got the meaning of life correct. “I see myself with everyone who said I couldn’t do it crushed beneath me.”

  “No!” The shout rings out, and in the distance I hear someone yell—Shut up! “No. There’s nothing good in that. See yourself crushed beneath yourself. That’s noble. Try again. Shut your eyes. Who is Better-Ray?”

  The little man with the mane of silver seems to fill the entire camper. He’s not going anywhere. At least, not until he gets somewhere with me. So I try again. What does a Ray who knows the meaning of life look like? Better-Ray. Unbidden I appear in my mind, and I am . . . better. “I’m smiling. Dressed neater and I’m . . . strong.”

  “Big muscles?” he asks.

  “No, but stronger, my eyes are smiling too, and everyone’s there, everyone’s happy.” I’m surprised by this. I thought I’d want to see myself in my own apartment playing games with an even bigger pot of KD—maybe one of the gourmet kinds with chopped hot dogs and extra cheese.

  “I’ve got it. Here’s your first new password, are you ready?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Happycamperhappycamp.”

  “Happy camper . . . ?”

  “Happy camp. Think you can handle that?”

  I nod. “But I’m not sure Better-Ray lives in a camp. Actually, I know he doesn’t.”

  “Fine, just change your passwords. And at every meal, every time you dig into your orange goo, I want you to visualize your goal. If you can see it, you can be it.”

  “See it, be it.”

  “Do this in silence. Silence increases willpower and willpower makes change and change can bring destiny!”

  “Destiny? I’m seventeen,” I say.

  “You’re young, but time passes fast. Time is your greatest asset, and you need to think of it as more valuable than money. Because it is.” His voice cracks a little, and suddenly he doesn’t look like he’s performing for a television audience. Thoughts of Salminder intrude on me. “Think like you could be dead tomorrow. What are you going to do today? Focus on those things.”

  I fold back on to the bed and stare up at the ceiling. Rain patters on the steel roof. “It all sounds so good when you say it, but when you leave, I won’t remember anything.”

  “It takes time, daily work, I can’t emphasize practice enough. An athlete won’t win a medal without training. Why would you think this would be easy? The reason people don’t find their meaning is that they don’t work hard enough for it. It’s why we use secrets like mantras, but there’s a reason I coach for one month. It takes three weeks to form a habit, and once you have a habit, you have . . . .” He looks at me expectantly. “Come on. What comes after habit?”

  “Destiny? Really? Here? Running a campground?”

  Dalen looks uncertain. “Yes! It’s about action, not location, not job. Never has anyone confessed on their deathbed that they wished they had spent more time at the office.”

  I’m not making the connection. “Like a doctor’s office?”

  Dalen frowns. “Only if you’re a doctor, so no.”

  “I’ve never set foot in a real office. Maybe my mom’s office, the camp’s office, if you count that.”

  “Do you want to spend time there?”

  “No way.”

  “Then, yes! Count that office! Focus! Unfocused heat does not burn. Find what you truly love and then focus all of your energy toward that.”

  Dalen’s eyes shine. He has that same aura he talked about me getting, like he’s larger than life. Some of what he says makes sense, I guess, but it feels like sand running through my fingers.

  “I can help you blaze brighter than you ever thought possible,” he continues. “But you need to want to change. You told me this wasn’t for money or revenge. Tell me how you see yourself. Look in the mirror and tell me.”

  I step from the kitchen and stare into a cracked floor-to-ceiling mirror. It wasn’t cracked before, and I suspect it broke a few days ago when I was holed up gaming.

  Licks of brown hair sprout from my head. I haven’t had a shower in a few days and mud flakes from the back of my neck. Shirtless, in sweatpants, I don’t look strong. I look pasty. Even though I can see my ribs I still have a saggy belly. Red flecks my arms where hot burger grease has splattered and blistered the skin. Bags underscore my eyes and my forehead has blotches of acne. At least the bug bites aren’t bad anymore.

  I describe myself to him. “Tall, thin, funny, independent.”

  He lifts an eyebrow. “How do others see you?”

  I swallow. “Lazy, loser, aimless, parasitic . . . dork.”

  “Do you think they’re right?”

  “No. Yes. Partly.”

  “Stop lying to yourself. You are not a lazy, aimless loser. You have acted like one. You formed a habit of it, and habits can be broken. What’s your mantra?”

  “Happycamperhappycamp.”

  “Good, now go. Any time you think something negative, counter it with a positive. Write it down. A written word is a contract with yourself.”

  “Okay, Coach,” I say.

  His lips spread in a wide, toothy grin.

  Chapter 24

  Happycamperhappycamp.

  The journal presses at my thigh.

  I searched my floor and couch for some clean and unstained clothing and managed one, but not both. I wear a clean pair of jean shorts with paint spatter and an unstained but moderately malodorous T-shirt with a Dalek on the front. Under it are the words, You are irrelevant.

  I feel nervous stepping out of my camper. I don’t want to face everything. It’s not a happy camp. It’s not, and I am why. To change the world, even my corner of it, is overwhelming.

  It’s raining.

  But not hard enough to keep the bugs back.

  Today sucks.

  I step back into the trailer out of the rain and write. - Today sucks. And then. + It doesn’t have to. Rain is good for plants and water and life itself.

  See, not so hard. Just stupid.

  - This task is stupid + Control your thoughts control your destiny.

  - Bugs . . . Can’t I still hate mosquitoes? They kill more people than wars. + Dragonflies and some turtles eat mosquito larvae. I slip the journal into a plastic bag and then lift my arms to the skies as they open up. It’s warm, despite it being early. The rain dampens the camp sounds and keeps everyone indoors and not shouting at me. I’m so positive! I sense eyes on me and try to remember if Crystal’s gone out hunting or not. As my boots slop along the side of the road, a pickup truck roars past, hits a puddle, splashing me.

  Why should I bother?

  I freeze and slowly turn around. I see him. Dalen. I can’t make out his face under the hood of his raincoat, but silver hair cascades down the front. I walk a few steps toward the washrooms and then turn again. He’s still there. The same distance away.

  “Don’t mind me. I won’t get in your way. I’m shadowing,” Dalen says.

  It’s creepy, but I continue to the shed. The buckets slop as I put them on the shower floor and then I start at the far side. The floors are muddy. I write in the journal.

  - I hate mud. + But others like it. Like pigs and monster truck rally enthusiasts.

  Dalen has taken up sentry at the door.

  “You could help,” I say as I grab a drooling scrub brush.

  “Wouldn’t be fair to you,” he says. “If I help you now, what would you do when I’m gone?” I roll my eyes. “As you work, listen to the sounds, smell the detergent, think about the feel of the brush. Regain control of your thoughts and be present.”

  On my knees I begin to scour the
tiles, and I think of all the things I could be doing that would be more fun if only he’d help me finish. After a minute of brushing and dipping the brush back in the pail, Dalen says, “As you work, clear your mind. I’ve heard a rhythm. Shooka-shooka-shooka-splash. Three scrubs, and then a pail dip. Work it.”

  I sigh at the floor, silently wishing he’d disappear.

  Shooka-shooka-splash. Shooka-splash.

  I roll my eyes and try again. Shooka-shooka . . .

  I don’t think I manage more than two shookas before some stray thought intrudes, but it’s not until I’m wiping down the bathroom mirrors that he pipes up again.

  “In each mirror, picture Better-Ray. Visualize. See it, be it.”

  - I hate having Yoda as my shadow. + Yoda dies.

  I try to picture myself as I had in the trailer, but the more I scrub, the more I clean, the harder it becomes, and I’m stuck with Dorky-Ray.

  “If you can see it, you can—”

  I hold up my hand to interrupt him, and write in my journal.

  - If he says See-it be-it again, I will kill him and go to jail. + I wouldn’t have to hear those words another time.

  “Go,” I say, trying to think of something that will make him leave. “I . . . I’m really feeling this. I really think I’ll get it if I’m alone for a bit. Silence, right?”

  “See it, be it,” he repeats as he leaves. I shake a fist at his back.

  The washroom takes another couple of hours. By the time I’m done, the heavy clouds have brightened and the smell of burning steak’s on the wind despite the rain. It’s ten, the earliest I’ve finished with cleaning since I took over. The ruts are beginning to fill with water, and I try to decide what I should do next. I look from the ruts to the steam smoking from the lid of Obelix’s barbecue. If we had a truck rally, I wouldn’t have to bother filling the ruts for a few days . . .

  I laugh at that, imagining the trucks ripping around the park. I head for the pool and stop. Why not? The roads can’t get any worse.

  “Steak and coffee, have them for breakfast and you’ll always have a good day,” Obelix says as I near.