Jake Fades

by David Guy

  “It was a stupid question,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  It wasn’t a stupid question. I don’t know what the real answer was. But I somehow felt that—though I was just as attracted to sex as ever—I wouldn’t have a problem with it again. The attraction was there, and would stay there, but not as a problem.

  When we begin, we imagine that someday, if we practice long and hard enough, all of our problems will be gone. Every aspect of our conditioning that gives us trouble will disappear, wiped out by the power of zazen.

  Our problems don’t disappear. If they did, we’d lose touch with humanity. They don’t go anywhere. But we know them well. We know all their tricks. We don’t act on them.

  Except for occasionally grabbing a hot babe by the tits.

  “You guys take care now,” the cabbie said as he dropped us off at what he probably assumed was a monastery. “I appreciate you taking care of me.” We’d given another large tip. “I never seen where you went.”

  “We knew we could count on you,” I said.

  Inside, all the lights were off, and people were camped out in sleeping bags all over. We had to tiptoe up the stairs. When we got to the top, Jake turned and bowed. “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  “It was my pleasure,” I said.

  It was a short night at that point, but I had punched through to where I wasn’t sleeping much and woke up at four thirty completely refreshed. I stayed in bed until the wake-up bell, got up and did some stretching, got dressed in my robes. When I went to get Jake a little before six his lights were still off, and he was in bed. I hadn’t heard him stirring, should have come in sooner. I didn’t want to waken him with the light, so I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder. I stood there in bewilderment for a few minutes, not taking it in, before I realized he was dead.

  17

  SOME YEARS BACK Jake gave a talk about a teacher who predicted the time of his death or died exactly when he wanted to; I don’t remember which. The question was, did he bring about his death because he felt that was the time, or was he so attuned to his body that he knew when it would happen? There were those two possibilities, Jake said, and he wasn’t sure what the answer was. They amounted to the same thing.

  I would give a great deal of thought to that matter in the days and weeks that followed Jake’s death, all the ways I should have seen it coming. There were a million hints, right up to that last evening. But when it finally happened, it hit me like a freight train, actually knocked me to the floor, if crumpling slowly and awkwardly into a sitting position constitutes being knocked. It took the breath out of me. I sat there as if everything had been vaporized, the whole world had disappeared; that was how alone I felt. I had no idea what to do. I wasn’t sure I even could stand.

  But I had to. I was in charge, people were downstairs waiting; it was time for the sitting to begin. The way things are in Soto Zen, with everyone facing the wall, the only person who would know Jake wasn’t there was the timekeeper, who rang bells to mark the ritual.

  I took the incense myself, offered it and did three floor bows, walked around the zendo in the morning jundo, people doing gassho in greeting. All they heard were the footsteps behind them. My legs were like jelly as I did the bows and walked. I wasn’t sure from one step to the next I could make it, but did get back to my cushion, made the bows that preceded my sitting down.

  The timekeeper looked puzzled, but that’s the way Zen is: come hell or high water, the sitting starts at six. If no priest had come they still would have sat. I didn’t actually sit down, went and got Madeleine from her place, closed the door and walked her down the hall.

  “Jake is dead, Madeleine,” I said. “He died last night in his sleep. He’s lying up in bed.”

  Her mouth dropped and she slammed her hand to it. I grabbed and held her, held her up—I could feel her going down the same way I had—then she started to shake and sob. I held her through that; we were shaking together. Finally I walked her into the kitchen, which I should have done in the first place, and told Darcy.

  “Holy Mother of God,” she said. She crossed herself. “We’ve got to call an ambulance.”

  “I don’t want them screeching up here like it’s an emergency,” I said. “I know he’s dead. He’s been dead a while.”

  “You can tell them that,” she said. “But they’ve still got to come.”

  “Can you do it?” I said. “I think I should tell the group.”

  “Tell the group?” Madeleine asked. “Now?”

  All this was moving so fast that I hardly knew what to do. It was rare to let anything interrupt a Zen sesshin. I’d never known it to happen. I once heard of a group in California that sat through a small earthquake. But when the teacher had died, when that was suddenly a new fact in the world, it seemed to me the students had a right to know. You didn’t wait for some ideal moment to tell them. You told them now.

  “I think they would resent it if I waited,” I said. “What will we do?” Madeleine said. “About the whole thing?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll just have to see. But I think I should tell them.”

  “I can call the ambulance,” Darcy said. “I’ll tell them to keep quiet.”

  “People are going to need breakfast sooner or later,” I said. “I don’t know when.”

  “It’ll keep,” Darcy said.

  I said all those words, but didn’t know where they came from. I seemed to be taking care of things, making sense, but actually I was a zombie. It hadn’t hit me yet. It had knocked me to the ground, but hadn’t blown me out of the room.

  I hugged Madeleine again. It was obvious that, hard as this news was for her, the thought of giving it to the group terrified her.

  It terrified me too. But I had to do it.

  I walked down the hallway and into the zendo. Already that door had opened and closed more than it did most mornings, and here I was opening it again. People pick up on things like that, especially by the third day. There was also the whole vibe of the house, which I knew some people must feel.

  I walked to my place, sat down and faced the group. I still had no idea what I was going to say. My body was churning with energy, a huge weight in the pit of my stomach.

  “Would everyone please turn around?” I said.

  My voice sounded weak and rough. Not everyone heard, I’m sure. But the instruction passed around the room body by body, as people turned to face me. The group looked solemn, and puzzled. It could only be bad news.

  I waited until everyone was still, waited a little longer, then spoke.

  “Many of you know that Jake had health problems in recent years,” I said. “Problems with his memory, as well as his heart and circulation. But they didn’t fundamentally change how he was in the world, his zest for life, his devotion to his students. He wanted to have this sesshin though he didn’t feel up to giving talks or doing dokusan.”

  I took a long slow breath, let it out.

  “Jake died last night in his sleep,” I said. There was a gasp from the group, like a hushed shout. They gaped at me. “I found him this morning on my way to come down here. It was like he was resting.” But so still and cold, stiff to the touch. He had been dead a long time. “I think we need to talk,” I said. “I know we need to talk. But I think for a while we should sit without talking. Sit with this new fact, try to take it in.” A few people started to turn, but I said, “Let’s sit like this. Let’s face the center.”

  People straightened their posture, sat more formally.

  “We’ll sit until the end of the first period,” I said.

  I said all that spontaneously because I knew, as soon as I spoke, that I wasn’t ready for talking. It had been only a matter of minutes since I’d discovered his body, and I’d been doing things the whole time. I needed to stop for a while. In all of our practice, zazen was the central action, what we did first, last, and always, our way of dealing with everything. It was what Jake had done when he needed to deal with difficulty. We need
ed to too.

  People were sobbing all over the room, wiping their eyes and blowing their noses. It wasn’t a silent sitting and wasn’t especially still, but we kept coming back to that one fact, the one we had to see. It wasn’t going anywhere.

  Forty minutes wouldn’t be enough to absorb it.

  What I kept thinking of was his determination to see Jess the night before, his last act as a teacher. He had known we’d been seeing each other, had seen us together at least that one time, and wanted to check up on her, and on me. He got some peace about that at the end. I was glad he could put it to rest.

  I thought of that last bow we made to each other, outside the rooms. I wondered if he knew it was the last one.

  People die in their sleep, we say: he went peacefully, he never knew, but I wonder about that. People often awaken just before they die, one last moment of lucidity, and I wondered if Jake had done that the night before. I wondered if it was a frightening moment, an exalted moment, a sad one. I wished I could have been there for it, after all we’d been through together. I wished I could have been with him.

  But I also thought he would have wanted to be alone. He was the most comfortable with solitude of anyone I’ve ever met, with solitude and with crowds, and I thought he would have wanted to be alone for that moment so he could take it in. He had loved life and—if it makes any sense to say, about that inconceivable state—would love death too, and the transition in between. He totally absorbed himself in whatever he did.

  At the end of forty minutes the bell rang. It seemed like ten. I needed more time, much more, but I had the group to think about too.

  “Let’s not walk,” I said. “Let’s just stand and stretch our legs. Then gather in a group, the way we do for a talk.”

  Some people were still sobbing, but most had cried themselves out for the moment. They blew their noses, wiped their eyes. They gathered their cushions and moved into a semicircle.

  I sat back down. One by one they did too. I waited until they were still.

  While we had been sitting, I’d heard the men come to get the body. Now I noticed them moving by the door, carrying it out. I was glad. People might have wanted to see it, but I wasn’t sure how that would go. There would be time for viewing later.

  “I know we need a lot more time with this,” I said. “I for one need to sit more. I’m not sure what to do. But I thought we need to talk. People must be full of words.”

  “I don’t think we should continue sesshin,” Helen said, the woman who had been in charge. “I don’t think I can. I’m too upset.”

  “I agree,” someone else said.

  “There’s a tradition of sitting sesshin after the teacher dies,” someone else said. “I think we should honor that.”

  “We can decide,” I said. “We can decide all that. Right now I think we should talk, about how we’re feeling, what we’re thinking, whatever we want. Not necessarily some big statement about what Jake meant to you. There’ll be time for that. Just whatever is on your mind.”

  While I was talking, Madeleine came in and took her place. I assumed that meant the ambulance people had left, or that Darcy was taking care of things.

  “I’m in shock,” someone said. “Literally. I can’t feel a thing. I knew Jake was sick, knew he was getting older, but he seemed so alive. Always so alive. It’s as if he was life. I can’t imagine life without him.”

  Heads were nodding all over the room. I couldn’t help noticing that, right in the middle, Jess was still crying. Tears still soaked her cheeks. She was in the middle of the group, but didn’t seem part of them. She continued to weep after the others had finished, looking down.

  Madeleine noticed too. She was sitting beside her, had her arm around her.

  The conversation continued, and I felt sure it had been the right thing to do. People needed to talk with that emotion; words were pouring out after two days of silence. They were saying what Jake meant to them, telling stories about him, talking about the first time they’d met him, the most important thing he’d said to them. It was like the talking people always do after sesshin, but all around this one subject. In the middle of it, there was a long pause, waiting for someone to continue, and Jess spoke.

  “Jake was”—she spoke slowly—“like, my father. I called him Padre the first time I met him, it just seemed so right, he looked like a little priest. But then as I got to know him, and he kept coming to see me, I realized he really was my father, and that was why he was coming. I was calling him the right thing.”

  I understood how people could exaggerate in such situations, but I also thought Jess had cracked a little. Nobody in the group—most of whom had sat together for years—had even so much as seen her before; she’d been a Zen student for a matter of days, and now she was saying this, crying all the while? I thought she’d completely lost it.

  “You mean he was like a father to you,” Helen said.

  “He was my father,” Jess said.

  “You mean . . .” Helen said.

  “He was her father,” Madeleine said. “He’d been estranged from her mother for years, hadn’t ever gotten to know his daughter, her mother didn’t want that, but her mother died in June. She’s lost two parents just like that.” She gave Jess a squeeze. “But Jake came to see her. It was a lot of why he came to Cambridge at all. To meet his daughter.”

  Talk about a shock. Now my mouth was gaping, I hope not literally. It had been right there before me, and I hadn’t even seen it.

  “He got to meet his daughter before he died,” Madeleine said. “He was so happy about that.”

  “Last night he came to say good-bye,” Jess said. “I didn’t know at the time, but now I see that’s what it was. It had gotten to be this little joke between us, both of us knowing but not quite saying the punch line. I could hardly believe it when he finally did, I was so happy. Last night he came to see me, just to talk about my mother.”

  “Where?” somebody asked.

  “I’m a barmaid at the Green Street Grill,” Jess said.

  “Jake went to a bar in the middle of sesshin?” somebody said. “That’s perfect.”

  The whole crowd burst into laughter. They’d needed to.

  “He didn’t drink anything,” Jess said. “Just a little tequila.”

  Another roar of laughter.

  “He just started talking about her,” Jess said. “About my mother when she was young, before I was born. What she was like, and how hard she practiced, what a deep person she was, how stubborn she was. All that was exactly like her, the same person. It was amazing to hear somebody telling me all that, which I already knew but also didn’t know. He told me how much he loved my mother, how glad he was to have made this beautiful daughter, how happy he was to have met me. He’d wanted to all my life.”

  The whole week suddenly looked different. I’d had no idea what was going on. I felt like an idiot.

  “He was saying good-bye to me, but I didn’t know. Now I wonder if he knew. But I think he did. I think he knew.”

  I thought he did too.

  “It’s a sobering thought,” Helen said.

  The whole group seemed stunned by this news. It was a fact—perhaps a shocking fact to some—that they had just learned about their teacher, who had also just died, and couldn’t speak for himself. I wished he were there. But in that vacuum, in the long silence that followed Helen’s remark, Madeleine began to speak.

  “This was back in the old days,” she said, “twenty years ago, when Jake was starting to teach. There were just a few of us, a handful of summer people up in Bar Harbor. Jake struck up a relationship with one of the women, her name was Olivia, though her middle name was Paige. That was what she called herself later, after Jessica was born, in what must have seemed a new stage of her life.” She smoothed Jessica’s hair in the back.

  “Anyway, I wanted it to be me, but he started seeing Olivia. It was a real meeting of minds, deep minds, they met at a very deep place. She was a natural at meditation,
which I certainly was not, and I’m not sure anyone has been since. Maybe Hank.”

  “Not by a long shot,” I said.

  “I think he imagined eventually teaching with her. Saw her as a life partner, in every sense. They were deeply involved, that word deep keeps coming up, but not for a terribly long time. A matter of months. When she got pregnant, with this beautiful young woman, he hesitated. He was making no money, living hand to mouth. I had started to support him and the practice place. I guess he thought I might stop if he married another woman. Maybe I would have been that petty, who knows? I hadn’t known him a terribly long time myself.

  “Olivia, about as intuitive a person as ever lived, felt him hesitate, and took off. She wanted him to jump right in. But she also valued him as a teacher, didn’t want him to stop teaching. And she knew she was more drawn to women, which had been true all her life. It really was as if their minds had come together more than their bodies. Something beyond physical attraction.”

  Though that had been there too, I was sure.

  “For some reason she had to wipe that part of her life out forever,” Madeleine said, “not even see Jake, not let him know their daughter. I didn’t understand that, though I respected it. She didn’t much want to know me either. But I followed her from afar, followed her career, and when she died this year, I let him know. Managed to find out where this young woman was working.”

  “How’d you do that?” Jess asked.

  “I went to the funeral, spoke to some people afterward. Actually came down for a drink one day myself. That’s quite a crowd.”

  “Bunch of beer drunks. I know.”

  “But that’s the real reason, which I have found quite hard to admit, that we had the sesshin here this year. It wasn’t that Jake decided to move to Cambridge and start a practice place, as I managed to convince myself. It wasn’t that he thought he’d be here for months or years.

  “He would have had sesshin anyway. He wanted to see his students one more time. But he came down here to see his daughter. That’s why we’re here right now.”